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Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars

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Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars

#131

Post by someperson »

greedo wrote: post #40
ballooney wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of industries do this. Patents are useful when it's obvious what your idea is, and where it's easy for people/competitors to have have a poke inside. Like a vacuum cleaner or a non-reflective mobile-phone screen coating, or one-click or something like that. But for industries where that's not the case, like rockets (my current) or to pick another example from a previous job, magnetic bearings for sub-sea tubo-ma…

The problem then shifts from competitors using your patents to competitors actively engaging in industrial espionage. Considering how easily the JSF program was penetrated by the Chinese, I hope that SpaceX has well guarded data.

SpaceX have mentioned how seriously they take cyber security and with somebody like Elon Musk at the helm, I'm sure they're much better than Fortune 500 companies and the big aerospace companies.

Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars

#132

Post by sandee »

flatline wrote: post #32

> The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative. Sounds like so many complaints about the enterprise software landscape, and has certainly proved to be true in my own experience. Codified processes usually start with the…

His company is geared towards a clear mission which is very motivational to the engineers and managers in team. When a company drives towards a goal with a fanatical zeal, nothing else matters than achieving the milestones. Motivation towards achieving breakthrough achievements will mask the tendency which creates underperformance.

It would be wrong to compare it with any other traditional big company. The structures built around traditional big business work because of some reasons.

Once they achieve the goals of easier space flight and mission to mars and when it become easier or less motivational, probably they will face similar issues like most companies. But i don't this Musk cares a damn about that ... and he shouldn't

Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars

#134

Post by 6ren » 

  Indeed, psychological investigations have found that entrepreneurs aren’t more risk-
  tolerant than non-entrepreneurs.  They just have an extraordinary ability to believe
  in their own visions, so much so that they think what they’re embarking on isn’t
  really that risky. They’re wrong, of course...
If you are determined (you keep trying) is it actually that risky? For example, if there's a 1 in 10 chance of success, and you try 10 times, it becomes a 65% chance (1-.9^10). Plus, of course, you will learn a tremendous amount from each attempt; gather more resources; ask others; change your approach; even modify your goal (perhaps to something more audacious).

I think what stops people is aversion to the unfamiliar (whereas some people like it), and the pain of each failure. People like Edison fail a thousand times, and keep going (even if you hate him, you have to admit that takes a certain courage).

After 3 rocket failures, Musk said something similar http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2008/08/musk_qa (at the end):

  Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we're going to make it happen.
  As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.
If you don't give up, success is inevitable.

Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars

#135

Post by sounds »

jvzr wrote: post #38
catch23 wrote: post #3

There's one interesting quote in the article: Musk: I can’t tell you much. We have essentially no patents in SpaceX. Our primary long-term competition is in China—if we published patents, it would be farcical, because the Chinese would just use them as a recipe book. If your process/ideas are sufficiently complex, it reduces competition if you don't file a patent.

My father runs a company which has been in our family for 250 years. It weaves silk fabrics for luxurious furnitures for mansions and alikes (Versailles comes to mind). He's always told me that he'll never try to register its designs to any authority since the company's main competitors are the chinese, and that they do not care for forgein laws and registrations. Well, obviously. Surely, this is not suitable to ever…

That company should do well. Chinese competitors may copy a design and try to undersell you – but you're countering by selling to the high end market (like Apple does). I hope the company does well!

The really hard part is the supply chain. For example, Apple was hit by the "bad cap" problem when they went with the cheaper caps (stolen formula): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague#Industrial_esp...

SpaceX appears to be producing so much of their design in-house that the suppliers don't yet play a major role. I'm going with the assumption SpaceX will be around long term, so that will be a challenge as they try to bring costs down even more. They're not selling to the high end market.

Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars

#136

Post by marvin »

hi wrote: post #5

If you have't already seen it, Kevin Rose interviews Elon Musk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-s_3b5fRd8 Also, Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about if there was a space race with China the US would be on Mars in 18 months: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=c... It would be truly amazing if a private company was the first to set foot on another planet.

The Rose interview was really interesting. It seemed like Rose derailed Musk whenever he was on a roll, but a lot of interesting things were said regardless.

Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars

#137

Post by tjmc »

I'm an Elon fan, but his comment about the old Russian engines his competitors are using deserves some scrutiny. He's talking about the NK-33 which has a thrust to weight ratio of 137. That's better than any current SpaceX engines though the Merlin 1D under development is apparently aiming for a ratio of 150.

As for the engines being in a warehouse in Siberia since the 60s - that part is basically true. There was an Equinox (UK) documentary called "the engines that came in from the cold" about it. When the cold war was over the Americans finally found out about these engines that were left over from the space race, 20 years old (at the time) and better than anything they'd developed since. Now they're over 40 years old and still the most efficient!

So credit where it's due eh Elon? The NK-33 was and still is a masterpiece.

Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars

#138

Post by mbell »

tjmc wrote: post #137

I'm an Elon fan, but his comment about the old Russian engines his competitors are using deserves some scrutiny. He's talking about the NK-33 which has a thrust to weight ratio of 137. That's better than any current SpaceX engines though the Merlin 1D under development is apparently aiming for a ratio of 150. As for the engines being in a warehouse in Siberia since the 60s - that part is basically true. There was an…

> The NK-33 was and still is a masterpiece.

Its a bit aggressive to label this engine a masterpiece when it has never actually launched successfully. I don't even think there has been an attempted launch with the NK-33, just ground tests for the N-1F rocket which was cancelled. Interesting note - the second attempted launch of the N-1 rocket, which used the original version of the NK-33 (NK-15) resulted in the largest non-nuclear explosion of all time.

There is more to an engine than power to weight ratio, such as actually successfully putting a rocket in space.

Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars

#139

Post by greedo »

whatusername wrote: post #124
greedo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't say I agree that funding this type of endeavor is "one of the most important functions of a state is its ability and willingness to invest in projects that would be otherwise unprofitable or far too long-term for any rational player in the private sector to take-on." Government does many things marginally better than the private sector, and many things poorly. For example, the Pyramids are a stunning achievemen…

How many tourists would go to Egypt/Cairo if the pyramids weren't there? See also the Sydney Bridge & Opera House, Rio's Cristo Redentor, EifFel tower in Paris, etc

I doubt the totality of tourism revenues since the pyramids were built would even come close to the cost of their construction.

Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars

#140

Post by Someone »

6ren wrote: post #134

Indeed, psychological investigations have found that entrepreneurs aren’t more risk- tolerant than non-entrepreneurs. They just have an extraordinary ability to believe in their own visions, so much so that they think what they’re embarking on isn’t really that risky. They’re wrong, of course... If you are determined (you keep trying) is it actually that risky? For example, if there's a 1 in 10 chance of success, and…

Tip: do not start a career in Russian Roulette. Let's say you can 'win' by playing it 100 times. Then, if enough people do not give up, success is inevitable. However, there is no guarantee that you will be the one that is successful.
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