this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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California had plans to build high speed rail. Elon Musk convinced them to fund his hyperloop project instead.
Remember that recent SpaceX rocket that exploded on the launchpad? That pollutes the area and could have been predicted by any actual expert. It's a waste of resources when the society needs them elsewhere.
It did not explode on the launchpad. It exploded 4 minutes into flight, at an altitude of 39 kilometers.
There was no "pollution" in the area. A bunch of pulverized concrete and sand got thrown around. They actually did expect the pad to be damaged by the launch, just not quite to that extent; they already knew they would need to rebuild it with a more robust design but figured it would survive one test launch so they delayed the planned renovations until after the launch.
Even if it had exploded on the launch pad, it would not have polluted the area, Starship is fuelled with liquid oxygen and liquid methane. Whatever didn't burn would have simply evaporated away.
If you're going to criticize Elon Musk or SpaceX you should use criticisms that are actually based on real facts, otherwise you end up hurting your position.
Isn't methane one of the worst greenhouse gasses? It doesn't have as much longevity as carbon dioxide but traps significantly more heat and will decompose into carbon dioxide afterward. The debris apparently also affected hundreds of acres of land, including damaging the habitats of protected wildlife. As well as that, Musk chose to forgo launchpad frame trenches which are historically used to keep launch pads from exploding but didn't have his water-cooled steel plate idea ready, so instead idiotically used nothing (Source). In the past, I would have been willing to write off these mistakes as unfortunate but unpredictable, but after seeing the debacle with Twitter I've honestly come to believe that Elon Musk is a profoundly stupid man that just got lucky.
So who's fault is that? The people that decided to give elon musk the money. Why on earth would they go with a private company instead of building a public high speed rail? That story doesn't make any sense.
What resources are wasted in SpaceX rockets that society would otherwise use elsewhere?