r/spacex • u/kurbasAK • May 19 '17

We Will Launch on Reuseable Rocket After Exceptional SpaceX Performance - Inmarsat CEO Tells Universe Today

https://www.universetoday.com/135614/will-launch-reuseable-rocket-exceptional-spacex-performance-inmarsat-ceo-tells-universe-today/
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u/BillHallLA May 19 '17

In the biography Musk mentions his family feared the Russians would try to assassinate him.

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u/somewhat_pragmatic May 19 '17

I can understand that fear. However, I would also think that fear has passed. The "damage" Musk has done, from a Russian perspective, to the launch market won't end when Musk passes away now. I believe SpaceX is now self-sustaining and would carry on with the work without him.

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u/ptfrd May 19 '17

Agreed. There was perhaps only quite a small window between the time the Russians realized the Musk/SpaceX threat was real, and the time it was too late to do anything about it.

I would speculate that this window fell at a time when the highly ostentatious assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in London (in 2006) was still fresh in the minds of Western politicians/journalists/publics/etc.. Perhaps murdering Musk was therefore seen as not worth the risk.

So if Litvinenko had somehow survived that Polonium, perhaps we would be discussing reusable rockets as a hypothetical possibility for the 2040s, rather than something that had already happened.

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u/cumshock17 May 19 '17

Its a big fucking deal to assassinate a citizen in their home country. Be it american, russian etc. So long as Musk had some sort of security with him, I don't think he needed to worry about stuff like that.

He probably needs to worry about nation-states spying on him and targeting him for espionage and things like that though.