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Excerpt: "Just iterate, baby" "I’ve spoken with plenty of the earliest engineers who worked at SpaceX, and almost all of them have noted that Musk tackles the

Excerpt: "Just iterate, baby" "I’ve spoken with plenty of the earliest engineers who worked at SpaceX, and almost all of them have noted that Musk tackles the hardest engineering problems first. For Mars, there will be so many logistical things to make it all work, from power on the surface to scratching out a living to adapting to its extreme climate. But Musk believes that the initial, hardest step is building a reusable, orbital Starship to get people and tons of stuff to Mars. So he is focused on that. He knows he won’t get Starship right at first. He employs some of the smartest engineers on this planet, and they’re still, in many ways, fumbling toward solutions for the extremely hard problem of getting a super-large vehicle out of Earth’s gravity well into orbit—then to land it and fly it again. Musk has come to believe the only way to realistically achieve this is through trial and error, by iterating closer and closer to the right design."

addisonl 7y ago
"Musk has come to believe the only way to realistically achieve this is through trial and error, by iterating closer and closer to the right design" This how everything is made. Revolutionary.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  You jest, but he actually does it. Executing the right idea is the value, not the idea. Everyone else is cush and doesn't want to rock the boat (SLS, legacy automaker leadership, etc). For those, innovation has no incentive. "Innovator's dilemma" [1] and all that jazz. Disclaimer: Not a huge Musk fan anymore, "world's least worst billionaire", but credit where credit due. I don't endorse sweat shops, but he has teached a cohort to yearn for the vast and endless sea. He is a salesperson first, and he is selling the dream. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
  - addisonl 7y ago
    Everyone does trial and error. Look at every major aviation achievement, were those done on the first try?
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      If so, why is everyone else so far behind?
      - addisonl 7y ago
        Depends on how you measure "behind". If you measure it by "times been to the moon" SpaceX sure is behind. Less money? Less motivation? Less talent? The number of factors that contribute to success are unmeasurable, what a silly question.
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Let's be objective: SpaceX has radically lowered the cost to get to Earth orbit, and commands a majority of the worldwide launch market. They are simply more efficient than other launch providers, so much so that they are branching out into global communications (StarLink) to capture more revenue (global comms is 10x the market size of the launch market). They don't need to go to the Moon to succeed. There is no market to get to the Moon unless nation states make one. Musk is building his own market for Mars logistics demand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition#Since_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competitio... > SpaceX's market share increased rapidly. In 2016, SpaceX had 30% global market share for newly awarded commercial launch contracts, in 2017 the market share reached 45%, and 65% in 2018. Tesla, according to the opinion of a single auto industry expert, has a 7 year head start against legacy automakers [1]. They sell every vehicle they build, and combined, legacy automakers have shed almost 40k jobs in the last year as they attempt to transition to building EVs to compete against Tesla. A reasonable person might conclude these metrics indicate an achievement of some level of success. [1] https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/27/auto-experts-tesla-has-7-year-head-start-over-legacy-automakers/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/27/auto-experts-tesla-has-...
- ajnin 7y ago
  No, not in aerospace. The common approach is to spend years designing, simulating, and then actual tests come at the very end, and sometimes you don't even test because you can't or it would be too expensive. That's what Boeing are doing with their own rockets; Mars missions until now didn't really go through an iterative process; satellites are usually manufactured only by one and they better work once in orbit.
  - addisonl 7y ago
    > years designing, simulating So trial and error, but virtually. You're telling me we went to the moon on the first try? We went into space on the first try? The Wright brothers were successful on their first flight? No, it was all trial and error.
    - Miraste 7y ago
      Simulation is not the same as trial and error. There's no such thing as a perfect simulation, and imperfect simulations without real world testing and iteration result in disasters. There are many examples, but the Mars probe that crashed because of a unit conversion error comes to mind.
      - addisonl 7y ago
        > Mars probe that crashed because of a unit conversion error comes So a trial and subsequent error.
        Miraste 7y ago
        You're not differentiating between an iterative design process, during which failures are expected, and a monolithic one where the end product is final. When Starships blow up, Musk can build new ones and try again. When the probe crashed, that was the end of the mission and there was no more Mars Climate Orbiter. It was a one-off. This is a common problem in spaceflight. The Webb Space Telescope is another example. If it eventually does launch and something goes wrong, we'll have paid >$10 billion for absolutely nothing. These aren't trial and error because the designs are never improved based on the errors. They're just scrapped. SpaceX works in a fundamentally different way.
amelius 7y ago
> for the extremely hard problem of getting a super-large vehicle out of Earth’s gravity well into orbit Why does it need to be super-large? To simulate gravity?
- AgloeDreams 7y ago
  Efficiencies of scale. Too small and you can't pack enough food for the trip or proper redundancies, still too small and you can't build the base fast enough, don't bring enough stuff on the trip and you need to make more trips..which are time limited due to the rendezvous. You end up inclined to 'as big as possible'
- Retric 7y ago
  People need to live in it. A 1 Kg probe can take some pictures, the tiny Apollo Lunar Module was 16,400Kg and only designed to support 2 people for 75 hours. Meanwhile Mars (3.72 m/s²) has significantly more gravity than the Moon (1.62 m/s²), making a trip back from the surface even more difficult.
- petewailes 7y ago
  Tonnage. If you're wanting to move 7/8 figure tonnage loads over a period of time, you're going to need a big trunk. In space vehicles, that means everything gets really, really big.
  - jcims 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_fraction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_fraction Launch vehicles tend to scale payload capacity at a greater rate than dry mass. So a small launch vehicle like RocketLab's Electron might have a wet mass of 12,000kg at launch and an LEO payload capacity of 225kg (225/12000 ~ 1.8% payload), the SpaceX Falcon9 has a wet mass of 550,000kg and an LEO payload capacity of 22,800kg (22800/550000 ~ 4.1% payload). This just tends to mean that, very generally and with exceptions, larger vehicles can get mass into space with less fuel.
    - SEJeff 7y ago
Tsarbomb 7y ago
Iteration is what originally gave the Soviets the advantage in the space race.
- BigBubbleButt 7y ago
  I always found the dichotomy of Soviet culture interesting - that engineers were the most pragmatic I've ever seen, and the politicians were just...fucking idiots. The best example being Korolev, possibly the greatest rocket designer in history (certainly up there with Von Braun and Xuesen, and in my opinion more impressive), who died because he was sent to the Gulags by a bitter politician (this is an incredibly short edit of the full story, but that is a factual statement). Korolev built working rockets the US said were theoretically impossible, and he did it because he couldn't afford to build the rockets the way the US were doing it. So he got resourceful. Had he not died in 1966, I suspect the Soviets would have beat the US to putting a man on the moon.
  - TuringNYC 7y ago
    >> I always found the dichotomy of Soviet culture interesting - that engineers were the most pragmatic I've ever seen, and the politicians were just...fucking idiots. I'm not familiar with that history, but I'm quite familiar with Corporate America. One thing I've seen is that when Engineering is great, it gives the company great momentum and allows the Management/"Business"/Strategy/etc functions to lag and get lazy. Good Engineering momentum essentially produces enough residual value for others to leech off from.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - mrkstu 7y ago
      Which may be an insight on how SpaceX/Tesla avoid some of those traditional business issues- the business is this case is a means to an engineering end, not a means to perpetuate the power/wealth/comfort of management.
    - 7y ago
floatrock 7y ago
The quote that explains why it's important to build one Starship a week: > “A high production rate solves many ills,” he said. “If you have a high production rate, you have a high iteration rate. For pretty much any technology whatsoever, the progress is a function of how many iterations do you have, and how much progress do you make between each iteration. If you have a high production rate then you have many iterations. You can make progress from one to the next.”
nohuhu 7y ago
This makes total sense to me. If you can solve the hardest problems, it is reasonable to expect that you can solve the rest as well. If you fail at solving the hardest problems, the system will not work anyway. The science, then, lies in identifying the hardest problems. The art lies in identifying people who can solve these problems.

