Elon Musk and the future of spaceflight • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk and the future of spaceflight

#31

Post by adrianbye » Sat, May 26, 2012, 9:42 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #25

I always enjoy reading what Musk has to say. Insufferable nitwit interviewers at New Scientist, not so much. I am really sick of interviewers using language as a weapon and having hostile confrontational interviews with scientists and entrepreneurs, when the same interviewers and periodicals don't have the balls to even ask questions of the various criminals in society who are actually worthy of such contempt in an i…

i thought both the question and answer was good, but it didn't need to be first. i don't like fluff interviews, its too easy for critical areas not to be discussed.

(i do quite a few interviews myself).

Re: Elon Musk and the future of spaceflight

#32

Post by jasonwatkinspdx » Sat, May 26, 2012, 10:22 PM UTC

johntb86 wrote: post #18

dsrguru wrote: post #6

After Elon Musk explained that it would be too dangerous to outsource the production to China because "rocket technology is [...] considered an advanced weapons technology," I'm surprised the interviewer didn't ask about potential dangers in the privatization of advanced weapons.

I doubt that Mr. Musk considers it to be advanced weapons technology (particularly given that China already has ICBMs), but the US government sure does: http://www.fas.org/news/ukraine/p5s1.htm .

Cost vs impact of ballistic missiles shapes current military strategy. A good example is how China's demonstration of a high maneuverability re-entry vehicle has shifted the navy back into building more destroyers to raise the odds of interception.

From this perspective, technology that reduces the cost to lob a warhead reliably is still advanced weapons technology.

But I also don't think fear should hold back progress.

Re: Elon Musk and the future of spaceflight

#33

Post by larrys » Sat, May 26, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #25

I always enjoy reading what Musk has to say. Insufferable nitwit interviewers at New Scientist, not so much. I am really sick of interviewers using language as a weapon and having hostile confrontational interviews with scientists and entrepreneurs, when the same interviewers and periodicals don't have the balls to even ask questions of the various criminals in society who are actually worthy of such contempt in an i…

"Insufferable nitwit interviewers at New Scientist, not so much."

Think that's a bit strong. I didn't take "you claim to be" as anything close to framing Musk as potentially lying.

"It is designed to impeach the credibility of the subject in the reader's view"

If that is the case there would have been more wording like this in the interview. I'm not seeing that in any of the other questions, at least nothing that is worthy of calling the writers at "Insufferable nitwit interviewers". Which in itself has made me think there is some general disrespect for New Scientist which I wasn't aware of. New Scientist seems to have fairly good demographics we're not talking about People Magazine here.

Re: Elon Musk and the future of spaceflight

#34

Post by saraid216 » Sun, May 27, 2012, 1:30 AM UTC

pyre wrote: post #5

saraid216 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trust you've heard of Planetary Resources and their asteroid mining plans? (Just surprised they didn't make your list.)

I imagine that Planetary Resources may just be using someone else's launch tech, though the asteroid mining tech might be developed in-house (vs. out-sourced).

I actually expect that they'll partner with SpaceX and other launchers: one of the key things they're planning to do is to build fueling stations, which is not something I've heard that SpaceX is planning on yet.

Build the robots, ask SpaceX to put them in space, construct a station, permit SpaceX to use it to push further to Mars. It makes a lot of sense to me.