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From: WarthogSC
Date: 11/24/2020
Time: 11:06:55 AM
Lead Slinger, I always respect your views and appreciate what you continually bring to this board. That won't change. I understand your line of thinking. Private industry virtually always out-performs Government agencies for obvious reasons. To be sure, private enterprise must remain the backbone of our great country. That said, SpaceX basically fell into president Obama's lap and the timing was great for him as well as Elon Musk. My position is based on events a bit broader in scope than the Obama administration's headliner activities with private space contractors. The lower layer, less-publicized activities are what I base my position on. Yes, private industry benefits here and in reality near earth space exploration does as well. That's the eye candy. I humbly ask people to consider what his decisions did to NASA. I'm all for smaller government. Obama sure wasn't. I will admit that he reduced government in this case and embraced private enterprise; something he was extremely reluctant to do. Here's the problem, a possible pitfall is falling behind China in the race to the moon by a full 10 years. That may end up being quite problematic for the future of the U.S. It may not. Many were not willing to take that risk. Obama was! Getting to the moon and setting up shop on it has China's full attention and has so for well over a decade. We lost valuable time and ground during the Obama administration with regard to getting back to the moon. For example, NASA's focus was intentionally redirected to things having nothing to do with their original and long-term mission. Since when did their focus become monitoring climate change and improving self-esteem for Muslim children? I'm not exaggerating. That is absurd and deflective and that's only a small portion of the calamities that went on regarding NASA. NASA isn't perfect; they never claimed to be. But they have been a critical, hard-working, and enduring aspect of the fabric of America since 1958. Finding the truth in today's society reminds me of the old school methods of parsing verbs before the computer and software arrived. Ie., two articles, two vastly different opinions, and some actual journalistic research and effort went into both (see below). Going forward, SpaceX may fall victim to the incoming administration. They might well be perceived to be a "selfish competitor." I hope not--socialism and class warfare at its finest are at the top of their agenda. On a final note, I wonder if president Obama ever actually told Elon Musk to his face that he didn't build his business on his own, that somebody else made it happen. I'm sure he thought it but I sincerely doubt he had the audacity to say it to his face.
https://fee.org/articles/does-obama-deserve-credit-for-elon-musk-s-spacex-triumph-yes-and-no/
https://capitalresearch.org/article/nasa/