SpaceX Hater Article Disappears From Forbes Website
When SpaceX Falters, Washington Looks The Other Way (From Forbes) Loren Thompson at Lexington Institute
“Space Exploration Technologies Corporation — SpaceX — has won broad support in Washington by offering a low-cost, innovative alternative to traditional launch providers for lofting satellites into orbit. However, the company is struggling to meet commitments to its government customer, and eventually that may tarnish its image. … I have written a commentary for Forbes here.”
Keith’s note: The Forbes article that Thompson refers to at Forbes is no longer online. Several websites have apparently reprinted the article such as this one [update – now removed]. Hmmm why did Forbes pull this article offline? Could it be that the article was … inaccurate?
The curious case of a deleted Forbes.com commentary on SpaceX, Space Politics
“SpaceX is no stranger to both strong support and harsh criticism of its activities, particularly in political circles. Last month, for example, three members of the House of Representatives asked NASA for details on an “epidemic of anomalies” they claimed the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft have experienced. But the company’s decision early this month to establish a commercial launch site near Brownsville, Texas, generated praise from various officials, including US Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Filemon Vela (D-TX).”
Looks like somebody at Forbes exercised a bit of that pesky thing called editorial judgement, albeit somewhat after-the-fact. The piece is a fairly blatant hatchet job.
Dam shame. It would have been fun.
The fact that this guy receives money from Lockheed and Sierra should have been enough for Forbes to refuse the article. Disclosure doesn’t suffice in this kind of case – unless, of course, the ‘article’ contains a disclosure at the end revealing that it’s a paid advertisement. In any case, somebody was paid for this – it just wasn’t Forbes.
“Disclosure: Several of SpaceX’s competitors contribute to my think tank; two of them — Lockheed Martin Lockheed Martin and Sierra Nevada — are consulting clients.”
Starts with (ironic) gossip as if it’s reasonable speculation, goes downhill from there. Someone got their money’s worth.
I’d love to know the story behind why it was pulled. It was widely laughed at in various online fora. Any information that Nasawatch or its readers might be able to offer up here would be very interesting to read.
It’s more than a little hilarious that the author has linked to it from his own site, despite the fact that it’s been pulled. You’d think he might be the tiniest bit embarrassed that his work was identified by Forbes as not meeting their standards.
Thompson is never embarrassed when he’s shilling. Long as those consultant bux keep rolling in he’ll keep typing up hit pieces like this or lame explanations why something they made (cough – F-35 – cough) isn’t a boondoggle.
Lame….
What’s particularly unseemly about this thing is that it’s being dropped on the verge of the Commercial Crew decision. No accident, I’m sure, and Forbes to its everlasting discredit served as the disease vector. Say what you will about the Old Guard, but they’ve got Musk beat when it comes to manipulating the media and legislators.
So Loren, just how has the nation’s “investment” in Constellation turned out?
A legit news organization should never pull an article without explanation. I’m also greatly skeptical of an article written by someone financed by a competitor.
That said, SpaceX also shouldn’t get a free pass. The facts based portion of the article is correct: SpaceX is behind on its commitments and there have been anomalies that no one outside of SpaceX or NASA can see (unlike a NASA program that would have a subsequently published MIB document). If the quote of NASA saying this is “very typical for the aerospace industry,” is correct, I’m not impressed. Part of what we’re supposedly buying with SpaceX is that the new commercial space companies are atypical.
Of course, I don’t see how the author can compare that to ULA launches given he cites problems with the Dragon, not the launch vehicle.
(Disclosure: I’m not related to any human space company, just a taxpayer that doesn’t want the wool pulled over his eyes.)
(Edited to not offend my former grammar teacher.)
Well we could get into a real push-pull argument here but I’ll just add a few things for you to mull over:
1. SpaceX is behind but then so has ever other space launch company including ULA been at this time in their launch history. Telling is the fact that SpaceX have actually had less issues and slips than Boeing or LM.
2. If slips were a problem then customers would leave but they aren’t.
3. SpaceX has a backlog of launches however in the last couple they’ve set records for the turnaround and they’re next launch is scheduled for Aug 25th, IIRC 20 days (might be out a day or so) since their last launch.
4. SpaceX anomolies have all been addressed and none resulted in LOM. Only one resulted in the loss of a secondary and that was due mainly to conservative behaviour on the part of NASA.
