4 ms·

These types of ultra long open-ended research projects with no driving commercial or defense need, or real-world short term deliverables are just the kind of pr

by zaroth 7y ago

These types of ultra long open-ended research projects with no driving commercial or defense need, or real-world short term deliverables are just the kind of project you can dump billions of dollars into and get roughly nothing back in return. At the Starship even a couple weeks ago Elon quipped when it comes to schedules, "Long is wrong, tight is right." The point is that humans respond well to aggressive but achievable goals with big payoff in the short-term. It focuses the effort on what is actually needed to achieve mission success. To put it more succinctly, necessity is the mother of innovation.

wallace_f 7y ago
Elon is also kind of like a dictator of his economic resources. NASA has thousands of stakeholders clamoring over getting a bigger slice of pie.
- isostatic 7y ago
  Musk is the most powerful man in history. Everyone else with the ability to wipe out cities has had some form of government controlling their actions or relied on armies to do the deed, and they couldn't do it anonymously. Musk can.
  - krapp 7y ago
    Elon Musk doesn't have the ability to wipe out cities anonymously. Even if he had the ability to wipe out cities, which he doesn't, by definition being the only private citizen capable of doing so would make the suspect list pretty short.
    - jandrese 7y ago
      I don't know, it seems like more of a Bezos move.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - zie 7y ago
    Well sure a couple F9's dropped on a city would cause some problems for sure. or maybe you are thinking launching a bunch of titanium rods and dropping them. Sure he could definitely DO that, but I don't think he could do it anonymously. Once Starship is up and running, his ability to cause destruction def. goes up, but he would have even less anonymity. Fans (and I'm sure govts) closely monitor all of SpaceX launches/development/etc. Also, once you got a bunch of rods or rockets or whatever you were going to drop, they don't exactly hide in space, they are pretty easily tracked, and publicly tracked even. Since they are backlogged with rocket orders, it would cost a LOT to do and lead to to economic decline, if not financial ruin of the SpaceX business. So could he do it? sure, easily? Not really, but certainly WAY easier than Bezos or anyone else. But anonymously? I really doubt it. Plus who else even has the single handed capabilities? The US Air Force, Russia, India and China. That's pretty much it. Bezos maybe in a few years.
Reedx 7y ago
Yeah, it helped when NASA had this: "We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win"
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  Yes, and the equivalent of 175 billion dollars per year (4% of federal budget times 4.4T$/y). I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that the money may have helped, too.
  - twh270 7y ago
    The money was necessary. But if it had been run like a typical government program, it would have been 25 years before we landed on the moon.
  - TrueDuality 7y ago
    That is not how inflationary comparisons work with government budgets. The entire documented cost of the Apollo program[1] was $25.4 billion over 11 years. Adjusted for 2018 dollars that's $153 billion over 11 years, which works out to just about $14 billion per year. The total expenditure in the 2018 United States budget was $4.109 trillion[2] or %0.34 of yearly expenditures. Budgets do not follow inflationary trends even remotely, the 1961 expenditure[3] was $181.588 billion (wow that's pretty crazy). For the year that makes the Apollo program %1.2 of the federal expenditure. Another useful point of reference, the entire NASA organization in 2018 had an operating budget of $19.2 billion and this has to cover all of the mandated projects such as the SLS. They're also responsible for maintaining and monitoring a lot of infrastructure for other agencies (the weather service, DSN, etc) which wasn't the case during the Apollo mission. NASA itself is kind of left with scraps. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_bud... [3]: https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_chart_1960_1970USb_20s2li011mcn_F0f https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_chart_1960_1970USb_...
jahlove 7y ago
they're also the kind of project that never gets followed-through to completion because a new administration has its own ideas for how to direct NASA.
papito 7y ago
I agree. Give me one year for a software project, and I will procrastinate. Give me 4 months, and I will get my shit together, I will be frugal with my time and resources. In the same fashion, I would get the same or MORE work done in less than an 8 hour work day, because I would just not have time to be on HackerNews. Smaller, achievable goals are more productive.

by zaroth 7y ago

wallace_f 7y ago

Elon is also kind of like a dictator of his economic resources. NASA has thousands of stakeholders clamoring over getting a bigger slice of pie.

isostatic 7y ago
Musk is the most powerful man in history. Everyone else with the ability to wipe out cities has had some form of government controlling their actions or relied on armies to do the deed, and they couldn't do it anonymously. Musk can.
- krapp 7y ago
  Elon Musk doesn't have the ability to wipe out cities anonymously. Even if he had the ability to wipe out cities, which he doesn't, by definition being the only private citizen capable of doing so would make the suspect list pretty short.
  - jandrese 7y ago
    I don't know, it seems like more of a Bezos move.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- zie 7y ago
  Well sure a couple F9's dropped on a city would cause some problems for sure. or maybe you are thinking launching a bunch of titanium rods and dropping them. Sure he could definitely DO that, but I don't think he could do it anonymously. Once Starship is up and running, his ability to cause destruction def. goes up, but he would have even less anonymity. Fans (and I'm sure govts) closely monitor all of SpaceX launches/development/etc. Also, once you got a bunch of rods or rockets or whatever you were going to drop, they don't exactly hide in space, they are pretty easily tracked, and publicly tracked even. Since they are backlogged with rocket orders, it would cost a LOT to do and lead to to economic decline, if not financial ruin of the SpaceX business. So could he do it? sure, easily? Not really, but certainly WAY easier than Bezos or anyone else. But anonymously? I really doubt it. Plus who else even has the single handed capabilities? The US Air Force, Russia, India and China. That's pretty much it. Bezos maybe in a few years.

Reedx 7y ago

Yeah, it helped when NASA had this: "We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win"

jjoonathan 7y ago
Yes, and the equivalent of 175 billion dollars per year (4% of federal budget times 4.4T$/y). I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that the money may have helped, too.
- twh270 7y ago
  The money was necessary. But if it had been run like a typical government program, it would have been 25 years before we landed on the moon.
- TrueDuality 7y ago
  That is not how inflationary comparisons work with government budgets. The entire documented cost of the Apollo program[1] was $25.4 billion over 11 years. Adjusted for 2018 dollars that's $153 billion over 11 years, which works out to just about $14 billion per year. The total expenditure in the 2018 United States budget was $4.109 trillion[2] or %0.34 of yearly expenditures. Budgets do not follow inflationary trends even remotely, the 1961 expenditure[3] was $181.588 billion (wow that's pretty crazy). For the year that makes the Apollo program %1.2 of the federal expenditure. Another useful point of reference, the entire NASA organization in 2018 had an operating budget of $19.2 billion and this has to cover all of the mandated projects such as the SLS. They're also responsible for maintaining and monitoring a lot of infrastructure for other agencies (the weather service, DSN, etc) which wasn't the case during the Apollo mission. NASA itself is kind of left with scraps. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_bud... [3]: https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_chart_1960_1970USb_20s2li011mcn_F0f https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_chart_1960_1970USb_...

jahlove 7y ago

they're also the kind of project that never gets followed-through to completion because a new administration has its own ideas for how to direct NASA.

papito 7y ago

I agree. Give me one year for a software project, and I will procrastinate. Give me 4 months, and I will get my shit together, I will be frugal with my time and resources. In the same fashion, I would get the same or MORE work done in less than an 8 hour work day, because I would just not have time to be on HackerNews. Smaller, achievable goals are more productive.