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> I don't know why this topic polarizes people to such an extreme degree. Because some people are so rabidly anti-Elon that they would rather nail the feet of

> I don't know why this topic polarizes people to such an extreme degree. Because some people are so rabidly anti-Elon that they would rather nail the feet of the human race to the ground than allow that "bad man" to succeed at taking us to the stars. There were several people here on HN screeching that a few lumps of concrete strewn on a beach is an ecological disaster of unfathomable proportions. Don't forget about the astronomers complaining about the global internet being provided by Starlink affecting their precious telescopes, while ignoring the minor detail that Starship will be able to launch a JWST-sized telescope weekly if they want to get above the atmosphere. We can't have the future because it slightly inconveniences the present and ruffles the feathers of developers fired from Twitter.

tw04 3y ago
> We can't have the future because it slightly inconveniences the present and ruffles the feathers of developers fired from Twitter. Or because he constantly stomps on experienced engineers with stupid ideas and puts the whole thing at risk. Literally EVERYONE said the cement base was a stupid idea and yet Elon had to trump his own experts. Every time he forces his idiotic ideas on his engineers he puts the future of the whole business at risk. At least he’s been so distracted by the Twitter debacle the adults have been able to make decisions without having to cater to his ego and make him think the idea was his.
- ethagknight 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - huytersd 3y ago
    Tesla is doing great, SpaceX has always been amazing. Twitter is failing. Elon Musk becomes less respectable by the day.
    - doubleg72 3y ago
      You must have missed TSLA last week earning call…
      - huytersd 3y ago
        I didn’t. I still think they have enough of a moat for 5-10 years and beyond especially since they own the vast majority of the now standard NACS charging stations.
    - brandonagr2 3y ago
      How is twitter failing? Usage is growing and they will be cash flow positive soon, that sounds better than twitter 1.0 was doing
      - huytersd 3y ago
        Usage is dropping. Down about 15% over the last 10 months. Revenue has dropped 11% compared to last year. It’s expected to keep dropping in 2023 with advertising revenue leaving.
- d-z-m 3y ago
  > Literally EVERYONE said the cement base was a stupid idea and yet Elon had to trump his own experts. Do you have more information on this? My quick googling turned up nothing.
  - almost_usual 3y ago
    This submission was flagged on HN but it was pointed out. > In addition to the siting and sizing of the pad, SpaceX does not have a flame trench, nor do they have a water deluge system used to suppress heat and sound energy from any launches, as the Army Corps of Engineering permitting required to add these civil engineering systems is itself a multi-year process. > No large rocket complex on the planet: not in Russia, nor China, and certainly not in the US, exists that doesn’t contain one or both of these energy suppression systems. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35590279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35590279 https://blog.esghound.com/p/spacexs-texas-rocket-is-going-to https://blog.esghound.com/p/spacexs-texas-rocket-is-going-to
    - Animats 3y ago
      Boca Chica now has a better launch pad with a flame deflector and a water deluge system.[1] They really needed that. The first version just fired the entire output of the booster at a flat concrete slab, which destroyed the pad, sending chunks of concrete into the ocean and around the area. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYRJn3uvw3M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYRJn3uvw3M
    - skellington 3y ago
      SpaceX said it was more a question of timing. That the water system would take too long and they were hoping to test before it was fit. The first test involved a subset of all the engines so they hoped the concrete would survive.
- kcplate 3y ago
  I can literally watch SpaceX fire rockets into space 3-4x a month from my backyard. Name one other company, person, or even a country that can and is willing to do that. There are none. As long as SpaceX can and no one else can, the future of SpaceX is on a pretty sound footing in my opinion.
  - lancewiggs 3y ago
    Rocketlab is doing this at about half the rate.
    - kortilla 3y ago
      No it’s not, it’s not even making 1 per month.
    - nickik 3y ago
      Not even close, and doing it with a tiny 100kg rocket isn't even remotely the same thing anyway.
      - m4rtink 3y ago
        Not to mention it does not even have a reusable booster (yet) and unfortunately there seem to be still some reliability issues as well.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    I'm all in favour of SpaceX having an engine-rich development cycle that gets things done faster and cheaper than anyone else, this doesn't mean Musk is doing everything right. I'm sad about the interference that Starlink causes to ground based astronomy, this doesn't mean Musk is ignoring those issues. And I value government agencies making sure that business interests are balanced against democratic will of the people, that doesn't mean they're funded at the right level for a rapidly growing industry.
  - cmsj 3y ago
    China. https://www.rocketlaunch.live/?pastOnly=1&filter=china https://www.rocketlaunch.live/?pastOnly=1&filter=china
- brandonagr2 3y ago
  You sound like you don't know anything about what actually happened or the SpaceX engineering process in general. SpaceX knew that the concrete wasn't the final solution, it was always temporary, they had already started building the steel water cooled plate before the first test flight. Based on the data they had available from the series of static fire tests leading up to the test they thought the concrete would ablate and survive one test flight before they took the downtime to replace it. Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that Elon overruled all the SpaceX engineers on the timing of when to install the steel water cooled plate or are you Literally making things up? Learning more by moving quickly and taking calculated risks is clearly the better approach, as evidenced by the current dominance of the Falcon 9 and SN 25 and booster 9 sitting on a repaired OLM and being scheduled to make another orbital attempt in less than 2 weeks.
  - skellington 3y ago
    You're only being downvoted because of your accuracy.
  - renewiltord 3y ago
    Bizarre that the most accurate take here is greyed out. Absolutely correct.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    > Learning more by moving quickly and taking calculated risks is clearly the better approach, I think most people agree that it's better for SpaceX business, but some don't agree that it's worthwhile for our society with what happens if failed. It's like Tesla's "FSD Beta" situation.
  - kasdi 3y ago
    > Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that Elon overruled all the SpaceX engineers on the timing of when to install the steel water cooled plate or are you Literally making things up? Unfortunately, #LiterallyMakingThingsUp seems to be a trend these days.
- soperj 3y ago
  > Or because he constantly stomps on experienced engineers with stupid ideas and puts the whole thing at risk. Literally EVERYONE said the cement base was a stupid idea and yet Elon had to trump his own experts. Wouldn't that be called working from first principles? Proving it doesn't work can be quicker in the long run than over-designing something based on what you think won't work.
