7 ms·

Elon Musk is pushing the human race forward

127 points by murtza 15y ago

sown 15y ago
I've been reading about intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. I don't know if that's a bunch of pop-psychology but I would bet he has much of the former. I wish I could summon those kinds of energies.
MikeCapone 15y ago
What I'm most looking forward to is Tesla's third and fourth generation platform. I'm really curious to see how low they can bring the prices and how high the driving range will be at those mainstream prices. As for SpaceX, I think they're doing amazing work and it was about time the private sector got into this field with ambitious goals.
dogfood123 15y ago
Nissan and Chevy are already shipping electric cars. There are other private companies pursuing private space flight. Elon gets the love from the Valley because he's from here, but he's an entrepreneur just trying to make money on what's hot. There's nothing wrong with that, but let's hold off on the deification.
- murtza 15y ago
  You are right. There are other companies working on the same problems as Elon Musk. However, what really impresses me about him is that he invested all the cash he made off of PayPal into the companies he's working on now. He could have stopped after PayPal, but he didn't.
  - ithought 15y ago
    He could have stopped before PayPal after he sold Zip2 for over $300 million in 1999. Elon's incredible and the next 50 years will be amazing because of people like him.
- maaku 15y ago
  I'm in the space business, and there are no other organizations in the world doing space the way Elon is with SpaceX. The framework is entirely different, which is far more important than you might give credit. None of his competitors are doing business in a way that will credibly open up space as an entrepreneurial frontier like we have here in the valley.
  - damoncali 15y ago
    Can you elaborate? I used to work in the space industry, but it's been some time. I spent some time at Orbital at a time when they were trying to launch ORBCOMM. What they were doing seems similar in feel to SpaceX. I also noted that ORBCOMM is one of the first scheduled launches for SpaceX. Interestingly, Orbital was started by an entrepreneur with a vision of small launch vehicles and he managed to actually pull it off- it was not some huge spinoff of an existing giant. I wonder how much the two are talking. Friends of mine who worked on the early days of Orbital's Pegasus described a situation that sounded very startup-like to me. (I worked there in the late 90's, but on Hubble, not Orbital's commercial projects). Orbital had modest success (if an IPO can be considered modest). So it seems not only plausible, but likely that a new approach is what is needed here. Perhaps SpaceX is the next iteration of a leaner approach that will actually scale to the meet the grand vision.
    - maaku 15y ago
      In the quickest summary, SpaceX is structuring their business in such a way as to grow fast, get profitable, and remove the need for external funding. They are using COTS (government funding) in much the same way as a silicon valley company would use a VC to provide capital needed for rapid growth. They've been using that money coming in the door to create a non-government market and to make their technology very cost effective in order to grow the space market. Orbital has structured their COTS approach in such a way that they will be able to meet objectives and stay profitable, but it is not an evolutionary path towards a general space architecture.
- cloudwalking 15y ago
  SpaceX is far beyond the competition (Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic), with successful launches and signed contracts. Tesla started less than a decade ago and has sold out of both the Roadster and the Model S. That's pretty incredible for such a young car company. I don't think Elon is just "making money on what's hot." Building a car company isn't in fashion, and an energy revolution is a pretty clear vertical right now (see Khosla's invetments). Likewise, building a rocket company isn't very fashionable. If you look at his vision--he's playing a 20-year game--the true market for SpaceX doesn't even exist yet.
codeonfire 15y ago
I think SpaceX's success had more to do with the military and space business needing a new public face. SpaceX's executive bios read like a who's who of the space industry. I think people seem to think that Musk reinvented rocketry in three years, which is unrealistic. It's a nice made for TV story, but most corporations probably couldn't swing hundreds of millions in fed contracts without some serious connections.
- cloudwalking 15y ago
  He hasn't reinvented rocketry, he's reinvented rocket manufacturing.
  - Joakal 15y ago
    A lot of reinventing seems to be done due to ITAR and monosponies.
zackattack 15y ago
The sheepish feeling about app development made me think of Buckminster Fuller's Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth: "For every 100,000 employed in research and development, or just plain thinking, one probably will make a breakthrough that will more than pay for the other 99,999 fellowships".
BerislavLopac 15y ago
"This car will be able to go 160 miles on one charge of its battery pack." Meh: http://www.rimac-automobili.com/concept_one/battery-system-9 http://www.rimac-automobili.com/concept_one/battery-system-9
- maxmcd 15y ago
  I was going to simply counter your "meh" with another "meh" regarding battery vaporware, but unless that site is straight up lying those are some impressive stats. I've always been more a fan of battery replacement stations instead of batter charging, but with a 20min charge and 150km range who cares.
  - lloeki 15y ago
