Split Thread Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla

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Darat said:
I didn't think we had the figures from SpaceX?
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We have the price they offer launch services at. They do not publish cost figures. But there is no conceivable reality where reuse doesn't save them more than 10%.
 
Darat said:
Is it correct to say then that we don't know their costs?
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Yes.

Potential cost savings of reuse are enormous. The Space Shuttle couldn't really realize these costs because the servicing costs to prepare for relaunch were huge. But SpaceX costs to get a Falcon 9 ready for relaunch are low. How do we know if they don't publish that? Turnaround time. It took a very long time to get a Shuttle ready for relaunch because it required so much work, which produced high costs. SpaceX can rapidly turn around a Falcon 9. That means it doesn't take much work, and so does not cost very much.

So there's no plausible way that SpaceX isn't realizing huge savings with reuse.
 
Ziggurat said:
Yes.

Potential cost savings of reuse are enormous. The Space Shuttle couldn't really realize these costs because the servicing costs to prepare for relaunch were huge. But SpaceX costs to get a Falcon 9 ready for relaunch are low. How do we know if they don't publish that? Turnaround time. It took a very long time to get a Shuttle ready for relaunch because it required so much work, which produced high costs. SpaceX can rapidly turn around a Falcon 9. That means it doesn't take much work, and so does not cost very much.

So there's no plausible way that SpaceX isn't realizing huge savings with reuse.
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Hear me out. What if, for every Falcon 9 booster they tell you about, they have nine more they don't? It actually takes them ten times longer to refurb than they're saying, and they're using the other boosters to make it look like a quick change. They haven't revealed their costs, so how do you know it's not something like that?
 
theprestige said:
Hear me out. What if, for every Falcon 9 booster they tell you about, they have nine more they don't? It actually takes them ten times longer to refurb than they're saying, and they're using the other boosters to make it look like a quick change. They haven't revealed their costs, so how do you know it's not something like that?
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I admit, I cannot disprove such a scenario. That would require some rather... robust manufacturing capacity, though.
 
And some very creative accounting. But by all accounts, Elon Musk is a very creative scam artist, so who are we to surmise that SpaceX isn't a scam?

Actually, as we all know, Elon Musk is an idiot who never had a good idea in his life, let alone any clue how to make it work. He's just stealing the credit from the real mastermind of this accounting scam, who toils away in the dark for peanuts while his master pretends to be a genius.
 
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theprestige said:
And some very creative accounting. But by all accounts, Elon Musk is a very creative scam artist, so who are we to surmise that SpaceX isn't a scam?

Actually, as we all know, Elon Musk is an idiot who never had a good idea in his life, let alone any clue how to make it work. He's just stealing the credit from the real mastermind of this accounting scam, who toils away in the dark for peanuts while his master pretends to be a genius.
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This strikes me as the same kind of cope as the people who say the videos of the insurrectionists being allowed in by cops means the videos of them violently assaulting the Capitol...doesn't count?

Musk is an idiot. This is extraordinarily strongly evidenced by his actions and the reports of people who interact with him. He's also a genius at getting investors on board. He works the current system of investment very well. How? Mostly he lies and exploits investor complacency/mythology. He's very good at 'selling', to use the most neutral term I can think of for it, ideas.

If those ideas are good, bad, or fraudulent doesn't seem to make a difference to him. I don't think it is chance that basically all the ideas that can be traced back primarily to him are the ones most clearly bad or fraudulent (apart from Solar City). I don't think it is chance that the most successful of 'his' ventures are ones that have entire teams dedicated to managing him (SpaceX, Tesla) and boards that restrain some of his worse impulses.

Basically, this is a false trichotomy; either he is an idiot, a visionary, or a scam artist. He's all of these things in different contexts. Being an idiot in many, many ways doesn't mean he isn't adapt at selling visions to investors, and neither means he doesn't scam people too. Some critics think his obvious idiocy means his other successes 'don't count'. Some defenders think his successes means his idiocy 'doesn't count'. That's just not how things work.
 
Ziggurat said:
Yes.



Potential cost savings of reuse are enormous. The Space Shuttle couldn't really realize these costs because the servicing costs to prepare for relaunch were huge. But SpaceX costs to get a Falcon 9 ready for relaunch are low. How do we know if they don't publish that? Turnaround time. It took a very long time to get a Shuttle ready for relaunch because it required so much work, which produced high costs. SpaceX can rapidly turn around a Falcon 9. That means it doesn't take much work, and so does not cost very much.



So there's no plausible way that SpaceX isn't realizing huge savings with reuse.
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The Falcon 9 compared to the Shuttle is much simpler. Advances in computing mean it is now feasible to land vertically reliably. Advances in payload technology mean it can launch smaller objects.

Musk is already taking the simplify mantra to extremes with Tesla in ways customers don't like. Removing blinker stalks, for example, and replacing them with buttons on the wheel.
 
tyr_13 said:
This strikes me as the same kind of cope as the people who say the videos of the insurrectionists being allowed in by cops means the videos of them violently assaulting the Capitol...doesn't count?

Musk is an idiot. This is extraordinarily strongly evidenced by his actions and the reports of people who interact with him. He's also a genius at getting investors on board. He works the current system of investment very well. How? Mostly he lies and exploits investor complacency/mythology. He's very good at 'selling', to use the most neutral term I can think of for it, ideas.