  - tigershark 3y ago
    You don’t need to work from first principles to understand that the most powerful (by far) rocket built would obliterate whatever concrete you use without an appropriate water deluge system and/or flame trench.
    - ben_bai 3y ago
      And now they have to repair the launchsite, which they already did. And add water deluge, which they already did. The upside was they got lots of data to improve the next rocket, which they already did. It's ready to go again, just waiting for FAA approval.
      - rbanffy 3y ago
        > The upside was they got lots of data to improve the next rocket, Or they could have done that the first time with a flame trench and a water deluge system that prevented the energy of the rockets from damaging the rockets dooming the first stage and making concrete rain on the neighboring wildlife reserve. Elon could have verified that hypothesis with a full static fire test AND be able to see the damage to both rockets and pad from an actual launch without destroying a rocket. This is why SpaceX grew from the start with an immune system to prevent Elon from ruining too much stuff.
        aik 3y ago
        Is your argument that SpaceX has succeeded despite Elon, not in large part due to Elon?
- kortilla 3y ago
  > Literally EVERYONE said the cement base was a stupid idea and yet Elon had to trump his own experts. Even Elon said this. It was a gamble, it didn’t pay off.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    And those gambles make Elon a bad engineer, if one at all.
    - martindbp 3y ago
      No, a bad engineer is one that takes no risks ever and end up doing nothing of consequence. His risk taking is the sole reason SpaceX exists.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        You never did any real engineering work, did you? Because there is risk taking, or rather risk management with engineering decisison always being trade offs and such, and taking ahort cuts, cutting corners and taking uncalculated risks in hopes of being lucky. Topped by ignoring advice from others.
        aik 3y ago
        I think at the same time there are 100 decisions he made that have paid off. Of course agree this one didn’t and of course hope he learned from it.
        kortilla 3y ago
        falcon and all of spacex is based on ignoring advice from others, especially “industry experts”. It’s called first principles reasoning.
        nemo 3y ago
        >falcon and all of spacex is based on ignoring advice from others, especially “industry experts” Not in the least. SpaceX hires a lot of rocket scientists who are industry experts. They're more agile than the entrenched players since Boeing/Lockheed legacy space programs weren't efficient but SpaceX has relied upon expert consultation and expert advice from folks in the industry to build their rockets. I don't see them as building from first principles at all, they're building on what's come before standing on the shoulders of the rocket engineers who've come before.
- nickik 3y ago
  Yes and he has often overruled his engineers and was right. Taking calculated risk to shorten development is reasonable. Even if you don't get it always right. > Literally EVERYONE said the cement base was a stupid idea They expected it to break but be ok for one launch. Its a reasonable risk to launch sooner. > Every time he forces his idiotic ideas on his engineers he puts the future of the whole business at risk. And yet the he has lead the business for 20+ years and the company has been getting more and more and more successful. I guess that just happens by magic. > At least he’s been so distracted by the Twitter debacle the adults have been able to make decisions When SpaceX does good its because Musk wasn't there, when it does bad its because of Musk. Classic.
  - wnkrshm 3y ago
    I wonder why Musk is always thrown into the ring with SpaceX, when its entire operation is mostly done by Gwynne Shotwell.
    - zpeti 3y ago
      Because Elon is the product lead (and founder and owner), Shotwell does the business development. Product is way more interesting in this case than BD, considering it's the most badass rockets ever made. But feel free to praise Shotwell too, that's great too.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        You really think Elon is anymore than Product Lead / Chief Engineer in title?
        zpeti 3y ago
        Yes. Please read any of the official comments about him by people who have worked with him, or just answers on Quora, or read the new biography. Or watch his actual comments and behavior on everyday astronaut interviews. If 4 of those data points don’t convince you, you obviously don’t want to be convinced even in the slightest
- madaxe_again 3y ago
  Thag make round rock. He call “wheel”. Thag idiot. No need round rock wheel thing in cave. Sometimes you do something against conventional wisdom, and people call you a genius. Sometimes it doesn’t pay off. I am assuming that you are employed, rather than an employer.
pstuart 3y ago
There's another duality of thought: I want SpaceX and Tesla to succeed. Regardless of my feelings about him, I acknowledge that Elon was instrumental in sparking the shift to EVs. Also, that having a dictator with a vision can allow companies to do audacious things that would normally die in committees (like reusable rockets, etc...) That said, I have nothing but contempt for the man and am petty enough to have schadenfreude in any of his personal comeuppance.
- dcormier 3y ago
  I have enjoyed watching a new launch provider emerge, EVs become a real thing, and him being forced to buy Twitter.
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    Watching him be forced to buy Twitter was kinda funny at the time, but it's turned into a huge disappointment. I was really hoping to see the whole site completely implode, and then go out of business, and it hasn't happened yet. The world would be better off without Twitter (now "X"... ugh).
    - pstuart 3y ago
      Give it time -- it needs advertisers to survive and they appear to be fleeing. I believe in "free speech" but also think that absolutism in that regard is horseshit.
bandyaboot 3y ago
Polarization is characterized by people being driven to opposite extremes. That fact that you explain it exclusively in reference to just one of the extremes tells me you occupy the other.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  Staying put is also polarizing.
- davidmurdoch 3y ago
  Non-polarization is a thing. So is circular.
ethanbond 3y ago
Is launch capacity the thing that holds back more space-based telescopes, and are those telescopes going to have the same availability to researchers as terrestrial ones? If either answer is no, then the brag about capacity isn’t really relevant.
- fastball 3y ago
  Absolutely launch capacity is holding back more space-based telescopes. More telescopes means more availability to researchers.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Sure, in the same way that Ferrari doubling its production means more people can get their kids to school conveniently.
    - jbm 3y ago
      Isn't Starship the cheap option for orbital launch?
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        But the whole point is if you ruin thousands of terrestrial telescopes used (successfully) by thousands of researchers, and in exchange you get a promise of one day maybe having tons of orbital telescopes, you aren’t really addressing the concern.
        zpeti 3y ago
