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Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

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Re: Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

#21
post #15
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is more "secret sauce" in Tesla than in SpaceX. SpaceX is doing great implementations of pretty conservative designs. In any case, both are "product" companies and benefit from patents less than "design" companies. Contrast SpaceX with Mojave Aerospace Ventures (the investment vehicle that owns the Spaceship One IP developed by Scaled Composites).

> SpaceX is doing great implementations of pretty conservative designs. Mostly. So far. But very quickly SpaceX will start building things that have never been built before, and I would assume small teams are already working on the designs. Ships like human-rated Mars landers, colony buildings, fuel-creating reactors for Mars, etc.

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

#22
post #13
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX don't patent anything because they thought the Chinese would steal their technologies using the patents itself. It's a different story for Tesla Motors, though.

I think there is more "secret sauce" in Tesla than in SpaceX. SpaceX is doing great implementations of pretty conservative designs. In any case, both are "product" companies and benefit from patents less than "design" companies. Contrast SpaceX with Mojave Aerospace Ventures (the investment vehicle that owns the Spaceship One IP developed by Scaled Composites).

My understanding is that although kerosene burning rocket engines are nothing exotic or unfamiliar to the Chinese (or really anybody), the devil is in the details. For example, the details of the explosive forming of the regeneratively cooled Merlin 1D combustion chambers is allegedly pretty damn "secret sauce".

Re: Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

#23

If this is, as it sounds, a new public transport system, it surprises me a little that he would prefer to develop it in the US. Attitudes towards public transport in general seem more favourable in the EU, Japan, China and South Korea. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I imagine getting such a system built in the EU (for example) would be easier than the US. Then again, Musk has been building a reputation with law-m…

European attitudes to public transport are certainly more receptive than those in the US. However, European attitudes to big infrastructure projects are a lot more NIMBYish. Asia could be good but then they are quite advanced with high-speed public transport anyways.

Plus, Elon doesn't live in Europe or Asia, so why would he?

Re: Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

#24

If this is, as it sounds, a new public transport system, it surprises me a little that he would prefer to develop it in the US. Attitudes towards public transport in general seem more favourable in the EU, Japan, China and South Korea. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I imagine getting such a system built in the EU (for example) would be easier than the US. Then again, Musk has been building a reputation with law-m…

He lives in the US so it's odd that you're surprised.

Re: Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

#25
post #16

Why announce the publication date in advance? It's not like he needs to disrupt anyone else's futuristic transport plan announcement.

Probably some combination of:

a) He's getting asked a lot.

b) By publicly announcing a deadline, everyone involved (including him) will be racing to hit that deadline or lose face.

c) He's telling the world "I say what I do and I do what I say".

Re: Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

#26

If this is, as it sounds, a new public transport system, it surprises me a little that he would prefer to develop it in the US. Attitudes towards public transport in general seem more favourable in the EU, Japan, China and South Korea. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I imagine getting such a system built in the EU (for example) would be easier than the US. Then again, Musk has been building a reputation with law-m…

I would think a big motivation is that he personally wants to be able to go from LA to SF in 30mins. He probably spends a lot of his time flying around the US

Re: Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

#28

Classy! https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/356779314043305985 "I really hate patents unless critical to company survival. Will publish Hyperloop as open source."

> "I really hate patents unless critical to company survival" Isn't "critical to company survival" the same defensive argument that every patent holder uses?

Certainly the patent trolls could argue that patents are essential to their patent troll company survival...

Re: Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

#29

If this is, as it sounds, a new public transport system, it surprises me a little that he would prefer to develop it in the US. Attitudes towards public transport in general seem more favourable in the EU, Japan, China and South Korea. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I imagine getting such a system built in the EU (for example) would be easier than the US. Then again, Musk has been building a reputation with law-m…

> Attitudes towards public transport in general seem more favourable in the EU, Japan, China and South Korea.

As a result, they aren't in as desperate need of public transport as the US.

Re: Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

#30

If this is, as it sounds, a new public transport system, it surprises me a little that he would prefer to develop it in the US. Attitudes towards public transport in general seem more favourable in the EU, Japan, China and South Korea. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I imagine getting such a system built in the EU (for example) would be easier than the US. Then again, Musk has been building a reputation with law-m…

I think he specifically wants California to build this instead of wasting $100bn on the HSR project. I'm sure he'll be open to building hyperloops elsewhere as well.
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