    From their performance page [0]: POWER: 1088 hp MOTOR TORQUE: 3.800 Nm BATTERY CAPACITY: 92 kWh RANGE: 600 km ACCELERATION 0-100 kph: 2,8 sec. TOP SPEED: 305 kph The battery capacity for the Tesla Roadster is 53kWh, weights 450kg and is advertised to last 350km on a charge (and Roadster's world record at 500km). 92x350/53 magically gives us 600km. It also gives us a little short of 800kg of batteries (although they're LiPo instead of Li-ion as in the Roadster, but that should not change the weight much) and the x-ray renderings indeed show batteries take a good deal of the volume of the car. Note that weight, critical for a sports car, is not mentioned. The complete car will probably end up around 2t, and with 1000hp this makes a contender for Veyron class cars. For reference the one in Model S is 42kWh and the Nissan Leaf has a 24kWh unit. This is expected given the audience, which requires a practical car, so volume has to be surrendered by the batteries to the passengers and the boot. All in all it's not groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination and you can safely "meh" the GP on the distance-on-a-charge ground. By saying so I'm not downplaying the most important fact here and that's each one of those cars show a nascent market expanding both ends, and I'm looking forward to that. [0] http://www.rimac-automobili.com/concept_one/performance-10 http://www.rimac-automobili.com/concept_one/performance-10
    - BerislavLopac 15y ago
      I agree with your last statement completely. Here are two more tidbits about the Concept One: 1. You may see it in (very limited) action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkpetEjePUo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkpetEjePUo 2. The company is from Croatia, where Nikola Tesla was born. ;)
Canada 15y ago
Tesla has yet to accomplish anything notable except for getting a half billion dollars from the government. Hopefully they are successful in producing and supporting their Model S.
- jurjenh 15y ago
  I believe they have quite some involvement with Toyota with regard to transmissions / battery packs or something along those lines. Commercially it seemed a successful deal for them.
  - toomuchtodo 15y ago
    Tesla is building the drivetrain and batteries for Toyota's new all-electric Rav4.
SeoxyS 15y ago
Elon Musk is my ultimate role model as an entrepreneur. This article, for me, is somewhat bittersweet. I look up to Elon Musk and what he's doing, because it's really making a difference in the world. That's what I aspire to do someday. But my day to day job is as the first engineer of an advertising startup, where we make boatloads of money helping compagnies better monetize and promote crappy mobile games. Sometimes I wonder if I'm creating any value in the world. Hopefully this'll be a stepping stone towards financing a startup that'll be a little more meaningful.
- lionhearted 15y ago
  > Sometimes I wonder if I'm creating any value in the world. ... Hopefully this'll be a stepping stone towards financing a startup that'll be a little more meaningful. I think almost everyone thinks this, but y'know what? It's a lie. People keep saying they'll do what really motivates and engages them real, real soon... just as soon as this obviously-must-be-done thing is done. But life, life is a series of obviously-must-be-done things. At some point, you need to stop doing them and start doing what actually matters to you. You can break away from the grinding routine in a responsible, steady way. Easiest way to start? Wake up 1-3 hours earlier, and spend your peak creative time on something incredibly meaningful to you. Could you do that? I don't trust the future. Everyone says they're going to do things in the future, and most people don't do 90% of them. If you're really serious about changing the world, the best time to start is yesterday, but the second best time to start is right now.
  - JamesBlair 15y ago
    Although I am probably not the intended audience of your message, I can't agree with the sentiment. Akrasia has to have a reason, even if it makes no rational sense, and all my believing in "stop doing [unimportant things] and start doing what actually matters" seems to do is make me feel guilty and worthless for being unable to find the motivation to do what actually matters to me. I know what I'd like to be doing, but I also know I'm not motivated to do it. What's a real solution?
    - 15y ago
ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
"Musk recently said that he will put humans on Mars within ten to twenty years." Uh-huh. I said it before, got downvoted, and will say it again, because I think it's important. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3389824 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3389824
- divtxt 15y ago
  Your original comment should read: > The number of dead people whose ashes got a known-to-be small but definite odds at being put into space by Elon Musk? 208. It's well known that new launch platforms fail a lot initially. Soyuz still fails after 757+ launches, and the fatality rate for humans is still 2%. So, when you get on launch #3 of a new platform for which launch #1 & #2 failed, you've got no excuse for to complain about failure. Links: http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2011.html#rate http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2011.html#rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents#Percentage_of_fatal_spaceflights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_acc... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_1#Launch_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_1#Launch_history
  - ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
    What does "definite" mean? Greater than zero? That's useless here. Either you made it to orbit or you didn't. Either you're pregnant or you're not. Either you are alive or you are dead. There is quite a lot of binary stuff happening in the universe, and none of it relies on things like "0.24% likelihood". SpaceX's record is abysmal, and you forgot a few facts. 1) Soyuz is a government project with the pride of a nation at stake. SpaceX is a personal project with the pride of an egomaniac at stake. If SpaceX fails, it's merely another startup gone bad. If Soyuz fails, it's quite a lot more. 2) Did Musk spend any of his billions on purchasing any of that hard-earned Soyuz flight data from Russia? If not, then he does not care to learn from history, which means that the long-term failure rate of SpaceX vehicles will likely be higher than that of Soyuz. 