Tag: Elon Musk

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free trade & free markets too much government

Production, It’s a Gas

Elon Musk

Is this a news story?

“Electric-​car baron Elon Musk calls for increasing U.S. oil and gas [production] to combat Russia.”

It’s news because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (and because gas has gotten awfully expensive) and because Musk is a major industrial figure. But a businessman calling for deregulation of an industry — is that also headline-​worthy stuff?

Unfortunately, yes, given how businessmen so often want liberty for themselves along with ever-​expanding restrictions for competitors (or the same restrictions for everyone as long as competitors end up getting hurt more).

I want a world in which we can make no sense of the word “but” in this opening paragraph:

“Tesla may be the world’s leading seller of plug-​in electric vehicles, but CEO Elon Musk wants the U.S. oil-​and-​gas industry to ramp up production.” 

“But”?

Musk’s statement-​by-​tweet doesn’t help: “Hate to say it, but we need to increase oil & gas output immediately. Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures.”

These words are not super-​clear about what Elon Musk believes the government’s attitude should be toward markets during non-extraordinary times. War or no war, government policies safeguarding markets should not be resorted to only as emergency measures. No matter how much some may welcome sustained efforts to hobble an industry.

It’s rare that our businessmen clearly enunciate the principles of free enterprise that they are thought themselves to practice. We’re lucky if we get a tendency in that direction. 

I guess that’s better, at least, than a fervent statism that seeks to wipe out all economic freedom all the time.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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international affairs Internet controversy social media

Starlink to Ukraine

Elon Musk, Starlink, Ukraine

Twitter’s policy of spasmodically censoring tweets and banning accounts, often without pausing to ponder what they are doing, has had at least one baleful effect in Ukraine. 

Last Wednesday, Twitter said it had “erred when it deleted about a dozen accounts that were posting information about Russian troop movements.” Obviously, the Russian invaders already know about their own troop movements. Losing this info could only hurt the people in Ukraine trying to defend themselves or run for their lives.

Innocent error? Anyway, Twitter said, in effect, “Our bad” and that it was now “proactively reinstating” affected accounts.

On the plus side, though, Ukraine official Mykhailo Federov was able to use Twitter to ask Elon Musk for help when the Russian assault knocked out the Internet in parts of the country.

“@elonmusk, while you try to colonize Mars,” Federov tweeted, “Russia try to occupy Ukraine! While your rockets successfully land from space — Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civil people! We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations. . . .”

That’s one way to get around the secretary barrier. And it worked.

“Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route,” was Musk’s tweet-​response last Saturday.

Starlink satellites provides Internet access from space. No cables or optic fiber needed. Nothing for saboteurs to snip.

Good thinking, Mr. Federov. Thank you for the unreliably available platform, Twitter. Thank you, Elon Musk, for answering Ukraine’s cry for help and doing so as swiftly as possible.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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government transparency

Unidentified Non-​Disclosure

Elon Musk, UFO

Elon Musk, the entrepreneur and genius behind Tesla Motors and SpaceX, is someone who really knows how to get government subsidies and contracts — as well as elicit investor enthusiasm — for his extraordinary endeavors. And his Twitter account is often interesting.

“I’m not saying there are UFOs,” he tweeted a little over a week ago, “but there are UFOs.”

Musk was riffing off a popular joke meme, featuring wild-​haired Giorgio A. Tsoukalos of Ancient Aliens fame: “I’m not saying its aliens. But it’s aliens.” It’s a funny photo, encapsulating the genius of an obsession from the early 1970s: Erich von Däniken’s ultra-​popular Chariots of the Gods. 

“This sparked a huge response on Twitter, with many asking [Musk] if he knew more about the existence of aliens,” explains Patrick Knox of The U.S. Sun.

The day before Musk’s amusing tweet, “a UFO was spotted near the International Space Station during a live feed, sparking a new wave of alien conspiracy theories” — giving Musk the news peg for his quip.

Now that the U.S. Government has admitted that there have been plenty of encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena that have no official, public explanation that makes any sense, you might think we were beyond the “conspiracy theory” charge.

But most ufologists, I glean, believe some people within the military-​industrial complex know a great deal more about these phenomena than they are saying. So “conspiracy” is not entirely out of the blue. 

Worth mentioning, though, is that Elon Musk has multiple ongoing contracts with NASA, and undoubtedly has signed more than one non-​disclosure agreement (NDA).

So he must walk the jocular tight-rope.

It would be interesting to learn what the heck is really going on. 

NASA’s NDA’s should be voided.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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individual achievement

The Division of Adventure

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson

On Sunday, billionaire Richard Branson became the first person to ascend into space in his own spacecraft — assuming that myth, old rumors and sci-​fi stories of god-​kings and mad scientists going to the Moon or Mars remain just that, myth and rumor and fi.

