Is Elon Musk the PT Barnum of Technology in the 21st century?

[a_unique_person]

An Australian state needed a quick fix for a power supply problem. Tesla provided the world's biggest battery in an extremely short time. The battery is working out to be better than expected.

 

[Crossbow]

... snipped for relevance ...

Why? Does Dragon have trained pilots? No? FAA certifies that to fly. Will have Dragon 2 have pilots? Not on cargo flights and the "Pilot" on a crew flight doesn't actually pilot anything.

What exactly is a pilot going to do on a BFS anyway? I wouldn't trust a human to have the reactions necessary to time a suicide burn perfectly and then hit a tiny target in the ocean.

Crew to calm passengers and demo safety features, yes, definitely. But, no pilots. There's no point. If you have a bad day in a BFS, survival chances approach zero since there's no escape system. Hence the focus on reliability.

You may not be aware of this fact, but in order to for any aircraft to be used for commercial use, then that aircraft must be certified by the FAA as such. And getting that certification for an entirely new aircraft design (such as your Dragon) is very tough indeed.

Historically, the FAA has always required two pilots when the aircraft has a gross weight of 12,500 pounds, or more.

Now then, most modern aircraft can be readily flown by one pilot, however the FAA still requires two pilots.

And I have no idea of how these pilots would work into the system for this rocket, but I expect that the FAA would still require them all the same.

Furthermore, it is quite unlikely that any insurance company will write a policy for an aircraft that is being used for commercial purposes when that aircraft has not been certified by the FAA as an aircraft which can be used for commercial purposes. And if the aircraft cannot be properly insured, then it is very unlikely that it will be used for commercial purposes since the company flying the aircraft will be entirely responsible for any law suits that may result from the operation of said aircraft.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I'd say he is more like Eddison than PT Barnum in that he directs researchers and engineers and so on, some of his ideas are pie-in-the-sky etc. but some have already paid off.

This. Edison was also an a-hole who was much better at selling himself while taking credit for other peoples ideas than coming up with his own, but he did get those inventions out there for use and catapulted the world into a whole new age.

 

[Pope130]

Historically, the FAA has always required two pilots when the aircraft has a gross weight of 12,500 pounds, or more.

Now then, most modern aircraft can be readily flown by one pilot, however the FAA still requires two pilots.

Several groups (notably the NASA/Uber collaboration) are currently working on pilotless passenger aircraft projects. Most are small duct-fan or tilt rotor projects of the "flying car" type. If approved, they will provide the precedent for pilotless passenger aircraft, Elon Musk will then only have to get that rule applied to his vehicle.

 

[Crossbow]

Several groups (notably the NASA/Uber collaboration) are currently working on pilotless passenger aircraft projects. Most are small duct-fan or tilt rotor projects of the "flying car" type. If approved, they will provide the precedent for pilotless passenger aircraft, Elon Musk will then only have to get that rule applied to his vehicle.

Indeed so!

I have heard about the same sort of thing as well, but considering that there is still a good bit of work to do with these issues it will take at least a few more years before such things are in use.

 

[ChristianProgressive]

The best comparison between Musk and Barnum is that both are very successful businessmen.

Their "success" is at peddling hype...

 

[ChristianProgressive]

Lets have a look at some of those "impossible" ideas

- Landing first stage rocket boosters back on land or at sea for re-use

First looked at long before Musk and abandoned as not economically viable.

- Solar panels that look just like ordinary roofing tiles

Their appearance does not affect their function.

- Reducing the cost of putting satellites into orbit by over 50%

Plenty of other rocket programs out there.

- Electric cars with the performance specifications of a supercar (the Tesla Model S P100D has a 532 HP motor, does 0-100kph (60mph) in 2.8 seconds, has a top speed of 250 kph (155 mph) and a single charge range of 540km (337 mi).

Tesla is a money pit. STILL not making a profit and you can't get a drive-away car from them. You have to sign up and wait and wait.

 

[GlennB]

Methane and Oxygen are non-renewable resources only in the most technical of senses. Production of Methane and Oxygen can be carbon negative if you're using CO2 from the atmosphere and doing all the chemistry off solar. That's actually the plan eventually, so... No, it will MASSIVELY reduce carbon emissions. Try running your 787 on Methane. Just no.

Steady on

There are plenty of proposals out there to power conventional aircraft with LNG, which is mainly methane.

And the commercial BFR flights will only 'massively reduce carbon emissions' if they replace a significant proportion of conventional flights. Is that going to happen? Will anyone care that their 60-minute conventional flight could be cut to a 5 minute BFR flight, as long as they wear a g-suit and take anti-nausea pills and leave the kids with friends?

But it will be interesting to see whether SpaceX generate their methane with solar power, as that's exactly what they're proposing to do on their Mars mission.

 

[lobosrul5]

Steady on

There are plenty of proposals out there to power conventional aircraft with LNG, which is mainly methane.