        Come on, you are arguing in such bad faith its ridiculous. Everyone knows space based telescopes are orders of magnitude better, and will be better for research than thousands of earth based telescopes. Even the researches, unless very selfish, should know that ideally you want many more very powerful space based telescopes if you actually want to do research and not just marvel at the stars from your patio. We obviously want larger launch capacity in the long run. It's not even a question. Falcon 9 is already the most successful rocket ever on almost all stats of usefulness, why shouldn't we have at least SOME faith that spacex will be able to build starship and use it?
pj_mukh 3y ago
I think this is only complicated because people aren’t able to hold competing thoughts in their heads. There was a man who was massively effective in getting multiple once-in—a-generation revolutionary companies of the ground by sheer grind and lots of luck (yes..both). We should thank that man of yore. But that man is now a convenient stooge for the right wing and a pointless edgelord whiling away his money on pointless projects. Both of these can be true. It’s okay. Here’s to hoping Tesla, SpaceX and all his other world changing companies succeed inspite of him and let him cement his complicated legacy. Go Starship Super Heavy!! PS: Shoutout to Gwynne Shotwell for being a massively effective administrator for this incredible rocketship of a company.
- baq 3y ago
  > Shoutout to Gwynne Shotwell She’s the low key (on this forum anyway) hero of human space flight in this decade. Absolute unit.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  Unfortunately, many times people who do great things turn out to be awful people, or have some really problematic views. Henry Ford revolutionized automobile manufacturing with the assembly line, for instance, but was also infamous for being horribly racist and anti-Semitic. Thomas Edison invented or helped facilitate the invention of many things (useful lightbulb with carbon filament, movie projector, etc.), but was generally known as having a lousy personality and suing everyone for IP stuff, resulting in the movie industry moving to California to get away from him. Can you imagine what things would have been like in Ford's time if he had the internet and Twitter to spread his views?
nesyt 3y ago
Radio telescopes often are much larger than JWST and/or are interferometric arrays, which in either case remain impractical to deploy to orbit.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  They should be building those things on the far side of the Moon instead. Radio telescopes suffer from interference from terrestrial radio sources, which is why they locate them in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia, but even that doesn't fully isolate them. Putting them on the far side of the Moon would (at least for a while) completely eliminate problems with terrestrial interference, plus give humanity a good reason to back to the Moon and build some serious infrastructure there, and perhaps also distract us from fighting with each other so much. It would also give many engineers something much more important and useful to work on than ad-ware.
  - cmsj 3y ago
    Ah yes, the classic engineering solution of "just put it on the far side of the moon". Easy!
    - shiroiuma 3y ago
      Landing the Apollo missions on the moon wasn't easy at all, but led to huge improvements in technology. The same can be true here.
ordu 3y ago
>> I don't know why this topic polarizes people to such an extreme degree. > Because some people are so rabidly anti-Elon You know, polarization takes at least two poles. If some people are rabidly anti-Elon, so some people are rabidly pro-Elon. > Don't forget about the astronomers complaining about the global internet being provided by Starlink They do not complain about the global internet. They have nothing against the global internet per se. They complain about satellites. There are no fundamental physical laws stating that the global internet comes with littering the sky with thousands of bright satellites. They can be less bright at least, or probably one can use some military expertise on making flying objects undetectable by any means. Then come costs/benefits analysis and the question becomes too difficult for an armchair experts to grasp. So they instead prefer to construct a strawman they feel comfortable to fight. When you allow yourself to use such a rhetoric devices, you shouldn't be surprised when the other side becomes polarized. They reciprocate and then you feel the right or even an obligation to throw some more shit into your discussion, and then you have no chance for a meaningful discussion.
Lewton 3y ago
Do you have to put "bad man" in quotes? It's possible to respect his achievements without lionizing the person He's legit terrible as a person, someone who spends a significant amount of his time dedicated to trolling is not someone we should look up to
- ETH_start 3y ago
  He is absolutely not a terrible person. Trolling overly sensitive and authoritarian political-establishment followers doesn't make someone "terrible".
- okr 3y ago
  A person trolling is a person with dark humor. I like persons with dark humor. These persons tend to be warm and humane as well. Dark humor comes from experiencing life kicking you in the guts early enough, so that you can start to joke about it. It's all a joke, but make the best out of it.
  - hnbad 3y ago
    The difference between dark humor and trolling is that trolling punches down. I still enjoy some dark humor but my taste for trolling has massively decreased since I grew out of being an angsty self-hating teenage boy who thought misanthropy made me smarter. Yeah, no, trolls don't tend to be warm and humane. Trolling is the opposite of that actually. And it usually stems from cowardice because sincerity makes you vulnerable and that takes courage.
    - ETH_start 3y ago
      Nope, that's just you redefining dark-humor/trolling in accordance with a left-wing preoccupation—which is to defend less powerful groups and attack more powerful ones.
  - Gasp0de 3y ago
    He's a narcissist who also happens to be a right wing extremist though. And even if it was all a joke, through his position he has a huge influence on politics and a lot of people and it would be extremely irresponsible to make such jokes. However, no matter how much I dislike the person I do appreciate the achievements at PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX in which he took part.
tibbydudeza 3y ago
Well safety comes first - this let's try it in production and see if it works for software - so a portion of youtube barfs - nobody harmed except missing their favourite cat vidoes. The same with the FDA - we don't want a repeat of Thalidomide babies do we ???.
lm28469 3y ago
> than allow that "bad man" to succeed at taking us to the stars lmao, we managed to fuck up our very own perfect planet in 200 years of industrial revolution and the plan is to go transform a dead rock into earth Elon or others I'll still find it stupid, this isn't minecraft > We can't have the future because it slightly inconveniences the present It's more like the present is (more than) slightly inconveniencing our future, and ego maniacs like Musk are a big part of the problem
- throwawaylmao 3y ago
  lmao, it was never "the plan to" fix Earth. Nobody ever claimed it's going to be "transformed to Earth" anytime soon, too. It's the plan to protect humanity (as in the genus) from extinction level events such as asteroids, mega-volcano eruptions or global wars. As a nice side effect, the technologies developed to transform Mars would be the same technologies that would help fix Earth.
  - lm28469 3y ago
