10 ms·
Only in America things like this can happen. A whole industry bootstrapping itself to make semi-conductors doubling every 18 months, going from exotic, mission
by 908B64B197 5y ago
Only in America things like this can happen.
A whole industry bootstrapping itself to make semi-conductors doubling every 18 months, going from exotic, mission critical hardware to commodity; SpaceX is doing the same thing with flight hardware. Contrast that with previous generation engines (the RS-25 comes to mind) with a sticker price of 125 millions... per engine! [0]
[0] https://spacenews.com/aerojet-rocketdyne-defends-sls-engine-contract-costs/ https://spacenews.com/aerojet-rocketdyne-defends-sls-engine-...
- tablespoon 5y ago>> Only in America things like this can happen. > Semi-Conductor doubling every 18 months IIRC, the recent doublings have been happening in Taiwan. That's why people make such a big deal about TMSC. America (i.e. Intel) actually has some catching up to do.
- cma 5y agoEUV LLC. that their current nodes are based on was started in America through DARPA, DoE, and a US industry consortium. That's why we are still allowed to enforce export restrictions on EUV tech via ASML, even though it is European.
- tablespoon 5y agoMaybe so, but Intel hasn't been able to make it work yet, unlike TMSC.
- piercebot 5y agoWhat is it about America (or other countries) that makes you think this couldn't happen anywhere else?
- foxyv 5y agoPersonally, I think it has a lot to do with American sub-culture, the US dollar, our crazy university system, and immigration. This is speculation on my part so take it with a BIG grain of salt. The USA brings in 50 million or so people from other countries. Often they are bloody minded, stone cold, hard workers that will sacrifice everything to give their children the opportunity to be Americans. These people are some of the best in the world in my opinion. The US dollar being used as a reserve currency for most of the world means that it is the center of international investment. This means that the billions of dollars that flowed into PayPal and Elon Musk's startups probably came in large part from foreign investment funds. Our universities crank out some of the weirdest and least conventional engineers you can imagine. Most of them are half-crazy in the first place. The archetype of Mad Scientist can be found in physics departments and engineering labs all over the country. Conformity is often seen as a kind of perversity. We idolize professors like Feynman and read novels like Ignition! This is why you see bridges collapsing and power grids failing while we build some of the most advanced technology in the world. We hate boring maintenance and love to launches cars into space. Finally in no small part is American sub-culture. Specifically the science fantasy of space travel and colonization that is in the heart of a lot of American engineers and scientists. The same fantasy that captured the heart of Elon Musk, a billionaire South African immigrant who made his fortune in Silicon Valley. In addition there is the added fact that few other countries would allow some random small company to build ICBMs in their metaphorical backyard. The USA is kinda loose like that...
- e40 5y ago> The USA brings in 50 million or so people from other countries. Often they are bloody minded, stone cold, hard workers that will sacrifice everything to give their children the opportunity to be Americans. These people are some of the best in the world in my opinion. Over the last 40 years I've known and worked with some of these people, and I marvel at their tenacity and the sheer force of will they have to succeed. It just blows me away. Sadly, it seems to disappear from the next generation. I'll admit that I have a small sample size.
- asadlionpk 5y agoTough times make tough people. But their next generation is usually soft sadly.
- systemvoltage 5y agoMeanwhile here in Oakland, this is what Mathematics teaching looks like in schools [PDF]: https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11... These people are actively undermining the American spirit - I am saying this as an immigrant to USA and a person of color. I am fine with understanding racism in USA, it is completely unacceptable to inject this into STEM education. The next generation is going to grow up learning more about race at the expense of learning mathematics. This isn't just my opinion - professors from UC Berkeley/Stanford and many major universities have written an open letter to the California Governor: https://www.independent.org/news/news_detail.asp?newsid=2287 https://www.independent.org/news/news_detail.asp?newsid=2287 Apparently, the message was clear and the California government is pausing this initiative: https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/yr21/agenda202107.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/yr21/agenda202107.asp
- rpmisms 5y agoThere was also a recent incident in Virginia: (Virginia Drops Advanced Math)[https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/virginia-to-drop-advanced-math-courses-before-11th-grade-citing-equity/ar-BB1fZe9y https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/virginia-to-drop-adv...] This disgusts me. Some kids are stupid (Apologies for blunt language, but it's true, life is unfair.) or have poor home lives, so let's remove education that can help them have better lives because some of the struggling kids are black. Counterintuitive, oversensitive, and directly hindering Dragging everyone down because some diversity quotas aren't met is awful. Unless there's clear evidence that teaching advanced math directly contributes to racism, teach it, make it harder. Make our kids work and succeed and fail again.
