{"id":955,"date":"2024-11-13T11:25:41","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T11:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/?page_id=955"},"modified":"2024-11-15T15:31:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T15:31:16","slug":"trump-and-musk-for-all-mankind","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2024\/section-2-policy-and-political-context\/trump-and-musk-for-all-mankind\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Musk for all mankind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Prof. Einar Thorsen<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Executive Dean of the Faculty of Media and Communication, Professor of Journalism and Communication at Bournemouth University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Email: ethorsen@bournemouth.ac.uk<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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U.S. Election 2024<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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12. The campaigns\u2019 pandemic memory hole<\/a> (Prof Michael Serazio)
13. America\u2019s kingdom of contempt<\/a> (Prof Barry Richards)
14. Americanism, not globalism 2.0: Donald Trump and America\u2019s role in the world<\/a> (Prof Jason A. Edwards)
15. The politics of uncertainty: Mediated campaign narratives about Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine<\/a> (Dr Tetyana Lokot)
16. The U.S. elections and the future of European security: Continuity or disruption?<\/a> (Dr Garret Martin)
17. Trump\u2019s victory brings us closer to the new world disorder<\/a> (Prof Roman Gerodimos)
18. Abortion: Less important to voters than anticipated<\/a> (Dr Zo\u00eb Brigley Thompson)
19. Roe your vote?<\/a> (Dr Lindsey Meeks)
20. Gender panics, far-right radicalization, and the effectiveness of anti-trans political ads<\/a> (Dr Thomas J. Billard)
21. U.S. politics and planetary crisis in 2024<\/a> (Dr Reed Kurtz)
22. Trump and Musk for all mankind<\/a> (Prof Einar Thorsen)
23. Guns and the 2024 election<\/a> (Prof Robert J. Spitzer)
24. Echoes of Trump: Potential shifts in Congress\u2019s communication culture<\/a> (Dr Annelise Russell)<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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In his victory speech Donald Trump devoted a significant amount of time eulogizing Space X\u2019s successful landing and recapture of Starship\u2019s first stage booster, known as SuperHeavy, using a chopstick pincer movement. It was a \u201cbig step towards making life multiplanetary\u201d, Musk declared at the time<\/a>. Trump meanwhile was preoccupied with the paintjob of the rocket: \u201cIt was beautiful, shiny white. When it came down, it didn’t look so pretty.\u201d, he recalled in his speech, noting how Musk had explained to him that there was no paint that could withstand that type of heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rocket vanity aside, Trump\u2019s victory is sure to accelerate another space race and aspirations of a human crewed mission to Mars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another space race might seem like a strange conclusion from an election where the very fabric of democracy was claimed by both candidates as being at stake. Space exploration was not one of Trump\u2019s 20 core promises<\/a> to Make America Great Again, nor did it feature as any of the top issues important for voters<\/a> in determining who to vote for. Musk\u2019s turn to the right meanwhile owes as much to his relentless pursuit of deregulation and efficiencies as it does to his daughter\u2019s gender transition which he attributed to \u201cwoke mind virus\u201d<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk first endorsed Trump in July, following the assassination attempt at a rally on a rural farm show ground in Butler, Pennsylvania \u2013 a scene which Trump would return to some three months later, when he was joined on stage by Musk. He eventually donated more than $119m to fund America PAC aimed at re-electing Trump, and also caused ruptures with his infamous\u00a0$1m a day giveaway to incentivize registered voters in Pennsylvania and other swing states<\/a>\u00a0to sign a petition on supporting the First and Second Amendments of the US Constitution.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump also joined Musk in a two-hour long livestream debate on X in August, with purportedly 2.1 million tuning in to watch and the post itself garnering 54.3 million views<\/a>. At one point in their discussion<\/a>, Musk mused that \u201cPeople in America want to feel excited and inspired about the future \u2026 and that America’s going to do things that are greater than we’ve done in the past\u201d. So far on message with MAGA. \u201cThey want the American Dream back.\u201d, Trump replied, to which Musk then suggested \u201cI think there are some grand projects that we could do. I think we could build a base on the moon. We could send American astronauts to Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst the pair then drifted off to discuss high-speed rail and pharmaceutical drugs, the connective thread was their celebration of deregulation to accelerate development of new technologies. This is a familiar argument from Musk, who has often claimed that allowing rockets to explode during early development stages makes for more a rapid development cycle than ground testing. He has via SpaceX repeatedly challenged the Federal Aviation Administration<\/a> (FAA) on issues ranging from environmental impact of launches to fines issued for violations of launch licenses. The FAA on its side is struggling to keep up with SpaceX\u2019s launch pace, attributing 80% of its space workers\u2019 overtime to SpaceX<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pragmatically speaking, from a space exploration perspective, there are two launch windows during the next presidency: uncrewed test missions to Mars in late 2026, and crewed missions in 2028, with potential for the first humans setting foot on Mars in 2029 (which of course will be after the next Presidential election, so unless Trump changes the constitution to allow a third term he won’t be overseeing those historic footsteps on the red planet). The race to Mars is heavily influenced by optimum launch windows, which only occur approximately every 26 months due to the relative positions of Earth and Mars. Musk\u2019s fear, therefore, is that any regulatory issues with rocket launches or environmental concerns will ultimately cause delays that miss these launch windows, pushing back the ambition of placing humans on Mars by several years. The concern is not for the delay per se, but the potential success of other nations in getting there first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The costs of space exploration are also astronomical. While costs for crewed missions to Mars are inherently complex and at best speculative, estimates typically range from a very conservative $230 billion for the first mission to potentially over $1.5 trillion for a series of missions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump meanwhile covets the ultimate spectacle \u2013 not just of shiny white rockets \u2013 but of being first and claiming achievements no-one else can. He has form on championing space exploration too. During his first term in office, he signed the Space Policy Directive 1<\/a>, which laid the policy and funding foundations \u201cfor a human return to the Moon, followed by missions to Mars and beyond\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For him, this is also about cold war power dynamics. And there is no bigger stage than space! The stakes are high, and for Trump too the risk of being beaten by another nation is unfathomable. Even in Trump\u2019s victory speech we see those same hallmarks \u2013 back to the Starship SuperHeavy rocket capture:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd it was a beautiful thing to see, and I called Elon, I said, ‘Elon, was that you?’ He said, ‘Yes, it was.’ I said, ‘Who else can do that? Can Russia do it?’ ‘No.’ ‘Can China do it?’ \u2018No.’ ‘Can the United States do it? Other than you?’ ‘No, nobody can do that.’ I said, ‘That’s why I love you, Elon, that.’\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billionaires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all mankind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prof. Einar Thorsen Executive Dean of the Faculty of Media and Communication, Professor of Journalism and Communication at Bournemouth University. Email: ethorsen@bournemouth.ac.uk In his victory speech Donald Trump devoted a significant amount of time eulogizing Space X\u2019s successful landing and recapture of Starship\u2019s first stage booster, known as SuperHeavy, using a chopstick pincer movement. It was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1008,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-955","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump and Musk for all mankind - Election Analysis - United States<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2024\/section-2-policy-and-political-context\/trump-and-musk-for-all-mankind\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump and Musk for all mankind - Election Analysis - United States\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Prof. Einar Thorsen Executive Dean of the Faculty of Media and Communication, Professor of Journalism and Communication at Bournemouth University. 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