This comment from Musk will surely set off a landmine in the global space community, with broad implications. And it appears to be no idle comment from Musk who, at times, indulges in deliberately provocative posts on the social media network X that he owns.
However, that does not seem to be the case here.
This original statement was somewhat ambiguous. Last July, NASA awarded Space X an $843 million contract to modify a Dragon spacecraft to serve as a propulsive vehicle to safely guide the aging space station into the Pacific Ocean in 2030. So in some sense, preparations are already underway to shut down the laboratory.
I asked Musk if he meant that NASA and the US government should commit to the 2030 end-of-life date, or if he wanted to accelerate the timeline for the station's demise.
In other words, the owner of SpaceX, the most powerful actor in spaceflight globally, and one of the most powerful people in the world who is presently working alongside the US president to transform the government, wants to bring the space station down in early 2027.
Source: https://arstechnica.com
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