3) If I am right about #2, then the fatality rate for humans under SpaceX will be higher than 2%, and even 2% of a million people is already quite high, especially when you consider that most of them will not be trained to the levels of the people who have already gone up. 4) If Musk was grounded in reality, he would shoot for the moon, then Mars. Risking fewer people, closer to Earth, is certainly a much better strategy than what he has announced. If something goes wrong on the moon, help is a few days away. That might still not be good enough, but it's far better than the stretch of time required to wait for help on Mars. 5) Musk has very little experience building rockets, and none at all when it comes to building habitats for extreme environments. Take the full documentation (parts, computers, software, maintenance, and whatnot) of the latest Boeing jet, multiply that by about 100, and you might have what it takes to successfully fly to Mars and live there. This kind of endeavor will require a deep rethink of how we handle big projects. SpaceX does not have this ability. A few years ago, we had the era when Google could do no wrong, and any criticism of Google would not be tolerated by its many fans. Now, that same mindset applies to Musk, except this time, people will die.
prewett 15y ago
The article says "in addition to reducing carbon emissions" in regard to the Tesla. I can't see how electric cars actually reduce pollution/emissions of any kind. Typical coal -> electricity is 33% efficient, but can be up to 50% [1], electricty to battery is 75% [2], and electric motors are about 92% [3]. The typical efficiency will be .33 * .75 * .92 = 23%, with a maximum of 35%. Gasoline engine efficiency is 25 - 30% [4], so we aren't really improving pollution much with electric cars, until wind/solar makes up a substantial part of our grid. Now it will certainly _move_ the pollution from the cars in the cities to the power plants elsewhere (which is a good thing), but it really isn't preventing pollution. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil-fuel_power_station#Basic_concepts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil-fuel_power_station#Basic... [2] http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006554.html http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006554.html [3] http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/electrical-motor-efficiency-d_655.html http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/electrical-motor-efficienc... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency
- tlammens 15y ago
  It is enabling an improvement in "total" efficiency which in the end is the only thing that matters. The sum of the different parts being greater than the individual components...
- showerst 15y ago
  Don't most large power plants in the Western world have 'scrubbers' and other measures that limit the amount of carbon/other pollutants that they actually release into the air? If not now, is that a technology that's moving forward fast enough to be a partial solution in the future?
- tomerico 15y ago
  Several Reasons why - As you said, pollution from power plants have less effect on humans, because of distance and filters - You are comparing vehicle best case efficiency with Electrical worst case - Electrical power can be produced from clean sources, gasoline can't be used without creating pollution - Electric can potentially be smaller and lighter because of a very simple mechanism compared to the gasoline engine and all the components around it. (But batteries efficiency must be improved to really reduce weight)
amorphid 15y ago
Elon Musk does seem to be pretty good at going for it. It is nice to see people executing on big ideas.
chauzer 15y ago
Elon Musk is pretty badass. It's awesome that he takes such a big role in the technical design and development at Tesla and SpaceX rather than just "running the company" like most CEOs.
AznHisoka 15y ago
While not anyone has the luxury of bootstrapping a space company in their 20's.. I still think most startups have lots of other opportunities to tackle bigger problems. The problem is we hang out in tech, and aren't exposed to those problems. But if we hang out with biologists, doctors, teachers, etc.. they'll all tell you problems that need solving. Technology can't solve everything, but paired with the insight of someone from those other fields, it can make a dent.
zerostar07 15y ago
If I dare ask, why does the human race want to leave the earth? There's no reason or benefit. There are more interesting, more pressing issues having mostly to do with our biology.
- damoncali 15y ago
  Because we can.
  - zerostar07 15y ago
    We could, 40 years ago
- jscn 15y ago
  tldr; To mitigate existential risks. There are at least a couple reasons: 1) A lot of the conflict that destroys so many lives is motivated by limited resources such as land. Getting off this planet could make that kind of conflict disappear (eventually). 2) Diversification. If climate change/oil scarcity/nano/GE get out of hand, it'd be good to have someplace else to go. Even if you're sceptical about the environmental risks from climate change and oil scarcity, GE and nano pose big risks. The easier nano and GE get, the more likely some bio-/nano-hacker somewhere creates an irreversible problem for us (whether accidentally or intentionally).
  - zerostar07 15y ago
    But none of these scenarios seem particularly pressing. 1) Population growth rates fall as living standards improve, the UN predicts a rise up to 9 billion humans followed by a drop to more or less back to 7bil. 2) It would be easier to work on reversing climate change than finding a planet that supports life. The way i see it we 're still in 'space exploration' not colonization. Perhaps if we master biology, life and intelligence first, we 'll have our drones do that for us.
cdjarrell 15y ago
Elon Musk will be one of the most influential people in the world for the next 20-30 years, not just directly from his companies but also from others in the industries he's pushing. Let's not forget Elon is also Chairman of the Board for SolarCity as well, which is leading the distributed solar PV market. He's pushing the human race forward in many areas, all at the same time. Pretty remarkable
ranman 15y ago
The problem with Elon Musk is this... no one will ever live on mars for extended periods of time because mars is not suitable for human life for the following reasons: 1. weak magnetic field 2. 1/3 of earth's gravity 3. about 100 other reasons that just make the first 2 harder to deal with. Mars is not somewhere to live, it's somewhere to explore.

