I’m very meh on the success of the SpaceX Falcon launch yesterday.
I mean, I guess it’s good that someone still gives a shit about escaping Earth orbit enough to actually do it. It’s a wonder more of us don’t, considering how things are here. We need to be more ambitious about space.
And it’s nice to know that we still have the capability to launch a decent rocket. The Falcon heavy lift vehicle test’s success is a good thing. And I guess since it was just a test launch, maybe that’s why they chose to lift a Tesla Roadster instead of something actually useful, putting at risk billions of dollars in R&D for something serious.
But it’s incredibly sad to me that it’s a billionaire taking a joyride, publicity stunt putting one of his car company’s cars up there, instead of science gear, or habitation infrastructure, or something industrial. The money that put that car up there could have saved thousands of our frankly worthless lives were it spent on the right stuff.
I said as much when Guy Laliberte from Cirque du Soleil went up to squirt water around his capsule and play with it in zero G, too, and everyone thought I was harsh and wrong.
Well, you’re wrong. Shit down here is serious and it’s seriously broken.
Time for billionaires to fix some of it, since they’re responsible for so much of it.