this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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If Musk just shut his face and kept doing his thing, he would have been a historic figure. Not Edison or Tesla famous, but like an Alexander Bell tier name sure. Especially if his Mars plans panned out. But dude wanted to be Tony Stark and forgot that Stark was charming and likable (in the movies at least) and he… is not.
Not really. Not by any stretch of the imagination. He's more of a Carnegie type. except Carnegie managed to convince people he was actually a good person. (his philanthropy is responsible for a LOT of the libraries. But also, he came down hard when it came to union busting, and a lot of his dirty work was done by Henry Frick.)
In any case, the reality is, his prior 'good' reputation- including for all things you're saying he's going to be famous for doing- is more the result of having a good PR staff keep him looking ... like that. he's not a founder of Tesla. he's not a brilliant engineer (or a brilliant anything else.) he's just a rich guy tossing money around to make it grow.
I mean, he had a genuinely good reputation prior to the big money and PR back in 2012-ish. I followed him because I love space stuff, and he was this awkward nerd pushing for electric cars, solar power, and reusable rockets, which were so insane it was basically considered impossible. Most of his early twitter conversations were discussing rocket details with other space nerds, pulling videos of RUDs on request, and sharing some of the hidden numbers that we'd normally never have access to. He was genuinely involved in the early years at SpaceX.
Up until he called the guy who saved the cave children a pedo, he was basically held up as one of the individuals who would be responsible for changing the world for the better. An actual example of capitalism being used to push society forward. Then it was a steady downward spiral, but early Elon was basically just a nerd that liked rockets and green tech. Had he stuck in that lane, and not been greedy about squeezing every penny of profit out of Tesla workers, he'd probably still be considered the "real life Iron Man" instead of another classic example of how capitalists are consumed by greed.
So, don't get me wrong, I am deeply disappointed in what he's decided to do with himself, but he was a legitimately popular figure and led SpaceX to face off against the military-industrial space industry and break a monopoly that's been in place for half a century. The myth was exaggerated, but his initial popularity was earned before being wasted.
I'm sorry but only delusional 12 year olds ever believed Muskrat was anything but an attention whore, all of us engineers saw right through the act
Lol, I'm glad you were too cool for school, but his twitter conversations were actual sources used by Ars in the early days, which regularly called on actual rocket scientists. More than that, they were correct, so I'm not entirely sure what you were seeing through. He definitely became an attention whore by the time he started posting memes, but just because somebody became a garbage human being doesn't mean everything they touched is trash.
SpaceX is a treasure, and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.
Yep, I remember years ago when at a national student aerospace conference, attending a small talk by some guy named Elon Musk about his fairly new company, SpaceX. At this point I think they had only launched one (failed) rocket. He was a bit awkward, but seemed passionate about his Mars vision, and did a great job answering a bunch of technical questions by a group of aerospace engineering students. A lot of us were skeptical of him and his company, but more from the standpoint of aerospace being hard for even the least aspirational companies to succeed in.
Later when I starting hearing more about SpaceX I learned that Elon was also an asshole as a manager, but he still came across at least as being technically competent. And he was great at getting funding and driving excitement in an industry that desperately needed it. While there were already some cracks showing in his public image, it was only around the time of that sub rescue pedo incident where that erratic edgelord and asshole behavior became too much too ignore for myself and other people I know.
Yeah? Then why didn’t all the engineers decry him right then and there? Didn’t see much talk calling him out. Ya’ll just let that shit ride? Especially seeing the popularity he was building?
You ever look at his Hyperloop proposal from 2014?
Its not even an engineering CAD drawing. Its three lolipops drawn on FEA (I don't think even with ANSYS but some cheaper program instead...) with Elon Musk saying that its simulations for an earthquake.
It was hilariously bad. All the engineers I knew of the Hyperloop proposal told me that Elon Musk was an idiot back then.
Squeezing every penny of profit from workers is awful of course, but pretty much par for the course. Where he went wrong was in being a sad and desperate acting attention whore and never shutting the fuck up, while pushing ideas, people and viewpoints that a large amount of people find objectionable. It’s what make people like Zuckerberg or Spez not seem quite as douchey. If they tried to make themselves the #1 star on their platforms they’d probably end up embarrassing themselves too, but they mercifully don’t.
This is a great summary of the fall of Elon Musk. I admired him too years ago until he went off the rails. RIP to the better decisions and the their benefits that this man could have made.
His Mars plan cannot pan out, no more than using rockets in place of airplanes for international travel.
