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Why Trump could be interested in Elon Musk’s Mars mission

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Of all the speculations being made about the plans Donald Trump has for the United States, this one may really perk up the ears of space fans in a good way.

“We choose to go to the Moon Mars, not because it is easy, but because it is hard and would be a huge deal for my presidency.”

– Future President Trump speech

The future is anyone’s crystal ball with the Trump administration, but there are some credible breadcrumbs out there worth a second look and arguably optimistic conjecture about a Mars-Trump-Elon Musk connection.

Here’s the gluten trail:

  • Elon Musk has joined Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum, signaling Trump’s interest in his business expertise and his access to Trump
  • Musk has had at least one meeting with Trump specifically, and had at least two recent visits to Trump Tower, further confirming Trump’s interest in Musk
  • Musk has said positive things about being able to work with Trump towards energy technology goals and manufacturing in the U.S. (which would include SpaceX)
  • Trump has recently met with historian David Brinkley who specifically cited Trump’s interest in President John F. Kennedy’s famous Moon speech and a mission to the Moon, signaling Trump’s interest in a “big” space goal
  • Trump’s NASA transition team includes several pro-commercial spaceflight faces, SpaceX fans included
  • Trump is interested in cutting discretionary spending, and commercial-government spaceflight partnerships would be an option in line with that path, especially using SpaceX’s lower cost rocket technology
  • Musk’s timeline for SpaceX’s future missions to Mars means they could potentially occur during Trump’s presidency, notably close to reelection campaign season

That last one could be what could pull the lever if the decision came down to the Moon people vs. the Mars people.

It’s no secret that congressional space policy leadership favors the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars, and that itself has significant weight; however, SpaceX is already on the way to sending its Red Dragon capsule to Mars, 2018/2020 being the current launch goal, and redirecting NASA once again to focus instead on the Moon would likely take more time (and money) to do, leaving SpaceX to bask in red planet glory first during reelection season.

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The political picture kind of paints itself, really. The presidential campaign is underway and Trump’s Moon mission, a place the public would possibly see as “been there done that”, is running over budget and likely not even happened yet. Meanwhile, Elon Musk and his SpaceX team have launched their Falcon Heavy cargo, possibly preparing for a second launch, and have either already landed on Mars or about to.

That’s not a pretty picture if you’re President Donald Trump arguing the case for how you’re making America great again.

It’s possible that Trump is really only interested in speaking with Elon Musk about the future of electric cars (maybe that subsidy situation that keeps getting harped on by certain groups on the right?) and/or the unique startup-to-success stories of Elon’s companies, but it would make just as much sense for him to be interested in a Mars mission to unite the country under his leadership. The work is already being done so in a way, Trump just needs to make a few of his famous “deals” to help things along to be able to plant his name on it.

In that light, a journey to Mars certainly looks like it could unfortunately just be a political decision rather than a grandiose vision thing for the President. After all, Trump hasn’t seemed very interested in our space program overall, choosing to focus on economic matters and non-NASA related national security. However, would it really be a bad thing for him to pursue a Mars mission for purely political motivations? Done right, it’s a win-win for everyone: Trump gets his political boost, humanity gets to celebrate the official beginning of becoming a multiplanetary species via the world of “new space”.

Only time will tell, and hopefully we will have more answers rather than questions in the immediate future.

Accidental computer geek, fascinated by most history and the multiplanetary future on its way. Quite keen on the democratization of space. | It's pronounced day-sha, but I answer to almost any variation thereof.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.6 review: a rare regression, but some bright spots

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla released Full Self-Driving version 14.3.6 last week, and after what was potentially one of the best FSD releases in v14.3.5, there has been a bit of a regression. While there are some bright spots, the changes made to v14.3.6 seem to have backtracked some behaviors.

Overall, it is hard to really complain about FSD in any sense; it has revolutionized how I travel literally anywhere. According to my self-driving app, the last time I went a day without using it was 59 days ago.

However, I think it’s also important to recognize when things are just plain bad with FSD. There are times it does truly mind-boggling things, and I’ll dive into those here. Additionally, I only had these issues on local roads, not on highways. Highway operation, generally, is always incredible other than the occasional complaint about speed or left lane camping.

With those things being said, my personal experience may not represent others’ experiences. A handful of people have said they have had a similar experience on v14.3.6, while others have said it is more than normal.

Turning Hesitancy, Inaccuracy

I’ve noticed more inaccuracy turning into multi-lane stretches of road than in any version I can remember. I’ve had at least three instances of FSD turning into a stretch of roadway that has two or more lanes, and not selecting a lane confidently as it has in past versions.

Instead, the car will drive over one of the dashed road lines, and the steering wheel will jerk back and forth before picking the lane. It should be said that it has always picked the correct lane when choosing based on the navigation, but it is still very indecisive. The steering wheel jerking is reminiscent of some of the later versions of v13.

I admit I really hate to see the steering wheel jerking come back. However, I think when Tesla releases v14.3.7, it won’t be present. When there are occurrences of it in FSD versions, it is usually resolved by the following release.

FSD Disregards Manual Turn Signals

This is my biggest bone to pick with FSD other than Navigation issues, but this one seems like it would be such an easy fix.

If Tesla is going to put the word “Supervised” on the end of “Full Self-Driving,” then when I tell the car to do something, it should do it. If I input an increase in speed by pressing the accelerator, the car will immediately respond. It does not disregard my input because it feels it is traveling at the right speed.

FSD should never disobey and turn off turn signals that the driver inputs. Trying to direct the car into the correct lane, I had initiated the left turn signal not once, not twice, but three times, with the car turning it off all three times and continuing in a lane that would end in just one block. The only solution at this point would be to zipper merge.

