> Wired.com: Your whole mantra is "cheaper and more reliable." But so far you're zero for three, which is anything but cheap and reliable, and guys like GlobalSecurity.org's John Pike say the reason it has taken billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people to successfully launch rockets is physics, not some new design or economic model.
> Musk: Guys like John Pike have existed since the dawn of time, and if you listen to people like that then things will never get better, never change. It's a false point of view. Yes, we need to put some rockets into orbit. But the first order of business is to get rid of design errors, which we're doing, and once those are eliminated then you're dealing with repeatability, and people should judge what we're doing from the point of view of all the design issues we've ironed out through these F1 test flights.
It's truly inspiring to read something like this after the person has been vindicated. The amount of patience, perseverance and determination required to make this a successful venture is enormous, but add to that the ridicule and criticism of your peers and it must be extremely difficult.
My drive to get it done is somewhat disconnected from hope, enthusiasm or anything
else. I just... I... I actually don't care about hope or enthusiasm... motivation. I
just give it all I've got irrespective of what the circumstances may be. [...]
Yeah... You just keep going and get it done.
The enthusiasm shown for this accomplishment on Hacker News is borderline ridiculous. This comment seems particularly over the top to me. What does this even mean, how do you measure the attribute of "being accomplished" on a 1d scale across vastly different kinds of accomplishment? To me it seems obvious that some of the medical accomplishments of the past 100 years are easily and vastly more important than a private space launch, but I wouldn't normally compare those things in such a manner. I had to rewrite this paragraph multiple times because it feels so bizarre. I haven't even touched on the question whether and to what degree you can ascribe an accomplishment of a group of people to an individual, which makes the whole comparison even stranger and less meaningful.
I mean, I guess some people here subscribe to the notion that space travel is imperative for human survival. In that case, you might argue that each step towards it is more valuable than anything else that does not immediately push towards human space travel. Human space travel will save humanity, your piddly vaccine only saves a couple of hundred million people. But that seems a bizarre argument to make (and maybe that's why one really makes it).
Edit: -3 in one hour? Wow. For what it's worth, I made this comment in good faith.
I mentioned this yesterday, but I believe Reisman's quote really captures that feeling we are all having about SpaceX and particularly their first ISS mission:
Pelley: "You know, I'm curious... you have so much background in engineering, you could have easily gotten a job at Boeing, or at Lockheed, but you came here..."
Reisman: "If you had a chance to go back in time, and work with Howard Hughes when he was creating TWA, if you had a chance to be there, at that moment, when it was the dawn of a brand new era, wouldn't you want to do that? I mean, that's why I'm here." [1][2]
It's incredibly difficult to overstate the importance of this moment for science and humanity as a whole. The commercialization of space travel is the only way that we will ever see the stars, as no longer are we at the mercy of the fluctuating interest in space travel from the already over-extended tax payers of certain nations. This is a beautiful moment for humanity, and a damn awesome way to start the weekend!
It's incredibly difficult to overstate the importance of this moment
I tire of statements like this. Either you have no capacity for exaggeration, or I have grossly misunderstood and the docking is actually more momentous than the discoveries of fire, DNA, germ theory, cell theory, flight, and nuclear physics combined.
Now, if we figure out how to beat aging and live forever, that is something whose impact might be difficult to overstate.
Personally my view is the exact opposite. Privatizing space travel will never bring us to the stars. It will get us into orbit for very high fees but e.g. deep space exploration? Too expensive, too low likelyhood of payoff. But for the really long term survival of humanity, it's a must.
I must say I was more excited when SpaceX did their first successful launch, but this is a lot of fun for essentially being parking. Can't wait for the future though. If there's one things that sets Elon Musk apart from other entrepreneurs it's his ability to make long-term plans. It seems like everything he (and his team) does leads up to somethings even greater.
I gotta say, that is one hell of a simplification—launching a rocket into space and meeting up with another craft, already in orbit, is a little more difficult that parking your car. :)
I don't think its you. I've talked with various folks about the events playing out and the split between amazed enthusiasm and barely cognizant is not smooth at all. There is a noticeable number of people who don't care at all.
I think that is in part that a lot of people don't understand the significance of what has just occurred. Even now there are people in government who are 'alarmed' that a private company has this capability. After all, its a technology we're attempting to deny the North Koreans and now Elon Musk's company has all of the parts it needs to build an intercontinental weapons delivery system. The Dragon capsule can be 6 tons. Even neophyte nuclear weapon designers could probably make a device that is less than 6 tons. What is worse is the company won't just die a horrible death if our government pulls all of its contracts.
