NASA: Space flight is still something we don’t fully understand, we’re finding things that we don’t expect sometimes. This was one of those times, and we’re still piecing things together on this and so to maintain medical privacy and to let our processes go forward in an orderly manner, this is all we’re going to say about that event at this time
Respectfully, I think it's reasonable that the privilege of being an astronaut — there are a thousand times more applicants than astronauts — comes with the tradeoff losing some of the privacy afforded to private citizens.
It costs NASA (and to be blunt about it, taxpayers) an extraordinary amount of money to put each astronaut in space. The fact is, there have been fewer than a thousand people in space in all of history. Each illness, sickness, even basic health vitals is in a sense invaluable taxpayer-funded science, and if you don't want your health to be in the public domain, there are a lot of other jobs available (or, now that we have SpaceX, you could take a private rather than government flight)
I'm not saying NASA should be publishing a livestream at the hospital, but I do think there's a reasonable expectation that NASA will release the health issues in a respectful but informative way to the public.
Someone posted a scrollable web page depiction of Musk's worth a while back. The entire NASA budget is insanely small by comparison. To imagine it, I would guess he cares more about what's in his omelet than getting more money from that budget.
Musk is frustrated with government inefficiency, especially with regulatory processes. He has complained multiple times about the approval process for launches and returns.
One government agency, he said, at one point required them to do a study that estimated the chances of a re-entering rocket body impacting a gray whale in the event that it splashed down hard -- personally I agree, that is kind of ridiculous.
>One government agency, he said, at one point required them to do a study that estimated the chances of a re-entering rocket body impacting a gray whale in the event that it splashed down hard -- personally I agree, that is kind of ridiculous.
If you read the relevant portions of SpaceX’s submission to the FAA (link and page numbers in the link above), the FAA comes across as totally reasonable. It sounds like they were just trying to make sure that SpaceX complied with the Endangered Species Act and other related laws. That’s hardly an example of agency overreach.
I think it may have been the NOAA(?) - sorry, I don't remember exactly which agency.
The FAA has required environmental studies, but it's not the only one that has. The answer you linked to didn't look into or take into account requirements from other agencies.
Without question, it was the FAA. Click the link and read the document.
“At the request of the FAA, SpaceX conducted a literature review of ESA-listed endangered and threatened species with known or presumed distributions in the study area that may be affected by the proposed March 2024 13 FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation Tiered Environmental Assessment for SpaceX Starship Indian Ocean Landings activities.”
It goes on to explicitly reference the (essentially zero) risk of impacting and killing and endangered-species-listed marine mammal on splashdown. It is the interaction described above.
The Endangered Species Act is not a requirement from another agency. It’s the law. Everyone has to follow it.
No, primarily Musk is frustrated with any requirement that he be accountable. Across the next four years his goals will be to reduce any accountability or transparency that applies to him and to maximize his profit.
No, I'm really not. Your comments are pretty far from being objective. I would suggest you reflect on your last sentence, but perhaps more introspectively.
there are lots of places taxoayer pay for which never see the light of day. i thimk ultimately though, this is not atall about that. they have very lenghty projects to get to root causes of issues. before such a project is fully completed and signed off on, they will not sah a word. before they have all the answers, you will get none. places of science -generally- work like this. no poitin bringing out incomplete information or uncertainties especially in siluch a place which faces a lot of public scruitiny.
Gizmodo used to be owned by Gawker which went bankrupt due to a lawsuit brought on because they didn't care about a famous person's privacy. So this seems par for the course.
Gawker went bankrupt, because a public figure who felt that he was outed failed to win a lawsuit against them, so bankrolled someone else's lawsuit, with many questions unanswered.
Public figure, because Courts have ruled that billionaires are public figures due to their "outsized influence on government and public policy".
Outed by Gawker, despite his social media at the time regularly featuring photos of him shirtless on gay cruises. Good for him, but "outed" was a bit of a stretch.
