Elon Musk - SpaceX version

[dkemme]

Seems like Elon is walking back based on Kanye West's unpopular platforms on abortion and vaccination.
Elon Musk endorsing Kanye, then reconsidering, is the world's shortest love story

This probably gets chalked up to a short lived union based on batshit-begets-batshit, but its still a bit of a bummer that Elon's mouth-hole beat his brain-hole. A genius making brilliant and jaw dropping snap judgements/assessments is awesome...until those judgements start snapping the wrong way.


FWIW, I don't think NASA Administrator is the right position for Elon, at least right now. As the visionary for [the private company] SpaceX Elon can make massive steps forward in space concepts and can lead revolutionary industry progress by example. IMHO that's the best thing right now for American Space. Maybe Elon leading NASA would be more once there's a critical mass of other companies operating in a realm significantly beyond Legacy Space, Elon leading NASA would be more plausible, but we're a ways away from that...

Secondarily, I don't believe Elon has the mentally capability to take that job right now. I'm all for fresh faces shaking up the establishment in an effort to steer this country and its institutional foundation toward a better future (of course, as evidence by the past 3.5 years that can also go exactly backward...), but I don't think Elon would be able to process the reality of how the gub'ment works today. Our institution is designed to move WAY too slowly for his brain, with numerous checks and balances and ancillary agendas, and he simply wouldn't be able to change that established MO fast enough before mentally imploding.

Gwynne Shotwell would be an excellent NASA Administrator but what a loss to SpaceX

 

[hmcgregoraz]

Gwynne Shotwell would be an excellent NASA Administrator but what a loss to SpaceX

Agreed, but the amount of conflict of interest paperwork would be huge, and may actually hurt SpaceX with NASA.

I would rather someone a bit less industry tied, but able to make clean sane unbiased decisions.

-Harry

 

[bxr140]

At the risk of getting someone all bunched up again, Elon is walking back his walk-back.
https://pagesix.com/2020/07/13/elon-musk-on-why-hes-still-backing-kanye-west-for-president/

I think Kanye is completely unqualified for any elective office...

Apparently qualification--or even a basic capacity to at least make it appear as though you care about America and Americans--is no longer a prerequisite for high elected office...

I would rather someone a bit less industry tied, but able to make clean sane unbiased decisions.

It's a bit of a unicorn.

You want someone strong enough to actually drive change, someone progressive enough for that change to be material, someone cognizant enough to provide positive leadership and clear vision through an inevitably difficult period, someone patient enough to build the critical mass necessary (both in culture and policy) for the change to actually grow lasting roots, and someone with the temperament to deal with the reality of a congressionally funded public agency.

And since you don't want to pull someone from the private sector who's trying to revolutionize [in their own way] the space industry from within their current organization, also add 'out of work' to the job description.

 

[Grendal]

Youtube or Joe Rogan took down the podcast. Here is a site that covers the bullet points of the 3 hour conversation. The SpaceX/Starship/Starlink info is relevant here.
Elon Musk on The Joe Rogan Experience #1609 • Podcast Notes

 

[Cosmacelf]

Youtube or Joe Rogan took down the podcast. Here is a site that covers the bullet points of the 3 hour conversation. The SpaceX/Starship/Starlink info is relevant here.
Elon Musk on The Joe Rogan Experience #1609 • Podcast Notes

For information junkies, reading the cliff notes version is fine. The three hour discussion was long and rambling and kinda went downhill after they started drinking straight whisky.

 

[Grendal]

For information junkies, reading the cliff notes version is fine. The three hour discussion was long and rambling and kinda went downhill after they started drinking straight whisky.

It went off the rails a few times with Rogan bringing up aliens (in the Universe sure) and alien craft on Earth.

 

[Cosmacelf]

It went off the rails a few times with Rogan bringing up aliens (in the Universe sure) and alien craft on Earth.

Yeah, although I thought Elon's demeanor and replies were illuminating. To me, and probably to a lot of people, Elon is the kind of guy who believes six impossible things before breakfast. And then tweets about them. So it was a bit of mind bend for me to hear him say "BS" on the whole aliens on earth thing. And his point is valid. His point being that if there were aliens on earth, he would have heard about it. He is too well connected, and has too many resources at his disposal for people who had alien technology to not contact him.