5. ULA’s has lost virtually all the U.S. commercial business over the last decade. SpaceX manifest ( approx. $5 billion) is approximately 60% non-government related business bringing jobs and dollars back to the U.S. You’d think U.S. citizens would be right behind them pushing all the way not writing denigrating articles.
6. Oh and SpaceX is, guess what, a private company. They’ve actually been more open that their competition and they don’t have to do that.
There’s heaps more but my fingers now hurt so you can check it all out yourself and determine the facts rather than relie on second-rate journalist hacks.
Cheers
Thanks! Mulled over them. 🙂
1. Just an excuse that every aerospace program uses. Applies to all programs; used it myself. Kind of tired of it. Deliver on time.
2. Good point.
3. Good point.
4. See below.
5. Disagree. I am behind SpaceX, but at the same time we need to be willing to question the company and not just marvel at how neat their latest capsule looks. I view that at the press’s role, but if they are as enamored with SpaceX as we are, someone else has to do it. If they are going to launch humans, everyone involved needs to be hard on them. It’s not personal.
6. Agree. Worries me when it comes to sending out astronauts, but I agree.
For the anomalies, I was surprised to see at least one OK’d because the panel “was satisfied with how this class D-equivalent mission was treated.” I do understand it was a Class D mission so that does make sense, but I hope SpaceX learned whatever might not have made it OK for a Class A mission. I suppose I could look at that myself with the real data…oh yeah, I can’t. Could you also elaborate on how loss the of the secondary was NASA’s fault? (Link is fine)
Hi Astro’
Reponse back to ya:
1. It’s a valid concern however although there has been a space launch industry for decades, the technology keeps changing and therefore the issues do as well. It’s unrealistic to expect on-time delivery in such a high-tech and challenging environment. Even in the aeronautics industry, it’s rare for a new plane to be launched on time, eg. Dreamliner
4. You can view the full record at wwww.NasaSpaceFlight.com/forum however for your info’ the anomoly concerned the Merlin 1C engine fuel dome failure. Think it was a weld. The corrective measures taken involved moving to a simpler and more powerful engine, their currently flown Merlin 1D which has fewer parts count and a streamlined manufacturing route. They also included additional NDT as part of the QA process. No failures on that engine whatsoever so far. Guess the measures are working. 🙂
5. Ok I’ll take the ‘not personal’ comment however never accused you of that or didn’t mean to.
You didn’t respond to the lost and reclaimed business which is a fact.
The press may be enamoured with SpaceX – who cares, I’m interested in results and that’s currently what SpaceX is delivering. They have their anomolies and issues but seem to have a very conservative approach to flying and are willing to delay launches if there are any doubts. Guess their customers are happy given only one shifted launch providers.
Wrt human launching, NASA is placing greater requirements on the commercial companies via their milestones than their own Orion capsule has to bear. Check it out.
On a further note, I think that SpaceX is generating followers (and press) mainly because:
1. They are willing to push the old boundaries and are investing their own dough in developing their business including FH and cutting edge R&D programs such as the F9R, Grasshopper, Dragonfly, Dragon V2, Raptor, etc.
2. There sending a message regarding their long-term aim via the senior team and no one’s laughing now.
3. Their challenging the old way of thinking about space, i.e. govenment can only do it, etc.
4. They’re succeeding where others have failed or considered such things impossible.
5. They’re expanding and not prepared to just sit back and be simply a launch provider.
6. They’re offering lower cost launch and that’s getting customers excited e.g. SES, as well as scaring the bejesus out of their competition. Note the scramble at ESA.
That’s what I think’s happening. Excitement has returned to the space business. Something that’s been missing for a couple of decades.
Just my $0.02
Cheers
Neil
Sorry, didn’t mean to imply that you were saying it was personal. I meant that when it comes to engineering, even if it was my favorite person in the world, I’d want them taken through the worst grinder I can find. They might hate me after, but the project will work. Space missions succeed when you can look your best friend in the eye and punch him in his engineering face. (Figurative, can’t come up with a good line.)
Revising and extending my remarks on #5. Agreed on the reclaimed business. 🙂
Good info on #4 and the anomaly.
I think we agree more than disagree when it comes to SpaceX in general. What worries me is that we don’t just end up becoming SpaceX fanboys. This article was certainly biased, no doubt, but we still need to look hard at what is being said. You and the posters in reply to me did, I appreciate that.
No worries. Good to have a decent discussion rather than simply revert to fixed positions which happens more often than not.