addisonl 7y ago

"Musk has come to believe the only way to realistically achieve this is through trial and error, by iterating closer and closer to the right design" This how everything is made. Revolutionary.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
You jest, but he actually does it. Executing the right idea is the value, not the idea. Everyone else is cush and doesn't want to rock the boat (SLS, legacy automaker leadership, etc). For those, innovation has no incentive. "Innovator's dilemma" [1] and all that jazz. Disclaimer: Not a huge Musk fan anymore, "world's least worst billionaire", but credit where credit due. I don't endorse sweat shops, but he has teached a cohort to yearn for the vast and endless sea. He is a salesperson first, and he is selling the dream. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
- addisonl 7y ago
  Everyone does trial and error. Look at every major aviation achievement, were those done on the first try?
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    If so, why is everyone else so far behind?
    - addisonl 7y ago
      Depends on how you measure "behind". If you measure it by "times been to the moon" SpaceX sure is behind. Less money? Less motivation? Less talent? The number of factors that contribute to success are unmeasurable, what a silly question.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Let's be objective: SpaceX has radically lowered the cost to get to Earth orbit, and commands a majority of the worldwide launch market. They are simply more efficient than other launch providers, so much so that they are branching out into global communications (StarLink) to capture more revenue (global comms is 10x the market size of the launch market). They don't need to go to the Moon to succeed. There is no market to get to the Moon unless nation states make one. Musk is building his own market for Mars logistics demand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition#Since_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competitio... > SpaceX's market share increased rapidly. In 2016, SpaceX had 30% global market share for newly awarded commercial launch contracts, in 2017 the market share reached 45%, and 65% in 2018. Tesla, according to the opinion of a single auto industry expert, has a 7 year head start against legacy automakers [1]. They sell every vehicle they build, and combined, legacy automakers have shed almost 40k jobs in the last year as they attempt to transition to building EVs to compete against Tesla. A reasonable person might conclude these metrics indicate an achievement of some level of success. [1] https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/27/auto-experts-tesla-has-7-year-head-start-over-legacy-automakers/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/27/auto-experts-tesla-has-...
ajnin 7y ago
No, not in aerospace. The common approach is to spend years designing, simulating, and then actual tests come at the very end, and sometimes you don't even test because you can't or it would be too expensive. That's what Boeing are doing with their own rockets; Mars missions until now didn't really go through an iterative process; satellites are usually manufactured only by one and they better work once in orbit.
- addisonl 7y ago
  > years designing, simulating So trial and error, but virtually. You're telling me we went to the moon on the first try? We went into space on the first try? The Wright brothers were successful on their first flight? No, it was all trial and error.
  - Miraste 7y ago
    Simulation is not the same as trial and error. There's no such thing as a perfect simulation, and imperfect simulations without real world testing and iteration result in disasters. There are many examples, but the Mars probe that crashed because of a unit conversion error comes to mind.
    - addisonl 7y ago
      > Mars probe that crashed because of a unit conversion error comes So a trial and subsequent error.
      - Miraste 7y ago
        You're not differentiating between an iterative design process, during which failures are expected, and a monolithic one where the end product is final. When Starships blow up, Musk can build new ones and try again. When the probe crashed, that was the end of the mission and there was no more Mars Climate Orbiter. It was a one-off. This is a common problem in spaceflight. The Webb Space Telescope is another example. If it eventually does launch and something goes wrong, we'll have paid >$10 billion for absolutely nothing. These aren't trial and error because the designs are never improved based on the errors. They're just scrapped. SpaceX works in a fundamentally different way.