    > It's the plan to protect humanity (as in the genus) from extinction level events such as asteroids, mega-volcano eruptions or global wars. That's a nice thought but it's 100% sci-fi, we can't act as if A will cause B because neither A nor B are certain. What if this race for survival is exactly the thing that will cause our end ? > the technologies developed to transform Mars would be the same technologies that would help fix Earth. Except it's literally the opposite... we need a lot of co2 on mars to make it habitable https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/mars-terraforming-not-possible-using-present-day-technology/ https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/mars-terraforming-not-poss...
    - throwawaylmao 3y ago
      > That's a nice thought but it's 100% sci-fi, we can't act as if A will cause B because neither A nor B are certain. Sorry but I don't follow. We need to act because it's a real possibility, even though it's uncertain. > What if this race for survival is exactly the thing that will cause our end ? ... "we can't act as if A will cause B because neither A nor B are certain." Why would it cause our end? > Except it's literally the opposite... we need a lot of co2 on mars to make it habitable Sure, but that's not the only thing you need to do there. You also need to make fuel - out of CO2 that's already there.
akira2501 3y ago
> would rather nail the feet of the human race to the ground than allow that "bad man" to succeed at taking us to the stars. This type of false equivalence and extreme hyperbole is why it polarizes people. The preferred terms of the conversation are so insane as to invite that specific outcome. > affecting their precious telescopes You also seem to feel entitled to adopt the position of a rank bully. Where does this entitlement come from? While reflecting on that, you might find a more charitable and honest answer as to the sources of polarization on this topic. > We can't have the future because it slightly inconveniences the present and ruffles the feathers of developers fired from Twitter. We'll have the future with or without Space X. This type of angry hype and blind argumentation simply underscore the above points.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Meaningful progress in space exploration and rocketry, prior to SpaceX, was negligible. There was no real motivation to try to lower prices, let alone meaningfully advance technologies, for aerospace companies headed by MBAs and motivated exclusively by profit, all with a defacto monopoly in launches. And there's every reason to think that without SpaceX we would still be on that trajectory. As for the future... SpaceX has certainly inspired a large number of companies looking to try to emulate it success, but none have really managed to achieve anything comparable to increasingly dated SpaceX tech at this point, let alone where SpaceX is taking us with technologies like the Starship. So with this I think there's also a reasonable fear that without SpaceX we'd relapse back into the past since 1972, in terms of space progress - which is to say near zero. One really cannot overstate the impact that SpaceX has had on space in the past, is continuing to have on space in the present, and will almost certainly continue to have in the future. That people want SpaceX to fail, and imperil all of this, just because they don't like somebody they don't even know, is such a terrible reflection on the state and motivations of society today.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Space exploration, sending vehicles to asteroids and meteors, Mars...., did just fine without SpaceX. Maybe SpaceX made the launches for those a tad cheaper, but launch costs are far from the most important cost factor for those missions. Which leaves rockertry. Reusable rockets are quite an achievement, sure. So far the real world impact is limited to satellite internet, which is not available globally yet. Starship still has to be launched successfully to count as rocketry advancement.
shafyy 3y ago
> Because some people are so rabidly anti-Elon that they would rather nail the feet of the human race to the ground than allow that "bad man" to succeed at taking us to the stars. There are good reasons people are anti-Elon, and I don't need to list them here now. Technological advancement is nice, and it can be a good thing that one "eccentric" billionaire puts a lot of money into this. But there are consequences, and it's good that there are people who are critical of this. It's ok that people like Musk are scrutinized. In my opinion, there's way more room for scrutinity by mainstream media instead of them instead of sucking up every word he says.
- ETH_start 3y ago
  Anti-Musk people seldom list the reasons why they're anti-Musk because they are not reasonable reasons and they know it. And yes it is okay for Musk to be criticized. Putting billionaires up on a pedestal is almost as annoying as vilifying them for being successful.
PatronBernard 3y ago
Oh those silly ground-based astronomers. Just give 'em a JWST so they stop yapping! Maybe you should tag along with the next Starship so I don't have to read garbage comments like this anymore.
me_me_me 3y ago
> Don't forget about the astronomers complaining about the global internet being provided by Starlink affecting their precious telescopes, while ignoring the minor detail that Starship will be able to launch a JWST-sized telescope weekly if they want to get above the atmosphere. Here comes elon zealot just copy and pasting empty claims and ignoring the actual facts we have. The lack of accountability is just staggering. And the only defense is a cave man ad hominem - oh they are just butt hurt anti-elons. Elon Musk has a long list of bogus claims, outright lies and now currently on trail for fraud. His shtick is to make semi-revolutionary clam in X years, and before people start asking about that claim in near future he is making new claims about something completely new. Thats why people are calling him out on his BS claims. So lets have a look: The re-usability claims are all bogus, a make believe at best. For one, Starship is basically an early prototype rocket. Two, falcon 5 - a much simpler design - has current re-usability window at one month (as far as i remember). How do you go into weekly launches... Empty claims of Elon Musk that they will work out the kinks are akin to Elisabeth Holmes claims. Or self driving tesla Next Year(tm), or underground tunnels, or hypelink, or amazing AI robot buttler all next year (tm). Not to mention pretty strong evidence for Kessler Syndrome is already happening. And polluting orbit with starlinks are not helping. global internet being provided by Starlink - you mean a toy for rich. Right? Cuz even tough it somewhat affordable now, for starlink to actually make money need and will cost way more.
- ETH_start 3y ago
  Tesla has replaced two million gasoline cars with electric cars, and given its current growth rate, and Musk's long standing plan to release progressively more affordable cars, this number will likely be massively larger in a few years. Beyond Tesla's own sales, its success has sparked massive investment by other carmakers to push their electric vehicle manufacturing timetables forward. All told, Tesla has had a massive impact in pushing the world to replace gasoline vehicles with electric ones. SpaceX, for its part, is responsible for reducing the cost of launching material to orbit ten fold, with another 100 fold reduction possible with StarShip. The spike at the end of this graph is almost solely due to SpaceX: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-launched-into-outer-space?time=earliest..2017&country=USA~RUS~CHN~GBR~JPN~FRA~IND~DEU~European+Space+Agency https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-... Whatever is motivating this narrative you've adopted about Musk, it isn't the pursuit of truth.