Cheers
Neil
First, thank you very much! In the meantime I got more detailed information and learned that this article is not a report but an interpretation for it turns everything from grey into black. The real question will be about, how much will SpaceX need to launch a payload and how reliable they can deliver when all these early developments are done. Late this year Europe will decide how to continue, to develop a new Ariane as France and Italy prefers or to supply the Space station and just change Ariane 5 a bit as Germany wants. The actual planning with Ariane 6 is always compared to Falcon. But I would not be sure if all these
Falcon announcements (about budgets) will become true.
AstroInMI,
As the Falcon 9 1st stage of CRS-1 had an engine out failure on the way to orbit, the 2nd stage had to burn more of its propellant than planned to put Dragon on course to ISS. The second burn that would have been required to put Orbcomm’s experimental bird into the orbit they wanted could not, by NASA’s calculations, be made with the 2nd stage’s remaining fuel load so that there was a 99% probability any early engine out would still keep the Orbcomm bird from getting too near ISS. So NASA thumbs-downed the relight and orbit change. The Orbcomm bird had to be let go into a lower and much less long-lived orbit.
Given the failure of the Falcon 9v1.1 2nd stage to reignite on the Cassiope mission, which was the first flight of this Falcon 9 version, it seems likely the same would have happened when trying to relight the earlier version of the 2nd stage used on the Falcon 9v1.0 used for the CRS-1 mission. Orbcomm’s bird was probably doomed from the start. But NASA sealed its doom for sure.
Thanks, good info.
Yes; if the editors of a major news agency were satisfied, on review after a complaint, that an article was either factually inaccurate or in some way violated editorial policy, then you’d normally expect them to print a retraction, correction or apology (even if only vanishingly small). However, from the speed in which MNB reports it was removed, I suspect that it was actually on the ‘reject’ pile and should never have been published at all.
I agree with all your points except for one thing. Try to get the Dryden/Armstrong X-31 Mishap Report. Not the public release pamphlet, the whole thing.
Good point.
Not really. There are “facts” and there are “facts”. It’s easy to slander someone by telling half-truths. Journalists are not supposed to do that. Lobbyist, otoh, do. It’s blatantly obvious which the article was.
For example, the article talks about a proximity sensor failure in the first COTS demo flight. It doesn’t mention that there were backup which worked fine, the original was rebooted and also worked fine, the capsule berthed successfully, and the problem has never recurred. Implying that NASA put the ISS at risk is just a tiny bit misleading, isn’t it.
The article also implied (as do you “there have been anomalies that no one outside of SpaceX or NASA can see”) that the failure of the prox-sensor was somehow kept secret. Yet I remember it being widely reporting (probably including here) at the time. It was being reported while it was being resolved; that’s the only reason I know about it.
Likewise the engine failure: it was contained, didn’t kill the flight, didn’t harm the primary mission (wouldn’t have harmed the secondary, except the primary customer was extra cautious*), has been fixed with a redesign at SpaceX’s own expense**, and has never recurred.
(* You asked about this. They had enough fuel left to put the secondary payload into the correct orbit with an extra burn, NASA vetoed it because they wanted more reserve fuel in case Dragon had to do multiple approach-aborts, which it didn’t. But primary customer rules, that the cost of being secondary.)
(** Meanwhile LM wants billions of taxpayer funds to replace the Russian engines, after ULA gets a billion every year for “assured access”. But it’s SpaceX which gets “special treatment”. Right.)
SpaceX is not on schedule. I’m not sure how that’s not a fact. There are excuses, but as I indicated in my original post, I’m kind of hoping SpaceX will do away with the “space is hard, I need another billion dollars” argument.
On the second fact…yeah, I’m more and more thinking that was bad wording. What I’m trying to get at is I’d like to see more direct info on what has happened on the previous flights: the why something failed, not just the fact if failed. Specifically QA. That said, I’m starting to walk on thin ice as it may be that was also reported. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
As an example of “there are ‘facts’ and there are ‘facts'”, what I mean is I could say, “SpaceX has been forced to delay their October launch due to yet more technical problems!” This is entirely 100% true.
It’s also entirely 100% a lie. OrbCom has asked for a delay in their next payload in order for OrbCom to make changes to their satellites. That delays SpaceX’s schedule, but clearly has nothing to do with Falcon9. Presenting such delays as entirely SpaceX’s fault is a half-truth to create a false impression in the minds of the audience.