And Elon went on to say that if aliens were on earth, they are subtle in that no one has actual proof.

And his other point, that there is nothing in the archeological record pointing to alien artifacts, is also compelling.

And finally, and this is depressing, is that he said it would only take about a million years for humans to spread across the entire galaxy once they had interstellar technology. Given that our galaxy is like 13 billion years old, one wonders why we haven't been wiped out by a galactic alien race by now. The obvious answer is that there aren't any alien races, and we are the solitary candle flame of consciousness in the galaxy.

Hence Elon's preoccupation with Mars (today).

 

[Grendal]

Yeah, although I thought Elon's demeanor and replies were illuminating. To me, and probably to a lot of people, Elon is the kind of guy who believes six impossible things before breakfast. And then tweets about them. So it was a bit of mind bend for me to hear him say "BS" on the whole aliens on earth thing. And his point is valid. His point being that if there were aliens on earth, he would have heard about it. He is too well connected, and has too many resources at his disposal for people who had alien technology to not contact him.

And Elon went on to say that if aliens were on earth, they are subtle in that no one has actual proof.

And his other point, that there is nothing in the archeological record pointing to alien artifacts, is also compelling.

And finally, and this is depressing, is that he said it would only take about a million years for humans to spread across the entire galaxy once they had interstellar technology. Given that our galaxy is like 13 billion years old, one wonders why we haven't been wiped out by a galactic alien race by now. The obvious answer is that there aren't any alien races, and we are the solitary candle flame of consciousness in the galaxy.

Hence Elon's preoccupation with Mars (today).

All of which are obvious results of understanding the Fermi Paradox (which Elon mentions) and the Drake Equation (which Elon does not mention - but surely knows about). Up until recently, humanity didn't even know if there were other Earth-like planets in existence. Now we know there seems to be plentiful planets in the habitable zone. So we have that going for us. I liked that Elon mentioned that even if we are limited to science we know now - humanity could still expand throughout the galaxy. I heard a science fiction writer, James Hogan, say the same thing about thirty years ago.

 

[Cosmacelf]

All of which are obvious results of understanding the Fermi Paradox (which Elon mentions) and the Drake Equation (which Elon does not mention - but surely knows about). Up until recently, humanity didn't even know if there were other Earth-like planets in existence. Now we know there seems to be plentiful planets in the habitable zone. So we have that going for us. I liked that Elon mentioned that even if we are limited to science we know now - humanity could still expand throughout the galaxy. I heard a science fiction writer, James Hogan, say the same thing about thirty years ago.

Wouldn’t the first interstellar ships sent from earth be robotic? Hundreds of years of travel, inhospitable interstellar cosmic rays. I’m imagining that we would build robotic ships that would carry the raw materials to recreate humans from organic building blocks on distant worlds.

 

[jkirkebo]

And finally, and this is depressing, is that he said it would only take about a million years for humans to spread across the entire galaxy once they had interstellar technology. Given that our galaxy is like 13 billion years old, one wonders why we haven't been wiped out by a galactic alien race by now. The obvious answer is that there aren't any alien races, and we are the solitary candle flame of consciousness in the galaxy.

In this galaxy maybe. But there are maybe a 100 billion galaxies in the universe, so still plenty of opportunities for life elsewhere.

 

[Florafauna]

People forget just how small our little galaxy actually is. This quote might give you an idea :

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I hope that makes it clear...

 

[Nikxice]

This recent 9 minute clip from Sandy Munro shares insight into Elon's rocket engineering knowledge and his remarkable work ethic. Sandy and his partner also briefly discuss the SpaceX Boca Chica tour they received prior to meeting Elon. That separate interview focuses mainly on Tesla vehicles.

 

[Cosmacelf]

This recent 9 minute clip from Sandy Munro shares insight into Elon's rocket engineering knowledge and his remarkable work ethic. Sandy and his partner also briefly discuss the SpaceX Boca Chica tour they received prior to meeting Elon. That separate interview focuses mainly on Tesla vehicles.

Yeah, this was a great clip to watch. Must watch for Elonphiles.