127 points by murtza 15y ago

sown 15y ago

I've been reading about intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. I don't know if that's a bunch of pop-psychology but I would bet he has much of the former. I wish I could summon those kinds of energies.

MikeCapone 15y ago

What I'm most looking forward to is Tesla's third and fourth generation platform. I'm really curious to see how low they can bring the prices and how high the driving range will be at those mainstream prices. As for SpaceX, I think they're doing amazing work and it was about time the private sector got into this field with ambitious goals.

dogfood123 15y ago

Nissan and Chevy are already shipping electric cars. There are other private companies pursuing private space flight. Elon gets the love from the Valley because he's from here, but he's an entrepreneur just trying to make money on what's hot. There's nothing wrong with that, but let's hold off on the deification.

murtza 15y ago
You are right. There are other companies working on the same problems as Elon Musk. However, what really impresses me about him is that he invested all the cash he made off of PayPal into the companies he's working on now. He could have stopped after PayPal, but he didn't.
- ithought 15y ago
  He could have stopped before PayPal after he sold Zip2 for over $300 million in 1999. Elon's incredible and the next 50 years will be amazing because of people like him.
maaku 15y ago
I'm in the space business, and there are no other organizations in the world doing space the way Elon is with SpaceX. The framework is entirely different, which is far more important than you might give credit. None of his competitors are doing business in a way that will credibly open up space as an entrepreneurial frontier like we have here in the valley.
- damoncali 15y ago
  Can you elaborate? I used to work in the space industry, but it's been some time. I spent some time at Orbital at a time when they were trying to launch ORBCOMM. What they were doing seems similar in feel to SpaceX. I also noted that ORBCOMM is one of the first scheduled launches for SpaceX. Interestingly, Orbital was started by an entrepreneur with a vision of small launch vehicles and he managed to actually pull it off- it was not some huge spinoff of an existing giant. I wonder how much the two are talking. Friends of mine who worked on the early days of Orbital's Pegasus described a situation that sounded very startup-like to me. (I worked there in the late 90's, but on Hubble, not Orbital's commercial projects). Orbital had modest success (if an IPO can be considered modest). So it seems not only plausible, but likely that a new approach is what is needed here. Perhaps SpaceX is the next iteration of a leaner approach that will actually scale to the meet the grand vision.
  - maaku 15y ago
    In the quickest summary, SpaceX is structuring their business in such a way as to grow fast, get profitable, and remove the need for external funding. They are using COTS (government funding) in much the same way as a silicon valley company would use a VC to provide capital needed for rapid growth. They've been using that money coming in the door to create a non-government market and to make their technology very cost effective in order to grow the space market. Orbital has structured their COTS approach in such a way that they will be able to meet objectives and stay profitable, but it is not an evolutionary path towards a general space architecture.
cloudwalking 15y ago
SpaceX is far beyond the competition (Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic), with successful launches and signed contracts. Tesla started less than a decade ago and has sold out of both the Roadster and the Model S. That's pretty incredible for such a young car company. I don't think Elon is just "making money on what's hot." Building a car company isn't in fashion, and an energy revolution is a pretty clear vertical right now (see Khosla's invetments). Likewise, building a rocket company isn't very fashionable. If you look at his vision--he's playing a 20-year game--the true market for SpaceX doesn't even exist yet.

