Split Thread Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla

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Solitaire said:
The fastest reuse time for the Falcon 9 was about a month, similar to the Space Shuttle
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He’s wrong. The fastest turnaround time the shuttle ever did was 54 days, and that wasn’t typical. SpaceX has done it in 21 days, and can probably do faster.

and he expects the StarShip rocket to take three times as long because it has three times as many engines.
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That’s… not how it works.
 
Thunderfoot is full of ****.

A brief Google search shows that Russia was charging $71,000,000 per seat for a ride to the space station in 2014. It went up to $82,000, 000 over the next few years with the final astronaut seat costing $91,000,000,000.

Space X charges $55,000,000.
 
Bogative said:
Thunderfoot is full of ****.



A brief Google search shows that Russia was charging $71,000,000 per seat for a ride to the space station in 2014. It went up to $82,000, 000 over the next few years with the final astronaut seat costing $91,000,000,000.



Space X charges $55,000,000.
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He's not an authority, check his claims. Many of them are true. He includes clips of Musk himself speaking.

The price for seats on Soyuz was market driven. They charged what they could get.
 
a_unique_person said:
He's not an authority, check his claims. Many of them are true. He includes clips of Musk himself speaking.
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Thunderfoot also tries to drag Musk because the last 2 Starship launches blew up in flight. I didn't watch the video, I'm not going to, why would I when he can't get the basic facts straight? But, did he include the clip of Musk saying that the Starship program is going to be a heavy loss program compared to Falcon which was a low loss program and Dragon which was a 0 loss program?

Musk – 'Starship is a rapid design/integration program, were going to blow a lot of **** up.'
Thunderfoot – ' Musket did exactly what he said he was going to do, what a loser!'


The price for seats on Soyuz was market driven. They charged what they could get.
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Which was a hell of a lot more than SpaceX, exactly the opposite of what Thunderfoot claimed.
 
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a_unique_person said:
The price for seats on Soyuz was market driven. They charged what they could get.
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Yes, exactly. As noted in the NASA paper linked upthread, there was no market pressure to drive launch prices down. ULA is a cartel. Arianespace is a cartel. SpaceX shows up, offers much lower prices. And for this - for delivering payloads to orbit as promised, at a lower price than the cartels - SpaceX is supposed to be the villain.
 
a_unique_person said:
I don't think that's what most people are saying.
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You lost me. You don't think what is what most people are saying?

Some people in this thread are saying that SpaceX is a scam, that SpaceX's lower launch costs are a myth, and even - bizarrely - that SpaceX's lower launch prices are a myth.

My understanding is that in addition to the people in this thread, some internet persona called "Thunderfoot" is also saying these things.

So I would like to see someone in this thread, who's saying these things, to acknowledge the rebuttals and try to prove that their claims about SpaceX aren't nonsense.
 
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Some people are. SpaceX is private and carefully guards its financial information. Maybe it's pushing the limits with the Starship project, maybe it's not. Time will tell. The Falcon project is probably financially very successful. How long it can prop up Starship is unknown.
 
a_unique_person said:
Some people are. SpaceX is private and carefully guards its financial information. Maybe it's pushing the limits with the Starship project, maybe it's not. Time will tell. The Falcon project is probably financially very successful. How long it can prop up Starship is unknown.
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This post doesn't seem to be saying anything at all. I guess you are accepting that Falcon is a success? Do you admit that it's not just a success for SpaceX, but also a good thing for the launch industry in general in that it's supplied cheaper access to orbit? Or would you disagree with that in some way?

Starship may or may not be successful, and we don't know yet. I'll agree to that. If you want to say something meaningful there you might try assigning a probability to its success. 10%? 90%? Those are very different views.

My personal view is that I put a credence of around 80% that Starship will be successful in the sense of carrying cargo to orbit at a cheaper price than Falcon 9 (in $/kg) has been recently, with a failure rate low enough that companies will continue to buy that service, and that it will do so by 2030.

That's a conservative timeline. If stretched, I'd say I expect it sooner, but I expect it to at least happen by then. I also give that 20% credence that it will fail to achieve that and thus even by 2030 Starship won't be cheaply and reliably carrying cargo to orbit.

Are your credences different from mine?
 
a_unique_person said:
Some people are. SpaceX is private and carefully guards its financial information. Maybe it's pushing the limits with the Starship project, maybe it's not. Time will tell. The Falcon project is probably financially very successful. How long it can prop up Starship is unknown.
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I'm pretty sure none of the people alleging SpaceX is a scam are trying to say anything as reasonable as that. Not least because that would be in no way a scam.

ETA: It's a conspiracy theory, plain and simple.

What is SpaceX allegedly lying about? Its prices? That's a logical impossibility. Is SpaceX lying to its customers about the service it provides? Obviously not; those payloads are going into orbit. Is SpaceX lying to the public about the viability of reusable rockets? Almost certainly not (though we do have to infer a couple things from the facts we are able to directly observe). Is it lying to the public about Starship? I don't see how. The Starship launches and their fates are public knowledge.

Is SpaceX lying to the SEC about whatever it is that corporations are supposed to tell the SEC? There's no evidence of that. Is it lying to the IRS? There's no evidence of that, either. Is it lying to its investors? There's no evidence of that, either.

It's all ad hom and connect-the-dots. And there aren't even any other dots. Just the ad hom. All the other dots connect us to the conclusion that SpaceX is not a scam.

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As for using SpaceX profits to prop up Starship: This kind of thing is a normal and healthy business practice. Besides which, the US government has a long history of using taxpayer money to prop up aerospace projects. Notably the Space Shuttle, which is notable for being a rare functional boondoggle. And of course ULA, which receives government subsidies to stay in business.

