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This. I don’t understand why people give these companies credit for being able to solve problems when they straight up ignored industry experience. It’s like..

This. I don’t understand why people give these companies credit for being able to solve problems when they straight up ignored industry experience. It’s like.. hey guys, the rest of the world has been designing satellite dishes for 40 years that addressed these problems including very low cost stuff from the satellite TV era. Why didn’t SpaceX learn from the rest of the industry instead of having to rediscover it?

solarkraft 5y ago
> Why didn’t SpaceX learn from the rest of the industry instead of having to rediscover it? Elon Musk famously works by „first principles“, which can indeed be roughly translated to „discover everything yourself“. The advantage is that it gives a clean slate for approaches considered impractical when the books were written.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > The advantage is that it gives a clean slate for approaches considered impractical when the books were written. I'm not sure when that has ever worked out like that though. SpaceX built on a lot of existing aerospace knowledge. Tesla went through a lot of manufacturing hell trying to automate what turned out to be pretty unautomatable parts of manufacturing a car. As far as I know, whatever you think of the EV, the car manufacturing process Tesla has isn't uniquely good.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    I guess Musk still wanted to find out anyways. His goal isn't merely building cars the simplest way possible. The guy is an educated physicist, he knows how stuff is usually done.
    - foobiekr 5y ago
      He has a BS in physics and never worked in the field a day in his life. No one would call someone with merely a BS a “well educated physicist.” This kind of thinking is cult-like attestations of faith.
rini17 5y ago
To give them some benefit of doubt, all the industry experience is with geostationary sats. There is AFAIK little experience with tracking multiple quickly moving satellites using one antenna array.

solarkraft 5y ago

> Why didn’t SpaceX learn from the rest of the industry instead of having to rediscover it? Elon Musk famously works by „first principles“, which can indeed be roughly translated to „discover everything yourself“. The advantage is that it gives a clean slate for approaches considered impractical when the books were written.

HWR_14 5y ago
> The advantage is that it gives a clean slate for approaches considered impractical when the books were written. I'm not sure when that has ever worked out like that though. SpaceX built on a lot of existing aerospace knowledge. Tesla went through a lot of manufacturing hell trying to automate what turned out to be pretty unautomatable parts of manufacturing a car. As far as I know, whatever you think of the EV, the car manufacturing process Tesla has isn't uniquely good.
- emteycz 5y ago
  I guess Musk still wanted to find out anyways. His goal isn't merely building cars the simplest way possible. The guy is an educated physicist, he knows how stuff is usually done.
  - foobiekr 5y ago
    He has a BS in physics and never worked in the field a day in his life. No one would call someone with merely a BS a “well educated physicist.” This kind of thinking is cult-like attestations of faith.

rini17 5y ago

To give them some benefit of doubt, all the industry experience is with geostationary sats. There is AFAIK little experience with tracking multiple quickly moving satellites using one antenna array.