Odd Statement About Diversity Issues By The Planetary Society
Let’s talk about Elon Musk launching his Tesla into space, Planetary Society
” What is worth considering is the Tesla as a case study for future commercial space ventures. We’ve reached the point where individuals like Elon Musk and Peter Beck – in this case, two wealthy, white men – can make unilateral statements for humanity in space.”
Keith’s note: Given the management and public outreach style of Bill Nye at the Planetary Society this is an odd comment for the organization to make. To be certain, the space community needs MUCH more diversity since the people who pay the bills and benefit from space are very diverse. But for an organization led by an outspoken rich famous white guy to be critical of 2 other outspoken rich famous white guys is hypocritical.
Very interesting as the Planetary Society is launching its Light Sail 2 on the Falcon Heavy scheduled for the USAF Demonstration Flight.
http://www.planetary.org/ex…
“As soon as Spring 2018, LightSail 2 will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, and we will attempt the first, controlled solar sail flight in
Earth orbit.”
Could it be regrets they didn’t gamble and launch it on this flight and get in on the publicity? Or is Mr. Nye just trying to reclaim his image as a “Liberal Environmental Activist” after he openly collaborated with the “enemy” Rep. Bridenstine?
But he isn’t alone, I have seen a number of articles by liberals and environmentists decrying the launch of the Tesla and Elon Musk as “irresponsible”.
SpaceX would have been better off putting Gwynne’s Model S up instead of Elon’s “old” Roadster. At this point Gwynne’s much newer Tesla actually has much higher book value.
Maybe this would have quieted the critics.
Well, our EM transmissions make far more powerful (and often disturbing) “unilateral statements for humanity in space”. Also, which makes a more representative statement regarding humans…a dude in a car or the collection of recordings on the records aboard the Voyager spacecrafts?
EM and the Voyagers, BTW, reach way further out into space than Starman.
Two billion years of oxygen signals don’t help either. The algae ratted us out.
My response is that there was nothing unilateral about it. The rocket was supported by NASA commercial crew funding, and the launch happened after SpaceX got a launch license.
That is the problem with SpaceX getting Commercial Crew, now folks will claim EVERYTHING he does was supported by the “Great and Powerful” NASA. You may as well claim the USAF funded it, actually closer to reality as they have a flight scheduled for it just as the Planetary Society does. I guess it is just hard for those lost in the government contractor paradigm to believe any innovation is self-funded and dosen’t required an RFP.
NASA did not ask for FH nor fund Falcon Heavy anymore than it asked for reusable boosters. Indeed, they were even grumbling about the risk to CCP from using the launch pad for it. You need to understand that all NASA is funding is American “spam in the can” to replace the Russian “spam in the can” to ISS. NASA even blocked him with “safety requirements” from landing Dragon on land with rockets because it was too radical to an agency stuck in a 1960’s world. In doing so they achieve victory in killing Red Dragon and a private round the Moon flight that would have killed of their SLS.
Maybe NASA didn’t ‘ask’ for FH. I’m about a billion degrees of separation from decision makers.
But to think that there were no high-level talks with NASA Big Dogs before and during FH development is no more credible than imagining Boeing building the 777-200ER without speaking with Delta et.al.
Possibly, or at least they read the press releases. But for what ever reason NASA did not issue a RFP to build it and, except for a small demonstrator on the USAF flight, have not scheduled any payloads on it.
I’d be surprised if they didn’t talk to a whole bunch of people. NASA would be on the list, but so would the Air Force, Department of Defense, other government agencies, and commercial companies like communications satellite operators. They would have to, in order to know how many launches they could sell and how much the customers would be willing to pay.
Oh, please….this article just goes to show how there is no achievement that is so awesome, so technically audacious, or just so darn cool that some people won’t find pathetic reasons to complain about it. As for the snarky little racist comment about “white men”, if there is a PC-perfect diverse rainbow coalition of folks who want to launch a giant rocket into space and make their own statement, all they have to do is muster the same skill set, determination, and willingness to take risk as Elon and the SpaceX team (which is pretty diverse too, by the way) and they can do it, too. In the meantime, no pitiful whining about the success of others, however white their boss may be.
Ok…
Speaking from 20+ years of experience as someone who is usually the only minority in the room, the SpaceX team is not diverse. Nor is any other New Space organization for that matter. And NASA still has its issues with diversity. I saw a picture of the DreamChaser team a few months ago and it was quite barren of any diversity. I actually had a frank conversation with someone from SNC about that. I am very thankful for that person’s willingness to discuss an issue that so many in the industry run away from.
It is a multi-faceted problem that involves STEM education issues in minority and poor neighborhoods, biases in corporate recruiting/hiring, and a bunch of other issues that I could spend hours on discussing here.
Hey, I hear you. Diversity is great when you can achieve it. But neither NASA nor any of the commercial space companies exist primarily to be diverse. They exist to develop and operate spacecraft, to do science, and to explore the Universe, among other things. When one of these organizations achieves something spectacular, they should be celebrated, not sniped at because the makeup of their team doesn’t meet someone’s notion of how “diverse” they should be. That’s ludicrous….and annoying. Sure, let’s strive to build diverse teams of the best talent we can find, but let’s not allow that one criterion to be used as a means of belittling great achievements.
I, for one, love SpaceX and the needed disruption in the industry. But it unnerves me quite a bit when I have kids come up to me and tell me that they don’t see anyone who looks like them. That is a problem. Should they not be reflective of the people that they serve? But that’s a whole other discussion.
“Best talent we can find..” That’s part of the problem. You won’t find it if you’re looking in the same old places. Hell, when I showed up, I worked with people who heard of the Tuskegee Airmen, but never knew Tuskegee had an aerospace engineering program.
I think I was with you until I hit, “Should they not be reflective of the people that they serve?”
SpaceX is a private company. They serve their stockholders. (And, if I had to guess, I’d say their employees are probably much more diverse than their stockholders.)
I guess that’s what bothered me about the Planetary Society piece. There is the underlying implication that anything done in space is (or ought to be) about serving the general public.
Don’t get me wrong. There are good reasons why any organization should be diverse and inclusive. That applies to profit-driven private companies as well as government agencies. But that has nothing to do with whether or not the organization serves the public.
Then they would have still criticized Elon Musk, both for the climate change pollution and for wasting a car he could have sold, donating the money to the poor. You will never satisfy those that believe the wise and noble government must make all decisions for all the greedy stupid masses 🙂
I love his comment on how distasteful it was an individual was rich enough to have his own private space program (LOL). But then that isn’t much different than Bill Nye the Science Guy is saying.
It doesn’t help the cause of science when prominent scientists engage in politically extreme behavior:
https://m.youtube.com/watch…