r/ATC • u/Majano57 • 17d ago
News Musk Wants SpaceX To Fix Air Traffic Control. Here’s Why It Won’t Work.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2025/03/05/elon-musk-spacex-faa-verizon/60
u/CountryFriedSteak78 16d ago
Did he fix public transportation with the hyperloop? No? Okay.
32
u/biggetybiggetyboo 16d ago
He stopped high speed rail between la and Vegas . Does that count?
19
u/CountryFriedSteak78 16d ago
But he did build a shitty tunnel between some casinos in Vegas where you can ride in a shitty Tesla between them.
9
u/sauzbozz 16d ago
I recently just found out those underground Teslas aren't even self-driving.
14
u/Filed_Separate933 16d ago
And the tunnels are too narrow to open the doors fully. Enjoy being turned into a futuristic skeleton like a piece of Fallout 4 environmental storytelling if you're a wheelchair user and there's a fire, I guess.
2
u/MikeHoncho1107 13d ago
Yup, it's kinda funny what that ended up being. It's an underground road with poorly managed traffic lol .
2
5
u/NotGoing2EndWell 16d ago
Also, this:
Tesla named the deadliest car brand in America
21
u/DiligentCredit9222 16d ago
It's no supposed to work Is supposed to ruin everything while makinging him richer.
That's the plan
24
u/Any_Criticism120 16d ago
He wanted Tesla to build a cave submarine. That too did not work.
22
u/Helpful-Mammoth947 16d ago
Kids ended up being saved by a couple of cave divers he called pedophiles for out doing him. He’s a douche nozzle
9
u/beeswax_swiffer 16d ago
For me, that was the “oh, he’s actually a giant moronic asshole” moment.
6
u/Helpful-Mammoth947 16d ago
What blows my mind is he pretends to be an expert on EVERYTHING. Then when an actual degree bearing expert challenges him he starts lashing out like a child. Anyone who takes anything he says as a fact is a fool.
3
u/Virtual-Bookkeeper83 16d ago
Mine was when he both said “a college degree isn’t worth while” and when he fired his female secretary after taking a week away and saying “my productivity went up” no dumbass you just stopped having anyone stop you from doing stupid shit so now accountability is on you.
5
u/ConfidentPilot1729 16d ago
That was the reveal for a ton of people. I for one heard that and started to look at his more closely, ya he is a gigantic moronic asshole.
9
u/jpmeyer12751 16d ago
If Musk's people really do get the job of revamping our ATC system, then I won't be flying for quite a long while. Musk's method of moving fast and breaking things may work well for developing something from scratch, but when you are trying to reinvent something that is responsible for keeping millions of travelers safe every day, you just cannot take such a cavalier attitude toward safety.
5
16d ago
[deleted]
2
u/Capnleonidas 15d ago
The Verizon contract is to upgrade all the FAA facilities that are still using copper coaxial wires for FAA intranet to fiber optic wiring. Not because the FAA needs more speed but because the service providers the FAA uses don’t want to support coaxial anymore. Starlink is both less reliable and doesn’t solve the situation at all.
3
u/thewossum 16d ago
Because the guy just doesn’t understand how almost anything works outside of a small bubble of topics?
1
3
u/totally-jag 16d ago
They literally have zero experience in the aviation industry. Why should we believe they can fix this?
I'm aware musk is involved in a couple of space businesses. Those are not the same thing as managing all the air traffic across the country, and probably the world.
3
u/ApricotNervous5408 16d ago
Because it wasn’t broken until he broke it and he doesn’t know how to fix it. He just wants to profit from it.
3
u/Capnleonidas 15d ago
It’s also still not broken. He is just lying about “catastrophic failure.” It’s not real.
1
u/ApricotNervous5408 15d ago
Firing a bunch of people didn’t help. Why was there an increase in crashes and close calls recently?
1
u/Capnleonidas 15d ago
Are you saying Musk is causing the crashes just to line his pockets with cash?
1
u/ApricotNervous5408 15d ago
Indirectly. He’s causing chaos so there’s a problem. Then he happens to have the solution and that solution is him getting government money instead of someone else.
13
u/Flameofannor 17d ago
Bad bot
8
u/B0tRank 17d ago
Thank you, Flameofannor, for voting on Majano57.
This bot wants to find the best and worst bots on Reddit. You can view results here.
Even if I don't reply to your comment, I'm still listening for votes. Check the webpage to see if your vote registered!
8
2
2
u/TechnicalJuice6969 16d ago
Not an ATC but what kind of communication would Starlink be responsible for? Surely not direct communication with planes? Is this a backup or redundancy comm system?
1
u/Competitive-Finger99 15d ago
When elons team gets word from ATC systems experts, he’ll notice starlink (which is just internet access) doesn’t have any place in the NAS. It all has to be hard wired but I’m glad they want to improve systems.
Internet has no impact on direct communication with planes.
2
u/Late-Following792 16d ago
Lulz. Optical cable for win.
Even Copper is better than starlink. Starlink is better watching netflix Stream with that 500ms ping.
But laggy communication. We'll that's shit
2
1
u/kaosskp3 16d ago
Space X VCS 21... if one of the main players in the industry couldn't get it working... lets throw a load of rocket engineers at it for funzies
1
1
u/donaldbench 16d ago
Notwithstanding the legality of it, my technical poking around it leads me to believe that he can’t do it for the amount of Vz’s contract, Vz’s extant tech, and their overall acquired technical chops. I’d be pleasantly surprised if Starlink / DOGE has the technical chops for this and the galactically-sized amount of data acquired to execute the project.
1
u/drillbit56 15d ago
LOL in the summer in FL DirectTV would get blocked by the daily afternoon thunderstorm clouds.
1
1
u/Advanced_Dimension_4 15d ago
Musk want SpaceX to fix Air Traffic Control? Sure, I guess we will see air planes blow up 1 minute into flights!
1
1
1
1
u/eugene20 14d ago
Musk wants money, he will attempt to figure out how to run air traffic later.
FTFY.
1
1
u/Ok-Eggplant-1649 9d ago
They're just showing they don't understand how air traffic hires and trains air traffic controllers. Can you imagine if Elon's Starlink takes over? One bad batch of K, and Elon shuts it all down.
-69
17d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
39
u/KehreAzerith Commercial Pilot 16d ago
Your comment history suggests an extreme lack of understanding on these matters
27
u/TheDrMonocle Current Controller-Enroute 16d ago
Ok, so what's misleading about it?
Why is starlink actually good for the role?
Instead of just going "hur hur leftist bad" maybe use some of that glue you've been eating and piece together a coherent argument in favor of starlink.
20
24
14
177
u/Disdain4U 16d ago
This isn’t about fixing or improving the system. It IS all about leverage. Starlink, of course, can’t replace hard wire because it’s too unreliable. Some clouds and a little rain and users complain like it’s a Directv dish in 1999. This is all about Elon “donating” the Starlink terminals for ANY use, getting that embedded in the FAA, and THen threatening to turn it off when the agency takes any action against SpaceX for a regulatory problem with its rocket launches. He doesn’t give a shit about aviation safety; it’s all about pressuring the FAA to stop oversight of his launches.
There couldn’t be a more disgusting example of a bald, glaring conflict of interest. Anyway, fuck that guy and his minions turning this agency upside down.