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I disagree. He's one of the last reasons I have any optimism at all about the future. How can you watch this drone video of Giga Berlin and not be impressed an

by memish 5y ago

I disagree. He's one of the last reasons I have any optimism at all about the future. How can you watch this drone video of Giga Berlin and not be impressed and inspired? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-4yOx1CnXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-4yOx1CnXE Or inspired by what SpaceX is accomplishing? None of this would exist if he hadn't invested all his Paypal earnings and time over the past 20 years into them. He could have retired and burned it on a yacht instead.

kaba0 5y ago
He would have much less money if he would have spent it only on a yacht. Also, what about leaving space up for NASA, instead of funneling away government funds from it to a private company? How is that even okay?
- leereeves 5y ago
  NASA has always funneled government funds to private companies. Atlas rockets were built by General Dynamics. Apollo lunar landers were built by Grumman. The space shuttles were built by Rockwell and Boeing. Because NASA is a civilian agency, not military, contracting operations out to commercial companies is the next logical step, just like the government hires commercial air travel, shipping, and ground transportation.
- dotnet00 5y ago
  Why should space be left up to NASA? Plus, as the others said, NASA has always contracted private companies for building the hardware. I also don't really see how "funneling away" as a complaint makes any sense, if the government spends money, it's obviously going to eventually be spent on companies to pay for goods and services, unless you advocate a model where the government replicates everything any company might ever do for them. What we should want is for the government to get the most bang-for-buck, which they have been getting increasingly more of from SpaceX. We've spent much of the past 50 years since Apollo funneling money into aerospace giants like Boeing with very little to show for it in terms of efficiency. When SpaceX entered the launch market, the US was not particularly competitive with the rest of the world for commercial launches, Boeing and Lockheed had a duopoly and had grown fat on government money, with no serious desire to improve their rockets. Even today, we're at $80B+ invested into SLS+Orion to be years late and only capable of launching once per year at nearly $5B per launch. Meanwhile, SpaceX earned nearly 60% of the commercial launch market on the back of its significantly lower launch prices, has returned US human spaceflight capability for much less cost than the competition (who still haven't delivered), has been responsible for paving the way for all the other 'new space' startups (setting legal precedents and getting entrepreneurs interested) and has allowed NASA to do more on several missions due to much cheaper launch costs, for instance: - DART did not have to rideshare due to Falcon 9's dedicated launch price being lower than competition's shared price, eliminating the possibility of failure in case the new ion thruster design on it had issues - Europa Clipper will not have to spend an extra $1B to make its delicate instruments able to handle SLS's rough ride and will not have to budget an additional $2B for an SLS launch - Saving NASA the ~$4B extra that the less capable, more dangerous but more 'traditional' lunar lander design would've cost to make. Then add in that due to Soyuz becoming unavailable and pretty much all other western rockets in the same payload class being fully booked and in a transition phase to their next generation, Falcon 9 is saving the US a massive amount of government money that would have otherwise been funneled to companies like Boeing in another 'blank check' type project like SLS. Even considering future developments, as a direct result of their success with SpaceX, there's a big push from within NASA for future contracts for things like rockets and space stations to be fixed cost and partially commercially funded (with the hope that eventually these will be mostly commercially driven, where NASA only has to pay to be a tenant instead of paying for the entire thing from start to finish), again improving the cost effectiveness of space activity.
agdgaddgs 5y ago
What exactly is impressive and inspiring about the drone video? Aside from the nifty drone work, it looks no different from the Toyota and Corvette plants I toured 20+ years ago as a child.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vishnugupta 5y ago
> How can you watch this drone video of Giga Berlin and not be impressed and inspired? Specifically about Gigafactory, I too was awestruck when I watched Tesla's assembly line for the first time. Only later did I learn that's how most of the cars are manufactured now a days. Volvo assembly line for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T5TKzyv_ds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T5TKzyv_ds

by memish 5y ago

kaba0 5y ago

He would have much less money if he would have spent it only on a yacht. Also, what about leaving space up for NASA, instead of funneling away government funds from it to a private company? How is that even okay?

leereeves 5y ago
NASA has always funneled government funds to private companies. Atlas rockets were built by General Dynamics. Apollo lunar landers were built by Grumman. The space shuttles were built by Rockwell and Boeing. Because NASA is a civilian agency, not military, contracting operations out to commercial companies is the next logical step, just like the government hires commercial air travel, shipping, and ground transportation.
dotnet00 5y ago
Why should space be left up to NASA? Plus, as the others said, NASA has always contracted private companies for building the hardware. I also don't really see how "funneling away" as a complaint makes any sense, if the government spends money, it's obviously going to eventually be spent on companies to pay for goods and services, unless you advocate a model where the government replicates everything any company might ever do for them. What we should want is for the government to get the most bang-for-buck, which they have been getting increasingly more of from SpaceX. We've spent much of the past 50 years since Apollo funneling money into aerospace giants like Boeing with very little to show for it in terms of efficiency. When SpaceX entered the launch market, the US was not particularly competitive with the rest of the world for commercial launches, Boeing and Lockheed had a duopoly and had grown fat on government money, with no serious desire to improve their rockets. Even today, we're at $80B+ invested into SLS+Orion to be years late and only capable of launching once per year at nearly $5B per launch. Meanwhile, SpaceX earned nearly 60% of the commercial launch market on the back of its significantly lower launch prices, has returned US human spaceflight capability for much less cost than the competition (who still haven't delivered), has been responsible for paving the way for all the other 'new space' startups (setting legal precedents and getting entrepreneurs interested) and has allowed NASA to do more on several missions due to much cheaper launch costs, for instance: - DART did not have to rideshare due to Falcon 9's dedicated launch price being lower than competition's shared price, eliminating the possibility of failure in case the new ion thruster design on it had issues - Europa Clipper will not have to spend an extra $1B to make its delicate instruments able to handle SLS's rough ride and will not have to budget an additional $2B for an SLS launch - Saving NASA the ~$4B extra that the less capable, more dangerous but more 'traditional' lunar lander design would've cost to make. Then add in that due to Soyuz becoming unavailable and pretty much all other western rockets in the same payload class being fully booked and in a transition phase to their next generation, Falcon 9 is saving the US a massive amount of government money that would have otherwise been funneled to companies like Boeing in another 'blank check' type project like SLS. Even considering future developments, as a direct result of their success with SpaceX, there's a big push from within NASA for future contracts for things like rockets and space stations to be fixed cost and partially commercially funded (with the hope that eventually these will be mostly commercially driven, where NASA only has to pay to be a tenant instead of paying for the entire thing from start to finish), again improving the cost effectiveness of space activity.

agdgaddgs 5y ago

What exactly is impressive and inspiring about the drone video? Aside from the nifty drone work, it looks no different from the Toyota and Corvette plants I toured 20+ years ago as a child.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

vishnugupta 5y ago

> How can you watch this drone video of Giga Berlin and not be impressed and inspired? Specifically about Gigafactory, I too was awestruck when I watched Tesla's assembly line for the first time. Only later did I learn that's how most of the cars are manufactured now a days. Volvo assembly line for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T5TKzyv_ds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T5TKzyv_ds