SpaceX attempts to land rockets back on Earth

bumpo

Elon Musk will be written about in our childrens' history books

this is amazing

wow

Awesome :D

Short vid:

i have a friend that works at spacex... mirin

Elon Musk's biggest talent by far is in the PR marketing of his personality cult to people who are like 'hurr durr maek space ships', he's definitely no Gates / Brin / Page / Zuckerberg / Jobs (maybe he's ahead of Jobs intellectually, but he's behind everyone else both in terms of intellect and accomplishments). i mean the guy is a beast but his mega fanboy following isn't really warranted.

that said this is pretty cool.

On December 22 2015 22:12 bigredhoss wrote: Elon Musk's biggest talent by far is in the PR marketing of his personality cult to people who are like 'hurr durr maek space ship.

the people you've listed afterwards are exactly the same :/ they re all great at selling themselves and great at leading large intelligent groups of people, otherwise none of them would've been able to accomplish what they've accomplished

I don't think Elon Musk's personality cult is of any value by itself, it's just an indication that people are excited by space and electric cars. it's not worth anything, I mean it might make people aware of the electric car revolution, but it's not selling rockets

and what exactly are any of those people's accomplishments? Jobs made a rounded square, Zuckerberg invented friends, Gates copied Jobs, Page is probably the closest personally to Musk out of those, and Google is actually an incredible... thing, monster, whatever kind of entity it is

Making efficient rockets, that are already cheaper than the competition, that go to space and also come back and land is a serious achievement, same with being able to drive all over the US on electricity

hehe came here to trash on jobs, zuckerberg and bigredhoss, but the job has already been done

So... you'd prefer that we keep the ranks of famous people as they are. Keep worshiping... actors. "Honey boo-boo" and Miley Cyrus and "big Soccer star #135" and Raging Feminist #10034 and Gang-Bangin Rapper #928.

Yes, having more famous Scientist/Engineers - people who can actually think critically and are good role models - is truly a terrible thing.

On April 16 2015 17:34 Arirang wrote: I wonder if all the billionaires, who essentially basically just beat life were to commit to bettering the world in just one aspect per person, how much progress we would make. I mean, I'm not sure if they already do that, but I'm assuming they don't, since I only really hear about Musk and Gates. Gates is pretty amazing.

I'd say the answer is education: making small children work together in school instead of working for their grades/their individual success. That way the success becomes shared and it will be always remembered (or subconciously remembered) as something 'nice from childhood' and can drive ppl through their entire lifes. Obv it's a 'numbers game', not everyone reacts the same way to the same environment.

I know, I want to manipulate ppl.

On December 22 2015 23:02 Spitfiree wrote: Show nested quote + On December 22 2015 22:12 bigredhoss wrote: Elon Musk's biggest talent by far is in the PR marketing of his personality cult to people who are like 'hurr durr maek space ship. the people you've listed afterwards are exactly the same :/ they re all great at selling themselves and great at leading large intelligent groups of people, otherwise none of them would've been able to accomplish what they've accomplished

On December 22 2015 23:14 Santafairy wrote: I don't think Elon Musk's personality cult is of any value by itself, it's just an indication that people are excited by space and electric cars. it's not worth anything, I mean it might make people aware of the electric car revolution, but it's not selling rockets and what exactly are any of those people's accomplishments? Jobs made a rounded square, Zuckerberg invented friends, Gates copied Jobs, Page is probably the closest personally to Musk out of those, and Google is actually an incredible... thing, monster, whatever kind of entity it is Making efficient rockets, that are already cheaper than the competition, that go to space and also come back and land is a serious achievement, same with being able to drive all over the US on electricity

i'm not saying Gates et al aren't also gifted and opportunistic marketers. i'm saying that unlike them, it's the only thing Musk has proven to be exceptional at. Musk has more in common with Trump than he does with Gates.

both SpaceX and Tesla benefit from cutting safety corners which are a ticking timebomb. in the autonomous vehicle game Tesla is significantly behind Google, Nissan, BMW and probably others, but half the world believes they're at the forefront thanks to Musks's brilliant PR work.

look at what Jeff Bezos did with Blue Origin last month (without the help of government funding no less), how much hype did that get? yet Bezos, another entrepreneur who's clearly more accomplished and more intelligent than Musk, doesn't get the mythological hero-worship treatment that Musk gets.

