4 ms·

It's funny because Elon Musk said once "I think fusion is probably not as hard as everyone thinks; I might work on that someday." And when he does, he'll get i

It's funny because Elon Musk said once "I think fusion is probably not as hard as everyone thinks; I might work on that someday." And when he does, he'll get it right. Since that's what he does. Until he turns his attention to it, though, I'm skeptical.

aerovistae 12y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FESP1h7IZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FESP1h7IZM
ufmace 12y ago
It doesn't seem to match up well with the things that he's done so far. Both SpaceX and Tesla are pretty much doing the same old things in a new way, and are meant to be profitable early on and maintain that profitability while also pushing ahead the state of the art. Fusion seems to be a different animal in that way - a lot of money is going to have to be thrown into various seemingly bottomless pits before somebody figures out how to do it.
schwap 12y ago
I think the apotheosis of Elon Musk is getting out of hand a wee bit. Scientific advances have kind of been happening for centuries without him.
- aerovistae 12y ago
  Yep, what he's done has been pretty unremarkable. Woulda happened anyway, in more or less the same timeline. In fact I don't even get why he's famous.
  - BugBrother 12y ago
    Was that irony? People have been arguing since the 1980s (if you count the original claims of the spaces shuttle, since the 1970s) that lower launch costs are possible. But only Musk delivered. You really think the established launch companies would have done that, as long as they earned lots of money doing business as usual? (Now their business model is dead, so they use their influence to get long time contracts with the US military just before SpaceX's rockets are verified...) It would be interesting to see what you base your claims on?
    - aerovistae 12y ago
      Yes, I was being entirely sarcastic, in response to the comment above my own. I recognize that Musk has done and continues to do the impossible on a daily basis.
Mvandenbergh 12y ago
Elon Musk often gets things right because, among other talents, he has impeccable taste in engineering problems. What I mean by that is that he works on things which are hard enough to be very lucrative to get right but not so hard that he'll run out of resources part way through without having produced anything salable. You'll notice that he said that it was "probably" not as hard and that he "might" work on it "someday". That's because he's smart enough to pick problems that he can make progress on that others aren't making. SpaceX does something that lots of people speculated might be possible but no-one was actually working on at the right scale and actually did it.

aerovistae 12y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FESP1h7IZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FESP1h7IZM

ufmace 12y ago

It doesn't seem to match up well with the things that he's done so far. Both SpaceX and Tesla are pretty much doing the same old things in a new way, and are meant to be profitable early on and maintain that profitability while also pushing ahead the state of the art. Fusion seems to be a different animal in that way - a lot of money is going to have to be thrown into various seemingly bottomless pits before somebody figures out how to do it.

schwap 12y ago

I think the apotheosis of Elon Musk is getting out of hand a wee bit. Scientific advances have kind of been happening for centuries without him.

aerovistae 12y ago
Yep, what he's done has been pretty unremarkable. Woulda happened anyway, in more or less the same timeline. In fact I don't even get why he's famous.
- BugBrother 12y ago
  Was that irony? People have been arguing since the 1980s (if you count the original claims of the spaces shuttle, since the 1970s) that lower launch costs are possible. But only Musk delivered. You really think the established launch companies would have done that, as long as they earned lots of money doing business as usual? (Now their business model is dead, so they use their influence to get long time contracts with the US military just before SpaceX's rockets are verified...) It would be interesting to see what you base your claims on?
  - aerovistae 12y ago
    Yes, I was being entirely sarcastic, in response to the comment above my own. I recognize that Musk has done and continues to do the impossible on a daily basis.

Mvandenbergh 12y ago

Elon Musk often gets things right because, among other talents, he has impeccable taste in engineering problems. What I mean by that is that he works on things which are hard enough to be very lucrative to get right but not so hard that he'll run out of resources part way through without having produced anything salable. You'll notice that he said that it was "probably" not as hard and that he "might" work on it "someday". That's because he's smart enough to pick problems that he can make progress on that others aren't making. SpaceX does something that lots of people speculated might be possible but no-one was actually working on at the right scale and actually did it.