tw04 3y ago

> We can't have the future because it slightly inconveniences the present and ruffles the feathers of developers fired from Twitter. Or because he constantly stomps on experienced engineers with stupid ideas and puts the whole thing at risk. Literally EVERYONE said the cement base was a stupid idea and yet Elon had to trump his own experts. Every time he forces his idiotic ideas on his engineers he puts the future of the whole business at risk. At least he’s been so distracted by the Twitter debacle the adults have been able to make decisions without having to cater to his ego and make him think the idea was his.

ethagknight 3y ago
[flagged]
- huytersd 3y ago
  Tesla is doing great, SpaceX has always been amazing. Twitter is failing. Elon Musk becomes less respectable by the day.
  - doubleg72 3y ago
    You must have missed TSLA last week earning call…
    - huytersd 3y ago
      I didn’t. I still think they have enough of a moat for 5-10 years and beyond especially since they own the vast majority of the now standard NACS charging stations.
  - brandonagr2 3y ago
    How is twitter failing? Usage is growing and they will be cash flow positive soon, that sounds better than twitter 1.0 was doing
    - huytersd 3y ago
      Usage is dropping. Down about 15% over the last 10 months. Revenue has dropped 11% compared to last year. It’s expected to keep dropping in 2023 with advertising revenue leaving.
d-z-m 3y ago
> Literally EVERYONE said the cement base was a stupid idea and yet Elon had to trump his own experts. Do you have more information on this? My quick googling turned up nothing.
- almost_usual 3y ago
  This submission was flagged on HN but it was pointed out. > In addition to the siting and sizing of the pad, SpaceX does not have a flame trench, nor do they have a water deluge system used to suppress heat and sound energy from any launches, as the Army Corps of Engineering permitting required to add these civil engineering systems is itself a multi-year process. > No large rocket complex on the planet: not in Russia, nor China, and certainly not in the US, exists that doesn’t contain one or both of these energy suppression systems. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35590279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35590279 https://blog.esghound.com/p/spacexs-texas-rocket-is-going-to https://blog.esghound.com/p/spacexs-texas-rocket-is-going-to
  - Animats 3y ago
    Boca Chica now has a better launch pad with a flame deflector and a water deluge system.[1] They really needed that. The first version just fired the entire output of the booster at a flat concrete slab, which destroyed the pad, sending chunks of concrete into the ocean and around the area. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYRJn3uvw3M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYRJn3uvw3M
  - skellington 3y ago
    SpaceX said it was more a question of timing. That the water system would take too long and they were hoping to test before it was fit. The first test involved a subset of all the engines so they hoped the concrete would survive.
kcplate 3y ago
I can literally watch SpaceX fire rockets into space 3-4x a month from my backyard. Name one other company, person, or even a country that can and is willing to do that. There are none. As long as SpaceX can and no one else can, the future of SpaceX is on a pretty sound footing in my opinion.
- lancewiggs 3y ago
  Rocketlab is doing this at about half the rate.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    No it’s not, it’s not even making 1 per month.
  - nickik 3y ago
    Not even close, and doing it with a tiny 100kg rocket isn't even remotely the same thing anyway.
    - m4rtink 3y ago
      Not to mention it does not even have a reusable booster (yet) and unfortunately there seem to be still some reliability issues as well.
- ben_w 3y ago
  I'm all in favour of SpaceX having an engine-rich development cycle that gets things done faster and cheaper than anyone else, this doesn't mean Musk is doing everything right. I'm sad about the interference that Starlink causes to ground based astronomy, this doesn't mean Musk is ignoring those issues. And I value government agencies making sure that business interests are balanced against democratic will of the people, that doesn't mean they're funded at the right level for a rapidly growing industry.
- cmsj 3y ago
  China. https://www.rocketlaunch.live/?pastOnly=1&filter=china https://www.rocketlaunch.live/?pastOnly=1&filter=china
brandonagr2 3y ago
You sound like you don't know anything about what actually happened or the SpaceX engineering process in general. SpaceX knew that the concrete wasn't the final solution, it was always temporary, they had already started building the steel water cooled plate before the first test flight. Based on the data they had available from the series of static fire tests leading up to the test they thought the concrete would ablate and survive one test flight before they took the downtime to replace it. Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that Elon overruled all the SpaceX engineers on the timing of when to install the steel water cooled plate or are you Literally making things up? Learning more by moving quickly and taking calculated risks is clearly the better approach, as evidenced by the current dominance of the Falcon 9 and SN 25 and booster 9 sitting on a repaired OLM and being scheduled to make another orbital attempt in less than 2 weeks.
- skellington 3y ago
  You're only being downvoted because of your accuracy.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  Bizarre that the most accurate take here is greyed out. Absolutely correct.
- fomine3 3y ago
  > Learning more by moving quickly and taking calculated risks is clearly the better approach, I think most people agree that it's better for SpaceX business, but some don't agree that it's worthwhile for our society with what happens if failed. It's like Tesla's "FSD Beta" situation.
- kasdi 3y ago
  > Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that Elon overruled all the SpaceX engineers on the timing of when to install the steel water cooled plate or are you Literally making things up? Unfortunately, #LiterallyMakingThingsUp seems to be a trend these days.
soperj 3y ago
> Or because he constantly stomps on experienced engineers with stupid ideas and puts the whole thing at risk. Literally EVERYONE said the cement base was a stupid idea and yet Elon had to trump his own experts. Wouldn't that be called working from first principles? Proving it doesn't work can be quicker in the long run than over-designing something based on what you think won't work.
- tigershark 3y ago
  You don’t need to work from first principles to understand that the most powerful (by far) rocket built would obliterate whatever concrete you use without an appropriate water deluge system and/or flame trench.
  - ben_bai 3y ago
    And now they have to repair the launchsite, which they already did. And add water deluge, which they already did. The upside was they got lots of data to improve the next rocket, which they already did. It's ready to go again, just waiting for FAA approval.
    - rbanffy 3y ago
      > The upside was they got lots of data to improve the next rocket, Or they could have done that the first time with a flame trench and a water deluge system that prevented the energy of the rockets from damaging the rockets dooming the first stage and making concrete rain on the neighboring wildlife reserve. Elon could have verified that hypothesis with a full static fire test AND be able to see the damage to both rockets and pad from an actual launch without destroying a rocket. This is why SpaceX grew from the start with an immune system to prevent Elon from ruining too much stuff.
      - aik 3y ago
        Is your argument that SpaceX has succeeded despite Elon, not in large part due to Elon?
kortilla 3y ago
> Literally EVERYONE said the cement base was a stupid idea and yet Elon had to trump his own experts. Even Elon said this. It was a gamble, it didn’t pay off.
- hef19898 3y ago
  And those gambles make Elon a bad engineer, if one at all.
  - martindbp 3y ago
    No, a bad engineer is one that takes no risks ever and end up doing nothing of consequence. His risk taking is the sole reason SpaceX exists.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      You never did any real engineering work, did you? Because there is risk taking, or rather risk management with engineering decisison always being trade offs and such, and taking ahort cuts, cutting corners and taking uncalculated risks in hopes of being lucky. Topped by ignoring advice from others.
      - aik 3y ago
        I think at the same time there are 100 decisions he made that have paid off. Of course agree this one didn’t and of course hope he learned from it.
      - kortilla 3y ago
        falcon and all of spacex is based on ignoring advice from others, especially “industry experts”. It’s called first principles reasoning.
        nemo 3y ago
        >falcon and all of spacex is based on ignoring advice from others, especially “industry experts” Not in the least. SpaceX hires a lot of rocket scientists who are industry experts. They're more agile than the entrenched players since Boeing/Lockheed legacy space programs weren't efficient but SpaceX has relied upon expert consultation and expert advice from folks in the industry to build their rockets. I don't see them as building from first principles at all, they're building on what's come before standing on the shoulders of the rocket engineers who've come before.
nickik 3y ago
Yes and he has often overruled his engineers and was right. Taking calculated risk to shorten development is reasonable. Even if you don't get it always right. > Literally EVERYONE said the cement base was a stupid idea They expected it to break but be ok for one launch. Its a reasonable risk to launch sooner. > Every time he forces his idiotic ideas on his engineers he puts the future of the whole business at risk. And yet the he has lead the business for 20+ years and the company has been getting more and more and more successful. I guess that just happens by magic. > At least he’s been so distracted by the Twitter debacle the adults have been able to make decisions When SpaceX does good its because Musk wasn't there, when it does bad its because of Musk. Classic.
- wnkrshm 3y ago
  I wonder why Musk is always thrown into the ring with SpaceX, when its entire operation is mostly done by Gwynne Shotwell.
  - zpeti 3y ago
    Because Elon is the product lead (and founder and owner), Shotwell does the business development. Product is way more interesting in this case than BD, considering it's the most badass rockets ever made. But feel free to praise Shotwell too, that's great too.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      You really think Elon is anymore than Product Lead / Chief Engineer in title?
      - zpeti 3y ago
        Yes. Please read any of the official comments about him by people who have worked with him, or just answers on Quora, or read the new biography. Or watch his actual comments and behavior on everyday astronaut interviews. If 4 of those data points don’t convince you, you obviously don’t want to be convinced even in the slightest
madaxe_again 3y ago
Thag make round rock. He call “wheel”. Thag idiot. No need round rock wheel thing in cave. Sometimes you do something against conventional wisdom, and people call you a genius. Sometimes it doesn’t pay off. I am assuming that you are employed, rather than an employer.

