The CIA invested millions into a rocket startup building a fully reusable rocket
https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/19/stoke-space-cias-venture-arm
They recently flew the second stage and raised another $100 million
https://www.space.com/stoke-space-hopper2-test-flight-photos
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/10/05/reusable-rocket-startup-stoke-space-raises-100-million.html
What military/reconnaissance purposes would this vehicle serve? How could the CIA utilize a reusable launch vehicle?
my anus after hot wing wednesday
>How could the CIA utilize a reusable launch vehicle?
This is the wrong question. The real question is how much money will the CIA insiders who own pieces of the company make if/when it goes public?
They did with all of the other big tech startups they funded.
You already need to be a millionaire to legally invest in private pre public corporations as a certified investor. That's literally the requirement and that's liquid not assets.
T. Not poor
>What military/reconnaissance purposes would this vehicle serve?
Spy sat launches that aren't done by a civilian company owned by egotists of no ethics, loyal only to their own ego and addictions and who would fail any background check you ever did of them.
>How could the CIA utilize a reusable launch vehicle?
Wrong question.
The question is, how fucking high were the CIA bros who were like:
>dude
>*rips bong*
>dude
>what if we like had space x but it was a CIA shell company instead?
Seems like diversification to me, not reliant on single unreliable actors, and with multiple launch providers it's easier to do clandestine shit as launches become more and more routine making it harder to establish a pattern on what are spy sats and what are not. Nevermind when we get 'deniable' satellites where officials atleast pretend to not know who put those up there.
>Seems like diversification to me, not reliant on single unreliable actors, and with multiple launch providers it's easier to do clandestine shit
Sure, all of that is true.
But Elon playing games with Ukraine's counter-attack on Crimea is a huge red flag and why the fuck wouldn't you want to bring those capabilities under government control?
It can be a civilian company so long as the government owns the shares and appoints the board.
There's a question as to why the fuck the CIA is funding it instead of better suited organisations but I guess they have a freer hand with their budget or something.
>But Elon playing games with Ukraine's counter-attack on Crimea is a huge red flag and why the fuck wouldn't you want to bring those capabilities under government control?
It can be a civilian company so long as the government owns the shares and appoints the board.
>What is Star shield
>oh wait Bidden dont want to pay Elon, gibbse me dat for free!
That wasn't what made Elon Public Enemy #1; it was his opposition to government censorship that led to his impulsive purchase of Twitter. You can see the result: StarShip has been stalled by every agency under the sky (now it's Fish and Wildlife taking a turn!), and is unlikely to fly again this year, if ever.
>it was his opposition to government censorship that led to his impulsive purchase of Twitter
Nonsense, that was commercial censorship because platforms lose audience when that audience sees the platform is full of misinformation, wannabe-nazis and generally assholes. It's no different to being kicked out of a bar for being an asshole which is what would happen if you did anything in a bar IRL that trolls, fanatics, propagandists and assholes do all the time online (like here).
I agree that the censorship was the reason for his impulsive purchase but it had nothing to do with the government and everything to do with corporations not liking the risk that assholes cause to their non-asshole audience (which is always much larger).
Elon has always operated fast & loose with regulations, laws, public decency and anything else that felt like it was slowing him down, eventually all that shit catches up with you and people start enforcing rules you were sneering at, a conga-line forms of everyone you stepped on, pissed off or brushed aside and they get to have their vengeance if its petty or justice if not but either way, the chickens come home to roost.
Elon thought he could fuck around with geopolitics because he's rich, I assume Washington isn't cool with this and maybe there is a general open-season on him to try and bring him back to the herd or at least slow him down until he can be replaced.
tl:dr; he's a scofflaw and it's catching up to him
>Nonsense
Shitlib detected. It's like you miss that after purchase Elon unmasked internals of the Twitter. With dozens of contractors who are former glowies anf FBI who literally pointed out who to ban. (But really you can't be "former" glowie).
It's government censorship wearing sheep skin of private corporation.
>heh, sorry nazi's, twitter is commercial, like a bar, dont wanna be kicked out? follow the rules
>NOOOOOO ELON MUSK STOP CHANGING THE RULES THIS IS UNDEMOCRATIC NOOOOOOOOO
lol, lmao.
it's still a shithole, i have no reason to use it, but it's absolutely hilarious how hypocritical the people spouting the "it's a company they can do what they want" argument before it was bought by a weed-addled autist.
Elon didn’t even want to purchase twitter.
He’s suing the his own lawyers who set up the deal and doesn’t even own a majority share of it.
He hasn’t played fast and loose with geopolitics at all.
He had Starlink disabled over Crimea and Ukraine wanted it enabled for an op, but he was like “no I need some head of state to rubber stamp that.”
