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> Starbase, Louisiana will be built to support thousands of Starship flights a year. This self-sustaining spaceport will have propellant production, power gener

> Starbase, Louisiana will be built to support thousands of Starship flights a year. This self-sustaining spaceport will have propellant production, power generation, deep-water shipping capabilities, vehicle processing facilities, and an airport. Sounds really neat, but "incredibly ambitious announcement" from an Elon Musk company is starting to wear thin. Is this real, or will it join the graveyard of other incredibly ambitious projects that were eventually abandoned to focus on the next incredibly ambitious project.

deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
bhelkey 1mo ago
He often promises incredibly ambitious things that don't happen. But, with a fairly reasonable frequency, he promises incredibly ambitious that do happen. For example, SpaceX is responsible for a massive spike in orbital launches [1]. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-launched-into-outer-space https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-...
- MeetingsBrowser 1mo ago
  SpaceX and Tesla are both successful companies doing really impressive things, but the more ambitious claims are almost always silently discarded. Including robotaxis, tesla semi-trucks, hyperloop, optimus, roadster 2.0, cheap whole home batteries, true FSD, Mars landing, nueralink, and more I'm sure. It is difficult for me to get excited about a decades long, ambitious project when the follow through rate is <10%.
  - randallsquared 1mo ago
    Several of these do exist already, and one of them was never a promised project. This objection seems like it's from 2016.
  - mindwok 1mo ago
    He is definitely overly optimistic on timelines but pretty much all those things you mentioned are actually still happening, it's too early to say they haven't followed through.
  - downrightmike 1mo ago
    Only because of gov't handouts
- chasd00 1mo ago
  Gwynne Shotwell is the one that makes it happen at SpaceX. She has a pretty good track record so far so I'm not writing her off yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell
DarmokJalad1701 1mo ago
I can count plenty of incredibly ambitious announcements from them that have turned out amazing! In fact, they are an outlier in how many they have challenges they have taken on and succeeded in. [x] Partially reusable rocket that dropped cost to orbit by an order of magnitude. And no, the space shuttle (while an amazing piece of engineering), doesn't really count. It cost a billion+ to refurbish and did nothing to make space more accessible. Now we have businesses that exist purely because the Falcon 9 exists. Heck, the entire new space industry got validated (and hence got investment) due to SpaceX's success. [x] Returning human spaceflight capability to the US at a fraction of the price, using the same reusable rocket platform after the old defense primes failed to do so. And then making it cheap enough that it has now also flown about half as many private missions as it did for NASA. [x] Global satellite constellation providing gigabit-scale internet with 10000+ satellite (once written off by "experts" as yet another "incredibly ambitious project" that will never happen). [x] Commercializing and bringing down the cost of electric cars to the point where they are actually a viable option now (unlike the compliance cars made by OEMs 10 years ago). [x] Building the largest rocket to ever exist that now has a clear path to being the first ever fully reusable launch vehicle. [x] A BCI implant that has now brought back mobility and communication ability to multiple patients with debilitating conditions. Given that each of these were things that no one had done successfully before, or had failed spectacularly - I don't really care that they took longer than initially planned. There is, in fact, a graveyard here. It is mostly filled with confident predictions that his companies would never do the things they have since done.
- miltonlost 1mo ago
  [flagged]
  - DarmokJalad1701 1mo ago
    > And the AMAZING hyperloop Wow! Was there a Musk company dedicated to building that? Where is the press release announcing it? Surely it must have been a big deal if you are so excited about it's failure! > And FSD is coming next year now It is already here. You can hail one right now in multiple cities. And in my own car, I use it every day and have for 2+ years. For the $3k I paid in 2019, I definitely got what I paid for. It's also gotten dramatically better since then. It drives me to and from work every day without having to so much as touch the wheel. And there is no 2018/19 non-Tesla that can do what it does. So yes, by all means, keep listing the things you think prove Musk is a fraud. You're mostly just making my point for me.

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

bhelkey 1mo ago

He often promises incredibly ambitious things that don't happen. But, with a fairly reasonable frequency, he promises incredibly ambitious that do happen. For example, SpaceX is responsible for a massive spike in orbital launches [1]. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-launched-into-outer-space https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-...

MeetingsBrowser 1mo ago
SpaceX and Tesla are both successful companies doing really impressive things, but the more ambitious claims are almost always silently discarded. Including robotaxis, tesla semi-trucks, hyperloop, optimus, roadster 2.0, cheap whole home batteries, true FSD, Mars landing, nueralink, and more I'm sure. It is difficult for me to get excited about a decades long, ambitious project when the follow through rate is <10%.
- randallsquared 1mo ago
  Several of these do exist already, and one of them was never a promised project. This objection seems like it's from 2016.
- mindwok 1mo ago
  He is definitely overly optimistic on timelines but pretty much all those things you mentioned are actually still happening, it's too early to say they haven't followed through.
- downrightmike 1mo ago
  Only because of gov't handouts
chasd00 1mo ago
Gwynne Shotwell is the one that makes it happen at SpaceX. She has a pretty good track record so far so I'm not writing her off yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell

DarmokJalad1701 1mo ago

I can count plenty of incredibly ambitious announcements from them that have turned out amazing! In fact, they are an outlier in how many they have challenges they have taken on and succeeded in. [x] Partially reusable rocket that dropped cost to orbit by an order of magnitude. And no, the space shuttle (while an amazing piece of engineering), doesn't really count. It cost a billion+ to refurbish and did nothing to make space more accessible. Now we have businesses that exist purely because the Falcon 9 exists. Heck, the entire new space industry got validated (and hence got investment) due to SpaceX's success. [x] Returning human spaceflight capability to the US at a fraction of the price, using the same reusable rocket platform after the old defense primes failed to do so. And then making it cheap enough that it has now also flown about half as many private missions as it did for NASA. [x] Global satellite constellation providing gigabit-scale internet with 10000+ satellite (once written off by "experts" as yet another "incredibly ambitious project" that will never happen). [x] Commercializing and bringing down the cost of electric cars to the point where they are actually a viable option now (unlike the compliance cars made by OEMs 10 years ago). [x] Building the largest rocket to ever exist that now has a clear path to being the first ever fully reusable launch vehicle. [x] A BCI implant that has now brought back mobility and communication ability to multiple patients with debilitating conditions. Given that each of these were things that no one had done successfully before, or had failed spectacularly - I don't really care that they took longer than initially planned. There is, in fact, a graveyard here. It is mostly filled with confident predictions that his companies would never do the things they have since done.

miltonlost 1mo ago
[flagged]
- DarmokJalad1701 1mo ago
  > And the AMAZING hyperloop Wow! Was there a Musk company dedicated to building that? Where is the press release announcing it? Surely it must have been a big deal if you are so excited about it's failure! > And FSD is coming next year now It is already here. You can hail one right now in multiple cities. And in my own car, I use it every day and have for 2+ years. For the $3k I paid in 2019, I definitely got what I paid for. It's also gotten dramatically better since then. It drives me to and from work every day without having to so much as touch the wheel. And there is no 2018/19 non-Tesla that can do what it does. So yes, by all means, keep listing the things you think prove Musk is a fraud. You're mostly just making my point for me.