Could he have tried? Yes he could have tried. Again, not saying he had to, but he did set a precedent with the Thailand cave rescue that he's not only after sha

Could he have tried? Yes he could have tried. Again, not saying he had to, but he did set a precedent with the Thailand cave rescue that he's not only after shareholder and company interest directly. An iron lung is a metal tube and some rubber seals, it's a hair's breadth from what SpaceX makes already. They were built in the 1800s. How hard can it be to pump air in and out of a tube for a few weeks? The difference is that Musk is a billionaire and could waste $1M a thousand times over, and barely move the needle on his net worth, and I couldn't. I reject your suggestion that Musk trying to build some air pumps and failing might leave him homeless and unable to provide for his family and leave Tesla/SpaceX in tatters. > how long would it take to retool and retrain whatever resources are needed to be able to do that and actually start producing something? Tesla crowed about building an "entire new general assembly line" in 3 weeks with "minimal resources" when they started building cars in a tent in 2018: https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/22/17488372/tesla-model-3-production-tent-expand https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/22/17488372/tesla-model-3-pr... Let's imagine that making ventilators is simpler than cars, so how about ... i dunno .. 2 weeks? > At some level I don't think asking Musk or Tesla/SapceX to do this is really any different to .. To .. the UK government asking carmakers (and other companies) to investigate whether they could produce ventilators? Because they have done that - Ford, JCB, Rolls Royce, are "looking into it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51914490 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51914490 A producer of ventilators says, in that article, "they can't they can't, woe, woe" which is what the space industry used to say about SpaceX, and the car industry about decent electric cars. ""The idea that an engineering company can quickly manufacturer medical devices, and comply with the rules, is unrealistic because of the heavy burden of standards and regulations that need to be complied with," said Penlon's Mr Thompson." - a) change the rules for an emergency situation, b) instead of making positive pressure ventilators which have to force clean air into a patient's face with all kinds of sterility problems, make negative pressure ones which the patient is inside and not otherwise touching or breathing air out of, lowering the risk of infection and other complications. > If it's a 5% increase in CPAP machines 6 months from now, how helpful is that? Good question. Who knows? The company in the above link makes 750 ventilators annually, so a 5% increase in those would be making 37 machines. Imagine if a billionaire made 37 machines and didn't save anyone. What folly. Everyone would laugh!(?) Have you seen any suggestions that COVID-19 will be done and dusted, worldwide, in 6 months? Can't think that I have.