this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Well, despite its owner, SpaceX is actually doing cool and useful stuff. Nobody else bothered with the reusable rocket thing until they made it happen. Starship is on the way to becoming the world's first 100% reusable orbital transport system, propulsively landing the second stage as well as the first. Soon as they get those toasty melty flaps figured out.

It just sucks that he's in control of it.

[–] [email protected] 78 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Maybe NASA would have bothered if its funding hadn't been cut again and again and again...

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

People forget Musk isn't actually technically smart, he's just good at buying into and investing in already good ideas using money he got by playing the capital machine (and his parents south africa money).
He didn't found PayPal; he merged another company with them and capitalized on their already good idea.
He didn't found Tesla, he invested in them and then drove the original founders out.
He did admittedly create SpaceX, but only by bringing on good engineers from the start after failing to buy ICBM's from Russia. Yes, he tried that... spaceX has been successful only because he gave them the runway to let engineers work right.

The cult of personality is insane, he's just another average investor bro who got lucky in the crazy growth of the 90's/00s.

[–] wjrii 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] whatwhatwhatwhat 3 points 2 months ago

A glorious Silicon Valley reference.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's more than that - he failed to create PayPal so his group bought a competitor, he didn't found Tesla or spaceX - he claimed he did, then reached settlements with the actual founders to not contest his claims. He did start the boring company. It didn't get off the ground because he can't build a team

[–] Womble 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Thats right in Paypal and Tesla's cases, he bought them and then gave himself the title of founder, but he did actually found SpaceX. Per wiki:

In early 2001, Elon Musk met Robert Zubrin and donated US$100,000 to his Mars Society, joining its board of directors for a short time.[11]: 30–31  He gave a plenary talk at their fourth convention where he announced Mars Oasis, a project to land a greenhouse and grow plants on Mars.[12][13] Musk initially attempted to acquire a Dnepr intercontinental ballistic missile for the project through Russian contacts from Jim Cantrell.[14]

Musk then returned with his team a second time to Moscow this time bringing Michael Griffin as well, but found the Russians increasingly unreceptive.[15][16] On the flight home Musk announced he could start a company to build the affordable rockets they needed instead.[16] By applying vertical integration,[15] using inexpensive commercial off-the-shelf components when possible,[16] and adopting the modular approach of modern software engineering, Musk believed SpaceX could significantly cut launch cost.[16]

In early 2002, Elon Musk started to look for staff for his company, soon to be named SpaceX. Musk approached five people for the initial positions at the fledgling company, including Michael Griffin, who declined the position of Chief Engineer,[17] Jim Cantrell and John Garvey (Cantrell and Garvey would later found the company Vector Launch), rocket engineer Tom Mueller, and Chris Thompson.[18][19] SpaceX was first headquartered in a warehouse in El Segundo, California. Early SpaceX employees, such as Tom Mueller (CTO), Gwynne Shotwell (COO), and Chris Thompson (VP of Operations), came from neighboring TRW and Boeing corporations. By November 2005, the company had 160 employees.[20] Musk personally interviewed and approved all of SpaceX's early employees.[21]

[–] FlyingSquid 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sure would be too bad if someone decided to federalize SpaceX... sure would...

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oh yes. Surely the federal government could manage it better than Musk. Think of the progress we could have if NASA were running SpaceX instead.

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 2 months ago

Musk isn't managing SpaceX... and why would the government do such a terrible job? Or is this one of those libertarian "government is always bad" things? Because NASA has a pretty good track record.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I'm hoping reusables becomes so standard Musks company isn't needed anymore.

But that'll be a long ways off. I agree SpaceX basically revitalized the industry.