“We believe once governments and the Artemis missions have re-established human presence on the moon, commercial services will follow that…every operation on the moon will require power”.
-Statement by Jake Thompson, director of novel nuclear and special projects at Rolls-Royce, in a Financial Times article. Rolls Royce is working on a micro nuclear reactor for use on space missions.
“Elon’s interest in small government exceeds Elon’s interest in space architecture…The challenges, I think, NASA faces are much more organizational and cultural than they are technical.”
–Statement by Greg Autry, who is currently associate provost for space commercialization and strategy at the University of Central Florida, but earlier served on the first Trump administration’s NASA transition team. The comment was in reference to the recent announcement that Elon Musk was one of the individuals selected to head the new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ in the Trump administration. Of course, given that Mr. Musk’s SpaceX provides the space architecture, I doubt personal enrichment will be far from his mind. I hope the first thing the new “department” does is set up an ethics office to ensure its members are not lining their own pockets while “reforming” government.
“The age-old dream of endowing human minds and hands access to the cosmos does not belong to Donald Trump, nor should it be considered the exclusive possession of any particular political party. It belongs to humanity. It is essential that we make that clear, because the fortunes of political war are always changing. Should the Mars project come to be regarded as the mere hobby horse of a controversial politician, business leader, or partisan faction, it would surely face cancellation the next time the winds of power shift. We cannot let that happen. Precisely because we are not followers of Mr. Trump, we need to step up and help explain why all Americans, regardless of party, should support this initiative.”
–Statement by Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin regarding the election of Donald Trump.
“When you look at these recent incidents over the last handful of weeks, it does lead one say that it’s apparent that operating safely requires significant attention to detail as hardware ages and the pace of operations increases…Both NASA and SpaceX need to maintain focus on safe Crew Dragon operations and not take any ‘normal’ operations for granted.”
-Statement by Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) committee member Kent Rominger, as quoted by Space News, regarding recent SpaceX mishaps, including three recent Falcon 9 rocket issues as well as a parachute problem during the October 25th return of Crew-8 on a Dragon capsule from the International Space Station (ISS). After the splashdown, all four astronauts were hospitalized for observation.
“A reasonable individual can look at a situation such as that of a very wealthy individual who has government contracts coming into the government where he would be put in a position where he could influence current and future contracts and regulations of his businesses.”
-Statement by John P. Pelissero, the director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, as quoted by The Hill. The reference is to Elon Musk and his potential role leading a new “government efficiency commission” should Donald Trump become president. Mr. Musk, who has received billions in government contracts, is currently attending Trump rallies and spending millions of his own funds to support the Trump campaign. In the same article, former Federal Communications Commission Chair Tom Wheeler stated,
If he is that dependent on the decisions of government, he either needs to totally divest in order to do anything in government, or not take the kind of positions that have been promised or been suggested.
Our Awesome Universe 