codeonfire 15y ago

I think SpaceX's success had more to do with the military and space business needing a new public face. SpaceX's executive bios read like a who's who of the space industry. I think people seem to think that Musk reinvented rocketry in three years, which is unrealistic. It's a nice made for TV story, but most corporations probably couldn't swing hundreds of millions in fed contracts without some serious connections.

cloudwalking 15y ago
He hasn't reinvented rocketry, he's reinvented rocket manufacturing.
- Joakal 15y ago
  A lot of reinventing seems to be done due to ITAR and monosponies.

zackattack 15y ago

The sheepish feeling about app development made me think of Buckminster Fuller's Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth: "For every 100,000 employed in research and development, or just plain thinking, one probably will make a breakthrough that will more than pay for the other 99,999 fellowships".

BerislavLopac 15y ago

"This car will be able to go 160 miles on one charge of its battery pack." Meh: http://www.rimac-automobili.com/concept_one/battery-system-9 http://www.rimac-automobili.com/concept_one/battery-system-9

maxmcd 15y ago
I was going to simply counter your "meh" with another "meh" regarding battery vaporware, but unless that site is straight up lying those are some impressive stats. I've always been more a fan of battery replacement stations instead of batter charging, but with a 20min charge and 150km range who cares.
- lloeki 15y ago
  From their performance page [0]: POWER: 1088 hp MOTOR TORQUE: 3.800 Nm BATTERY CAPACITY: 92 kWh RANGE: 600 km ACCELERATION 0-100 kph: 2,8 sec. TOP SPEED: 305 kph The battery capacity for the Tesla Roadster is 53kWh, weights 450kg and is advertised to last 350km on a charge (and Roadster's world record at 500km). 92x350/53 magically gives us 600km. It also gives us a little short of 800kg of batteries (although they're LiPo instead of Li-ion as in the Roadster, but that should not change the weight much) and the x-ray renderings indeed show batteries take a good deal of the volume of the car. Note that weight, critical for a sports car, is not mentioned. The complete car will probably end up around 2t, and with 1000hp this makes a contender for Veyron class cars. For reference the one in Model S is 42kWh and the Nissan Leaf has a 24kWh unit. This is expected given the audience, which requires a practical car, so volume has to be surrendered by the batteries to the passengers and the boot. All in all it's not groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination and you can safely "meh" the GP on the distance-on-a-charge ground. By saying so I'm not downplaying the most important fact here and that's each one of those cars show a nascent market expanding both ends, and I'm looking forward to that. [0] http://www.rimac-automobili.com/concept_one/performance-10 http://www.rimac-automobili.com/concept_one/performance-10
  - BerislavLopac 15y ago
    I agree with your last statement completely. Here are two more tidbits about the Concept One: 1. You may see it in (very limited) action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkpetEjePUo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkpetEjePUo 2. The company is from Croatia, where Nikola Tesla was born. ;)

Canada 15y ago

Tesla has yet to accomplish anything notable except for getting a half billion dollars from the government. Hopefully they are successful in producing and supporting their Model S.

jurjenh 15y ago
I believe they have quite some involvement with Toyota with regard to transmissions / battery packs or something along those lines. Commercially it seemed a successful deal for them.
- toomuchtodo 15y ago
  Tesla is building the drivetrain and batteries for Toyota's new all-electric Rav4.