“The launch with Branson marked the 22nd test flight of Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity space plane,” writes Alex Veiga for MSN. “The company has planned at least two more space test flights this year.”

Thus Branson beat Jeff Bezos into space — depending how you figure. Later in the month Bezos’s Blue Origin spacecraft is set to launch Amazon’s less-​than-​beloved billionaire even higher above the planet.*

The billionaire space race is on, with the next level to be reached when regularly scheduled flights become the norm, ticket sales and all.

This is really “just” thrill-​ride fare we are talking about here — and likely when commercial space travel first becomes normalized. Neither man is aiming to rocket into orbital space.

Yet.

Which is not to say this is not of great significance.

Of course, the fledgling industry receives criticism. Why go to space now, some say, when we have so many problems on Earth?

Well, explorers and adventurers did not wait till Europe’s problems were solved to explore and settle the Americas. They pushed forward.

Just as there is a division of labor in society, there is a division of ambition, of venture.

I will likely never go into space. But I am happy Richard Branson got there.

And I’ll applaud if you, too, jaunt upwards.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 * Branson and Bezos publicly squabble about what “space” is. Virgin Galactic went above the American standard of about 50 miles, while Bezos aims for the worldwide “accepted” standard of 62 miles.

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Jeff Bezos| Elon Musk | Richard Branson

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Dragon into Orbit

Elon Musk, Mars,

It’s been nine years since NASA launched astronauts into space, but the agency is scheduled to break that dry spell today.

This time it’s different, though, for the space agency has sub-​contracted out the rocketry and launch control to SpaceX, Elon Musk’s aerospace company. “Only three countries have launched humans — Russia, the U.S. and China in that order — making SpaceX’s attempt all the more impressive,” NBC News reports.

Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are the American astronauts slated to go into orbit in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule sitting atop a Falcon 9 rocket. They are headed to the International Space Station, where only one American, Chris Cassidy, now works … and he got there courtesy of the Russians, launching rockets out of Kazakhstan.

The future of space travel depends on private enterprise, but moving from nation-​state efforts has been slow. Even now, the relationship between NASA and SpaceX is … a big government/​big business partnership. 

Of which we have ample reason to be skeptical.

Elon Musk has been in the news, recently, even more so than usual. You have probably heard about he and his wife’s baby naming issue, or his “red pill moment” on Twitter.

And Musk’s true color probably is red, as in the Red Planet, Mars. He wants to get there.

He is not alone. India has an unmanned probe orbiting Mars right now, and, like China, has plans to get there as well.

Ever since astronomers Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell claimed to have espied “canali” on the Red Planet, our imaginations have been on overdrive. From Edgar Rice Burroughs novels to obsessions about The Face, our thoughts have leaned to the alien.

Human exploration and colonization? Not alien at all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom individual achievement media and media people national politics & policies responsibility

Red Roadster Rides Outer Space

Tesla, Elon Musk, SpaceX, launch, space, orbit, government

On Tuesday, SpaceX launched one of the largest rockets ever, the Falcon Heavy. Because it is still experimental, it didn’t carry up an expensive satellite. Too early for that. Instead, it has sent up a Tesla Roadster.

And it’s not aiming for orbit … around Earth. 

It’s aiming for, well, “a precessing Earth-​Mars elliptical orbit around the sun.”

All the while playing the late David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”

This is all very bizarre, of course. But SpaceX is headed by Elon Musk, who is one of those daring people who do daring things. The very fact that he kept finding funding (no small amount of it from taxpayers, sadly) for Tesla Motors (which he also founded), while failing to make a profit, is a tribute to … something.

Sending Musk’s personal car into space — to circuit Sol for a billion years — is, the visionary says, at least not boring. (Musk, perhaps not coincidentally for that word choice, also founded the Boring Company.) The Roadster, “piloted” by a dummy “Starman,” is an upgrade with flair.

But who is he playing to? The masses of auto buffs? Stargazers? Science fiction fans?* 

Maybe the mad-​scientist/​eccentric-​mogul is playing for bureaucrats, Capitol Hill staffers, and politicians. For, by one estimate, his companies have received $4.9 billion in government subsidies.

So, think of what’s going into orbit as just another part of the skyrocketing — spacerocketing — federal debt.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The odd payload choice might make sense in sci-​fi context, for, in the early days of science fiction, one idea often mentioned was to literally send a bomb to the Moon: an explosion, after all, could be seen, in early Space Age days, with old technology right here from Planet Earth surface. This was the case in the boys’ book The Rocket’s Shadow as imagined in 1947.

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