If those ideas are good, bad, or fraudulent doesn't seem to make a difference to him. I don't think it is chance that basically all the ideas that can be traced back primarily to him are the ones most clearly bad or fraudulent (apart from Solar City). I don't think it is chance that the most successful of 'his' ventures are ones that have entire teams dedicated to managing him (SpaceX, Tesla) and boards that restrain some of his worse impulses.

Basically, this is a false trichotomy; either he is an idiot, a visionary, or a scam artist. He's all of these things in different contexts. Being an idiot in many, many ways doesn't mean he isn't adapt at selling visions to investors, and neither means he doesn't scam people too. Some critics think his obvious idiocy means his other successes 'don't count'. Some defenders think his successes means his idiocy 'doesn't count'. That's just not how things work.
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Stipulated.

I'm still wondering about all this "SpaceX is a scam" nonsense.
 
theprestige said:
Stipulated.

I'm still wondering about all this "SpaceX is a scam" nonsense.
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To hazard a guess, the most plausible "scam" scenario involves SpaceX artificially lowering the prices by relying on their government funding with the aim of effectively monopolizing the market, with all that that entails.

In the likely case that they actually are managing to do things more cheaply than, say, the ULA, as you poked at before, there's still room for meaningful criticism if they're acting to deceive and/or have fundamentally problematic goals.
 
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Aridas said:
To hazard a guess, the most plausible "scam" scenario involves SpaceX artificially lowering the prices by relying on their government funding with the aim of effectively monopolizing the market, with all that that entails.
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I'm not sure how plausible this actually is. What government funding are you referring to? Do you mean the money NASA is paying them for launch services? Or are you thinking of government subsidies?

Both SpaceX and ULA receive government subsidies, as do Arianespace and Russian launch service providers.

In the likely case that they actually are managing to do things more cheaply than, say, the ULA, as you poked at before,
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Let's be clear. I'm not "poking at" anything. Multiple sources, including NASA reports, say outright that SpaceX is offering lower-cost launch services than their competitors.

there's still room for meaningful criticism if they're acting to deceive and/or have fundamentally problematic goals.
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I would very much like someone who alleges that SpaceX is a scam to step forward and say in plain language what nature of scam it is and what evidence they have. I nominate Gulliver Foyle, him having been recently vocal with such allegations. But I'll accept a response from anyone who has the courage to defend their claims.
 
a_unique_person said:
The Falcon 9 compared to the Shuttle is much simpler. Advances in computing mean it is now feasible to land vertically reliably. Advances in payload technology mean it can launch smaller objects.
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Ah, so that's what causes these advances. Computers get more powerful and poof! - spacecraft magically start landing vertically!

As someone who is a computer programmer from way back and a drone builder and operator, I have to say that this is total BS. We had enough computing power decades ago. What we didn't have was someone brave enough to try it on a 135 foot long 25 ton rocket.

Musk is already taking the simplify mantra to extremes with Tesla in ways customers don't like. Removing blinker stalks, for example, and replacing them with buttons on the wheel.
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Reminds me of that that arrogant prick who decided we didn't need physical buttons on cellphones. And don't get me started on the iPad. Real computers have mechanical keyboards!

As for indicators, maybe if people had to have the car facing straight ahead when indicating they might do it before making the turn.

But of course Luddites will always complain about any change to things they are familiar with. Removing indicator stalks is one thing that can be done to make cars cheaper. Everybody wants that - unless they have to change their behavior in any way. Except motorcyclists, who are probably wondering what all the fuss is about.
 
Yep. There are plenty of things that people don't think they want, that it turns out that they actually do. There are also plenty of things that people don't think they want that they really don't want.

The test here is the market: when Tesla tries cars with no indicator stalks, let's see if people buy them or not. Telling me ahead of time "people don't want this" is not particularly convincing. Showing me afterward that people didn't buy them and Tesla went back to putting indicator stalks on their cars, would be convincing.

I find it highly plausible that Musk has been successful not even so much for having good ideas, but just for being willing to implement ideas that many people thought wouldn't work and test them against the market. Some don't, people don't like that product, you roll it back, some do, in spite of the generally assumed wisdom being that "people don't want that".

You can have someone who does 10 things, 9 or which are dumb, but if one of them is a good idea that just sounded dumb to everyone, that one thing can have enough success to outweigh the costs of the other 9. Then he does 10 more things. At any one time, you'll see him doing a lot of dumb stuff, and yet he'll be more and more successful. I'm not saying this is the secret of his success, but it does seem to me to be a component of it, and it's also related to how he often says a lot of dumb stuff.
 
tyr_13 said:
Musk is an idiot. This is extraordinarily strongly evidenced by his actions and the reports of people who interact with him. He's also a genius at getting investors on board. He works the current system of investment very well. How? Mostly he lies and exploits investor complacency/mythology. He's very good at 'selling', to use the most neutral term I can think of for it, ideas.
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Seems to be a genius at getting engineers to design and make stuff that they wouldn't otherwise do too.

Of course this is bad. Musk has tricked other car makers into copying his harebrained ideas - like 'gigacastings', which Toyota, General Motors, Hyundai and others are now embracing. Quite impressive how an obvious retard manages to routinely con the greatest minds in the auto industry.

BTW the the word 'gigacasting' is typical of the extreme hype Musk uses to trick people into thinking his ideas are worth something. What a tool! But he didn't coin that particular word, which simultaneously proves that he never came up with anything new and just copies other people's ideas!

Remember people, everything relating to Musk can be used to prove he's an idiot - if you spin it hard enough. The narrative demands it!
 
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