Elon Musk gets it
 

SpaceX's Elon Musk: I'll put HUMANS on MARS by 2026 • The Register


Say what you will about SpaceX (and I'm sure TK will), but this guy gets it as far as the necessity of getting all of our eggs out of one basket (which I've long been a proponent of).

If by "it" you mean amazing freaking marketing, I agree.
If by "it" you mean the space industry, then I will respectfully disagree.

**FULL DISCLOSURE: WHAT I AM ABOUT TO SAY IS MY OWN OPINION AND DOES NOT REFLECT IN ANY WAY OR FORM WHAT THE COMPANY I WORK FOR (WHICH COMPETES WITH SPACE X IN THE CRS MISSIONS AND IN SOME OF THE LAUNCH VEHICLE BUSINESS) THINKS OR MIGHT THINK**

What Elon doesn't say here is what he said in his Dragon 2 unveiling, which is that he expects NASA to pay at least 60-70% of the cost to get Dragon 2 built/tested/qualified/DONE. What Elon doesn't say here is that Dragon 2 and his Mars mission plans probably look nothing like what they will be. I'm not sure he even has his Mars mission planned, unless he's going to take Robert Zubrin's plan (which also has holes in it).

Generally speaking, the feeling amongst my colleagues and I is that he is good at getting people excited about space again. But the public face, if he really thinks it will work that way, is sadly misguided. The brutal truth is, space is hard. It's literally rocket science and the joke exists for a reason. Lately, Musk has been whining that the Air Force unfairly won't consider his Falcon rocket for missions. What he forgets to mention (publicly) is that they have standards and he has yet to be certified against any of those standards BECAUSE HE KEEPS CHANGING THINGS. His Dragon 2 reveal was hysterical. It was about as thick as a car (based on how he gripped the side of it). It would NEVER survive in space, much less for 6 months, but it looked pretty. Can you imagine re-entering astronauts trying to work touchscreen controls while pulling 3G's? In a pressure suit and gloves? HAH. But it looked pretty and it got people talking.

Musk brings a lot of things to the industry. Some are a breath of fresh air. Some are scary as sin. The things I've heard from former employees make me cringe, make me afraid to put any of my satellites onto one of his rockets. Musk's cavalier attitude and...great personality (? I have no idea what it is)...maybe charisma? gets him a long way. Last year, when his Dragon capsule lost 3 of 4 thruster pods, NASA went on record and said that they required 3 of the 4 to be functioning before they would allow Dragon to approach ISS. Musk brazenly said that "Dragon would approach even if only 1 was working" or something like that and the NASA rep SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO HIM didn't contradict him. That's what he gets for being a private company. He can say whatever the hell he wants and nobody can call him on it. This cavalier attitude is SCARY. It will be VERY interesting to see what happens when they have their first failure. Not if, when. This is rocket science. These things are basically planned/semi-controlled explosions. EVERYBODY has a failure. Right now, people like F9 as an alternative but if insurance costs rise too high, or even if Musk decides that the correct amount of oversight is just too costly, it's done. That's an advantage of being private...

Actually, SpaceX has had many failures...the public just rarely hears about them. Did you know that his first Falcon 9 launch didn't get its secondary payload to the correct orbit and in fact the payload re-entered and went into the drink? Did you know that his first Falcon 9.1 rocket didn't re-light like it was expected to and they couldn't really figure out why? Did you know that the most recent Dragon capsule to come back to earth (splashed down in the ocean) was water-filled by the time they got to it. Go read the industry press. It's enlightening. It's also hysterical to look at the comments on sites like SpaceFlightNow or SpaceNews. There seems to be a lot of love and a lot of vitriol for SpaceX, very little middle ground amongst the commenters.

He burns through engineers. The SpaceX motto seems to be "get all you can out of them and then get rid of them." Most people take a pay cut (from what I've been told) to be a part of SpaceX...some of their pay is in stock vesting. It takes 5 years I think to fully vest, the average employee is gone in just about 2 years. Then they come work firms that have actual quality control. The trick is, he/they just don't care. They lined up mission teams all over the globe on (US) Thanksgiving day to try to launch a satellite. This was the 2nd or 3rd attempt for this mission, previous attempts having aborted due to some issue with the rocket. Everybody working on the ground knew it wasn't going to happen--they either didn't know what was wrong exactly or hadn't finished fixing it...but they made everybody get up and do the countdown like it was real, only to abort with 2 minutes because it still wasn't fixed/dealt with. After at least one other false start, that mission finally launched on December 3. That's just disrespectful to everybody involved.