pstuart 3y ago

There's another duality of thought: I want SpaceX and Tesla to succeed. Regardless of my feelings about him, I acknowledge that Elon was instrumental in sparking the shift to EVs. Also, that having a dictator with a vision can allow companies to do audacious things that would normally die in committees (like reusable rockets, etc...) That said, I have nothing but contempt for the man and am petty enough to have schadenfreude in any of his personal comeuppance.

dcormier 3y ago
I have enjoyed watching a new launch provider emerge, EVs become a real thing, and him being forced to buy Twitter.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  Watching him be forced to buy Twitter was kinda funny at the time, but it's turned into a huge disappointment. I was really hoping to see the whole site completely implode, and then go out of business, and it hasn't happened yet. The world would be better off without Twitter (now "X"... ugh).
  - pstuart 3y ago
    Give it time -- it needs advertisers to survive and they appear to be fleeing. I believe in "free speech" but also think that absolutism in that regard is horseshit.

bandyaboot 3y ago

Polarization is characterized by people being driven to opposite extremes. That fact that you explain it exclusively in reference to just one of the extremes tells me you occupy the other.

mensetmanusman 3y ago
Staying put is also polarizing.
davidmurdoch 3y ago
Non-polarization is a thing. So is circular.

ethanbond 3y ago

Is launch capacity the thing that holds back more space-based telescopes, and are those telescopes going to have the same availability to researchers as terrestrial ones? If either answer is no, then the brag about capacity isn’t really relevant.

fastball 3y ago
Absolutely launch capacity is holding back more space-based telescopes. More telescopes means more availability to researchers.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Sure, in the same way that Ferrari doubling its production means more people can get their kids to school conveniently.
  - jbm 3y ago
    Isn't Starship the cheap option for orbital launch?
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      But the whole point is if you ruin thousands of terrestrial telescopes used (successfully) by thousands of researchers, and in exchange you get a promise of one day maybe having tons of orbital telescopes, you aren’t really addressing the concern.
      - zpeti 3y ago
        Come on, you are arguing in such bad faith its ridiculous. Everyone knows space based telescopes are orders of magnitude better, and will be better for research than thousands of earth based telescopes. Even the researches, unless very selfish, should know that ideally you want many more very powerful space based telescopes if you actually want to do research and not just marvel at the stars from your patio. We obviously want larger launch capacity in the long run. It's not even a question. Falcon 9 is already the most successful rocket ever on almost all stats of usefulness, why shouldn't we have at least SOME faith that spacex will be able to build starship and use it?