I think you’re projecting. SpaceX doesn’t just beg for money. Their predicted schedules are based around certain funding levels, and if that funding is halved every year (as it was with CCDev until recently), then obviously there’ll be delays. But contrast SpaceX with Raptor development against LM and the RD-180 replacement proposal. SpaceX will develop Raptor from it’s own funding. It USAF/DARPA/NASA was willing to pitch in, things would go quicker. OTOH, LM & Aerojet aren’t willing to spend a cent on replacing RD-180, and would let Atlas V program end rather than contribute their own money on development. Just as LM/Boeing abandoned the entire American commercial launch market rather than develop lower cost launchers.
Or to use another example, if Commercial Crew got cancelled tomorrow, SpaceX will be delayed, and Boeing will kill CST-100 and fire its workforce that same day. Pretending that it’s SpaceX who gets special treatment is, again, a half-truth.
I noticed this Friday morning. I was riding the bus to work, browsing an app on my phone that pulled ‘newspaper’ headlines from various sites. It pulled up this headline, but by time I tried to read the article itself, it had already been pulled. This was about 6am Friday. Whoever pulled this article, did so intentionally and expediently. There must have been a major factual problem with the article, that it was pulled so fast. I couldn’t even find it in Google’s caches, that’s how fast it was pulled.
Yep you’re right, the entire article lacked a factual basis which is why it was probably pulled so fast. If the editor had been doing a better job, it would never have been posted.
Cheers
I suspect Forbes pulled the article after someone pointed out to them that the accusations it contained were largely fictional and that the author of the article was a paid shill for the legacy aerospace companies whose collective clock SpaceX is busy cleaning. If the someone doing the pointing out happened to be a SpaceX lawyer I’m sure the conversation included the terms “libel” and “actual malice” somewhere. I think Forbes pulled the piece because they got jobbed by the author and didn’t want to be seen as dupes or as “for sale” any more than they already will be. Pulling the article was a damage-limiting move. This episode doesn’t reflect very well on the editorial judgement of Forbes.
O…M…G…what a hate piece this shortlived article was. Even if a significant portion of Thompson’s assertions about SpaceX were true ( they are not ), it still does not past journalistic muster. As an opinion piece , it is obviously a vindictive hatchet job, thus disqualified from being considered a worthwhile opinion. I can’t believe this got by whatever or whomever passes for a Copy Editor at Forbes these days. They being a high profile business magazine should know better. We can only hope that PhD Thompson has burned bridges in all directions from his personal think tank on whatever island he lobs this stuff to the mainland from.
Forbes had plenty of reason to pull this. Factuality alone would do it. Some basic fact checking would’ve revealed that nearly everything in Thompson’s piece is incorrect or purposely taken so far out of context it broke apart. I am presuming ( but not nearly to the order of magnitude that Thompson employs) that Forbes management got so many criticisms and corrections from actual informed aerospace-savvy folks that they saw early on this piece was toxic. Thompson exposed Forbes’ online publishing to some potentially serious repercussions. Lucky for them it was dispatched going into a weekend and not widely circulated…( yet).
The only absolute defense against libel is the truth , and Thompson has little of that. Presuming once more here, I don’t believe editors yanked this piece off Forbes’ website…I think the lawyers did.
When Aviation Week & Space Technology has something to say about an aerospace company or program performance issues, you can take THAT to the bank with confidence. But this third party piece in an omnibus business magazine was revealed for what it really is/was: a vindicitve piece of predatory takedown opinion. Thompson has severely depleted his credibility capital account . Being a business magazine, Forbes surely can see that much… but where is the formal retraction and/or apology from Forbes ?
It will be interesting to see what the rebound on this might be in the days ahead.
Please, I am too far away to learn all the details. But I want to know, what was correct, what was wrong with this article?
Here’s the article: http://thetodayonline.com/w…
Have a read and then come back with questions. I’m happy to assist however basically every point made in the article is a fabrication and not accurate, e.g. WH and Congress bending over backwards to help SpaceX. No evidence exists for this statement and in fact a number of representatives are outright hostile at every turn.
Secret payloads awarded to SpaceX – BS as every payload award is public knowledge. CRS contract commernts 75% of contract awarded – payments are made for successful launches so again BS, and on and on.
It’s nothing but a shill article perpetrated in order to influence NASA and Congress re: AF block buy currently before the courts and also CCtCap contracts expected award by NASA for commercial crew end of this month.
Cheers.
And it’s gone now too
See above 🙂
There are only a few of all the details mentioned in the article. Just researching a bit, I could just find that there is a delay with the supply flies but not as much as claimed. The internet will not forget and this article still exists. Therefore one should write another text to verify all the claimed points, before NASA will announce the next decision. Isn’t it?