Besides those obviously problematic examples, there's also the much less objectionable practice of using NASA contracts to have taxpayers absorb much of the risk associated with aerospace R&D. NASA pays for the project, and the private aerospace industry reaps the benefits when the R&D pays off. Grumman fought hard for the Lunar Module contract, and used the techniques they developed there at the taxpayer's expense to develop the F-14 for the US Navy. Not that I'm complaining. I think American taxpayers got good value for their money, both from the NASA project and the military project. Just as I think taxpayers have gotten good value from the R&D contracts NASA has awarded to SpaceX.

Some people see it differently, though, and I can't figure out why. It's obviously not an evidence-based viewpoint.
 
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theprestige said:
I'm pretty sure none of the people alleging SpaceX is a scam are trying to say anything as reasonable as that. Not least because that would be in no way a scam.

ETA: It's a conspiracy theory, plain and simple.

What is SpaceX allegedly lying about? Its prices? That's a logical impossibility. Is SpaceX lying to its customers about the service it provides? Obviously not; those payloads are going into orbit. Is SpaceX lying to the public about the viability of reusable rockets? Almost certainly not (though we do have to infer a couple things from the facts we are able to directly observe). Is it lying to the public about Starship? I don't see how. The Starship launches and their fates are public knowledge.

Is SpaceX lying to the SEC about whatever it is that corporations are supposed to tell the SEC? There's no evidence of that. Is it lying to the IRS? There's no evidence of that, either. Is it lying to its investors? There's no evidence of that, either.

It's all ad hom and connect-the-dots. And there aren't even any other dots. Just the ad hom. All the other dots connect us to the conclusion that SpaceX is not a scam.

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As for using SpaceX profits to prop up Starship: This kind of thing is a normal and healthy business practice. Besides which, the US government has a long history of using taxpayer money to prop up aerospace projects. Notably the Space Shuttle, which is notable for being a rare functional boondoggle. And of course ULA, which receives government subsidies to stay in business.

Besides those obviously problematic examples, there's also the much less objectionable practice of using NASA contracts to have taxpayers absorb much of the risk associated with aerospace R&D. NASA pays for the project, and the private aerospace industry reaps the benefits when the R&D pays off. Grumman fought hard for the Lunar Module contract, and used the techniques they developed there at the taxpayer's expense to develop the F-14 for the US Navy. Not that I'm complaining. I think American taxpayers got good value for their money, both from the NASA project and the military project. Just as I think taxpayers have gotten good value from the R&D contracts NASA has awarded to SpaceX.

Some people see it differently, though, and I can't figure out why. It's obviously not an evidence-based viewpoint.
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It's just disappointment that Musk didn't fulfill their dreams. :D
 
The problem is Musk himself. He is unstable and unable to communicate rationally and reasonably. He believes that garbage about him being a super genius who can use that superpower to make decisions about the companies he dominates. That raises the risk factor. He routinely lies, sometimes bording on the illegal or in breach of his legal obligations as head of a publicly listed company. He thrives on being thought of as a messiah.
 
a_unique_person said:
The problem is Musk himself. He is unstable and unable to communicate rationally and reasonably. He believes that garbage about him being a super genius who can use that superpower to make decisions about the companies he dominates. That raises the risk factor. He routinely lies, sometimes bording on the illegal or in breach of his legal obligations as head of a publicly listed company. He thrives on being thought of as a messiah.
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That's the ad hom I was talking about. Even if everything in this post is true (and I'm not saying it isn't), it still isn't evidence that SpaceX is a scam.

I'd like to put that one claim to rest, if possible.
 
Lplus said:
It's just disappointment that Musk didn't fulfill their dreams. : D
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LOL.

Honestly for some I think it's just fear that if they have to admit they were wrong about SpaceX, it would mean having to reevaluate their whole "Musk is evil" paradigm.

And for others I think it's just a classic CT trope: With all the legitimate reasons to doubt or dislike someone, instead latch onto an allegation that's totally absurd.
 
theprestige said:
LOL.

Honestly for some I think it's just fear that if they have to admit they were wrong about SpaceX, it would mean having to reevaluate their whole "Musk is evil" paradigm.

And for others I think it's just a classic CT trope: With all the legitimate reasons to doubt or dislike someone, instead latch onto an allegation that's totally absurd.
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Personally, I think that there is merit to invoking the association fallacy as an explanation. Rationally, there's no problem with admitting that bad people can do good things, but human psychology doesn't only rely on rational logic. A lack of trust in Musk, himself, is entirely warranted, but what's in play with SpaceX has much more to it than just Musk, so it's an error to evaluate SpaceX as if it were merely a part of Musk.
 
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Roger Ramjets said:
Who can you 'trust' these days? So far Musk's accomplishments have exceeded my expectations. Sadly the detractors have not - they keep doing exactly what I expect.
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That's quite the question, honestly, these days. Still, it also looks to be little more than an attempt at a diversion. As was reasonably established previously in a rather distinctly non-comprehensive fashion, Musk has a well earned reputation as a conman. Musk does not deserve trust. No further actually needs said when the focus is Musk, himself, and citing cases where he didn't lie doesn't somehow counter all the times that he did. When more comes into the picture than just him, things can change, of course. When it comes to Tesla and SpaceX, for example, which are directly relevant to this thread, obviously, they should not be judged as if they were one and the same as Musk. Nor should Musk be treated as if he deserves all the glory from Tesla and SpaceX. That can be difficult for some, given human psychology, but such is what it is.
 
theprestige said:
That's the ad hom I was talking about. Even if everything in this post is true (and I'm not saying it isn't), it still isn't evidence that SpaceX is a scam.



I'd like to put that one claim to rest, if possible.
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It's not ad hom if the person is the topic. Musk has done that himself since he makes it all about himself.

His attempt to blackmail Tesla is a perfect example of his descent towards criminality.
 
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