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> What other person started a rocket company from scratch and got them landing? I'd rather listen to Lars Blackmore (the engineer who is largely responsible fo

> What other person started a rocket company from scratch and got them landing? I'd rather listen to Lars Blackmore (the engineer who is largely responsible for SpaceX powered descent). Or Gwynne Shotwell who actually oversees the business day-to-day. I'm really not interested in what the money guy has to say, especially since he is primarily interested in cultivating his public image-- how can you trust anything he says? The dude pays people to play a videogame for him 24/7 so he can pretend he is the best player in the world. That's not a metaphor -- he actually does that. https://www.vulture.com/article/fake-gamer-was-elon-musk-cheating-at-path-of-exile-2.html https://www.vulture.com/article/fake-gamer-was-elon-musk-che...

throw5959 2y ago
Sure, I'm not saying Musk is the only person who has interesting things to say about it. You're absolutely correct about these other people and I listen to them too. But you're not giving Musk enough credit. All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit, and what is interesting here is that he went and made it happen anyways. I'm not talking just about the engineering, everything is interesting here - the project management, the hiring, the investments, the business side... Musk has a lot of input and influence in all of these, he was the one who decided and paid for it.
- wormlord 2y ago
  > All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit Every company has some kind of mythology where someone says "you'll never make it in this town!". The reality is that uncrewed propulsive landing was technologically feasible since the soviets landed a rover on the moon. NASA propulsively landed a rover on Mars back in 2011. Like I said, listening to billionaires is probably interesting if your goal is "acquire boatloads of money". But we already know how to do that. 1. Appear confident 2. Lie 3. Have no morals or ethics 4. Prioritize the pursuit of power above all else
  - throw5959 2y ago
    Sorry but no, this is absolutely not what happened. I am watching it closely ever since SpaceX was founded in 2002. There is an incredible gap between the tech demo you're speaking about, and actually landing a heavy orbital rocket, and then doing it 100 times in a row without a hiccup. Mars is completely off topic, as they didn't land the booster there. We had Space Shuttle before and it didn't say much about landing rocket boosters.
    - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
      I think it is? Like, this sounds like a pretty silly claim: > All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit Where did you hear that?
      - throw5959 2y ago
        Well I heard it myself from practically anybody up until 2015. I even attended quite a lot of conference talks on this topic... I'm sure it's not hard to find it online, famously a NASA director (I think?) did so.
        ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
        You're saying every engineer and every person with any other type of profession you've ever spoken with, said that it was impossible to land a rocket? I feel like plenty of professionals don't even have an opinion on the matter. Even if that's true, there's still every engineer and every other professional in the world you haven't spoken with. To take an example, I'm an engineer, I didn't say it. That disproves the claim.
        throw5959 2y ago
        Please, this is a conversation, not math exam.
        2y ago
- lamontcg 2y ago
  > All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit You literally responded to a guy citing Lars Blackmore, who is the engineer that designed their landing algorithm--which was developed at NASA's JPL lab (before SpaceX existed). Musk bet on landing rockets _because_ engineers told him that it was possible.
  - throw5959 2y ago
    Oh no, Musk convinced the engineers it's possible. One of the interesting things about him.
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    The landing was completely developed at SpaceX without NASA tech, assistance or money. By Lars. After figuring out parachutes were infeasible. In fact it was one of the reasons red dragon was cancelled. The group studying hypersonic retro propulsion of boosters at NASA was let go because that's what SpaceX did to land
    - lamontcg 2y ago
      The Air Force was studying RTLS as part of the ARES (Affordable REsponsive Spacelift) program in 2005 (Which was the result of 1992/1994-era discussions on "spacecast 2020"): https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2005-6682 https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2005-6682 Lars and Beschet wrote their groundbreaking paper on lossless convexification of the powered descent problem at JPL before Lars went to SpaceX: http://www.larsblackmore.com/CarsonAcikmeseBlackmoreACC11.pdf http://www.larsblackmore.com/CarsonAcikmeseBlackmoreACC11.pd...
      - inemesitaffia 2y ago
        Blue Origin landed first, where was that from? And I don't see any rocket actually coming back with an orbital payload? Where's the demonstrator? Like that quiet supersonic thing Lockheed is demonstrating. Even Lars didn't deliver at the first attempt. So it's not like it was something available off the shelf. Like some cryptography library you include in your code.
whamlastxmas 2y ago
He doesn’t do that. People who don’t like him claim that he does without any basis to it, and you’re perpetuating this hyperbole by claiming it as fact when the very thing you linked doesn’t even go that far. Musk sucks, attack him for valid reasons like racism instead of some made up bullshit about cheating at video games.
- wormlord 2y ago
  He literally does do that. Top-level players of the game have called him out for it. They have tracked his time with an API. It is actually mathematically impossible to be at his level in POE-- you would have to be a top-tier player and play nonstop for 20+ hrs a day. People who like Musk aren't going to care that he is racist, they will argue about what actually constitutes as racism (erm pushes up glasses --actually have u read the bell curve???). Having definitive proof of him paying others to play videogames for him is an example of how he just lies about everything. If he lies about videogames what else does he lie about?
  - throw5959 2y ago
    Where does he lie about a video game? Maybe he has someone boost his level. Did he say it's not true? Just doing that can have many reasons - maybe he likes a shiny number there, wants a bigger challenge, more fun because of higher level and more items or whatever. Just playing on an account that I didn't level up myself is not lying. I know that some competitive amateur players think it's the end of the world but no, nobody cares.
    - wormlord 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - throw5959 2y ago
        [flagged]

