I love Star Trek as much as the next guy. Heck, I personally live within 20 miles of the actual ‘Future Birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk” known as Riverside, Iowa. It’s awesome. Every year they have “Trek Fest”. People love the idea of space travel. It lights up the imagination like nothing else. The idea of going to the Mars or the Moon or any galaxy far, far, away is beyond awesome, but when we have a Gov’t literally TRILLIONS in debt, aren’t there perhaps more pressing issues than creating a warp drive to Mars?
Our soldiers don’t go on daring interplanetary missions, they simply fight wars in other countries. When they are left out to dry by our VA system which is cutting budgets, I’m upset. When our service men and women are turned away from care for lack of funding, I say, fund that, before we plan another launch.
You may argue, SpaceX, Elon Musk’s privately owned space exploration company is not funded by the Government. If that was true, I would be wholeheartedly behind Mr. Musk and his Space Odyssey dreams, but it’s not true. Not even in the slightest.
According to the Los Angeles Times Musk and his companies have become a titan of industry by using $4.9 BILLION in government money. It’s fun to blow stuff up when it isn’t your money.
From exploding rockets to exploding cars it’s a pattern. A Falcon 9 rocket blew up last year and cost more than $112 million in cargo. That explosion actually increased the governments incestuous relationship with Elon as he promised to pay them back by free and reduced future launches. Another Space X rocket is now in flames. How much more is America on the hook for? SpaceX rockets may be cheaper than their competitors for a reason, they blow up a lot. Believe it or not the Huffington Post more than hinted that Elon and all his fabulous companies may ultimately be a Ponzi scheme propped up by tax dollars.
Elon Musk wants to make our Interplanetary dreams a reality, but he doesn’t want to use his own money to do it. When our government uses our tax dollars to fund multi-million dollar explosions, that gives us all the right to ask, what’s going on?
Watch the first 1:45 of the below video to see how fast a taxpayer funded rocket with a SpaceX label on the side and a Facebook satellite inside disintegrates in a Hollywood-like explosion.
On September 27th, Elon Musk will be giving a speech about going to Mars to the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Mexico. The speech will be full of starry-eyed dreams and hopes of colonizing Mars. No doubt he will attempt to move along from questions of crony capitalism and fiery explosions on launch pads. Musk will attempt to launch our vision of being a Multiplanetary Species, if possible, because without all that dreaming, the money might stop flowing.
Where’s NASA in all of this? NASA has its own “Journey to Mars” program that plans to send people to the Red Planet by the 2030’s. NASA is overtly a government entity running on government money. So why are we funding private companies like SpaceX?
Good question, and the answer reeks of back room deals. Money in the multi-millions and even billions disappears into Musk companies in the name of research and development or whatever he feels like calling it never to be seen again. What accountability is there to assure any of that money goes to what it is meant to? Not much.
While dazzling Americans with dreams and images of colonies on Mars, millions upon millions flows from the government right into the hands of Elon Musk and his companies that literally promise the moon. They’ve provided some pretty impressive explosions in return. We already have a government funded space fiasco called NASA. Elon…go to Mars on your dime.
Who’s playing who in this con? The only thing for sure, is the American people are picking up the tab and the likelihood of any of us moving to Mars any time soon is about zilch.
Image: by Kenny Mitchell; photo credit: USS Grant-D via photopin (license)