- narrator 5y agoOne problem with other countries is there is an industrial oligarchy that can't get shake itself out of the "The Innovator's Dilemma." Disruption is not considered valuable. The Russians have two aircraft design bureaus Sukhoi and MiG to help somewhat in preventing stagnation, but it would be impossible for a SpaceX to come out of nowhere in Russia like it did in the U.S. Elon even went to Russia in the early SpaceX days to buy an old ICBM and they told him to screw off.[1] One related anecdote. I read somewhere a while ago about how Apple had a lot of internal security, even between teams. They said the reason for that is that if someone in the iPod department found out about the iPhone they'd realize the threat to their career and work to undermine it. [1] https://www.inverse.com/article/34976-spacex-ceo-elon-musk-tried-to-buy-icbm-rockets-from-russia https://www.inverse.com/article/34976-spacex-ceo-elon-musk-t...
- treespace88 5y agoIn almost all other countries the rich use the government to keep competition out. All under the banner of national pride. In Canada we lock out all foreign investment in lots of areas.
- 908B64B197 5y agoI never understood why Canada would restrict international players from disrupting sectors like telecom (a commodity really) but didn't seem to have any problem with Airbus taking over the CSeries program for almost nothing.
- throw0101a 5y ago> disrupting sectors like telecom Perhaps the government doesn't like foreigns tapping Canadians' communications? The NSA listens in on its own citizens with the coöperation of the US telcos, so what chance would foreigners have? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) As a Canadian I would certainly like more competition, but I can certainly see the reasoning.
- eplanit 5y agoWhere else does it happen? (sincere question)
- asadlionpk 5y agoTalent is one. Opportunity to become super rich giant is another? (Seeing how China is killing their tech giants).
- CamperBob2 5y agoThe fact that it didn't happen anywhere else.
- skissane 5y agoUS government space funding, as a percent of GDP, is the second highest in the world. The only country which beats the US at %GDP government space funding is Russia; but in absolute terms government space funding in the US is 7 times that of Russia, due to how much bigger US GDP than Russia's is. SpaceX has received a lot of business from the US government (both NASA and military) and is hoping to receive a lot more in the future. US arguably has the world's easiest access to venture capital. Compared to the US, venture capitalists in other countries tend to be more cautious, demanding much more equity for the same investment, and often much more interfering as well. A low regulation, low corruption business environment. Trying to start something like SpaceX in many other countries, the government will force you into various inefficiencies – using politically favoured suppliers, etc. The US has comparably little of these problems.
- 908B64B197 5y ago> Compared to the US, venture capitalists in other countries tend to be more cautious, demanding much more equity for the same investment, and often much more interfering as well. Why not simply... follow the model that worked?
- mrDmrTmrJ 5y agoBecause there are a lot of other factors that are different. Other countries have different interest rates, tend to have much smaller markets to sell into, and tend to have much more tightly regulated labor markets. There's also an absence of large tech acquirers that exist in the US. VC economics rely on a portfolio theory of a few gigantic winners making up for the other losses. So if different economic conditions creates a difference in the ultimate size of our 'winners' than you have to figure out how to have fewer (or smaller) losses.
- skissane 5y agoYour points are true, but I think other factors also play a role. What makes, for example, Australian investors behave differently to American investors? No doubt differences in economy size, regulatory regimes, etc, make a difference. But I also think some of it is due to differences in national culture. People have been talking about "tall poppy syndrome" as an element of Australian culture for decades; people don't say the same thing about American culture. (That said, it looks to me like the concept, but not the name, is increasingly making inroads into the US.)
- kilroy123 5y agoI think it certainly could happen anywhere else in the world. After years of living abroad, I've come to realize one thing about America and Americans. We're a bit more willing to risk it and fail. Sure, loads of people would rather have a secure job and not make risky decisions. Still, I think there's a higher concentration of those who will. Compared to lots of places on Earth. Also, for many who immigrate here, there's kind of no choice but to risk it and try to do something bold and crazy to make it.
- paxys 5y agoWhere in America are these magical semiconductors being made?
