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Elon Musk giving the keynote at Satellite 2020
- Thread starter dpeilow
- Start date
Was a bit of a waste of time to be honest. Absolutely zero news on Starlink. Only the 301 steel comment was new.
He was clearly on a downer. If he had just come from Boca Chica then it doesn't bode well for progress down there.
Real wasted opportunity on the part of the organisers for most people in that audience.
He was clearly on a downer. If he had just come from Boca Chica then it doesn't bode well for progress down there.
Real wasted opportunity on the part of the organisers for most people in that audience.
Well worth a listen.
Hopefully he finally put a stake into the Starlink is for everybody. He said the coverage area for satellite is huge so you CANNOT deliver services to urban areas. He figures maybe 3-4% of the population. Rural, sparse populations.
Stainless steel starship. The only reason they switched to it from composites was for schedule. It was taking way too long to build starship from composites so they tried steel. And then they found all the other great things about steel - more strength at cryo, much better high heat integrity, thinner heat shield, lower cost, no paint. All these benefits were accidentally discovered.
He crapped all over the current Falcon 9 design of marrying a lithium-aluminum alloy body with a carbon fiber interstage. Said the thermal expansion coefficients were so dissimilar that it made it extremely challenging. Should have designed it differently. But no more real design work is being done on Falcon 9 or Dragon. Only two new projects right now - Starship and Starlink. Ship and Link. Didn't sound like he was planning on a general satellite manufacturing company or getting into that business. Also said that he thinks zero amount about a Starlink IPO. He wants Starlink to be the first LEO constellation company to not go bankrupt. He listed all the rest who have (Teledesic, Iridium 1, Globalstar, etc.)
"If the schedule is long, then the design is wrong."
The original Falcon 1 team, was about 100 people. Now SpaceX is 6,000 people. Elon almost said this was ridiculous...
How does a smart engineer make dumb mistakes? You optimize something that shouldn't even exist.
I love it. Someone asks how to reduce cost of college. Elon says you don't need college. Anything can be learned for free. Colleges are not for learning. They are for hanging out with friends, learning how to do chores, but not for learning.
Hopefully he finally put a stake into the Starlink is for everybody. He said the coverage area for satellite is huge so you CANNOT deliver services to urban areas. He figures maybe 3-4% of the population. Rural, sparse populations.
Stainless steel starship. The only reason they switched to it from composites was for schedule. It was taking way too long to build starship from composites so they tried steel. And then they found all the other great things about steel - more strength at cryo, much better high heat integrity, thinner heat shield, lower cost, no paint. All these benefits were accidentally discovered.
He crapped all over the current Falcon 9 design of marrying a lithium-aluminum alloy body with a carbon fiber interstage. Said the thermal expansion coefficients were so dissimilar that it made it extremely challenging. Should have designed it differently. But no more real design work is being done on Falcon 9 or Dragon. Only two new projects right now - Starship and Starlink. Ship and Link. Didn't sound like he was planning on a general satellite manufacturing company or getting into that business. Also said that he thinks zero amount about a Starlink IPO. He wants Starlink to be the first LEO constellation company to not go bankrupt. He listed all the rest who have (Teledesic, Iridium 1, Globalstar, etc.)
"If the schedule is long, then the design is wrong."
The original Falcon 1 team, was about 100 people. Now SpaceX is 6,000 people. Elon almost said this was ridiculous...
How does a smart engineer make dumb mistakes? You optimize something that shouldn't even exist.
I love it. Someone asks how to reduce cost of college. Elon says you don't need college. Anything can be learned for free. Colleges are not for learning. They are for hanging out with friends, learning how to do chores, but not for learning.
Agreed. Elon is transferring into the "cranky old guy" stage of life. His matter of fact "I was a stupid kid doing stupid things" was quite funny. Describing college and University as hanging out with friends and learning how to do chores is just pure wisdom. There are, of course, exceptions to that rule but they are the edge parameters. He is also viewing this from his perspective of engineering. I doubt such perspective would work for someone wanting to be a doctor. Schools are not good and changing or innovating on the fly like Elon needs and wants.