So where does that leave us? In a very very interesting spot. We are approaching a point where orbital launch technology will be available to 'everyone' and we have to deal with everyone having it. If you were around for the 'great super computer panic' that was when our government realized that there were no microprocessors they could constrain from export that would allow bad guys to build their own super computer using clustering techniques.
Its a similar problem but with the twist of being actionable (or being able to exploit it against the national interests of the US more easily)
Its also one of the reasons I've been following the progress of SpaceX trying to build their own launch facility in Texas. You might see how that combination (private space craft company + private launch facility) would exacerbate the problems for people who wish to keep this particular genie contained as long as possible.
You'd think that of all groups of individuals, mainstream media would be able to come up with some ultra-hyperbolic headline to make this seem more exciting to the general public.
Is it? Knowing people who have worked at Boeing and hearing their stories, and following how much Boeing has struggled in recent years, it's not surprising at all. If there was ever a hidebound company rapidly outliving its usefulness, it was Boeing. And the company is struggling. In airliners, they keep getting beat by Airbus, and time after time comes up second, third, fourth best in defense bids. Once, when they lost a defense bid to Airbus for a tanker, they lobbied to have the military run the selection over again.
The entire aerospace industry has been bureaucratic and hidebound for decades. The story of Lockheed's Skunk Works almost belies the point--they were certainly innovative, but even in the 1960's, the only way they could accomplish it was to get all the best engineers and hide from the bureaucrats long enough to just build shit. Up until the first stealth fighter or so (the F-117) it worked, but it doesn't seem to anymore, considering all the problems, delays, crashes, and other mishaps the F-22 has had.
(Though, to be fair, the F-22 is a much more difficult undertaking. The F-117 had exactly one thing different from any other airplane from the 70's: it was shaped funny. It also had fly-by-wire because it was aerodynamically poor, but the engineering was far more conservative. The F-22 has lots of innovations at once--stealth, supercruise, improved avionics, the whole works--which entails far much more risk. Also, the 117 was a black project, which means there were a couple smart people in the Pentagon approving it and working as their clients, as opposed to the 22 where there were hundreds of Congressmen and thousands of federal bureaucrats to worry about as clients.)
Not at all. It's classic innovator's dilemma where Boeing, Lockheed etc. simply can't face the implications of competing with someone coming in from outside.
SpaceX just won't have the same baggage that bigger outfits do.
Maybe all the Boeing people quit and went to SpaceX. I really want to know the profiles of every person working at SpaceX, where they came from, and did they build their knowledge in the last four years or last thirty. Its a great story that a company can do this in just a few years, but we need to be honest about what effort and time it truly took from all participants. Personally, I would be thrilled to learn that a new company with greenhorn engineers could do this in a short amount of time. If the enabling factor is a group of aerospace veterans, that's great also.
Truly inspiring. Elon Musk has and certainly will continue to inspire me as an entrepreneur and technologist. I hope I can get the chance to meet him one day.
In his interviews, he seems like a very nice guy...I wonder what it is like to work for him.
[+] [-] ak217|14 years ago|reply
Elon Musk doesn't seem like the easiest person to work with, but I'm having a hard time thinking of a more accomplished human.
[+] [-] adriand|14 years ago|reply
> Wired.com: Your whole mantra is "cheaper and more reliable." But so far you're zero for three, which is anything but cheap and reliable, and guys like GlobalSecurity.org's John Pike say the reason it has taken billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people to successfully launch rockets is physics, not some new design or economic model.
> Musk: Guys like John Pike have existed since the dawn of time, and if you listen to people like that then things will never get better, never change. It's a false point of view. Yes, we need to put some rockets into orbit. But the first order of business is to get rid of design errors, which we're doing, and once those are eliminated then you're dealing with repeatability, and people should judge what we're doing from the point of view of all the design issues we've ironed out through these F1 test flights.
It's truly inspiring to read something like this after the person has been vindicated. The amount of patience, perseverance and determination required to make this a successful venture is enormous, but add to that the ridicule and criticism of your peers and it must be extremely difficult.
[+] [-] 6ren|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] morsch|14 years ago|reply
I mean, I guess some people here subscribe to the notion that space travel is imperative for human survival. In that case, you might argue that each step towards it is more valuable than anything else that does not immediately push towards human space travel. Human space travel will save humanity, your piddly vaccine only saves a couple of hundred million people. But that seems a bizarre argument to make (and maybe that's why one really makes it).
