It’s not just helicopters. Commercial satellite imaging is good enough to detect mold and askew shingles (usually more through running the image over multiple angles and finding reflectance differences)
I worked for a company that does large scale construction updates based on SAR and Maxtor reflectance data, it’s pretty terrifying how accurate it is.
Best part of this is that they just won the contract for launch services even though they still haven’t proven the thing can fly without blowing up yet.
SpaceX is still hitting the milestones on their NASA contracts
SpaceX has missed every single HLS milestone and is the primary reason the Artemis program is delayed:
By definition, this is not a bailout or waste of taxpayer money, as it was fairly competed on the open market, and approved by the congresspeople who were voted in by the public.
SpaceX famously hired William Gerstenmaier and Kathy Luedens right after they awarded them billions for the falcon and crew capsule. They barely skated by the government’s “revolving door” conflict of interest regulations because SpaceX put them on “unrelated” projects.
The contract awarded to SpaceX and Starlink under the Trump FCC was rescinded after Biden’s FCC decided that they weren’t meeting the requirements of the contract.
Now SpaceX is awash in newly minted federal contracts from Trump’s new federal agencies and Musk’s “special employee” status.
SpaceX’s funding has never been “approved by congress” outside of some confirmed cabinet positions, nor has it ever been what one could call completely “fair.”
I have also been done in many times by git-filter-repo. My condolences to the chef.