20 ms·

I guess the author forgot about the part where they developed rockets that are actually 10 years ahead of anyone else's.

by mk81 5y ago

hprotagonist 5y ago
I have long suspected that if he knows one thing, elon knows to keep his nose out of spaceX and just throw cash at it.
- simondotau 5y ago
  Elon spends nearly as much time at SpaceX as he does Tesla. There's no question that Elon mucks in at the lowest levels of engineering at SpaceX. If you want evidence from a reasonably neutral observer, take Sandy Munro (himself an engineer who has worked on everything from cars to aeroplanes). He recently interviewed Elon, ostensibly about Tesla but the interview was in a meeting room at SpaceX. After the interview he was invited to a two hour design review meeting and was "blown away" at Elon's depth of involvement. https://youtu.be/S1nc_chrNQk?t=370 https://youtu.be/S1nc_chrNQk?t=370 (6:10 to 8:45)
  - mcot2 5y ago
    Yes, I saw that interview and the follow up. He can talk very in-depth about the engineering of the cars as well but he is _Chief Engineer_ at SpaceX. I don’t think people quite understand this when they call him a businessman, promoter or marketing guru.
    - SuchAnonMuchWow 5y ago
      He is also _Techno-king_ at Tesla... I have no ideas about the depth of his technical knowledge at both companies, but the titles themselves don't hold much value when he gave them himself.
      - simondotau 5y ago
        It does hold a lot of value when it comes to the legal liability if/when things go wrong.
  - clouddrover 5y ago
    Tesla's own engineers say Musk is disconnected from reality when it comes to the engineering side: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/7/22424592/tesla-elon-musk-autopilot-dmv-fsd-exaggeration https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/7/22424592/tesla-elon-musk-a...
    - simondotau 5y ago
      I have no doubt that Elon brings zero expertise to the table with regards to machine learning and automation. That's certainly not his domain of expertise—which is more in the realm of science and physics. In this respect I'd imagine he's more akin to an overly excited tech geek who loves to obsess over the progress made by Andrej Karpathy and his team, but is otherwise leaving them alone to do their thing.
- tailspin2019 5y ago
  This is demonstrably not true https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/evidence_that_musk_is_the_chief_engineer_of_spacex/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...
- reasonabl_human 5y ago
  A friend of mine working down at Boca Chica on the starship says elon is there multiple times a week, and heavily involved. It’s well documented that he has been heavily involved at the engineering level in the past so I don’t see why he’d step back now.
- nickik 5y ago
  That people still make this asinine argument shows that it has nothing to do with evidence and everything to do with people not liking the person and not wanting to give him credit because they don't like him.
- inawarminister 5y ago
  That... Sounds more like Bezos and Blue Origin to me, from what I've heard. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-bezos-idUSKBN1772ZQ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-bezos-idUSKBN1772ZQ
skrebbel 5y ago
You don't raise funds for such a risky endeavour without a fantastic narrative. I don't think they're doubting that Musk is also capable of building a company that actually achieves results. Everybody knows this by now. I think the key argument is that he's also a master promoter and that that skill is underappreciated compared to the engineering angle. The way I read the article, it's suggesting that if you start by to coming up with the best possible VC pitch for a moonshot business, and let everything follow from that, you'd get pretty close to Musk's approach.
vertnerd 5y ago
Elon is able to develop these things because he is using his own money. In the US at least, Congress, the media, and the public would never allow NASA to use public money to blow up a series of rockets in pursuit of a working design. The recent test flights of Starship prototypes is a good example. No one knew for sure when Spacex would have the belly flop maneuver mastered, but as long as no one gets hurt and he spends his own money, no one cares. Next they have to master successful launch into space, successful booster recovery, successful orbital rendezvous and docking, successful lunar landing, successful long-term life support, and successful high speed atmospheric reentry. All of these are very daunting technical challenges for a totally new spacecraft. When will the money run out?
- swsieber 5y ago
  > When will the money run out? It won't? They've secured a pretty good revenue stream with their satellite launch business + Starlink.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Which was the whole point of their satellite launch business and of Starlink, as outlined by Elon Musk years before SpaceX first landed a rocket. This is what angers me about articles like this. Yes, SpaceX attracted lots of interest because of its ambitious mission statement. No, that mission statement wasn't a bunch of empty statements like it typically is for most businesses. SpaceX is consistently following the path it outlined, the path from reusability, through launch business, pouring all the money into R&D for the ultimate goal of opening up access to Mars. I would've thought that after so many years, the skeptics would figure out the company is serious about it.
- Terretta 5y ago
  > Elon is able to develop these things because he is using his own money Though an alternate narrative is he arguably used public money through government credits: These opportunities to leverage government programs, some designed for people much further down the income ladder, have driven Musk throughout his career: The megabillionaire built his companies on the backs of enormous government subsidies, tax breaks, and exclusive contracts. A 2015 Los Angeles Times investigation estimated that Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX had together benefited from “$4.9 billion in government support.” https://newrepublic.com/article/160500/elon-musks-big-government-grift https://newrepublic.com/article/160500/elon-musks-big-govern... // Note: Consider sources