What happened to free speech? So what if the guy gets contributions from Lockheed and Sierra, I’m sure some of the advocates of SpaceX are guilty of the same.
“free speech” doesn’t mean one can publish false and misleading information. nor does “free speech” allow one to be immune from having said false and misleading stories removed.
On the contrary, “free speech’ does mean EXACTLY that. It would be meaningless if it did not. Every dictatorship claims people have the right to say and publish “correct” things. They just want to suppress “incorrect” things (contrary to official truth). Liars (other than actual libel) suffer only by loss of reputation in a free society. Of course good journalism is built on reputation for trustworthiness, so good news outlets work hard to maintain that. Forbes probably took it down when they realized it was not good honest reporting, to protect their reputation. Of course Forbes is not obligated to publish junk news. That’s what editorial supervision is all about.
I’m not sure that “good honest reporting” had much to do with it, actually. “free speech” is not a licence to lie, there can be legal consequences to doing so – and since the article might well have fallen into the legal definitions of libel or slander, Forbes was indeed prudent to remove the article.
The government wasn’t involved in pulling it so I don’t see a free speech issue. By definition it was an error in Forbes’s judgement to publish it if they pulled it later. Doesn’t invalidate your second point, though.
This is not a free speech issue. Forbes is not the government.
Folks:
I reported on this one a few hours after the story was pulled:
https://twitter.com/John_Ga…
Here’s the Google cache for the entire seedy article:
http://webcache.googleuserc…
Read it and you’ll know why it got pulled!
Go nuts on this guy! He’s no friend of SpaceX, that’s for sure.
tinker
Plenty of astroturfing going on.
I think it will get much worse when Boeing loses commercial space. After that, all 3 companies will throw BIG money into the USAF illegal deal.
Taking this further:
http://www.opensecrets.org/usearch...
He actually contributed small amounts of money, but mostly to the GOP.
For example, more than 2/3 went to GOP PACs, with more than 3/4 of his donations going to the GOP.
SpaceX itself did less than $2000.
And yet, Thompson declares that musk has been a big dem supporter.
Oddly, the man KNOWS about google and more importantly, he KNOWS about opensecrets. So does forbes.
Based on the fact that Thompson wrote this AND THAT FORBES PRINTED IT, it shows that they regard their normal readers as real idiots.
Overall two-year funding is around $50,000 per party. In the 2010 cycle he contributed primarily to the Dems. That’s the basis for “Musk has been a big Dem supporter”.
It’s an example of the half-truths I mentioned to AstroInMI. Musk donates slightly more to Republicans, but one year he donated primarily to Dems. Hence “Musk has been [note the tricksy-clever wording] a big Dem supporter” is technically true, but entirely intended to mislead.
Well, have to admit I was clueless about what Forbes is now compared to when it was a magazine:
http://www.poynter.org/late…
Key point: “There is no traditional editing of contributors’ copy, at least not prior to publishing. If a story gets hot or makes the homepage, a
producer will ‘check it more carefully,’ DVorkin said.”
So I guess, in a way, the system worked that the article was removed. Like the Poynter article says, there are advantages and disadvantages to this model of journalism. This is a disadvantage that something can be published, picked up by other outlets, get squashed, but still be circulating. Personally, I’m still trying to get my head around that Forbes name doesn’t necessarily equate to fact-checked.
It seems that Forbes has flipped the traditional model of journalism on its head.
Rather that using advertising revenue to support the core mission of the dissemination of thoughtfully-considered information, they use text of uncertain veracity to support the core mission of the collection of advertising revenue.
Hmmm. I seem to have lost one posting.
However, found a spaceX PAC:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pa...
Interestingly, musk, along with spaceX, give more to the GOP, than to the Dems.
It appears that Thompson has nothing valid.
As a person with a more than peripheral relationship with a newspaper, I can say that the entire industry is trying to figure out how to get more content on web sites, and to do it more quickly.
Some publishers (and perhaps Forbes) allow trusted writers posting privileges without prior editorial review; It’s something like earning trusted status for comments on NYTimes, but of course we are talking about new content.
Whether or not this is a good answer to the content problem is a very hot topic.
More often than not, long term writers will know what a particular publisher wants. Moreover, about the last thing a writer wants is to burn a bridge- particularly one without editors!
The process can blow up. And often it’s the errant submitter, not the publisher, that takes the heat.
(Didn’t we see a similar story here in the past few months?)