- outworlder 5y agoThey are referencing Moore's law. Some of them are made in the US, some are not (not today, at least).
- theptip 5y agoI took this to be a reference to the original Silicon Valley semiconductor companies. Fairchild etc.
- adventured 5y ago> Where in America are these magical semiconductors being made? You're unaware that the US is one of the world's leading manufacturers of semiconductors? For 2019 the US exported $44 billion worth of semiconductors. The third largest export for the US, behind airplanes ($130 billion) and oil ($152 billion for all oil products). There are only a few major semiconductor manufacturing nations and the US is among them.
- mpg33 5y agoChina is going to be the exception to this me thinks..
- throw0101a 5y ago> Only in America things like this can happen. > A whole industry bootstrapping itself to make semi-conductors doubling every 18 months, going from exotic, mission critical hardware to commodity; Silicon Valley did not bootstrap itself. It received untold billions of dollars from the US government during the Cold War (and lots of stuff happened during the WW2 economy, when the US was the Allies' armorer). Do you think it a coïncidence that most spy satellites are launched from Vandenberg? Or that Skunk Works, located in California, developed so many secret aircraft? Do a search for "The secret history of Silicon Valley": * https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ > SpaceX is doing the same thing with flight hardware. Notwithstanding the millions that NASA gave them in their early stages. * https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/news/COTS_selection.html https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/news/COTS_selection.html The list of spinoff technologies just from NASA is impressive: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies The fact that the US was, post-WW2, the largest economy in the world, and the main developed nation that didn't see mass destruction, certainly didn't hurt. The fact that the US government throws a lot of money around certainly helps private industry: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State This also does not diminish the entrepreneurs that, once the baton is handed to them, charge forward. My main argument is that there's not as much "bootstrapping" as many people believe.
- sandworm101 5y ago>> Notwithstanding the millions that NASA gave them in their early stages. And the billions spent on the technologies that allow those engines to exist. SpaceX didn't invent rocket engines. It stands on the shoulders of many giants going back through Apollo to the early days. There are even traces of Soviet tech in the raptor (ie closed cycle). Nearly all of that work was funded by taxpayers ... and by whatever funded the soviet programs. Building a better mousetrap is great, but that doesn't mean that all the previous mousetraps were not also great too.
- devoutsalsa 5y agoWatching the Falcon Heavy take off & land was one of the coolest things in my life. Watching Starship take off, land, and blow up was neat. The fact that these things build on previous accomplishments doesn’t make them any less impressive. Enjoy the ride & don’t poop on the party.
- cblconfederate 5y agobootstrapping itself by extending tech designed decades ago? that doesn't sound right. Until today, the biggest rocket design was still the soviet N1 from the 60s. It's good to celebrate space achievement but rewriting history is annoying
- Ancapistani 5y agoThe novel thing here isn’t the tech, but the scale at which it’s being developed and the price point that they’re targeting.
- adampk 5y agoI am struggling to understand the comments here that seem to not think that what SpaceX has done isn't more than the natural rate of progress.
- ricardobeat 5y agoI am struggling to understand your double negative!
- adampk 5y agohahaha
- xjlin0 5y agoDid N1 designed to be refuel/Re-ignition/reuse or fly to&back from Mars, etc? Please take a look which one is bigger? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship#/media/File:Super_heavy-lift_launch_vehicles.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship#/media/File:Su... Wiki: N1 LEO payload is ~95 t, weight 2750 t, height 105.3m Starship LEO payload is 100~150 t, weight 5000 t, height 120m.
- DanHulton 5y agoThis is, quite literally, a comment about American Boosterism. (Please, I'm not making a political point, I just cannot refrain from punning.)
- m4rtink 5y agoSomething kinda similar happened in Japan after the second world war - from cities burned to the ground in 1945 to first japanese nuclear power plant and bullet trains by the 1964 Olympics. Pretty remarkable IMHO.
- onedognight 5y agoSpaceX has quite a few engineers that learned the practical details of rocketry on the government’s dime. Be it at NASA or Boeing or an aerospace department at a university that gets government funding. I don’t mean to detract from SpaceX’s accomplishment, but they “bootstrapped” themselves the way a rich kid starts a company using the resources and connections put in place by his “family”.
- verdverm 5y agoSo Blue Origin... they started earlier yet lag behind SpaceX with an even richer person backing the company, so it doesn't seem to be rich kid starts a company that makes the difference