Musk also makes all kinds of ridiculous statements (to be fair he probably realizes they're ridiculous and is just putting them out there for those who will lick them up) about things like colonizing Mars, which has nothing to do with companies like SpaceX and everything to do with the advancement of materials sciences and the development of new energy sources like fusion.

scroll down a few paragraphs in this article. there's a hedge fund manager's letter to its shareholders that outlines a lot of the market's delusions about Tesla, including the safety issues i mentioned earlier, negative cash flow, lack of supposed proprietary technologies, a pattern of grandiose hype and deceptive claims, etc. there's a bunch of links but they're worth reading if you're interested in this stuff and explain it far better than i could.

On December 23 2015 00:44 dogmeat wrote: hehe came here to trash on jobs, zuckerberg and bigredhoss, but the job has already been done

it's true - Zuckerberg, Jobs and Myself are no Gates.

On December 23 2015 10:21 Silver_nz wrote: So... you'd prefer that we keep the ranks of famous people as they are. Keep worshiping... actors. "Honey boo-boo" and Miley Cyrus and "big Soccer star #135" and Raging Feminist #10034 and Gang-Bangin Rapper #928. Yes, having more famous Scientist/Engineers - people who can actually think critically and are good role models - is truly a terrible thing.

just to state the obvious, i'm comparing him to other famous entrepreneurs who are held on pedestals as innovators; not, you know, Honey boo boo, or your cousin Sal or whoever. i'm not saying he's a clown or something, i'm just saying that he carries a cult following that is out of proportion to his accomplishments.

i'm all for more famous Scientists and Engineers. Musk isn't a great Scientist or Engineer, he's a businessperson who happens to have a Physics degree and likes to dip his toes into his companies' engineering processes. the majority of the people working for him are undoubtedly better scientists/engineers than he is.

On December 23 2015 11:00 bigredhoss wrote: Show nested quote + On December 22 2015 23:02 Spitfiree wrote:   On December 22 2015 22:12 bigredhoss wrote: Elon Musk's biggest talent by far is in the PR marketing of his personality cult to people who are like 'hurr durr maek space ship. the people you've listed afterwards are exactly the same :/ they re all great at selling themselves and great at leading large intelligent groups of people, otherwise none of them would've been able to accomplish what they've accomplished   On December 22 2015 23:14 Santafairy wrote: I don't think Elon Musk's personality cult is of any value by itself, it's just an indication that people are excited by space and electric cars. it's not worth anything, I mean it might make people aware of the electric car revolution, but it's not selling rockets and what exactly are any of those people's accomplishments? Jobs made a rounded square, Zuckerberg invented friends, Gates copied Jobs, Page is probably the closest personally to Musk out of those, and Google is actually an incredible... thing, monster, whatever kind of entity it is Making efficient rockets, that are already cheaper than the competition, that go to space and also come back and land is a serious achievement, same with being able to drive all over the US on electricity i'm not saying Gates et al aren't also gifted and opportunistic marketers. i'm saying that unlike them, it's the only thing Musk has proven to be exceptional at. Musk has more in common with Trump than he does with Gates.

I know. I'm saying you're wrong.

On December 23 2015 11:00 bigredhoss wrote: both SpaceX and Tesla benefit from cutting safety corners which are a ticking timebomb. in the autonomous vehicle game Tesla is significantly behind Google, Nissan, BMW and probably others, but half the world believes they're at the forefront thanks to Musks's brilliant PR work.

Tell me more about cutting corners in a car that nobody has ever died in...

I don't really follow autonomous driving, because I don't care, so I'm not sure most people care either, but what's your point? If other companies are doing better at it, good for them.

On December 23 2015 11:00 bigredhoss wrote: look at what Jeff Bezos did with Blue Origin last month (without the help of government funding no less), how much hype did that get? yet Bezos, another entrepreneur who's clearly more accomplished and more intelligent than Musk, doesn't get the mythological hero-worship treatment that Musk gets.

I'm sorry but Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have achieved fuck all. They make toys that go up 100km to give people 4 minutes of weightlessness. In Virgin Galactic's case, it's a spaceplane. In Blue Origin's case, it's an itty bitty rocket with a capsule on it. They're just really fast roller-coasters. I mean it's great that their system works, but it's not comparable to landing the first stage of an orbital launch vehicle back at the launchpad.

I don't know why it's so clear to you that Jeff Bezos is more accomplished than Musk (or more intelligent - are you friends with these guys?).
Bezos: Amazon, Blue Origin
Musk: Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX

You keep talking about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, like your metric for "accomplishment" is market cap of publicly traded companies. I want to make it clear I'm not here arguing Elon Musk is some kind of demigod. I'm just saying your trashing on him is unfounded.

