Musk ranting about widespread fraud in Social Security. Claimed more than 40% of calls to social security are fraudulent. Set up fraud detection software. No calls could be acted on for three days while fraud detection software scrutinized them. After screening 110,000 calls they found ... two calls rated as probable fraud. You don't need to be a math nerd to know 2 is not 40% of 110,000. Meanwhile thousands of social security recipients had their problems held up pending investigation. Government efficiency!
Critical US Navy data base has no disaster recovery as contract for cloud storage and retrieval cancelled by DOGE.
Starship Was Doomed From The Beginning The fatal flaw SpaceX can't overcome. Will Lockett Mar 11, 2025 Musk’s impotent attempts to get his giant shiny phallus to work are the perfect metaphor for the man. Indeed, Starship seemed promising at first if you didn’t ask too many questions. But, after back-to-back failures and having never come close to completing its design brief (including actually landing Starship and making the spacecraft fully reusable), as well as a litany of painful design flaws, such as only being able to take 50% of its promised payload capacity to orbit, many are starting to question the viability of this idiotic machine and its “iterative design process.”. And so they should. Indeed, with the most recent launch failure as context, it becomes evident that Starship was doomed from the get-go and that SpaceX might never be able to rectify this mess. Why? Well, for a start, the past two launches (tests 7 and 8) seemed to fail for the exact same reason. Like the launch back in January, the latest launch initially went well, with the Super Heavy Booster separating, landing safely, and taking Starship into a suborbital space trajectory. But once in space, that’s where all the problems began. SrouBoth tests failed when an uncontrollable fire broke out in the aft section, taking out rocket engines, severing communications, and triggering a self-destruct sequence. SpaceX recently announced that the fire in the January launch was caused by vibrations breaking fuel lines, causing a giant leak, which is a pathetic excuse (read morehere). In the aftermath of the most recent mishap, SpaceX announced it was caused by “an energetic event in the aft portion of Starship [that] resulted in the loss of several Raptor engines.” Yeah… It sounds suspiciously like SpaceX failed to fix the weak fuel line issue. So much for “iterative design.” In fact, I know they didn’t. SpaceX constructs Starships well ahead of time, as they take months to build. This means that the most recent launch couldn’t have had its design optimised to resolve the issues shown in January’s failure. And their payload shows this. The January test had a dummy cargo equivalent to 10 Starlink V2 satellites, weighing only eight tonnes or 8% of its designed payload. Meanwhile, the most recent test had just half of this in a transparent attempt to reduce vibration by reducing the load to spare the obviously flawed fuel system, which obviously didn’t work. However, this is only true in the short term. The Starships SpaceX will build from here on will have this issue fixed. Right? Well, no. These tests were the first launches of Starship Version 2 (Block 2). This iteration is longer to accommodate more propellant, has smaller forward flaps to ensure they don’t fail during landing, and has a redesigned fuel line system. The previous version of Starship had major fuel delivery issues, causing engines to fail repeatedly, and SpaceX has made the situation worse by trying to solve this problem in the long term! This is the complete opposite of iterative design, and despite what Musk says, it’s a gargantuan setback (read morehere). But why has SpaceX failed to solve this problem? Well, it’s because of the bane of any rocket scientist: physics. Landing the Super Heavy Booster is a far, far easier task than landing the Starship from orbit. The Super Heavy Booster weighs 160 tonnes dry, doesn’t make it to space, and its peak speed is only roughly 4,600 mph. Meanwhile, Starship has a dry mass of around 150 tonnes, makes it to space, and reaches an orbital speed of at least 17,500 mph. This means that during landing, Starship has over 13.57 times the kinetic energy of the Booster! And that doesn’t account for the fact that Starship carries significantly more propellant during landing than the Booster. All that energy has to go somewhere, and managing that is one hell of an engineering challenge. On top of that, Starship’s landing is also far more complex, as it has to reenter the atmosphere at those speeds. Not only does this process present significant aerodynamic challenges, but it also exposes Starship to enough heat energy to literally melt every gram of steel it is made from. Okay, so what does that have to do with Starship’s repeated failures? One word: weight. The Block 1 tests of Starship showed that Musk’s plans to rely heavily on a bellyflop manoeuvre during reentry to slow down Starship and scrub off that kinetic energy using atmospheric resistance were a no-go. The craft repeatedly spiralled out of control, control surfaces failed, and reportedly, the inside of the craft became several times hotter than an oven. Fixing these issues would add a tonne of weight, as the front fins would need to be massively reinforced, and the giant heat shield would need to be beefed up significantly. On top of that, these tests confirmed that SpaceX’s engines couldn’t produce the mythical levels of thrust Musk promised, and as such, the projected payload to LEO was cut in half. These faults would render Starship utterly useless. Musk needed a solution. Here is my hypothesis of how he tried to solve this with Block 2. Because the bellyflop manoeuvre is a no-go, Block 2 is designed to slow down more with its retro rockets (where the rockets are fired in the direction of travel to slow down). This should make landing more viable, as the craft should be more controllable. This would also enable the