throw5959 2y ago

Sure, I'm not saying Musk is the only person who has interesting things to say about it. You're absolutely correct about these other people and I listen to them too. But you're not giving Musk enough credit. All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit, and what is interesting here is that he went and made it happen anyways. I'm not talking just about the engineering, everything is interesting here - the project management, the hiring, the investments, the business side... Musk has a lot of input and influence in all of these, he was the one who decided and paid for it.

wormlord 2y ago
> All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit Every company has some kind of mythology where someone says "you'll never make it in this town!". The reality is that uncrewed propulsive landing was technologically feasible since the soviets landed a rover on the moon. NASA propulsively landed a rover on Mars back in 2011. Like I said, listening to billionaires is probably interesting if your goal is "acquire boatloads of money". But we already know how to do that. 1. Appear confident 2. Lie 3. Have no morals or ethics 4. Prioritize the pursuit of power above all else
- throw5959 2y ago
  Sorry but no, this is absolutely not what happened. I am watching it closely ever since SpaceX was founded in 2002. There is an incredible gap between the tech demo you're speaking about, and actually landing a heavy orbital rocket, and then doing it 100 times in a row without a hiccup. Mars is completely off topic, as they didn't land the booster there. We had Space Shuttle before and it didn't say much about landing rocket boosters.
  - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
    I think it is? Like, this sounds like a pretty silly claim: > All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit Where did you hear that?
    - throw5959 2y ago
      Well I heard it myself from practically anybody up until 2015. I even attended quite a lot of conference talks on this topic... I'm sure it's not hard to find it online, famously a NASA director (I think?) did so.
      - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
        You're saying every engineer and every person with any other type of profession you've ever spoken with, said that it was impossible to land a rocket? I feel like plenty of professionals don't even have an opinion on the matter. Even if that's true, there's still every engineer and every other professional in the world you haven't spoken with. To take an example, I'm an engineer, I didn't say it. That disproves the claim.
        throw5959 2y ago
        Please, this is a conversation, not math exam.
        2y ago
lamontcg 2y ago
> All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit You literally responded to a guy citing Lars Blackmore, who is the engineer that designed their landing algorithm--which was developed at NASA's JPL lab (before SpaceX existed). Musk bet on landing rockets _because_ engineers told him that it was possible.
- throw5959 2y ago
  Oh no, Musk convinced the engineers it's possible. One of the interesting things about him.
- inemesitaffia 2y ago
  The landing was completely developed at SpaceX without NASA tech, assistance or money. By Lars. After figuring out parachutes were infeasible. In fact it was one of the reasons red dragon was cancelled. The group studying hypersonic retro propulsion of boosters at NASA was let go because that's what SpaceX did to land
  - lamontcg 2y ago
    The Air Force was studying RTLS as part of the ARES (Affordable REsponsive Spacelift) program in 2005 (Which was the result of 1992/1994-era discussions on "spacecast 2020"): https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2005-6682 https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2005-6682 Lars and Beschet wrote their groundbreaking paper on lossless convexification of the powered descent problem at JPL before Lars went to SpaceX: http://www.larsblackmore.com/CarsonAcikmeseBlackmoreACC11.pdf http://www.larsblackmore.com/CarsonAcikmeseBlackmoreACC11.pd...
    - inemesitaffia 2y ago
      Blue Origin landed first, where was that from? And I don't see any rocket actually coming back with an orbital payload? Where's the demonstrator? Like that quiet supersonic thing Lockheed is demonstrating. Even Lars didn't deliver at the first attempt. So it's not like it was something available off the shelf. Like some cryptography library you include in your code.

whamlastxmas 2y ago

He doesn’t do that. People who don’t like him claim that he does without any basis to it, and you’re perpetuating this hyperbole by claiming it as fact when the very thing you linked doesn’t even go that far. Musk sucks, attack him for valid reasons like racism instead of some made up bullshit about cheating at video games.

wormlord 2y ago
He literally does do that. Top-level players of the game have called him out for it. They have tracked his time with an API. It is actually mathematically impossible to be at his level in POE-- you would have to be a top-tier player and play nonstop for 20+ hrs a day. People who like Musk aren't going to care that he is racist, they will argue about what actually constitutes as racism (erm pushes up glasses --actually have u read the bell curve???). Having definitive proof of him paying others to play videogames for him is an example of how he just lies about everything. If he lies about videogames what else does he lie about?
- throw5959 2y ago
  Where does he lie about a video game? Maybe he has someone boost his level. Did he say it's not true? Just doing that can have many reasons - maybe he likes a shiny number there, wants a bigger challenge, more fun because of higher level and more items or whatever. Just playing on an account that I didn't level up myself is not lying. I know that some competitive amateur players think it's the end of the world but no, nobody cares.
  - wormlord 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - throw5959 2y ago
      [flagged]