US government agencies, mainly NASA, are some of the customers of SpaceX. Customers, as in NASA gives them money, and the company gives them stuff in return (in this case, rockets). Just like every other aerospace company. What you're saying is like criticizing Lockheed Martin for taking "government funding" and omitting the part where they actually manufacture warplanes. It's a business, with a buyer and seller.

On December 23 2015 11:00 bigredhoss wrote: Musk also makes all kinds of ridiculous statements (to be fair he probably realizes they're ridiculous and is just putting them out there for those who will lick them up) about things like colonizing Mars, which has nothing to do with companies like SpaceX and everything to do with the advancement of materials sciences and the development of new energy sources like fusion.

-Musk sets optimistic deadlines, big deal
-Nuclear fusion has nothing to do with Mars. Nuclear fusion is a goal for sustainable energy because it's clean, produces tons of energy, and doesn't have fission's risk of criticality. Humans don't need nuclear fusion to colonize Mars any more than they needed it to colonize Earth.
-Colonizing Mars is absolutely and fundamentally related to being able to go to Mars cheaply. There aren't huge research obstacles to living on the planet.

On December 23 2015 11:00 bigredhoss wrote: scroll down a few paragraphs in this article. there's a hedge fund manager's letter to its shareholders that outlines a lot of the market's delusions about Tesla, including the safety issues i mentioned earlier, negative cash flow, lack of supposed proprietary technologies, a pattern of grandiose hype and deceptive claims, etc. there's a bunch of links but they're worth reading if you're interested in this stuff and explain it far better than i could.

-Tesla doesn't have safety issues, they're basically the safest cars on the road, the only thing you mentioned earlier was "muh autonomous driving"
-Aggressive expansion, like building five-billion dollar factories, results in negative cash flow, yes
-I don't know why I'm supposed to care if people are misinformed as to whether one technology or another is proprietary or not. Why don't you just tell me where were - and where are - all the other 300 mile range electric cars with 25 minute fast charging?

On December 23 2015 11:00 bigredhoss wrote: Show nested quote + On December 23 2015 00:44 dogmeat wrote: hehe came here to trash on jobs, zuckerberg and bigredhoss, but the job has already been done it's true - Zuckerberg, Jobs and Myself are no Gates.   On December 23 2015 10:21 Silver_nz wrote: So... you'd prefer that we keep the ranks of famous people as they are. Keep worshiping... actors. "Honey boo-boo" and Miley Cyrus and "big Soccer star #135" and Raging Feminist #10034 and Gang-Bangin Rapper #928. Yes, having more famous Scientist/Engineers - people who can actually think critically and are good role models - is truly a terrible thing. just to state the obvious, i'm comparing him to other famous entrepreneurs who are held on pedestals as innovators; not, you know, Honey boo boo, or your cousin Sal or whoever. i'm not saying he's a clown or something, i'm just saying that he carries a cult following that is out of proportion to his accomplishments. i'm all for more famous Scientists and Engineers. Musk isn't a great Scientist or Engineer, he's a businessperson who happens to have a Physics degree and likes to dip his toes into his companies' engineering processes. the majority of the people working for him are undoubtedly better scientists/engineers than he is.

This is just spun bullshit. You think Musk is a mere "businessperson" because he has billion dollar companies of thousands of people to do shit for him. And yes, some of those people are undoubtedly better engineers than him at one thing or another. Just like the people who worked for Jobs, Gates, Page. But when was the last time any of those 3 sat debugging lines of code from their huge projects, do you think? You know, those 3 people you keep insisting are miles ahead of Musk intellectually?

who gives a shit if Musk isnt as good as Gates or if he self markets a lot and is overrated, he is still cool as fuck and a brilliant visionary, this world needs more people like him

exactly, you need visionaries like him, colonizing another planet seems like the natural progress our race would have in the near future, but accomplishing that is tied to tons of other things
you diminish his achievements just cause he s only the " PR " guy, however being able to sell something like that and getting the funding because of it is the reason the idea would have the chance to come to reality

On December 26 2015 10:44 Baalim wrote: who gives a shit if Musk isnt as good as Gates or if he self markets a lot and is overrated, he is still cool as fuck and a brilliant visionary, this world needs more people like him

Ding ding ding ding

Musk is cool in my book. Paypal sucks though, but we don't have anything else better, just like with Spacex and Tesla lol

Santafairy for poster of a year award!

I find it fascinating that one of his companies focuses on electric automobiles and the other on combustion of rocket fuel. Perhaps the only thing left for him to figure out is how to size that gap.