And the commercial BFR flights will only 'massively reduce carbon emissions' if they replace a significant proportion of conventional flights. Is that going to happen? Will anyone care that their 60-minute conventional flight could be cut to a 5 minute BFR flight, as long as they wear a g-suit and take anti-nausea pills and leave the kids with friends?

But it will be interesting to see whether SpaceX generate their methane with solar power, as that's exactly what they're proposing to do on their Mars mission.

I wonder what % of fuel is burned by very short, ie 60 minute airline flights, as compared to the long haul flights. Of course this thing won't be worth it for short flights. But turning a 10 hour flight into 30 minutes? Hell yeah. It could also greatly increase the amount of continental travel people do.

 

[crescent]

PT Barnum was all about entertainment... nothing more, nothing less.

He did a lot of real-estate development as well, especially in Denver and some of the towns to the north. There's a "Barnum" neighborhood in Denver, and he bought a number of properties in Greeley was well.

 

[Pope130]

G-suits are not used for prone position passengers (Astronauts and Cosmonauts, for example). They are only needed where the acceleration force passes downward through the body, draining blood from the head, as in conventionally seated aircraft pilots while pulling positive gee maneuvers. The "speed genes" squeeze the legs and lower torso, forcing more blood into the upper body. Even for an upright position, G-suits would not be necessary for a healthy person at the anticipated three gee acceleration.

 

[macdoc]

Air travel 'now' is profligately wasteful of resources.

A full Boeing Dreamliner ( and they are usually always full ) gets better fuel mileage per person than a Prius with 4 people aboard.
Would you like to inform me of a less wasteful method to get from Toronto to Cairns Australia?
These engines run perfectly happy on biofuels and carbon offsets are inexpensive to neutralize the carbon footprint. Long distance air travel is NOT and issue and soon enough short haul will be electric.

Tesla's release of its electric vehicle patents for open source use is very progressive.

The comparison to PT Barnum is ridiculous.
You might as well put Steve Jobs there too.... ...the fact that Jobs was a terrifically entertaining presenter and visionary takes nothing away from his contributions to civilization.

Part of funding a breakthrough company is getting investors hyped with the vision. Both Musk and Jobs are/were masters in that.
The short sellers will continue to crap on Tesla just as they STILL do with Apple.
WIll Wallstreet never learn...

 

[GlennB]

G-suits are not used for prone position passengers (Astronauts and Cosmonauts, for example). They are only needed where the acceleration force passes downward through the body, draining blood from the head, as in conventionally seated aircraft pilots while pulling positive gee maneuvers. The "speed genes" squeeze the legs and lower torso, forcing more blood into the upper body. Even for an upright position, G-suits would not be necessary for a healthy person at the anticipated three gee acceleration.

OK, cheers. I was just going by the wiki article on g-suits, plus other sources:

"Astronauts wear g-suits similar to aviators ..."

 

[JayUtah]

A full Boeing Dreamliner ( and they are usually always full ) gets better fuel mileage per person than a Prius with 4 people aboard.

You're welcome. (I was a contractor to Boeing on the Dreamliner, and that's the sort of thing we wanted to happen.)

Part of funding a breakthrough company is getting investors hyped with the vision. Both Musk and Jobs are/were masters in that.

And the public too. This was where I stood several years ago in the launch market. I'd just seen a string of Falcon 1 failures and felt at the time that SpaceX was more hype than substance. But see, the existing launch industry didn't need hype. We knew who our customers were, and they knew who we were, and everyone knew what was expected from everyone else. And I mean the commercial launch market, not the government-funded specialty markets like ISS service and exploration or the defense markets. There was no need to go to social media or host events or engage in any way with the public. That industry largely just plugged along.

What Musk did is make space cool again for everyone. If he also stepped up and made cool rockets, the so much the better. But in transforming the industry to be a more public-facing one, he made it fun to compete again. At about the same time I was finishing up on the Dreamliner project I was starting work with Orbital Sciences on a redesign of their Antares rocket, and with ATK on what would turn out to be the Ares 1X. In a separate thread, if you want, we can talk about those in more depth. But point here is that now with Cygnus-Antares, people actually know that these flights are taking place and getting enthusiastic about them and talking about a competition and rivalry between the major players in the launch business. This conversation wasn't happening ten years ago. It's happening now, only because Elon Musk decided it was going to happen.

Yes, that would tend to make him a showman and a technology evangelist rather than a more traditional entrepreneur. But I'm one of the who initially thought he was all talk and who has come to see his value in the various industries in which he competes. I'm hoping I'll eventually get to drive the Model 3 I've preordered, but I'm not willing to write him off as a Barnum just yet.

 

[Pope130]

OK, cheers. I was just going by the wiki article on g-suits, plus other sources:

"Astronauts wear g-suits similar to aviators ..."

Sorry if I came across critically. It's always good to re-check what Wiki says.

I just noticed that my spell check changed "jeans" to "genes". I need to re-check these things myself.

