Is Elon Musk Nuts?
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, September 3, 2026 02:05
VIEWED: 37827
PAGE 6 of 58
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:Space Shuttle takes inspiration from Star Trek?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Anyone who signs a contract with Musk is as nutty as he is.
Yes, I know: The American space station program ... such as it is ... depends exclusively on Russian "heavy lift" rockets, and since Biden* has done such a fine job pissing off the Russians, and the Russians have threatened counter-sanctions, those in charge of the spce station program must be having a butt-puckering moment.
BUT.
You won't find a solution in a "Hail Mary" SpaceX shot, which AFAIK have NEVER landed successfully!
Tailfin landings??? Seriously?? At least the space shuttle took its inspiration from Star Trek. Musk's program takes its inspiration from Buck Rogers!
How so?
Space Shuttle research, development and testing predates Star Trek.
Even one of the later non-thrust bodies was testing before Star Trek ended. The M2-F2, IIRC crashed horribly. You can see the actual footage of that crash, which was used as the intro to the TV series The Six Million Dollar Man.
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OK, so Star Trek took inspiration from the shuttle program.
Still, SpaceX has not had much luck with its tail-fin landing approach. The last effort blew up midflight, when it was attempting its turnaround for tail-first landing. And this was the fourth explosion in a row!
I thought they were supposed to be making progress on their program. Instead, they seem to be going backwards lately. I get the distinct impression that they're beating a dead horse/ relying on a model that's fundamentally flawed.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
THUGR posts about Putin so much, he must be in love.
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Quote:Elon Musk has another project that only looks like a rathole that Musk is trying to fill with money. The project is Starlink.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, if SpaceX or any other firm doesn't get paid until ... what is the interim project goal, again? A successful UNmanned landing?? .... then NASA doesn't have to continuosly pour money down a rathole. Which is a good thing.
Not sure how that works for the company involved. There has to be some interim successfully-achieved goal, and then the partner company gets .... what?
Altho, based on SpaceX's achievements so far (a lot of rockets exploding) they have not yet achieved any sort of milestone. And if the contract is worded as you say, they will CONTINUE to pour their own development money down their own rathole until ...?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink
Starlink requires thousands of communication satellites be launched. Once the system is in place, after many years of work, Musk can finally start getting his money back from millions of customers, not one customer, NASA, in the case of the moon landings. The two projects are actually related. Starlink satellites are planned to launch on Starship, an under-development rocket of SpaceX that will launch 400 satellites at a time and also go to the moon for NASA.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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People think making rockets work is easy.
But there's something about those massive exhaust flames shooting through nozzles that makes them for unknown reasons become unstable. So having working rockets depends mostly on tweaking older designs previously achieved through trial and error. Even today, every now and again, a rocket from a reliable design and manufacture goes rogue. Or, if you think you're really brilliant and don't have to learn from others, and start from scratch, it happens more often.
Oh testing man, oh testing man,
How did that last run go?
Thus queried the harried engineer:
Speak man! For I must know!
The testing man, he scratched his head,
And settled in his chair.
Oh, I don't know, oh engineer,
But I think 'twas pretty fair.
Taken from memory: Rocket Man
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Quote:There is Firefly Aerospace. Firefly keeps delaying the first launch of Alpha, with Reaver engines, named after the TV show Firefly's Reavers. http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=20&tid=63463
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
People think making rockets work is easy.
But there's something about those massive exhaust flames shooting through nozzles that makes them for unknown reasons become unstable. So having working rockets depends mostly on tweaking older designs previously achieved through trial and error. Even today, every now and again, a rocket from a reliable design and manufacture goes rogue. Or, if you think you're really brilliant and don't have to learn from others, and start from scratch, it happens more often.
Oh testing man, oh testing man,
How did that last run go?
Thus queried the harried engineer:
Speak man! For I must know!
The testing man, he scratched his head,
And settled in his chair.
Oh, I don't know, oh engineer,
But I think 'twas pretty fair.
Taken from memory: Rocket Man
One day Firefly Alpha will either fly or explode. Maybe both! Maybe neither! Maybe this month. Maybe next year. But for months the rocket has been sitting on the launchpad waiting for some daring engineer to push the ignition button and see what happens.
https://firefly.com/launch-alpha/
If Elon Musk owned Firefly Aerospace, I am sure he would be asking his rocket engineers at least once a month if there is some reason for not launching next month. Musk would want to know exactly what the engineers need from him before they will be ready to launch. Whatever the engineers needed, Musk would go and get for them. That is not nuts for Elon Musk. That is how Musk runs his companies. Expensive? Yes. But worst plans have succeeded, and better plans have failed.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Bezos protests SpaceX's NASA moon contract. The Sour Puss loser rings up his Legal Teams? https://au.news.yahoo.com/bezos-protests-spacexs-nasa-moon-034922791.h
tml
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Bezos sucks all the balls.
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Imagine the hypocrisy of a government who will allow businesses to card people to get a job or buy groceries, but won't card people to vote in elections and gives millions of non-citizens free money from taxpayers.
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Bob Smith, chief executive of Blue Origin, said NASA had placed a bigger emphasis on bottom-line cost than it said it would. He added that in any case, the space agency should have stuck with a desire it had stated many times, of wanting to hand out awards to two companies.
Mr. Musk made a remark that played off the fact that Blue Origin has not yet achieved orbit with any of its rockets: "Can’t get it up (to orbit) lol" (Blue Origin bid: $6 billion. SpaceX: $2.9 billion. I think I know why Blue Origin lost.)
www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/science/spacex-moon-blue-origin.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Elon Musk Confirms $100 Million Prize for Carbon Capture
To truly address rising temperatures, we need to reduce atmospheric carbon, not merely stabilize it. And planting more trees won't do it. Roughly speaking, the infrastructure for removing carbon would need to be similar in size to the infrastructure for adding carbon. In other words, about the size of the entire fossil fuel extraction industry. Big.
But maybe someone can figure out a better way. Good on Musk for identifying this as a place where a billionaire's money just might be able to make a difference.
https://jabberwocking.com/elon-musk-confirms-100-million-prize-for-car
bon-capture/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Astronomers are very frustrated with Elon Musk’s satellites
Elon Musk’s SpaceX had launched 1,300 small satellites into space as part of its Starlink internet service. SpaceX alone already has permission to launch 12,000 satellites, with dreams of launching a total of 30,000 one day. Particularly painful is the situation for astronomers. When the satellites cross into the view of their observatories, it can ruin the images. Beyond appearing as just streaks in images or distinct lights in the sky, the satellites can also introduce a diffuse glow into the background darkness of the night sky. This has already begun.
“The fact that one person can take control and completely transform humans’ experience of the night sky, and not just humans, but every organism on Earth … that seems profoundly wrong,” said Caitlin Casey, a University of Texas Austin astronomer.
More at https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/22396388/space-x-elon-musk-star
link-too-bright-astronomy-stars-pollution
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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