Then his response got leaked and the liberal media ran a bunch of hit pieces.
Biden fucking with starship more has to do with the UAW racketeering a little through his admin than twitter.
Pretty funny though as Gavin Newsom just went over to China to fondle BYD’s balls because Elon is blacklisting his state.
I wonder what the UAW sees in all these neo-libs, because I don’t see much.
>Nevermind when we get 'deniable' satellites where officials atleast pretend to not know who put those up there.
It's too easy to track launches. The 'deniable' spy/mil sat of the future is a dual-use one.
^This
>what if we like had space x but it was a CIA shell company instead?
Uh, you mean like In-Q-Tel (the same CIA commercial seed money company) did with SpaceX? Mike Griffin was president of In-Q-Tel when he met Musk, and later became the Administrator of NASA, where he gave Musk and SpaceX $200mil+ contracts to resupply space, when Musk didn't even have a rocket yet, and the Falcon 1 was a POS. SpaceX IS CIA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin
>SpaceX IS CIA
The CIA isn't cooties, you don't become CIA because you got some on you once.
There is absolutely such a thing as ex-glowie, if you're in the private sector making money then money is probably your priority, not national interest, though they're usually not mutually exclusive and if you joined the CIA in the first place then you're probably going to do them a solid if they call because you presumably agree with their purpose.
Certainly, the transition between corporate executive and government official is something of a revolving door at a certain altitude but it doesn't mean that every company with a former CIA official on their board is a front operation, they can be there because intelligence analysts and strategists can make good board members who can predict government and societal trends and notice corporate mismanagement before it hurts investors.
>hypocritical
Nothing hypocritical about thinking he made it shit (ok, even shittier than it already was, you can have that one).
Boycotts and advertiser blowback is how an audience holds a platform to account, le nazis could do the same thing before too but at the scale of society, the alt-right is a smallish group of not very wealthy contrarians infected by brainworms and are a deeply undesirable audience to target because they are mutually exclusive with every valuable audience, they are too schizoid to genuinely ally with (or even want to) and they inevitably turn on and alienate everybody who thinks they can exploit them.
Your post is nonsensical ravings, take it leave
>There is absolutely such a thing as ex-glowie
Go back to /int/, PrepHole, and leftypol you troglodyte.
except that's horseshit, because all of these companies were perfectly commercially viable before they started the crackdown on "le nazis" which turns out to be anyone that uses any slur whatsoever.
i don't like /misc/, you're a polarized retard that thinks anyone that doesn't like their words filtered in an online space is an alt-right extremist, which is just the oldest strawman in the book.
i mean the very idea that twitter's previous policies only excluded extremists who don't mesh with everyone else is hilarious, seeing as how twitter was rapidly losing users long before elon bought the platform, did all of those people leave because of "alt-right nazi's" or because it was impossible to have any discussion of any kind owing to the extremely restrictive ruleset which heavily favoured one side of the political spectrum.
you can call me a /misc/tard if it makes you feel better though, your propensity for insane characterization of others would make you feel at home there.
>you can call me a /misc/tard if it makes you feel better though
You're a /misc/tard
The rest of your post is just bullshit, persecution complex passed off as accepted fact.
>Elon didn’t even want to purchase twitter.
>He’s suing the his own lawyers who set up the deal and doesn’t even own a majority share of it.
Well that too, it's a result of him being impulsive. He thought he could bully them with some sort of stock manipulation and short-squeeze or something and got called on it. It's sort of the same thing though, it was his impulsiveness and him thinking stock market manipulation just made him one of the cool, edgy bois who can get away with breaking laws and contracts.
You're still just throwing out unsubstantiated accusations which sound more and more like glavset talking points. I assume you got these out of some discord echo-chamber where the vatniks seed their talking points for contrarians like you.
>That wild pivot to calling me a vatnik
Charming, but no.
I will agree on his stock manipulation habits and that they were, are bad.
But that doesn’t really disprove what I said.
Elon is a hothead, but I don’t think he’s politically loyal to anyone.
Him publishing the twitter files was more because he was mad at being forced to buy it rather than ideology.
But by being a hothead, he’s still useful because as he butts up his head, he exposes a little more of the political machine, in a pretty obvious way.
And that’s what’s important about him.
still haven't visited /misc/ mr. schizo, but you're free to believe whatever you want if it makes you feel less emotionally unbalanced. (just FYI this behaviour totally doesn't make you look like a newfag)
this is exactly the kind of hypocritical i was talking about btw, you don't actually know what my political opinions are, yet you're already fantasizing about what i'm supposed to be based on the fact that i disagree with you on an issue, why are you so fragile?