front fins to be shrunk and the heat shield to be thinned, saving weight. But this will also require more propellant, especially as the rockets have less thrust than planned. This is why Block 2 is larger and heavier than Block 1. This puts incredible pressure on SpaceX to save weight anywhere they possibly can, which is why the rockets keep failing.You can’t make them much lighter than they already are. To solve the fuel system issues with Block 1, fuel lines with larger internal diameters were needed to increase fuel flow, and larger external walls were needed to increase durability. But this would add an incredible amount of weight that they don’t have the liberty to use, as it would further reduce their already pathetic payload to space and make landing the damn thing even harder than it already is. As such, SpaceX is having to make the rockets too light, resulting in them being fragile, meaning that just the vibrations from operation with a fraction of its expected payload would be enough to destroy the rocket. Indeed, we can see this with the planned Block 3 version of Starship. It is even longer than Block 2 to accommodate even more propellant to help increase its shrinking payload and ensure it can slow down enough to land. But somehow, it weighs significantly less than the smaller Block 2. Where have these weight savings come from? They aren’t changing any major materials. They aren’t changing any structural designs. They aren’t redesigning the entire engine or fuel tank setup. The only way is if major systems are built with a smallersafety factor, making crucial systems vulnerable and weak. That is why Starship keeps failing and will continue to fail. Let’s not forget that for Starship to be a viable rocket and meet its fabled low launch costs and human-space-flight approval, launches and landings have to be almost 100% reliable. However, being forced to reduce the safety factor to save weight, such as reliability, is impossible. This is an inbuilt fatal flaw. But how did SpaceX get here? Why have they spent billions of dollars of taxpayer money on a concept that has such a fundamental problem? Simple. Musk isn’t an engineer and doesn’t understand iterative design, and now SpaceX and NASA are facing a sunk cost fallacy. You never achieve iterative design with a full-scale prototype. It is incredibly wasteful and can lead you down several problematic and dead-end solutions. I used to engineer high-speed boats — another weight- and safety-sensitive engineering field. We would always conduct scale model tests of every aspect of design, iteratively changing it as we went so that when we did build the full-scale version, we were solving the problems of scale, not design and scale simultaneously. SpaceX could have easily done this. They already proved they could land a 1st stage/Booster with the Falcon 9, and Falcon 9’s Booster could launch a 1/10 scale Starship into orbit. Tests of such a scaled-down model would help SpaceX determine the best compromise for using the bellyflop manoeuvre and retro rockets to land. It would help themiterativelyimprove the design around such a compromise, especially as they will be far cheaper and quicker to redesign and build than the full-scale versions. Not only that, but these tests would highlight any of the design’s shortcomings, such as the rocket engines not having enough thrust-to-weight ratio to enable a high enough payload. This allows engineers to do crucial, complete redesigns before the large-scale version is even built. If you have even a passing knowledge of engineering, you know this is what iterative design looks like. So, why hasn’t Musk done this? Well, developing a Starship like this would expose that making a fully reusable rocket with even a barely usable payload to space is impossible. Musk knows this: Falcon 9 was initially meant to be fully reusable until he discovered that the useful payload would be zero. That was his iterative design telling him Starship was impossible over a decade ago, as just making the rocket larger won’t solve this! But he went on ahead anyway. Why? Well, through some transparent corruption and cronyism, he could secure multi-billion-dollar contracts from NASA to build this mythical rocket. But, by going for full-scale testing, he could not only hide the inherent flaws of Starship long enough for the cash to be handed over to him but also put NASA in a position of the sunk cost fallacy. NASA has given SpaceX so much money, and their plans rely so heavily on Starship that they can’t walk away; they might as well keep shoving money at the beast. This is why Starship, in my opinion, is just one massive con. That is the real reason why Starship was doomed to fail from the beginning. It’s not trying to revolutionise the space industry; if it were, its concept, design, and testing plan would be totally different. Instead, the entire project is optimised to fleece as much money from the US taxpayer as possible, and as such, that is all it will ever do. Source
Another one just exploded. Face it. Dude isn't that smart. And too egomaniacal to learn from mistakes.
After New York Times reporter asked him a question, Elon sneered the New York Times that just lost lawsuit over Russia hoax and has to give back Pulitzer. Three lies in one sentence! Trump lawsuit is against Pulitzer committee, not New York Times, lawsuit hasn't been heard yet, much less "lost" and no one is giving back Pulitzer. Point wasn't to tell the truth, obviously, but to put commoner in their place for daring to question high lord Elon.
My (retired) brother-in-law just visited and told a story of being held up on the freeway for three hours - traffic going BOTH ways. Turned out it was a Tesla that had exploded and burned with such heat that it set the paint on houses by the freeway on fire and all that was left was the beams, and they were burned shiny. There was also a foot-deep hole in the freeway because everything had burned away. Who knows if they'll ever identify the driver because there isn't even dust left.
