Also - if our species doesn't make it off-planet before the current one is rendered uninhabitable, it's curtains for us all. So that's a pressure of a sort.
Columbus thought he could find a fast route to Asia because he grossly underestimated the circumference of the Earth. Spain was advised of this (the more correct circumference derived by Eratosthenes was commonly known), and only funded Columbus on the off chance that if he might stumble across something of value, they would rather that belong to Spain than a rival power. It was a cheap gamble for Spain at the time.
If you're wrong, but enough people believe you're right in the spirit of maximising quarterly returns, then we're all dead on the same timeline.
The only path to survival as a species is to work out how to do space exploration. I'm hoping to find water on the moon and mars as the next step, and to find it within the next few years.
Put differently: what's the strategic impact of a 2 month delay?
In a few decades at our current rate we're going to see so many natural disasters and mass migrations that the general populace will be far more concerned about food and water for the populace than wasting it on extravagances like space, and then we may end up all dying on this rock.
Once we're able to successfully mine minerals from space and have some hope for colonizing other planets the game changes, because people could see it as a lifeline rather than a waste.
Where's the outrage around the thousands of container ships that burn the dirtiest crude oil and dump their waste into the ocean? Or all the airliners killing birds?
Let's be real, this isn't environmental concerns, it's a way to punish Musk for his political stance.
Libertarians may cheer at this, but not so fast. The edge cases and particulars of laws aren't abolished, they're just fuzzy. You can't be sure you're complying with the law, even if the regulatory body says you're in the clear. You're at the mercy of judges who know nothing about the field they're ruling over. The chaos of legal uncertainty will grind the permitting of new technologies to a halt, as the regulators wait for Congress or the Courts to clarify how old laws apply to new circumstances before issuing any licenses.
Remember Oracle v. Google? How octogenarian Justices struggled to understand what an API was, when they could barely open their email? Imagine that, applied to the entire US code.
It's basically this in a nutshell, except that far-right activists intend to use the same 3 justices in Texas to reinterpret all federal regulations.
In the last SOTU address, I gather to Biden one of them was healthcare/limiting pharma prices.
In the way they have time to apply for licenses for an eventual Mars landing, yes. The practical timer started with IFT-4.
Link to the ESGHound source?
What does this even mean?
Sounds like a really unbiased source.
https://x.com/esghound/status/1511730625333665799
He's worthless as a source and not worth paying attention to.
Throw enough at the wall and something will stick.
I am not convinced he is correct in this case either, just that he's gotten the ear of a likeminded journalist.
If you read esghound's Twitter/threads he argues that the violations are so serious/done-in-bad-faith/contrary-to-submitted-paperwork that they would require a significant redo of the environmental impact permitting. In particular the FAA initially ruled that there was a finding of no significant impact (FONSI) and they did not require a (time-consuming) environmental impact statement (EIS). Esghound argues that they will legally need to complete an EIS which will take months. I wouldn't necessarily bet on that given how powerful Musk is.
I’m not sure why that is. Techno-optimism perhaps.
"Why did you not know the results of your tests and the outcome of your multi-year R&D project a decade ago!? Are you incompetent?" -- said by someone unable read a few dozen pages of text faster than 60 days.