pj_mukh 3y ago

I think this is only complicated because people aren’t able to hold competing thoughts in their heads. There was a man who was massively effective in getting multiple once-in—a-generation revolutionary companies of the ground by sheer grind and lots of luck (yes..both). We should thank that man of yore. But that man is now a convenient stooge for the right wing and a pointless edgelord whiling away his money on pointless projects. Both of these can be true. It’s okay. Here’s to hoping Tesla, SpaceX and all his other world changing companies succeed inspite of him and let him cement his complicated legacy. Go Starship Super Heavy!! PS: Shoutout to Gwynne Shotwell for being a massively effective administrator for this incredible rocketship of a company.

baq 3y ago
> Shoutout to Gwynne Shotwell She’s the low key (on this forum anyway) hero of human space flight in this decade. Absolute unit.
shiroiuma 3y ago
Unfortunately, many times people who do great things turn out to be awful people, or have some really problematic views. Henry Ford revolutionized automobile manufacturing with the assembly line, for instance, but was also infamous for being horribly racist and anti-Semitic. Thomas Edison invented or helped facilitate the invention of many things (useful lightbulb with carbon filament, movie projector, etc.), but was generally known as having a lousy personality and suing everyone for IP stuff, resulting in the movie industry moving to California to get away from him. Can you imagine what things would have been like in Ford's time if he had the internet and Twitter to spread his views?

nesyt 3y ago

Radio telescopes often are much larger than JWST and/or are interferometric arrays, which in either case remain impractical to deploy to orbit.

shiroiuma 3y ago
They should be building those things on the far side of the Moon instead. Radio telescopes suffer from interference from terrestrial radio sources, which is why they locate them in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia, but even that doesn't fully isolate them. Putting them on the far side of the Moon would (at least for a while) completely eliminate problems with terrestrial interference, plus give humanity a good reason to back to the Moon and build some serious infrastructure there, and perhaps also distract us from fighting with each other so much. It would also give many engineers something much more important and useful to work on than ad-ware.
- cmsj 3y ago
  Ah yes, the classic engineering solution of "just put it on the far side of the moon". Easy!
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    Landing the Apollo missions on the moon wasn't easy at all, but led to huge improvements in technology. The same can be true here.

ordu 3y ago

>> I don't know why this topic polarizes people to such an extreme degree. > Because some people are so rabidly anti-Elon You know, polarization takes at least two poles. If some people are rabidly anti-Elon, so some people are rabidly pro-Elon. > Don't forget about the astronomers complaining about the global internet being provided by Starlink They do not complain about the global internet. They have nothing against the global internet per se. They complain about satellites. There are no fundamental physical laws stating that the global internet comes with littering the sky with thousands of bright satellites. They can be less bright at least, or probably one can use some military expertise on making flying objects undetectable by any means. Then come costs/benefits analysis and the question becomes too difficult for an armchair experts to grasp. So they instead prefer to construct a strawman they feel comfortable to fight. When you allow yourself to use such a rhetoric devices, you shouldn't be surprised when the other side becomes polarized. They reciprocate and then you feel the right or even an obligation to throw some more shit into your discussion, and then you have no chance for a meaningful discussion.

Lewton 3y ago

Do you have to put "bad man" in quotes? It's possible to respect his achievements without lionizing the person He's legit terrible as a person, someone who spends a significant amount of his time dedicated to trolling is not someone we should look up to

ETH_start 3y ago
He is absolutely not a terrible person. Trolling overly sensitive and authoritarian political-establishment followers doesn't make someone "terrible".
okr 3y ago
A person trolling is a person with dark humor. I like persons with dark humor. These persons tend to be warm and humane as well. Dark humor comes from experiencing life kicking you in the guts early enough, so that you can start to joke about it. It's all a joke, but make the best out of it.
- hnbad 3y ago
  The difference between dark humor and trolling is that trolling punches down. I still enjoy some dark humor but my taste for trolling has massively decreased since I grew out of being an angsty self-hating teenage boy who thought misanthropy made me smarter. Yeah, no, trolls don't tend to be warm and humane. Trolling is the opposite of that actually. And it usually stems from cowardice because sincerity makes you vulnerable and that takes courage.
  - ETH_start 3y ago
    Nope, that's just you redefining dark-humor/trolling in accordance with a left-wing preoccupation—which is to defend less powerful groups and attack more powerful ones.
- Gasp0de 3y ago
  He's a narcissist who also happens to be a right wing extremist though. And even if it was all a joke, through his position he has a huge influence on politics and a lot of people and it would be extremely irresponsible to make such jokes. However, no matter how much I dislike the person I do appreciate the achievements at PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX in which he took part.

tibbydudeza 3y ago

Well safety comes first - this let's try it in production and see if it works for software - so a portion of youtube barfs - nobody harmed except missing their favourite cat vidoes. The same with the FDA - we don't want a repeat of Thalidomide babies do we ???.

lm28469 3y ago

> than allow that "bad man" to succeed at taking us to the stars lmao, we managed to fuck up our very own perfect planet in 200 years of industrial revolution and the plan is to go transform a dead rock into earth Elon or others I'll still find it stupid, this isn't minecraft > We can't have the future because it slightly inconveniences the present It's more like the present is (more than) slightly inconveniencing our future, and ego maniacs like Musk are a big part of the problem

throwawaylmao 3y ago
lmao, it was never "the plan to" fix Earth. Nobody ever claimed it's going to be "transformed to Earth" anytime soon, too. It's the plan to protect humanity (as in the genus) from extinction level events such as asteroids, mega-volcano eruptions or global wars. As a nice side effect, the technologies developed to transform Mars would be the same technologies that would help fix Earth.
- lm28469 3y ago
  > It's the plan to protect humanity (as in the genus) from extinction level events such as asteroids, mega-volcano eruptions or global wars. That's a nice thought but it's 100% sci-fi, we can't act as if A will cause B because neither A nor B are certain. What if this race for survival is exactly the thing that will cause our end ? > the technologies developed to transform Mars would be the same technologies that would help fix Earth. Except it's literally the opposite... we need a lot of co2 on mars to make it habitable https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/mars-terraforming-not-possible-using-present-day-technology/ https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/mars-terraforming-not-poss...
  - throwawaylmao 3y ago
    > That's a nice thought but it's 100% sci-fi, we can't act as if A will cause B because neither A nor B are certain. Sorry but I don't follow. We need to act because it's a real possibility, even though it's uncertain. > What if this race for survival is exactly the thing that will cause our end ? ... "we can't act as if A will cause B because neither A nor B are certain." Why would it cause our end? > Except it's literally the opposite... we need a lot of co2 on mars to make it habitable Sure, but that's not the only thing you need to do there. You also need to make fuel - out of CO2 that's already there.