SeoxyS 15y ago

Elon Musk is my ultimate role model as an entrepreneur. This article, for me, is somewhat bittersweet. I look up to Elon Musk and what he's doing, because it's really making a difference in the world. That's what I aspire to do someday. But my day to day job is as the first engineer of an advertising startup, where we make boatloads of money helping compagnies better monetize and promote crappy mobile games. Sometimes I wonder if I'm creating any value in the world. Hopefully this'll be a stepping stone towards financing a startup that'll be a little more meaningful.

lionhearted 15y ago
> Sometimes I wonder if I'm creating any value in the world. ... Hopefully this'll be a stepping stone towards financing a startup that'll be a little more meaningful. I think almost everyone thinks this, but y'know what? It's a lie. People keep saying they'll do what really motivates and engages them real, real soon... just as soon as this obviously-must-be-done thing is done. But life, life is a series of obviously-must-be-done things. At some point, you need to stop doing them and start doing what actually matters to you. You can break away from the grinding routine in a responsible, steady way. Easiest way to start? Wake up 1-3 hours earlier, and spend your peak creative time on something incredibly meaningful to you. Could you do that? I don't trust the future. Everyone says they're going to do things in the future, and most people don't do 90% of them. If you're really serious about changing the world, the best time to start is yesterday, but the second best time to start is right now.
- JamesBlair 15y ago
  Although I am probably not the intended audience of your message, I can't agree with the sentiment. Akrasia has to have a reason, even if it makes no rational sense, and all my believing in "stop doing [unimportant things] and start doing what actually matters" seems to do is make me feel guilty and worthless for being unable to find the motivation to do what actually matters to me. I know what I'd like to be doing, but I also know I'm not motivated to do it. What's a real solution?
  - 15y ago

ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago

"Musk recently said that he will put humans on Mars within ten to twenty years." Uh-huh. I said it before, got downvoted, and will say it again, because I think it's important. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3389824 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3389824

divtxt 15y ago
Your original comment should read: > The number of dead people whose ashes got a known-to-be small but definite odds at being put into space by Elon Musk? 208. It's well known that new launch platforms fail a lot initially. Soyuz still fails after 757+ launches, and the fatality rate for humans is still 2%. So, when you get on launch #3 of a new platform for which launch #1 & #2 failed, you've got no excuse for to complain about failure. Links: http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2011.html#rate http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2011.html#rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents#Percentage_of_fatal_spaceflights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_acc... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_1#Launch_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_1#Launch_history
- ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
  What does "definite" mean? Greater than zero? That's useless here. Either you made it to orbit or you didn't. Either you're pregnant or you're not. Either you are alive or you are dead. There is quite a lot of binary stuff happening in the universe, and none of it relies on things like "0.24% likelihood". SpaceX's record is abysmal, and you forgot a few facts. 1) Soyuz is a government project with the pride of a nation at stake. SpaceX is a personal project with the pride of an egomaniac at stake. If SpaceX fails, it's merely another startup gone bad. If Soyuz fails, it's quite a lot more. 2) Did Musk spend any of his billions on purchasing any of that hard-earned Soyuz flight data from Russia? If not, then he does not care to learn from history, which means that the long-term failure rate of SpaceX vehicles will likely be higher than that of Soyuz. 3) If I am right about #2, then the fatality rate for humans under SpaceX will be higher than 2%, and even 2% of a million people is already quite high, especially when you consider that most of them will not be trained to the levels of the people who have already gone up. 4) If Musk was grounded in reality, he would shoot for the moon, then Mars. Risking fewer people, closer to Earth, is certainly a much better strategy than what he has announced. If something goes wrong on the moon, help is a few days away. That might still not be good enough, but it's far better than the stretch of time required to wait for help on Mars. 5) Musk has very little experience building rockets, and none at all when it comes to building habitats for extreme environments. Take the full documentation (parts, computers, software, maintenance, and whatnot) of the latest Boeing jet, multiply that by about 100, and you might have what it takes to successfully fly to Mars and live there. This kind of endeavor will require a deep rethink of how we handle big projects. SpaceX does not have this ability. A few years ago, we had the era when Google could do no wrong, and any criticism of Google would not be tolerated by its many fans. Now, that same mindset applies to Musk, except this time, people will die.