The man is a compulsive attention seeker. He owns some companies that legitimately are good at what they do, arguably pioneers in their field. It's not enough for him. SpaceX being the leading rocket launcher is not enough for him. Doing something already possible, even if done many times better or cheaper is not flashy enough for him. He needs to go to Mars.
The problem with that is that he is probably going to at least destroy the companies having them chasing his pie in the sky ideas as well as possibly having people die (depending on how far along he manages to take some of his plans).
I thought what he said about his new AI company was hilarious. His new AI company seeks to ‘understand the true nature of the universe’. Just jaw droppingly pretentious, and it is so on-brand for him, as techno-Jesus. Just having a normal AI company isn’t enough - it has to be accomplishing something ridiculous.
There's nothing wrong with SpaceX's Mars launch plan, and while the rocket travel plan is niche (read: ultra rich), it's viable assuming Starship winds up hitting the same reliability levels as airplanes. Course, worst thing that happens is a couple hundred millionaires and billionaires die, so... I see no downsides lol.
Obviously, I'm not gonna defend Elon himself, but sending a Super Heavy to Mars isn't some grand project like it would be for NASA. For one, other than the engines it only takes a couple of months to build a new booster and Starship, and for two it would take a minimum of 6 months for the Starship to reach Mars after launch (from the optimal window), essentially tying up a single Starship. It also tests low gravity propulsive landing, which is being designed for one of the Artemis landers, as well as the fuel conversion process using solar power to convert CO2 into methane rocket fuel. Which would greatly simplify future NASA projects for Mars.
I doubt there would be a NASA mission on an untested launch platform, but the lack of payload is also what makes it so cheap. They might toss some projects as a just in case, but it's otherwise an interplanetary proof of concept. I might hate Elon, but SpaceX is currently the best rocket company around, with the Super Heavy likely to make the Space Launch System obsolete the moment it's certified for government launches.
If you mean launching a rocket to Mars, yes eventually they will be able to do that. That is not what Musk's bullshit. It's a permanent base with people on Mars.
The rocket travel plan is not niche, it's impossible. Sound (environmental) concerns, refueling time cutting into the flight time benefit on turnover, Gs exerted on launch etc. Moreover Musk billed it as a regular service not a "dive to Titanic" kind of activity for billionaires.
It's also impossible to make a rocket as reliable as a plane. If you seriously consider that possible I cannot argue with you on any other point. Just the planes ability to land and maneuver unpowered makes it much more safer and reliable. The nature of it's fuel itself makes it much safer and reliable.
Starship/SuperHeavy is not ready. Engine production rate is a huge problem and they need a lot of them per vehicle. They also currently are unreliable with quite a few failures on the last launch. Some might be a result of the first failing but there were at least two clusters of failure, suggesting at least two independent failures.
So when they get SS/SH working the best thing to do would be to take government contracts, or fly Starlink satellites up if it's profitable. But yeah sending a rocket to Mars for free is exactly the kind of stunt I would expect Musk to do. Like demanding the launch to be on 4/20.
Oh don't be so hard on the idea... I think we should encourage Musk to launch himself and other billionaires to Mars 💪
Unfortunately I don't think he is the guy to actually put himself in harm's way l.
I once watched a press conference with him talking about his plans for SpaceX. The responses he gave about human factors were making cuckoo clock sounds. When asked about the issue of solar radiation exposure his response was along the lines of we don't need to worry about that. What!? That's one of the major engineering and safety issues in long duration space flight and habitation. You've not even thought about it? So basically he'll be sending people into space with no concern about turning them into crispy critters.
But is he, really? I haven't watched much Marvel but I distinctly remember Tony Stark as a jerk, and that's even dismissing his bullshit ideology of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc8qbcIMZVg
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That's kinda the point of his character ark. It takes till the end for him to really show us who he is deep down. Also, RDJ nailed the balance of ego and redeeming qualities.
But Elon is not the hero of any story. He's the evil child playing with a magnifying glass on an anthill and he views everyone but him as an ant.
Fuck Elon and I can't wait till the Saudis come to collect on that $44B they loaned him.
Well, this is news to me. The Saudis owning Tesla is definitely going to be a bitter joke.
Saudi Group is the 2nd largest investor in Elon's buyout and the largest single entity investor.
Basically America's billionaire class (aka Elon's alt right clubhouse gang), now are in the pockets on the evil empire with the single worst human ethics record in modern day society.
If that doesn't scare the shit out of you, I don't know what will.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/28/saudis-kingdom-holding-company-to-maintain-twitter-stake
Out of all the insane made up things in comic books, a "billionaire with a heart of gold" is the least believable
But Stark was so arrogant