Edit: -3 in one hour? Wow. For what it's worth, I made this comment in good faith.
[+] [-] Arjuna|14 years ago|reply
Pelley: "You know, I'm curious... you have so much background in engineering, you could have easily gotten a job at Boeing, or at Lockheed, but you came here..."
Reisman: "If you had a chance to go back in time, and work with Howard Hughes when he was creating TWA, if you had a chance to be there, at that moment, when it was the dawn of a brand new era, wouldn't you want to do that? I mean, that's why I'm here." [1][2]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNwg8FvfuuU#t=425
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Reisman
[+] [-] christiangenco|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevenleeg|14 years ago|reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_NBoSFpykY
[+] [-] cobrausn|14 years ago|reply
"Looks like we've got a Dragon by the tail," station flight engineer Don Pettit said moments after grappling the craft over northwest Australia.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/status.html
[+] [-] Maxious|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kayoone|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christiangenco|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vecinu|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gyaresu|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zecho|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ConstantineXVI|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vecinu|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonadriaan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|14 years ago|reply
I tire of statements like this. Either you have no capacity for exaggeration, or I have grossly misunderstood and the docking is actually more momentous than the discoveries of fire, DNA, germ theory, cell theory, flight, and nuclear physics combined.
Now, if we figure out how to beat aging and live forever, that is something whose impact might be difficult to overstate.
[+] [-] impldefined|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forza|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyleslattery|14 years ago|reply
I gotta say, that is one hell of a simplification—launching a rocket into space and meeting up with another craft, already in orbit, is a little more difficult that parking your car. :)
[+] [-] rodh257|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikemarotti|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|14 years ago|reply
I think that is in part that a lot of people don't understand the significance of what has just occurred. Even now there are people in government who are 'alarmed' that a private company has this capability. After all, its a technology we're attempting to deny the North Koreans and now Elon Musk's company has all of the parts it needs to build an intercontinental weapons delivery system. The Dragon capsule can be 6 tons. Even neophyte nuclear weapon designers could probably make a device that is less than 6 tons. What is worse is the company won't just die a horrible death if our government pulls all of its contracts.
So where does that leave us? In a very very interesting spot. We are approaching a point where orbital launch technology will be available to 'everyone' and we have to deal with everyone having it. If you were around for the 'great super computer panic' that was when our government realized that there were no microprocessors they could constrain from export that would allow bad guys to build their own super computer using clustering techniques.
Its a similar problem but with the twist of being actionable (or being able to exploit it against the national interests of the US more easily)
Its also one of the reasons I've been following the progress of SpaceX trying to build their own launch facility in Texas. You might see how that combination (private space craft company + private launch facility) would exacerbate the problems for people who wish to keep this particular genie contained as long as possible.
[+] [-] twoodfin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|14 years ago|reply
More people watched European Song Contest than are seeing this.
Yet again something profoundly depressing about modern life.
[+] [-] kristofferR|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chucknelson|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikemarotti|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] savrajsingh|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philwelch|14 years ago|reply
The entire aerospace industry has been bureaucratic and hidebound for decades. The story of Lockheed's Skunk Works almost belies the point--they were certainly innovative, but even in the 1960's, the only way they could accomplish it was to get all the best engineers and hide from the bureaucrats long enough to just build shit. Up until the first stealth fighter or so (the F-117) it worked, but it doesn't seem to anymore, considering all the problems, delays, crashes, and other mishaps the F-22 has had.
(Though, to be fair, the F-22 is a much more difficult undertaking. The F-117 had exactly one thing different from any other airplane from the 70's: it was shaped funny. It also had fly-by-wire because it was aerodynamically poor, but the engineering was far more conservative. The F-22 has lots of innovations at once--stealth, supercruise, improved avionics, the whole works--which entails far much more risk. Also, the 117 was a black project, which means there were a couple smart people in the Pentagon approving it and working as their clients, as opposed to the 22 where there were hundreds of Congressmen and thousands of federal bureaucrats to worry about as clients.)
[+] [-] fidotron|14 years ago|reply
SpaceX just won't have the same baggage that bigger outfits do.
[+] [-] codeonfire|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] khuey|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaysignorello|14 years ago|reply
In his interviews, he seems like a very nice guy...I wonder what it is like to work for him.
[+] [-] pbharrin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agnuku|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] camiller|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] someone13|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] joxie|14 years ago|reply