SpaceX’s town in Texas warns residents may lose property rights Homer Pompa has lived in a rural area on Texas’s southernmost tip, near the U.S.-Mexico border, for more than a half-century. Since 2014, the 75-year-old Brownsville native has watched his tiny coastal community transform into ground zero for Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its billion-dollar effort to colonize Mars. Then, last month, more than 200 people — many of them SpaceX employees — voted to turn Pompa’s parcel of land and parts of unincorporated Boca Chica Village into a city named Starbase. Weeks later, the disabled Vietnam War veteran received a letter from the newly created city informing him that he is at risk of losing the “right to continue using your property for its current use” as the city reviews its zoning. Pompa, who described feeling “caged in” by SpaceX’s near continuous development in an interview with The Washington Post, said he now worries he will lose his home. “This is like heaven to me,” he said. “Musk wants to take heaven away from me.” The city of Starbase and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment. A new city emerges On May 21, the city of Starbase said in a notice to Pompa and some other residents that officials were considering a new zoning ordinance and map. The recipients own property in parts of Starbase that fall under the proposed “Mixed Use District,” which “allows for a blend of residential, office, retail, and small-scale service uses,” according to the notice, signed by City Administrator Kent Myers. Attached to the letter was a proposed zoning map identifying which parts of the city would fall under each of three classifications: a mixed-use district, an open space district and a heavy industrial area. Pompa’s property — which includes a deck overlooking the Rio Grande, from which he’s watched dozens of SpaceX test flights — falls in the proposed mixed-use district. Pompa and other South Texas residents have expressed fear at what they see as encroachment by Musk, the world’s richest person and until recently a central figure of President Donald Trump’s administration. But land use experts said the changes outlined in Starbase’s letter are typical of those made by a new town. “Texas gives local governments a lot of responsibilities and rights. One of them is, if they so choose, they can put zoning ordinances in place,” said Emilio Longoria, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston. “It is not suspicious that Starbase, being a newly incorporated municipality, would want to put a land use regulation in place like zoning.” But Longoria noted that zoning can place “an immense burden on landowners” because it regulates how they can use their properties. Zoning inherently takes away property rights, he said. “The question is, how much will be taken away and under what terms?” Longoria said. Kellen Zale, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, cautioned that Texas has strong protections for private property owners. Those include a section of Texas’s rules for local government that says a municipality incorporated after Sept. 1, 2003, may not bar a person from “continuing to use land in the area in the manner in which the land was being used on the date of incorporation if the land use was legal at that time.” Robert Paterson, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, said he expects the city commission to “grandfather the existing uses” of the property owners’ homes — allowing the residential areas to remain residential. “That’s what most cities in Texas would do. They would not push people out of their homes,” Paterson said. Officials plan to host a public hearing on the zoning ordinance on June 23 at Starbase’s temporary city hall — located steps from SpaceX’s production facility — to hear public comments and potentially adopt the proposal. Challenges from local and environmental groups The changes to Starbase extend beyond the city’s zoning ordinance. This week, the Texas legislature approved a measure that would formally grant the city the power to shut down Boca Chica Beach for SpaceX launches. Lawmakers passed the bill, moments before ending its biennial session, over the objections of the local Indigenous community and environmental groups. “It feels like every day, SpaceX is moving faster to colonize our region,” said Bekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. “Now that Trump is in office, just in the last few months, we’ve seen SpaceX become their own company town, increase launches. Now they’re taking over control of our beach.” “They’re pushing fast and hard to take over very quickly,” Hinojosa added, calling SpaceX’s arrival a “disaster” for the local community. Although the company has brought more than 3,000 jobs to the region, residents and environmental advocacy groups have raised concerns about the impact of the company’s launch complex on the local environment. One local group, SaveRGV, filed a lawsuit last year accusing SpaceX of polluting the waters at Boca Chica Beach. The group dropped the lawsuit in February. In 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency fined SpaceX nearly $150,000 for violating the Clean Water Act by discharging hundreds of thousands of gallons of wastewater into wetlands near the launch site without a proper permit. SpaceX said it settled the matter with the agency, despite disagreeing with the findings, The Post previously reported. Juan Mancias, chairman of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe, said Musk and the state’s lawmakers don’t realize how sacred Boca Chica Beach is to the tribe, noting that the 8-mile stretch of sand is the site of their creation story. “In our language, we call it ‘ma’yapia,’” he said. “This is a mothering place. A lot of babies were born here during those times.” Hinojosa accused Musk and state officials of ignoring her group. “We ask for meetings, and they don’t respond to our meeting requests,” she said. “We’ve done everything. We’ve hired our lawyers, sent letters. We’ve filed lawsuits. We’ve sent public comments. We’ve gone to city, county meetings.” Mancias and Hinojosa said they both plan to attend the June 23 hearing. “We just want to be treated like human beings,” Mancias said. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/othe...esidents-may-lose-property-rights/ar-AA1G8BUD
Elizabeth Warren detailed how Musk increased his wealth by $100 billion since Trump took over. It's Monopoly money, he can't spend it. Like those who climb a mountain because it is there, Musk wants more money because it is there.