This goes back to the fact that self-driving’s biggest bottleneck might be rider preference. A zipper merge might have been more than reasonable, might have saved me time that I spent sitting through an additional light cycle, and might be something many drivers would do. I was in no hurry, I traditionally do not try to zipper merge because it feels inconsiderate, and lastly, the car should have just followed my input.

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This caused me to disengage and drive manually the rest of the way home. Sometimes I just do not need FSD to try to pass every car it can at intersections.

Bird Braking is a Thing of the Past

The big complaint with recent versions of Full Self-Driving has been what we’ve coined as “bird braking,” which is when the car will brake suddenly as a bird flies past.

There have been zero issues with this so far in v14.3.6, which is an excellent improvement.

FSD Might Already Be Taking Note of Driver Preferences

Another thing I have noticed over the past few days is that v14.3.6 seems to already be taking my preferences with navigation into account.

This is something that is supposed to be rolling out with the Summer Update, but I have a hunch it’s already present and might have been included in this v14.3.6 build. On Friday, FSD pulled into an entrance to a local convenience store that it had never attempted to go into before.

Typically, I manually pull into this entrance because it avoids heavy cross traffic at the main entrance. FSD has always chosen that congested main entrance.

Additionally, FSD has pulled into my assigned parking spot at my townhouse community on multiple occasions with this release. This is something that used to happen ocassionally, but not consistently.

It also navigated back to the same convenience store last night, drove through crazy cars scrambling to gas pumps, navigated out of the parking lot correctly, drove me home, and, once again, parked in my assigned spot.

As previously stated, this release just seems to have a few things that need to be brought to Tesla’s attention, and also to make others who use FSD aware of some things that I’ve experienced. I look forward to the next release that will remedy these issues, just as Tesla has always done in the past.

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Musk’s massive Terafab project will get final location soon

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Credit: SpaceX

Elon Musk’s massive Terafab project, which will be the first true conglomeration between each of his major entities, is set to get its final location soon, the CEO said on Tesla’s recent earnings call.

“The Terafab, we expect to announce a location soon, and provide more details about our plans in that regard. We’ll leave that to the product, the launch announcement rather than try to squeeze it into an earnings call,” Musk said last Wednesday.

Tesla Terafab set for launch: Inside the $20B AI chip factory that will reshape the auto industry

Terafab was announced by Musk back in March and was essentially a massive, vertically integrated semiconductor manufacturing project that would provide all the chips the three companies needed for their AI initiatives without needing third-party companies.

The plant will produce over 1 terawatt of AI compute each year, and will help back up projects like Optimus, Full Self-Driving, and other AI-based projects that Musk’s companies are working on.

In April, less than a month after the project was launched, Intel announced it would join the project, contributing manufacturing expertise and consulting to Terafab as a whole. Intel is one of three chip manufacturers that produce sub-5 nanometer chips at scale. TSMC and Samsung are the other two.

However, there was no true indication of where Terafab would end up, but most believe it will likely be somewhere in Texas. Business Insider has reported that SpaceX plans to build out Terafab in Grimes County, Texas, but this is unconfirmed.

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Musk confirmed recently that it would not be on Giga Texas property, as it is simply too large.

Terafab holds much of Musk’s grand ambitions for the future within its construct. It holds so much responsibility for the future and the biggest projects that Musk’s companies can imagine.

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“I think this is a very big announcement and it deserves to have its own day in the spotlight and not be squeezed into an earnings call,” he said. “I do think Terafab is going to be an amazing initiative and a necessary one, and one without which we will be constrained in our ability to scale Optimus production, because we simply won’t have enough AI chips.”

He continued by stating that Terafab is necessary for scaling Optimus, which Musk said could be the biggest product of any kind of all time. “It’s crucial to solve that, and we’ll have to solve memory, logic, and packaging in order to scale Optimus.”

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Elon Musk reveals SpaceX performed secret Starship test on Flight 13

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX performed a secret test on a specific portion of Starship with its recent 13th test flight last week, CEO Elon Musk revealed.

Starship’s 13th test flight took place last Friday, and in many aspects, it was one of the most overwhelmingly successful launches in the project’s history.

All of the mission objectives were met without incident, both the Super Heavy Booster and Ship managed to perform safe splashdowns in the Gulf of America and the Indian Ocean, respectively, and the deployment of Starlink satellites came and went without any complications.

However, there was more on the agenda for SpaceX with Flight 13. Musk revealed an internal test of the ship’s heat shield tiles, as the space exploration company wanted to push them to the limits after previous issues.

Many noticed that Starship’s initial launch seemed to be more accelerated than normal, and that was not a mistake. Musk revealed that SpaceX decided to give Flight 13 an intentionally aggressive acceleration rate in an effort to test how well the tiles would remain attached to the ship:

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SpaceX had issues with some of the heat shield tiles remaining attached early on in the Starship program. The first six test flights presented some kind of anomaly with them, so the company’s big focus with them was to figure out a way to keep them intact through the duration of the flight.

Things truly improved as Flight 10 showed that ceramic tiles generally stayed attached to the ship far better due to refined attachment, as SpaceX utilized pins instead of adhesives. Flights 10 through 13 truly showed some clear progress with the heat shield tiles, and this latest test seems to be where some real progress was noticed, especially by Musk.

The 13th Starship launch last Friday was the second with Starship V3, SpaceX’s latest and greatest iteration of the spacecraft. Goals and ambitions are getting even grander as the project continues to progress. Musk has already hinted that SpaceX will likely try to catch Starship with Flight 14.

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