I have many issues, not with Hogan's lawsuit, but Thiel's bankrolling of it:
Hogan had already reached a tentative deal with Gawker, including a percentage of profits and partial ownership.
When Thiel's paying the bills, and some of attorneys are in his full-time employ, whose interests are actually primary in their mind, versus whose should be?
After his lawyers became involved, Hogan then asked for 5,000 times more, including damages that are pretty hard to account for:
Economic losses (financial loss, to be clear, NOT "emotional distreess", which they asked for separately) of $50M due to the damage of the videos release being publicized (because Gawker didn't release it, someone else did, and Hogan had settled with them for 1/1000th of what he wanted from Gawker)...
Hogan's career earnings were $15M, and his net worth at its highest was $30M, and at the time of the lawsuit, $8M. Wrestlemania would typically pay about $150K. Obviously Hogan has endorsements, but I would love to see how the fifty million number was arrived at... endorsements for hair products, and WWF reruns?
The reason I asked about lawyers and motives, because after all this was settled, Hogan/Thiel's lawyers told him to drop just one of the claims, specifically the one that would have had Gawker's insurance pay out...
... in other words, having had a deal for part ownership of the company, Hogan threw that away and asked for far more in questionable damages, and then when awarded them, then dropped the only claim that would actually have allowed him to see any real portion of those damages.
I wonder how much Thiel paid Hogan under the table. And I thought a tenet of law / justice was being able to face your accuser, not to have them launch/finance puppet lawsuits against you.
The reason Hogan won the lawsuit against Gawker is because they shared a video and story that was not newsworthy, and unfairly invaded a person's privacy.
Gawker fucked up, and had a history of fucking up in this exact way, without being held accountable. I think they absolutely deserved to get shut down.
Did Thiel take advantage of the situation for the purposes of revenge? Most likely! But at the end of the day, Gawker abused their position and paid the price.
I feel no regret that Gawker is gone. They were a piece of shit tabloid.
> The reason Hogan won the lawsuit against Gawker is because they shared a video and story that was not newsworthy, and unfairly invaded a person's privacy.
I have no issue with Hogan winning: "I have many issues, not with Hogan's lawsuit, but Thiel's bankrolling of it".
Is your issue with the people themselves, or is your issue people getting justice when they otherwise could not afford it? If your issue is with the people themselves, is it your opinion that justice should only be reserved for people that you like?
Seemed to me like Hogan both could afford it -and- had a possible result in his favor: part ownership of Gawker, revenue sharing, and damages.
Thiel's lawyers seem to have talked him out of it, and in the process, talked him into withdrawing the only claim that would have gotten him the damages he sought.
Either Hogan was paid "under the table" by Thiel, which goes to my point of "facing your accuser", because you're "throwing away" a positive result for someone else's idea of a positive result, or...
Thiel and his lawyers screwed over Hogan, promoting an outcome that was more what Thiel wanted than Hogan.
But for clarity: Fuck Gawker - the world is not poorer for their loss. I just think there's several ethical questions without answers in this instance.
Generally, when someone with money (Thiel) provides it to help someone with less money (Hogan) achieve a victory over those with more (Gawker), we celebrate it as a positive example of philanthropy.
[E] Put differently: if I were in Hogan's shoes, and was offered the choice between destroying a shitty publication that went out of their way to expose my personal life in an extremely embarrassing and entirely _not_ newsworthy way; or profiting off that same publication's continued existence? I would absolutely choose the former, because the publication's business model is the problem. Making money off the publication would be _morally_ wrong for me, once given the option of pursuing the destruction of the publication.
JD Vance is a protege of Peter Thiel and Peter Thiel his heavily involved behind the scenes in the Donald Trump campaign and presumably administration...
Which is how you have Hulk Hogan involved in Trump rallies.
It's likely they will publish their findings once they figure it out. Probably after a considerable time passes to help obfuscate the individuals involved.
Obfuscation isn't really possible. The identities of the crew are very public, and they all got hospitalized, so there isn't even room for guessing games about which one.
Gizmodo: fuck their privacy!!