Obviously in 2026 most of the posts are going to be about how stupid Trump is just making meaningless goals for his own ego.

To be clear, he absolutely is.

Then again, I would point out that it seems pretty common that every president since the 1970s* has seen fit in the latter stages of their presidency to "talk big" on space commitments ... and then proceed to fund none of them.
Until I actually SEE $50bn flowing into NASA or space investment, I take ANY presidential assertions about expanding space programs as what they are: publicity bullshit.

*In fact the only one I can think of that didn't was Biden, but he was basically non compos mentis the last 12+ months anyway.

OK, OK we'll let Xi know you're earning your paycheck today.

The chinese space program is a fundamentally MILITARY program and thus its budgets, priorities, and developments are secret UNLESS there is deemed a value to public revelation.
The Chinese routinely withhold basic data that is generally shared across space agencies globally such as expected precise trajectories of vehicles and discarded stages.

Project 921, Shenlong, Or perhaps the 2007 ASAT test that was COMPLETELY unannounced and blew what, 3000+ of orbital debris?

Do you know what those TJS "communication" satellites are doing migrating into specific geostrategic orbits and then suddenly adjusting to park next to US or Euro satellites?

How's Yang Lewei feeling today?

https://undark.org/2019/01/29/...

What's chinese for "shut the fuck up, comrade"? I'm pretty sure you know it.

... But my request to the IT security mavens would be to extend your rigor beyond the employees to the programs that directly contradict your rules themselves.

I am told strictly: NEVER click on a blind link, yet I get constant emails from departments - including IT! - that are LINKS to training videos, educational resources, mandatory bullshit that when if don't click on it, I get stern warnings that I'm not doing mandatory things. (Oh, and all external email urls are replaced with unparseable 200-character strings that supposedly route the link through "URL defense" or some such.)

Or how about all the consultants? I work for an EU multinational and we have at least 3 REGULATORY-required systems that I have to log into to comply with EU bureaucracy that are myCompany.kpmg.com or whatever - and then I'm supposed to give that EXTERNAL pop-up my *corporate* user and password while it authenticates through our corporate cellphones.

I'm reasonably savvy, I believe, but when policy & security rules contradict, which am I supposed to follow? I can tell you that corporate IT doesn't appreciate being shown it's own use of blind links.

Absurd generalizations? Wut?

On what basis? It's unquestionable that the political left in the US has both:
- fought nuclear tooth and nail since the 1970s
- is clearly the most concerned (panty-wetting fear in other words) with climate change.

There is no sane person that can dispute those assertions, gaslighter.

"ignoring the fact that your tech isn't actually the only fossil fuel alternative out there" I said LITERALLY NOTHING about that. Nothing. Are you asserting that expanded nuclear WOULDN'T have reduced hydrocarbon emissions substantially, or... are you just afraid to admit that?

I think wind and solar are great; they weren't meaningfully part of the conversation 45 years ago, which is what I rather specifically referenced.

I feel like you might not be getting enough oxygen. I made a single irrefutable assertion and you go off on irrelevancies as if they matter.

If only the people crying about the imminent doom of climate change weren't exactly the same group that INSISTED we abandon nuclear 45y ago.

The *exact* same idea with the *exact* same complaints from the Left, the UCS, all the progressive crybabies...can reasonably be seen as having ended the Soviet Union by ramming it financially into its own contradictions.
Is that ACTUALLY what you guys at the Paul Robeson bookstore are all still salty about? That the guys you insisted all along were the "good guys" turned out not to be?

Anyway, the idea that defense = escalation hasn't been a thing since MAD was largely abandoned in the 1990s. Welcome to the post cold-war era, comrade.

...and it is genuinely an efficiency gain: now I can completely avoid 2 shit product families from only 1 vendor.

That's great!

I fly 200ish flights a year so figure 70-80 nights away.

2025 was 100% hotels but 2019 was about 80% Airbnbs.

Airbnb will never get my business back. Ever. The professional scammer hosts are so good at finding a way to nail me for a fee. Iâ(TM)ve taken perfect check out video and still had to spend hours fighting fees.

Airbnb allowed making guests do it.

They lost so much money to hotels theyâ(TM)re banning hosts from requiring it.

"The US is escalating"?
That's a rather specious viewpoint, isn't it? Or did you intend to lie by omission?

The Soviets/Russians have had space based weapons platforms in orbit since the 1960s
The Chinese have had weapons aloft for at least 10y.
Honestly, if the US *doesn't* have functional, effective orbital weapons already up there, they're fucking incompetent.

And, if investors don't like it, they can walk away, can't they?
Isn't that how the free market works? Convince people to invest in you, great. If you're an asshole or do stupid things, they take their $ away.

Look, I get it, slashdot despises Musk for many, many things (some even have to do with actual business or technology). But this is up to investors and their choices.

SpaceX IPO $160 today $162. Not really compelling unless one believes in their mission.
Tesla 1y was $442, now is $385. Not very compelling.
 

If they can use drones to recover wounded soldiers, they can use them to deliver soldiers to or beyond the front. While in most cases they prefer to use this for unmanned ground vehicles, there's no reason they couldn't fly in special forces this way.

...would somehow also cause Slashdot to seethe in fury.

You guys are hilarious.

Who says I'm NOT outraged by that? Why the simplistic binary?

Personally, I believe that anyone getting a dime of government $ should be banned from voting / donating politically due to conflict of interest.
This includes the welfare poor BUT ALSO the management (c-suites, I'd guess) of ANY company with
- federal contracts
- using public resources (ie oil companies on federal lands)
- in-law tax benefits.

I also believe corporations should have escalating tax rates for owned dwellings; that is, like people they can have that single homestead property, but the next is full-tax, the next 150% tax, the next 200% etc.

Make no mistake, yes, I do object to LONG TERM free ride programs for the poor as an alternative to sorting their lives out. But I'm even MORE aggressive about taxation of corporations that want to enjoy the upside of capitalism but be fully socialist on the downsides. "Too big to fail" is bullshit; capitalism REQUIRES companies to die like forests need fires.

So....no answer, confirmed.
I have read about UBI, extensively, because its advocates never tire of begging for other people's money.