>I'm totally not a /misc/tard nsays the /misc/tard posting nonstop /misc/tard brainworms
>no YOU'RE the schizo
t. schizo
>nooo YOU'RE /misc/ YOU'RE /misc/
>MY ARGUMENT DOESNT WORK UNLESS YOU'RE A /misc/ SCHIZO THAT I CAN EASILY DISMISS PLEASE BELIEVE ME
lol, lmao. you sound desperate. i don't usually say this but you really do sound like a reddit transplant that thinks he fits in. not sure if you actually are, just saying that's the effect your whiny strawmanning gives off.
your speech will be censored by someone more progressive than you.
yeah but his response will just be THANK YOU MASTER, his type will adjust their beliefs to suit whichever boot that happens to be on their neck
>Boycotts and advertiser blowback is how an audience holds a platform to account
Lmao, no.
That’s how the 1% hold a platform to account.
>Le nazis could do the same.
Kek, you’re fucking clueless.
SpaceX also started with money from InQTel. Elon's trip to Russia to buy ICBMs for space launch started on that basis. It's likely the CIA doesn't want SpaceX to be the only game in town.
Yes this is the reason for this.
Falcon 9 would be enough to create a monopoly in the launch market, with starship it would be almost unavoidable.
Right now Stoke seems like the only company that is going straight for a fully re-usable system, all of the others seem to be trying to compete with the falcon 9 using partially reusable systems.
Interesting config on teh second stage.
30 small rockets without gimbals mounted around heat shield. Trust vectoring is done via engines throttling
Actually more simple than and reliable than Starship. Flip flop maneuvers of the Starship bring complexity and dangers of fuel resetting in tanks and all kinda of possible internal damage because of rotational and side G loads.
the cool part is the regeneratively cooled heat shield and the fact that it basically turns into a toroidal aerospike
I always thought with Stoke it would have been a much better idea to turn an aerospike cone into a heatshield instead of a heatshield into a sort-of aerospike. Is it because a cone shape would have made it flip upside down on reentry? The efficiency of that upper stage is going to be pretty abysmal
The blunt shape is better for re-entry.
Also the heat shield is slightly angled so it can steer aerodynamically by rolling. Apollo kinda did the same thing but with an offset center of mass instead.
Cone or any "spike" is bad shape from thermal loads point of view during re-entry. Any protruding part would get order of magnitude higher thermal loads than other parts, difficult to cool.
Also blunt shape has larger drag coefficient than spike things and generally you want larger drag coefficient or you have danger that your drag isn't enough to decelerate enough during single re-entry.
reentry requires a blunt surface to create a proper bow wave for the rest of the craft to hide behind. a pointed, more aerodynamic shape would have compressed superheated plasma directly touching the non-heatshield parts of your ship, .
Looking at that image, my mind immediately goes to snatching other people's satellites and then bringing them back to the States for inspection.
>snatching other people's satellites
It does have kind of a moonraker vibe to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qixtjMoMUA
Funny you post that, I actually did have You Only Live Twice in the back of my mind when I made the original post. Been a while since I've seen it, so I couldn't remember if Spectre was snatching capsules, or redirecting rockets to land at their base.
The Connery era was the best of Bond.
>I actually did have You Only Live Twice in the back of my mind when I made the original post
I was fixated on the hijacking of the space shuttle in Moonraker, I only just now noticed that it's You Only Live Twice that I posted.
I kinda figured you were, since your post mentions Moonraker, but didn't wanna call you out on it.
>1:20
>that rcs spin with acceleration right in the uncanny valley
>the solidified "monoprop" flakes dancing in _air_
It's always cool to rewatch scenes from old space movies that earnestly tried to be realistic.
They used anti grav for atmospheric flight and teleport for interplanetary and interstellar flights.
>a rotating annular aerospike engine
I knew it had an annular aerospike, but I didn't know it also spins.
I guess the designer really loved his spinny things.
>it's duh CIA!
it's the NRO, retard. are you a cat? no? then stop sniffing at the finger and look what it's pointed at.
>Checks usually range from $250,000 to $3 million, the firm says on its website. An In-Q-Tel spokesperson confirmed all of its investments in Stoke are within that window.
Literally nothing in space terms. Almost worthless.
I like stoke though they’re cool, even if their only goal is to make a demonstrator and be bought out
Stop making these gay /Sfg/-/k/ cross threads, you’re clearly a moron when it comes to both spaceflight and defense technologies
No.
>a thread with cia in op
>it's full of schizos screaming at each other
>any ontopic discussion drowns under them
>>a thread
>>it's full of schizos screaming at each other
>>any ontopic discussion drowns under them
This is literally every single thread on this website, newfag