 

[Myriad]

Methane and Oxygen are non-renewable resources only in the most technical of senses. Production of Methane and Oxygen can be carbon negative if you're using CO2 from the atmosphere and doing all the chemistry off solar. That's actually the plan eventually, so... No, it will MASSIVELY reduce carbon emissions. Try running your 787 on Methane. Just no.

"Can be... if... eventually."

Let's say Musk, rather than just saying, "natural gas is still cheap, we'll use that instead" as every actual business man making every actual business decision in the real world has done so far, actually does invent and build a massive solar methane generating infrastructure. Then at some point a few years down the road, that system will have been in operation long enough and produced enough methane and recaptured enough carbon to offset the amount of non-renewable energy used in constructing it. (Unless he's been using it to fuel rockets instead... hmm.)

At that point, there's a source of a steady supply of a certain amount of carbon-neutral methane. Which could be used to provide the energy to build additional solar methane generating infrastructure. Or it could be used to generate electricity, replacing some of the many plants still using natural gas, oil, or coal. Or it could be used for a few rich people to jump around the globe in rockets. Hmm.

This makes me wonder. It's just possible that Musk is a humanitarian genius using space travel for the elite as bait to get government subsidies to support things that could actually be necessary and useful in the actual future, like solar methane generating infrastructure. If so, more (solar) power to him.

 

[Myriad]

A full Boeing Dreamliner ( and they are usually always full ) gets better fuel mileage per person than a Prius with 4 people aboard.
Would you like to inform me of a less wasteful method to get from Toronto to Cairns Australia?

- Not going from Toronto to Cairns Australia.

- Trains and sailing ships.

I'm sure you'll be quick to point out the relative disadvantages of these alternatives, which are indeed enormous. But those are the options our descendants will be left with. The ability to pretend that how the fuel a specific vehicle uses is sourced is what matters, within a global economy still overwhelmingly run on non-renewable fossil fuels, is one of the reasons. For the foreseeable future, what matters is total energy usage and the economic capacity and political will to increase the renewable supply. All the rest is just shuffling the paths by which carbon moves from under the ground to into the atmosphere.

Air travel uses a lot of it, to relatively little overall benefit. The Musk passenger rocket would use far more.

 

[Roboramma]

I'm sure you'll be quick to point out the relative disadvantages of these alternatives, which are indeed enormous. But those are the options our descendants will be left with.

Do you have a timeline in mind for the decline of air travel? Also, on what basis do you make this prediction? Peak oil (gas/coal)? Or the decline of modern techological civilization due to climate change? Other factors? A combination of the above?

I think I understand the general concern, but I'm genuinely curious to understand specifically where you are coming from.

The environmentalist in me sees that there are valid concerns. The technological optimist in me thinks that those concerns will be overcome, and while new problems will arise, they will be dealt with in turn.

I might be wrong, though, so I would appreciate hearing your case for the specific decline you seem to be hinting at.

 

[Roboramma]

At that point, there's a source of a steady supply of a certain amount of carbon-neutral methane. Which could be used to provide the energy to build additional solar methane generating infrastructure. Or it could be used to generate electricity, replacing some of the many plants still using natural gas, oil, or coal. Or it could be used for a few rich people to jump around the globe in rockets. Hmm.

Yeah, pretty much this. Energy is fungible.

I suppose an argument could be made that developing these rockets could create a demand for methane that would lead to research and development of solar-produced methane which could lead to new technologies and eventually an economically competitive carbon neutral methane production, but I'm very skeptical that it would work out that way.

 

[GlennB]

Sorry if I came across critically. It's always good to re-check what Wiki says.

I just noticed that my spell check changed "jeans" to "genes". I need to re-check these things myself.

You didn't come across critically. I was admitting that my 'research' was probably pretty superficial. Man, this place is a minefield

However ... would it be fair to say that untrained, yet reasonably fit and young everyday folks, taking such a flight, might find several minutes of 3g acceleration/deceleration and several more minutes of weightlessness to be - at the very least - rather distressing? Quite likely vomit-inducing? Maybe "**** that. My brother tried it ... no way, Jose" ?

I've still to picture how passengers might board (this is pure detail, a fun concept to consider) to take up their recumbent position relative to the line of flight. Their attitude is pretty much the same as in a conventional aircraft, except their 'plane' is pointing upwards. octavo has suggested they might be loaded into pods/cassettes that are prepared outside the ship and then slotted in. Sounds tricky to me, not to mention expensive.

Let's not even get started on the nature of the BFR 'airports'. I can't picture a lot of taxiing round to the unloading areas, and then there's reloading on a fresh booster and pumping LOX ... Sorry, I got started Will they just be novelty BFR flights between a few chosen destinations? That could work, though it's hard to see why anyone would bother.

So, Musk eh? Has certainly done some great stuff, but often talks utter bollocks. For my money he doesn't get a free pass on the bollocks just because of the great stuff. Open mind ... brain ... fall out ... But this commercial BFR stuff is certainly not a commercial proposal, unless it's encouraging the fanboy fringe to buy Teslas.