I guess the author forgot about the part where they developed rockets that are actually 10 years ahead of anyone else's.

by mk81 5y ago

I guess the author forgot about the part where they developed rockets that are actually 10 years ahead of anyone else's.

hprotagonist 5y ago

I have long suspected that if he knows one thing, elon knows to keep his nose out of spaceX and just throw cash at it.

simondotau 5y ago
Elon spends nearly as much time at SpaceX as he does Tesla. There's no question that Elon mucks in at the lowest levels of engineering at SpaceX. If you want evidence from a reasonably neutral observer, take Sandy Munro (himself an engineer who has worked on everything from cars to aeroplanes). He recently interviewed Elon, ostensibly about Tesla but the interview was in a meeting room at SpaceX. After the interview he was invited to a two hour design review meeting and was "blown away" at Elon's depth of involvement. https://youtu.be/S1nc_chrNQk?t=370 https://youtu.be/S1nc_chrNQk?t=370 (6:10 to 8:45)
- mcot2 5y ago
  Yes, I saw that interview and the follow up. He can talk very in-depth about the engineering of the cars as well but he is _Chief Engineer_ at SpaceX. I don’t think people quite understand this when they call him a businessman, promoter or marketing guru.
  - SuchAnonMuchWow 5y ago
    He is also _Techno-king_ at Tesla... I have no ideas about the depth of his technical knowledge at both companies, but the titles themselves don't hold much value when he gave them himself.
    - simondotau 5y ago
      It does hold a lot of value when it comes to the legal liability if/when things go wrong.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  Tesla's own engineers say Musk is disconnected from reality when it comes to the engineering side: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/7/22424592/tesla-elon-musk-autopilot-dmv-fsd-exaggeration https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/7/22424592/tesla-elon-musk-a...
  - simondotau 5y ago
    I have no doubt that Elon brings zero expertise to the table with regards to machine learning and automation. That's certainly not his domain of expertise—which is more in the realm of science and physics. In this respect I'd imagine he's more akin to an overly excited tech geek who loves to obsess over the progress made by Andrej Karpathy and his team, but is otherwise leaving them alone to do their thing.
tailspin2019 5y ago
This is demonstrably not true https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/evidence_that_musk_is_the_chief_engineer_of_spacex/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...
reasonabl_human 5y ago
A friend of mine working down at Boca Chica on the starship says elon is there multiple times a week, and heavily involved. It’s well documented that he has been heavily involved at the engineering level in the past so I don’t see why he’d step back now.
nickik 5y ago
That people still make this asinine argument shows that it has nothing to do with evidence and everything to do with people not liking the person and not wanting to give him credit because they don't like him.
inawarminister 5y ago
That... Sounds more like Bezos and Blue Origin to me, from what I've heard. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-bezos-idUSKBN1772ZQ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-bezos-idUSKBN1772ZQ

skrebbel 5y ago

You don't raise funds for such a risky endeavour without a fantastic narrative. I don't think they're doubting that Musk is also capable of building a company that actually achieves results. Everybody knows this by now. I think the key argument is that he's also a master promoter and that that skill is underappreciated compared to the engineering angle. The way I read the article, it's suggesting that if you start by to coming up with the best possible VC pitch for a moonshot business, and let everything follow from that, you'd get pretty close to Musk's approach.

vertnerd 5y ago

Elon is able to develop these things because he is using his own money. In the US at least, Congress, the media, and the public would never allow NASA to use public money to blow up a series of rockets in pursuit of a working design. The recent test flights of Starship prototypes is a good example. No one knew for sure when Spacex would have the belly flop maneuver mastered, but as long as no one gets hurt and he spends his own money, no one cares. Next they have to master successful launch into space, successful booster recovery, successful orbital rendezvous and docking, successful lunar landing, successful long-term life support, and successful high speed atmospheric reentry. All of these are very daunting technical challenges for a totally new spacecraft. When will the money run out?

swsieber 5y ago
> When will the money run out? It won't? They've secured a pretty good revenue stream with their satellite launch business + Starlink.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Which was the whole point of their satellite launch business and of Starlink, as outlined by Elon Musk years before SpaceX first landed a rocket. This is what angers me about articles like this. Yes, SpaceX attracted lots of interest because of its ambitious mission statement. No, that mission statement wasn't a bunch of empty statements like it typically is for most businesses. SpaceX is consistently following the path it outlined, the path from reusability, through launch business, pouring all the money into R&D for the ultimate goal of opening up access to Mars. I would've thought that after so many years, the skeptics would figure out the company is serious about it.
Terretta 5y ago
> Elon is able to develop these things because he is using his own money Though an alternate narrative is he arguably used public money through government credits: These opportunities to leverage government programs, some designed for people much further down the income ladder, have driven Musk throughout his career: The megabillionaire built his companies on the backs of enormous government subsidies, tax breaks, and exclusive contracts. A 2015 Los Angeles Times investigation estimated that Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX had together benefited from “$4.9 billion in government support.” https://newrepublic.com/article/160500/elon-musks-big-government-grift https://newrepublic.com/article/160500/elon-musks-big-govern... // Note: Consider sources