InvariantCapitalist Ars Centurion
1y
985
Subscriptor

gsgrego said:
People keep praising Elon for stuff.

Name 2 things he has personally done besides fund SpaceX and then hire competent people who don't do what he suggests?

Tom Meuller, the greatest living rocket engine designer, says that Elon led every key engineering decision at SpaceX while he was there, and just tweeted yesterday about the meeting he was in where Elon told the lead engineers that he was going to optimize SuperHeavy by removing the mass of landing legs and catch it with the tower to greatly accelerate launch turnaround times. Their jaws dropped.

Now he probably got the idea from someone else, but the important thing is that he recognized a great idea and made it a priority. Just as he did when he pushed Tom for changes to make Merlin more easily reusable (in 2007!!!), demanded they attempt hypersonic flybacks and landings of F9 boosters when parachutes failed, switched to stainless steel Starship design from carbon fiber ITS design for their next generation launch system.

He's not just a checkbook, he believes fully in first principles thinking and reducing complexity to an almost religious level and clearly signs off on every major engineering decision at all his companies. You can see this across SpaceX and Tesla, for example the Tesla Cybercab without physical controls, back seats or charging connector is so Elon. It remains to be seen how long it will take to actually ship (Elon Time) and whether those compromises will turn out to be brilliant or CyberTruck level mistakes. //

InvariantCapitalist Ars Centurion
1y
985
Subscriptor

fancysunrise said:
It is possible and my position even on Musk is not black and white. But in general, he is not one of those people. And it isn't juwst about his bad behavior. It's because he's a clown.

And yes, I've read Berger's book. Actually just made a comment on that the other day in different discussion... With all due respect to the author, I don't really agree with it from what I can discern from it and other sources and my own connections to SpaceX. To your bullets: He started the company - read:funded - but is not responsible for its engineering. He was introduced to a guy who had ideas and lacked money. Money guy meets (and manipulates, often) idea guy is not exactly a novel trope in fiction or real life.

Basically you toss out any citations that conflict with your previous opinion on musk. Sure he's an internet troll. But there are also a long list of prestigious space engineers from SpaceX to NASA to others including Jim Cantrell, Robert Zubrin, Tom Meuller, and Michael Griffin who say Elon has studied rocket engineering intensely, understands it deeply and signs off or leads all major engineering decisions at SpaceX.

fancysunrise said:
The desire to build a reusable system - including one that looks like the present effort - is not his and not new. The funding push to get it done is, but even that is not exclusive to SpaceX. They're just the best funded. Where he has inserted himself into decision making, it's turned out poorly -- e.g. Berger's own example to somehow illustrate the contrary with guides in the Falcon hull to prevent slosh resulting in RUD. Musk is not a scientist or engineer. He wants attention. If he can get it by pushing for something positive, that's fine. If he has to be destructive to get it, that's also fine, whether with the aerospace industry, his workers, investors, laws and the environment or anyone and anything else. Either way, he's always dishonest. We don't need to look at antics around submarines in southeast Asia or the war in Ukraine or "X" or investment fraud or disowning his own child out of spite or awkward jumping on stage and fawning of fascists to get more money and power or any of the rest of it to comment on his role in the space industry. Same way we aren't forbidden from discussing Von Braun's historic role in space just because he was a fascist (or "merely" complicit, if we are overly generous to some disingenuous apologists, who are very wrong) -- we can talk about his engineering chops and decisions and the consequences for better or worse (and it goes both ways with him as well) before and after the war. But Musk is not like Von Braun, because again, Musk is not the "idea guy". Musk is a rich clown who wants attention, and it shows.

Again just because you hate him for his abundant personal sins doesn't change the facts, Elon is rich because he's an idea guy first and has pursued first principles thinking in everything he's done, and has never shied away from gambling his entire net worth on his ideas. It would be as crazy as claiming Von Braun wasn't a brilliant rocket engineer because of his Nazi and SS memberships.