Finally and most importantly, Musk is forgetting/not acknowledging a few facts with this "plan" to get to Mars by 2026.
1) To get there requires funding (which he doesn't plan on ponying up all on his own). That requires a common vision for what should be happening. We haven't even had that year over year with the SAME president, to say nothing of what happens when a new president takes office. Funding priorities change, even within the scope of what NASA should be.
2) Getting to Mars isn't purely technical. Personalities will make a huge difference and we don't have any idea of what will really work. As an astronaut colleague recently said, "All the on-the-ground mission simulations have been epic failures. We're no closer to figuring out the psychological part than we were 10 years ago."
3) The technical parts boil down to energy, food, and water. Hey, guess what resources are in short supply on Earth?!?! Whoever is going to do this needs to get the funding to figure these 3 problems out. Of course, nobody wants to pay for stuff for space missions when "there are real problems on Earth" but if we had another Kennedy-like spending spree and a real goal to get to Mars, we'd solve these 3 Earth problems as a fringe benefit of getting to Mars. THAT'S how the funding should be pitched. Screw exploration and all that.

Sadly, I think the only way we're getting to Mars anytime soon is if Russia or China makes strong motions to do it first. That's the only thing that will light the right fire under our keesters, with or without Musk.

/tk

In other words, Elon Musk doesn't get it?

Not talking about the space industry at all. We've had that conversation, and as I noted I know your views on that. I was specifically referring to his comment about needing to get all of our eggs out of one basket. Whether that's a sincere belief or amazing marketing who knows, but he's on the same page with me with that thought, so I just wanted to highlight it.

But that's just the thing. His funding is still NASA/the government. How is that eggs out of one basket? Because we're not sole-sourcing ULA for the rockets and Boeing for the shuttle? There's a ton of interesting things going on in the commercial space. Elon just makes the most noise.

And as I said, I'm stoked he's getting people interested/excited. I just wish that he could be checked on what he says but since he's totally private, he can say whatever the heck he wants and damn the consequences.

/tk

I meant philosophically.

Sadly, I think this is why private companies will wind up surpassing NASA down the road. The constantly shifting targets / endless red tape has got to be utterly brutal.

CT and Jivin approve of this reckless science!

I'm rather certain that he cares very little how many baskets hold the eggs as long as he owns a big basket.

Oh of course you're right, but like I said to TK, even if that's just his marketing/PR spin it's still a message that doesn't get out there enough and one that I personally think needs to be emphasized more till it resonates with more people. So in that sense, whatever his reasoning is, I'm just glad he's giving that message out.

Person in industry doesn't believe in it - check

If they get funding. A lot of the private companies are relying on NASA for funding (which in turn is relying on Congress). And the Senate's recent bill could screw smaller companies like SpaceX: NASA funding: New Senate bill will keep us relying on Russians for rides to space.

As I said earlier, it will be very interesting to see what happens when SpaceX has their first failure. They scrubbed another launch today due to "pressure decay in the second stage" which sounds a lot like a problem they had on at least 2 previous launches. Without more details, it's troubling that they may not be implementing lessons learned and jives with things I've heard from former employees (which you have to take with a grain of salt, not knowing why they're "former" employees). Musk is doing some things that the industry really frowns on, but if he's successful doing it (and that's why you have to wait to see what happens when they have a failure because that's when you're going to see how flexible it is and what's really going on), the "good" things might roll into other parts of the industry, which would be a breath of fresh air.

That said, without funding from the government for at least part of these things, until it becomes a good business decision (which I really can't imagine it will in the near future, given the expense...), I don't see private companies doing much, either. :\

/tk

NASA: Humans Will Prove ‘We Are Not Alone In The Universe’ Within 20 Years « CBS Connecticut

"Cambridge, Mass. (CBS CONNECTICUT) – NASA predicts that 100 million worlds in our own Milky Way galaxy may host alien life, and space program scientists estimate that humans will be able to find life within two decades.

Speaking at NASA’s Washington headquarters on Monday, the space agency outlined a plan to search for alien life using current telescope technology, and announced the launch of the Transiting Exoplanet Surveying Satellite in 2017. The NASA administrators and scientists estimate that humans will be able to locate alien life within the next 20 years."

UAE is getting into the space/Mars game as well:

UAE Establishes Space Agency, Plans Mission To Mars By 2021 | Fast Company | Business + Innovation


"The United Arab Emirates on Wednesday established a space agency and announced plans to send an unmanned probe to Mars by 2021."

You could have given me 100 guesses at the next spacefaring nation and I might not have reached the UAE before I ran out.

I would have - just go down the list of GDP per capita and you'd eventually get there.

So in terms I can understand, this would be like Venice winning a science victory in Civ5?

Oil money for the win. Where do they rank on said list?

:)

Depends on the source and whether it's real or nominal GDP, but most measures have the UAE in the 20s/30s worldwide.

And it's probably a lot easier for the UAE's version of an executive branch to throw billions at something like this than it would be a Western Democracy with a strong legislative branch.

One of the coolest things I've read in the past couple months was about the Fermi Paradox which sort of deals with their assumption that we'll find life.

The Fermi Paradox - Wait But Why

Yeah, it's intriguing and I don't know why I hadn't thought of a small, oil-rich petro-state doing this. Given they have no trouble dedicating billions to other super-projects, this is right up their alley.

Two interesting things related to Musk/SpaceX this week.