I thought it was a total wasted opportunity for good questions. There was nothing really said that wasn't already in the public domain for those tracking this stuff, with the possible exception of Starship moving away from 301 alloy soon. Each time he started down a more interesting track, the training kicked in and he went back to a soundbite or the questioner changed the subject. E.g. when Elon mentioned actuators to point the "UFO" user terminal on a stick, I wanted to know how that is going to work for uninterrupted satellite handover.
Remember that he was talking to a professional satellite industry audience who could either be part of the ecosystem or buy the wholesale services, but that topic took up under 10 minutes of a 50 minute session. If you have something good to announce, it would be a good place to do it.
Also I thought dumping on your main product and the engineers that designed and worked on it was "kinda wack". F9 is now the workhorse so structural design issues or not, it works. Reminiscent of his comments on Roadster - except this time its still the cash cow that keeps the company going.
Remember that he was talking to a professional satellite industry audience who could either be part of the ecosystem or buy the wholesale services, but that topic took up under 10 minutes of a 50 minute session. If you have something good to announce, it would be a good place to do it.
Also I thought dumping on your main product and the engineers that designed and worked on it was "kinda wack". F9 is now the workhorse so structural design issues or not, it works. Reminiscent of his comments on Roadster - except this time its still the cash cow that keeps the company going.
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As someone who reads and watches everything I can find on Musk, I didn’t think it was a waste, though I was disappointed in the quality of the questions. He did seem a bit down, but whether or not that had anything to do with what is happening at Boca Chica is impossible to say. Elon is the kind of person who has emotional highs and lows a bit more than most people, in my opinion. I wish he had been more upbeat but that’s just the way he is.
I disagree that he was “dumping on” F9 design. He said that development of that vehicle had reached an asymptote and further effort to improve the vehicle was not a good use of resources. That seems sensible. You have to know when to move on from a design and start fresh. It’s a hard lesson for many people when they get overly attached to something they have been deeply involved in creating. Elon’s description of the issue with a composite interstage being attached to a metal stage was an acknowledgement of a design flaw and as the chief designer ultimately the decision to do that was his responsibility. I don’t think he would deny that. He did not specifically blame anyone else, and he clearly said that SpaceX has a lot of great people.
I think its the exact opposite. Elon is the epitome of a corner case, where his relentless ambition and singular focus on inventing success is the only motivating factor in his life, and his unquestionable genius allows him to easily grasp concepts (technical or otherwise) that the rest of us could only dream of understanding after years of study. Sure, there's plenty of non-academic elements to undergraduate education, but for most students going through the process of being taught curriculum is invaluable, and that includes engineering fields. Every company--SpaceX included--needs educated, motivated, technical-minded employees, not a massive pool of genius/visionary minds. For most people the ability to obtain a respected degree is the only way to show those prospective employers potential.
To wit, how many non-degreed people does SpaceX have in leadership/technical/DRI positions, let alone SMEs? Beyond the production floor, I'm going to go with zero.
Its extremely disappointing that Elon--a person who clearly wants [and has] mainstream celebrity--fumbles that celebrity by saying nuanced things that can be easily misunderstood. The downside impact from kids and fans who don't fully appreciate the context of this conversation far outweighs whatever sliver of reality it might represent.
100% this. You need people who can focus and deliver the promises and ideas that Elon and others like him come up with. Elon famously moves on to something else leaving staff to get the results. Just look at the chopping and changing going on with BFR/Starship. Also, in technical and scientific disciplines, what college gives you is an appreciation of scientific or systems engineering methods. That's useful, even if the questions they ask you are wrong or outdated.
Nikxice
Active Member
At the D.C. conference the media zeroed in on this quote from Elon, "If we don't improve our pace of progress, I'm definitely going to be dead before we go". It's a good lead for a story, but I think the press missed the point that Elon was still talking to his SpaceX employees in Boca Chica.
Elon looks tired.
He is no longer a young man and needs to take better care of himself.
Working 80 hour weeks might be tolerable in your 20s but he is long past that ability.
I want to see him live a long life and achieve things he dreamed of.
He is no longer a young man and needs to take better care of himself.
Working 80 hour weeks might be tolerable in your 20s but he is long past that ability.
I want to see him live a long life and achieve things he dreamed of.
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