akira2501 3y ago

> would rather nail the feet of the human race to the ground than allow that "bad man" to succeed at taking us to the stars. This type of false equivalence and extreme hyperbole is why it polarizes people. The preferred terms of the conversation are so insane as to invite that specific outcome. > affecting their precious telescopes You also seem to feel entitled to adopt the position of a rank bully. Where does this entitlement come from? While reflecting on that, you might find a more charitable and honest answer as to the sources of polarization on this topic. > We can't have the future because it slightly inconveniences the present and ruffles the feathers of developers fired from Twitter. We'll have the future with or without Space X. This type of angry hype and blind argumentation simply underscore the above points.

somenameforme 3y ago
Meaningful progress in space exploration and rocketry, prior to SpaceX, was negligible. There was no real motivation to try to lower prices, let alone meaningfully advance technologies, for aerospace companies headed by MBAs and motivated exclusively by profit, all with a defacto monopoly in launches. And there's every reason to think that without SpaceX we would still be on that trajectory. As for the future... SpaceX has certainly inspired a large number of companies looking to try to emulate it success, but none have really managed to achieve anything comparable to increasingly dated SpaceX tech at this point, let alone where SpaceX is taking us with technologies like the Starship. So with this I think there's also a reasonable fear that without SpaceX we'd relapse back into the past since 1972, in terms of space progress - which is to say near zero. One really cannot overstate the impact that SpaceX has had on space in the past, is continuing to have on space in the present, and will almost certainly continue to have in the future. That people want SpaceX to fail, and imperil all of this, just because they don't like somebody they don't even know, is such a terrible reflection on the state and motivations of society today.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Space exploration, sending vehicles to asteroids and meteors, Mars...., did just fine without SpaceX. Maybe SpaceX made the launches for those a tad cheaper, but launch costs are far from the most important cost factor for those missions. Which leaves rockertry. Reusable rockets are quite an achievement, sure. So far the real world impact is limited to satellite internet, which is not available globally yet. Starship still has to be launched successfully to count as rocketry advancement.

shafyy 3y ago

> Because some people are so rabidly anti-Elon that they would rather nail the feet of the human race to the ground than allow that "bad man" to succeed at taking us to the stars. There are good reasons people are anti-Elon, and I don't need to list them here now. Technological advancement is nice, and it can be a good thing that one "eccentric" billionaire puts a lot of money into this. But there are consequences, and it's good that there are people who are critical of this. It's ok that people like Musk are scrutinized. In my opinion, there's way more room for scrutinity by mainstream media instead of them instead of sucking up every word he says.

ETH_start 3y ago
Anti-Musk people seldom list the reasons why they're anti-Musk because they are not reasonable reasons and they know it. And yes it is okay for Musk to be criticized. Putting billionaires up on a pedestal is almost as annoying as vilifying them for being successful.

PatronBernard 3y ago

Oh those silly ground-based astronomers. Just give 'em a JWST so they stop yapping! Maybe you should tag along with the next Starship so I don't have to read garbage comments like this anymore.

me_me_me 3y ago

> Don't forget about the astronomers complaining about the global internet being provided by Starlink affecting their precious telescopes, while ignoring the minor detail that Starship will be able to launch a JWST-sized telescope weekly if they want to get above the atmosphere. Here comes elon zealot just copy and pasting empty claims and ignoring the actual facts we have. The lack of accountability is just staggering. And the only defense is a cave man ad hominem - oh they are just butt hurt anti-elons. Elon Musk has a long list of bogus claims, outright lies and now currently on trail for fraud. His shtick is to make semi-revolutionary clam in X years, and before people start asking about that claim in near future he is making new claims about something completely new. Thats why people are calling him out on his BS claims. So lets have a look: The re-usability claims are all bogus, a make believe at best. For one, Starship is basically an early prototype rocket. Two, falcon 5 - a much simpler design - has current re-usability window at one month (as far as i remember). How do you go into weekly launches... Empty claims of Elon Musk that they will work out the kinks are akin to Elisabeth Holmes claims. Or self driving tesla Next Year(tm), or underground tunnels, or hypelink, or amazing AI robot buttler all next year (tm). Not to mention pretty strong evidence for Kessler Syndrome is already happening. And polluting orbit with starlinks are not helping. global internet being provided by Starlink - you mean a toy for rich. Right? Cuz even tough it somewhat affordable now, for starlink to actually make money need and will cost way more.

ETH_start 3y ago
Tesla has replaced two million gasoline cars with electric cars, and given its current growth rate, and Musk's long standing plan to release progressively more affordable cars, this number will likely be massively larger in a few years. Beyond Tesla's own sales, its success has sparked massive investment by other carmakers to push their electric vehicle manufacturing timetables forward. All told, Tesla has had a massive impact in pushing the world to replace gasoline vehicles with electric ones. SpaceX, for its part, is responsible for reducing the cost of launching material to orbit ten fold, with another 100 fold reduction possible with StarShip. The spike at the end of this graph is almost solely due to SpaceX: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-launched-into-outer-space?time=earliest..2017&country=USA~RUS~CHN~GBR~JPN~FRA~IND~DEU~European+Space+Agency https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-... Whatever is motivating this narrative you've adopted about Musk, it isn't the pursuit of truth.