1) They were finally able to launch their most recent Falcon 9 to launch some Orbcomm satellites, after months of false starts and delays. This launch was also supposed to be another demo of the 1st stage reusability, which didn't go quite as planned. The interesting thing is that Musk tweeted that it didn't go quite right... Spaceflight Now | Falcon Launch Report | SpaceX launch delivers Orbcomm satellites to orbit

2) On the same day, this is announced, which I think is more a political move but is intriguing what might come out of it. House Members Press NASA for Information on “Epidemic of Anomalies� with SpaceX Missions | SpaceNews.com

/tk

Which is a nice change from how defense/space contractors usually go about their business.

On the same day, this is announced, which I think is more a political move but is intriguing what might come out of it.[/quote]

You think?


Uh-huh.

Let's not let progress get in the way of pork barrel. I'm honestly impressed by the shamelessness here. Once upon a time if said Reps had misgivings but also had conflicts of interest, they'd look to enlist Reps without conflicts of interest and, if they agreed there was a material issue, would go forward as a group. Not anymore. Yay congress.

That was a great read, thanks for posting.

Actually, most contractors are publicly traded companies and have to make announcements that impact business (which failures do). SpaceX, as a private company, has no such responsibility and as such says very little (though info gets out and is fairly interesting to read in industry press). I've said it before and I'll say it again, they've had a lot of issues that normal people have no idea what's happening--they just see Musk tweet that he's awesome and they agree because he's not the government. I'm not saying that there's anything like full disclosure (nor could there be with a lot of defense stuff) but at least you know when s**t's broken, especially if it's being funded in large part with public dollars. This was a private launch for a private company so Musk had no reason he had to say anything. But he did, which is very atypical for him.


I actually didn't read the article I linked, I had read a different version of the story that didn't point out that the congressdweebs were from states where competitors were based. I actually can't really think of which specific companies in particular raised this concern/where they're based, so when I read the article, I assumed it was political and less...technical.

/tk

I'm not going to argue that SpaceX, as a private company, has a greater ability to keep things quiet than a public company, and I certainly agree with you that a lack of transparency inherent with private companies on defense contracts is a problem.

But don't kid yourself that public companies are all that forthcoming themselves. There are plenty of ways to bury / obfuscate / defer reporting / etc... in the documentation that public companies are required to complete.

Quite interesting.. then I had to click on and read all the links at the bottom of this. :)

That was a great read - thanks.

I wasn't trying to say/imply that. What I was pointing out is that Musk (unlike most CEO's)/SpaceX in general (unlike most companies) has had a way of making it sound like he's perfect and he's doing things never been done and that he's doing it perfectly. On the one hand, he's getting people excited (so yay) but on the other, he's amazingly good at only telling people the positive and not making them think to question it. Then he goes and calls "unfair" in the news/press because SpaceX (until this most recent launch) wasn't eligible to even bid for defense launches, in part because of the issues they've had and in part because they're not following the rules. Musk is very talented at spin, and it is simultaneously good and bad. To see him actually "admit" that something didn't work was surprising.

I was recently at a family gathering and found that my sister-in-law's brother-in-law (her sister's husband) just started working for SpaceX. He doesn't have background in the space industry and it's amazing how much HE didn't seem to know about the issues SpaceX has had, which was pretty...well, amazing.

/tk

Agreed, thanks as well, great site.

Totally thread-jacked now, but if you guys like the "What-If" thing, you might be interested to know that the creator, Randall Munroe, is releasing a book in September that will be a collection of those essays that haven't been published before as well as some of his favorites. He updates What-If at least weekly, it seems, if it's not quite as regular as his "day job" of xkcd.

Anyway, linkage for book: What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions - Kindle edition by Randall Munroe. Professional & Technical Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

/tk

Skip to 27:17. Simply awesome.

Congrats Team Elon.

Space is pretty cool but please don't take your eye off dominating the electric car market and getting us off oil dependency and subsidizing nations that are not our friends/allies.

Is the lab just full of guys playing Kerbal Space Program until they figure out how to get things right?

Whatever ever happened to Terpkristin?

She's still around, I chat with her on FB and Twitter a lot :)

Those are not exactly placid seas, either.

Slowly but surely getting there ...

Step Inside SpaceX's New Crew Dragon Spaceship (Photos)

Now if he could only stop destroying his reputation (like calling rescue participants pedophiles based solely on them being 60ish and living in Thailand) and/or driving his other business ventures off a cliff ...

Can't think of many people on the face of the planet that I've had as complete a 180° shift in opinion on as Elon Musk over the last 3-4 years.

I was talking with a buddy recently and making a lazy observation about how Elon has effectively turned against the type of person that is your typical Tesla owner & he said "What if that was entirely the point?" not the turning away from the true believers & people who have already bought a Tesla, but purposely positioning himself to be more appealing to a culture that would've previously never even considered buying a Tesla.

IMO just as likely he wants an echo chamber of online stans fawning over him and thinking he's a genius.

My impression is that he actually had more of that before the shift, but maybe this flavor tastes better.