prewett 15y ago

The article says "in addition to reducing carbon emissions" in regard to the Tesla. I can't see how electric cars actually reduce pollution/emissions of any kind. Typical coal -> electricity is 33% efficient, but can be up to 50% [1], electricty to battery is 75% [2], and electric motors are about 92% [3]. The typical efficiency will be .33 * .75 * .92 = 23%, with a maximum of 35%. Gasoline engine efficiency is 25 - 30% [4], so we aren't really improving pollution much with electric cars, until wind/solar makes up a substantial part of our grid. Now it will certainly _move_ the pollution from the cars in the cities to the power plants elsewhere (which is a good thing), but it really isn't preventing pollution. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil-fuel_power_station#Basic_concepts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil-fuel_power_station#Basic... [2] http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006554.html http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006554.html [3] http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/electrical-motor-efficiency-d_655.html http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/electrical-motor-efficienc... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency

tlammens 15y ago
It is enabling an improvement in "total" efficiency which in the end is the only thing that matters. The sum of the different parts being greater than the individual components...
showerst 15y ago
Don't most large power plants in the Western world have 'scrubbers' and other measures that limit the amount of carbon/other pollutants that they actually release into the air? If not now, is that a technology that's moving forward fast enough to be a partial solution in the future?
tomerico 15y ago
Several Reasons why - As you said, pollution from power plants have less effect on humans, because of distance and filters - You are comparing vehicle best case efficiency with Electrical worst case - Electrical power can be produced from clean sources, gasoline can't be used without creating pollution - Electric can potentially be smaller and lighter because of a very simple mechanism compared to the gasoline engine and all the components around it. (But batteries efficiency must be improved to really reduce weight)

amorphid 15y ago

Elon Musk does seem to be pretty good at going for it. It is nice to see people executing on big ideas.

chauzer 15y ago

Elon Musk is pretty badass. It's awesome that he takes such a big role in the technical design and development at Tesla and SpaceX rather than just "running the company" like most CEOs.

AznHisoka 15y ago

While not anyone has the luxury of bootstrapping a space company in their 20's.. I still think most startups have lots of other opportunities to tackle bigger problems. The problem is we hang out in tech, and aren't exposed to those problems. But if we hang out with biologists, doctors, teachers, etc.. they'll all tell you problems that need solving. Technology can't solve everything, but paired with the insight of someone from those other fields, it can make a dent.

zerostar07 15y ago

If I dare ask, why does the human race want to leave the earth? There's no reason or benefit. There are more interesting, more pressing issues having mostly to do with our biology.

damoncali 15y ago
Because we can.
- zerostar07 15y ago
  We could, 40 years ago
jscn 15y ago
tldr; To mitigate existential risks. There are at least a couple reasons: 1) A lot of the conflict that destroys so many lives is motivated by limited resources such as land. Getting off this planet could make that kind of conflict disappear (eventually). 2) Diversification. If climate change/oil scarcity/nano/GE get out of hand, it'd be good to have someplace else to go. Even if you're sceptical about the environmental risks from climate change and oil scarcity, GE and nano pose big risks. The easier nano and GE get, the more likely some bio-/nano-hacker somewhere creates an irreversible problem for us (whether accidentally or intentionally).
- zerostar07 15y ago
  But none of these scenarios seem particularly pressing. 1) Population growth rates fall as living standards improve, the UN predicts a rise up to 9 billion humans followed by a drop to more or less back to 7bil. 2) It would be easier to work on reversing climate change than finding a planet that supports life. The way i see it we 're still in 'space exploration' not colonization. Perhaps if we master biology, life and intelligence first, we 'll have our drones do that for us.

cdjarrell 15y ago

Elon Musk will be one of the most influential people in the world for the next 20-30 years, not just directly from his companies but also from others in the industries he's pushing. Let's not forget Elon is also Chairman of the Board for SolarCity as well, which is leading the distributed solar PV market. He's pushing the human race forward in many areas, all at the same time. Pretty remarkable

ranman 15y ago

The problem with Elon Musk is this... no one will ever live on mars for extended periods of time because mars is not suitable for human life for the following reasons: 1. weak magnetic field 2. 1/3 of earth's gravity 3. about 100 other reasons that just make the first 2 harder to deal with. Mars is not somewhere to live, it's somewhere to explore.