amelius 7y ago

> for the extremely hard problem of getting a super-large vehicle out of Earth’s gravity well into orbit Why does it need to be super-large? To simulate gravity?

AgloeDreams 7y ago
Efficiencies of scale. Too small and you can't pack enough food for the trip or proper redundancies, still too small and you can't build the base fast enough, don't bring enough stuff on the trip and you need to make more trips..which are time limited due to the rendezvous. You end up inclined to 'as big as possible'
Retric 7y ago
People need to live in it. A 1 Kg probe can take some pictures, the tiny Apollo Lunar Module was 16,400Kg and only designed to support 2 people for 75 hours. Meanwhile Mars (3.72 m/s²) has significantly more gravity than the Moon (1.62 m/s²), making a trip back from the surface even more difficult.
petewailes 7y ago
Tonnage. If you're wanting to move 7/8 figure tonnage loads over a period of time, you're going to need a big trunk. In space vehicles, that means everything gets really, really big.
- jcims 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_fraction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_fraction Launch vehicles tend to scale payload capacity at a greater rate than dry mass. So a small launch vehicle like RocketLab's Electron might have a wet mass of 12,000kg at launch and an LEO payload capacity of 225kg (225/12000 ~ 1.8% payload), the SpaceX Falcon9 has a wet mass of 550,000kg and an LEO payload capacity of 22,800kg (22800/550000 ~ 4.1% payload). This just tends to mean that, very generally and with exceptions, larger vehicles can get mass into space with less fuel.
  - SEJeff 7y ago

Tsarbomb 7y ago

Iteration is what originally gave the Soviets the advantage in the space race.

BigBubbleButt 7y ago
I always found the dichotomy of Soviet culture interesting - that engineers were the most pragmatic I've ever seen, and the politicians were just...fucking idiots. The best example being Korolev, possibly the greatest rocket designer in history (certainly up there with Von Braun and Xuesen, and in my opinion more impressive), who died because he was sent to the Gulags by a bitter politician (this is an incredibly short edit of the full story, but that is a factual statement). Korolev built working rockets the US said were theoretically impossible, and he did it because he couldn't afford to build the rockets the way the US were doing it. So he got resourceful. Had he not died in 1966, I suspect the Soviets would have beat the US to putting a man on the moon.
- TuringNYC 7y ago
  >> I always found the dichotomy of Soviet culture interesting - that engineers were the most pragmatic I've ever seen, and the politicians were just...fucking idiots. I'm not familiar with that history, but I'm quite familiar with Corporate America. One thing I've seen is that when Engineering is great, it gives the company great momentum and allows the Management/"Business"/Strategy/etc functions to lag and get lazy. Good Engineering momentum essentially produces enough residual value for others to leech off from.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mrkstu 7y ago
    Which may be an insight on how SpaceX/Tesla avoid some of those traditional business issues- the business is this case is a means to an engineering end, not a means to perpetuate the power/wealth/comfort of management.
  - 7y ago

floatrock 7y ago

The quote that explains why it's important to build one Starship a week: > “A high production rate solves many ills,” he said. “If you have a high production rate, you have a high iteration rate. For pretty much any technology whatsoever, the progress is a function of how many iterations do you have, and how much progress do you make between each iteration. If you have a high production rate then you have many iterations. You can make progress from one to the next.”

nohuhu 7y ago

This makes total sense to me. If you can solve the hardest problems, it is reasonable to expect that you can solve the rest as well. If you fail at solving the hardest problems, the system will not work anyway. The science, then, lies in identifying the hardest problems. The art lies in identifying people who can solve these problems.