http://nasawatch.com/archives/2014/08/interesting-sls.html

A better way to look at it is, if you can launch (let’s be generous to the SLS and say) six of the most expensive version of the SLS for what Boeing charges for one stage, then a 25% difference in the payloads doesn’t matter. You can launch an awful lot of docking and assembly and refueling equipment in the five remaining Falcon Heavy launches after you’ve launched your necessarily lighter payload.

— Donald

No. I’m afraid I’m terminally married and the wife has granted me no “hall pass” privileges.

I was merely curious as your style of argumentation about SpaceX’s employment practices hinted at female psychology.

If you are indeed the only one who comments here under the “common sense” ID, then I regard our little dustup anent SpaceX as a bit of an anomaly. Like Donald’s comments, I generally agree with yours.

Much as I often agree with Dick’s posts, this is a great answer — and exactly what the comment deserved.

— Donald

The whole thing may not be ready to go but I can see no reason why it could not be done very quickly for such a short trip to ISS and back.

Are you asking me on a date?

Was this you or someone else using the same ID?

Josh, I have supported SpaceX since when nobody knew about them and in many more ways that you can possibly imagine.

Now, on to other matters.

You have been on this forum what a few months now?

Do you think you know all there is to know about other posters?

I know nothing for sure about you – not even your name. I infer things about you based on what you write, but I freely admit I could be wrong. That is simply the case with many Web-based interactions.

If you feel I have some sort of obligation to know all about you before making a reply to one of your comments when you reveal so little about yourself perhaps I should assume you are a woman.

Also please point to me where I said that SpaceX is guilty of any thing?

You never come right out and say it, you just keep up a steady drumbeat of “If I was an investor and they did X I’d be upset” and suchlike. The clear implication of your comments is that you believe SpaceX to be guilty of mistreating its employees and of labor law violations. Why not just say what you plainly believe to be true instead of weaseling around with tone and passive-aggressive implication?

Are you a woman?

But you may want to inquire, not with Elon but rather his employees.

I knew two of SpaceX’s employees casually through classes and extracurricular activities at that community college I mentioned attending a few comments back. Two people isn’t much of a statistical sample but, for whatever it may be worth, neither had a bad word to say about working conditions or anything else. One young guy was quite the SpaceX cheerleader. The other guy was in his 30’s, had worked other places and seemed to like SpaceX just fine but was more reserved.

Did you work for Elon? What do you actually know about his methods?

No,I have never worked at SpaceX and have no knowledge, except the little bit of conversation I had with the two SpaceX employees I met at college, about what SpaceX work life is like.

What is the basis for your claim of such knowledge?

Again what do you know about geniuses?

Ever worked with geniuses yourself?

Never worked with any, exactly, but I hung out socially for a time with Eugene Volokh, who was a childhood math and computer software prodigy and is now a professor of constitutional law at UCLA and a very influential law blogger. He was in his mid to late teens at the time and I was in my early 30’s. Splendid company and spooky bright. Wish I’d kept in touch.

Does that help? I hate to drop names to no good purpose.

Here is a suggestion. Go and apply to SpaceX and go work for your idol. Then come back and tell us all ignorant about what it is like after 1 week, 1 month and 1 year. If you can last that much.

Ooooo! Touchy much?

Seriously, I’d be delighted to work for SpaceX but my current – I hope transient – medical decrepitude makes it impossible to work for anyone just now. Even if I were well, there are plenty of people in this area (I live about three miles from the SpaceX plant) who are younger than I and have years of aerospace experience I lack. The combination of Barack Obama in the White House and Jerry Brown in the statehouse has insured that Marx’s “reserve army of the unemployed” has never had more battalions than it does now in Southern California.

Understand, though, that even if SpaceX was the Dickensian horror show you believe it be, there are a lot of companies that are that bad or worse. I know. I’ve worked for more than a few of them. I’ve been abused plenty of times at jobs that in no way had any potential to change the world. So I’d have to rate even being abused at SpaceX a solid step up from my median employment experience.

The question is whether the lay-off was or not legal.

True. Based on my, admittedly layman’s, reading of the relevant law, I think SpaceX has a more than decent chance of prevailing in court, at least if the letter of the law still actually means anything in these solipsistic times.

And that returns us to where we started.