
Elon Musk on Why His Rockets Are Faster, Cheaper and Lighter - cwan
http://www.pehub.com/74756/elon-musk-on-why-his-rockets-are-faster-cheaper-and-lighter-than-what-youve-seen-before/
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dustydean
It's fascinating to watch his life play out in real-time in the limelight. His
success and failures with SpaceX launches and Tesla production struggles along
with other more unfortunate personal issues.

I know we all feel similar ups and downs with our own products and services.

I watched this Charlie Rose interview with him a few months ago and it turned
me on to his ideas of wanting to focus his efforts in three distinct areas -
internet technology, space exploration and green technology.

I recommend watching it if you're interested in his career.

Here's the link: <http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/6716>

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siculars
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYD_-A_X5E>

All chuckles aside, it's the imagination that SpaceX is bringing to the launch
industry that is able to let them break free from the current status quo. He
specifically mentions running the operation more like a Silicon Valley startup
then the traditional fare. I hope we all get to ride a SpaceX into the final
frontier in the next 50 years. Good luck and Godspeed.

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marze
Although he doesn't mention the Kelly Johnson Skunk Works at Lockheed, where
the SR-71 and other famous aircraft were created, the SpaceX approach is at
least as similar to that as it is to a classical Silicon Valley startup.

For those who doesn't think entrepreneurs are risk takers, Elon is a good case
study--he appears to have invested every penny of his personal wealth in
starting a space company and an automobile company, simultaneously.

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papaf
For those that don't know about it, this book on skunk works is a wonderful
read:

[http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-
Lockheed/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-
Lockheed/dp/0316743003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276939618&sr=8-1)

~~~
marze
That book is by Johnson's protege and successor, this one is by Kelly himself:

[http://www.amazon.com/Kelly-More-Than-Share-
All/dp/087474491...](http://www.amazon.com/Kelly-More-Than-Share-
All/dp/0874744911/)

Both are amazing stories.

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rue
Not to minimise their accomplishments but, once again, the table has been set
pretty well by decades of publicly funded research and development. It is
actually _possible_ to be vertically integrated again with all the shared
know-how.

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hyperbovine
Agreed. I just got back from the National Air & Space Museum where I saw a few
rocket engines, and it occurs to me that _somebody_ had to figure out how to
build such an amazing piece of machinery once upon a time, and that somebody
was NASA. SpaceX is doing an amazing job, but there's no way in hell they
could go from a twinkle in Elon Musk's eye to orbit in 7 years without Apollo,
Gemini, Mercury, etc. Even SpaceX's location (El Segundo) was specifically
chosen because of its proximity to all the SoCal aerospace contractors.

Great example of government priming the pump.

~~~
quickpost
I've seen interviews where Elon specifically points this out. The explosion of
innovation on the internet was largely made possible by the work of DARPA, and
he compares this to the decades of experimentation and research that is
enabling this nascent space revolution. (SpaceX, BlueOrigin, SpaceShipOne,
etc.)

The real difference isn't the technology, but the mindset with you how you
apply it. Big aerospace contractors (Boeing, Lockheed, etc.) do everything
from a "one off" perspective - they are effectively the world's largest
contracting firms. Their business model isn't making something repeatable and
cheaper, it's about building custom things from the ground up over and over
again. And they are REALLY expensive.

Elon is simply taking all that collective knowledge and converting it into a
repeatable process that can be incrementally improved and drive down cost over
time. Making the Honda Civic of Rockets, as opposed to the Lamborghini. :)

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cwp
Seems like a big part of it is actually caring about cost - taking it into
account during design, manufacturing, launch preparation, etc. Doesn't look
like NASA did that until recent years, and even then only superficially.

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marze
SpaceX had their big contract with NASA structured as a fixed price contracts.
Most other contracts are cost plus, where the contractor gets paid for their
costs plus an additional percent for profit.

It shouldn't be surprising that traditional program costs have not come down,
since the more you spend the more you make.

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russell_h
> SpaceX has launched just two rockets successfully in its history

Their three most recent launches were all successful.

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mbenjaminsmith
I haven't followed Mr Musk's career at all and I kind of assume he's an insane
ego-maniac. Having said that, this guy's my new hero.

He sounds like he's more Burt Rutan than Richard Branson and the fact that
he's seen through an end-to-end design for launch vehicles is pretty mind
blowing.

If you look through the photos on his site it kind of has the feel of a
boutique bike factory - say Cannondale in the early days - but then you see
pictures of them 'spin forming titanium' or something equally exotic. Pretty
cool stuff.

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stevederico
Can't wait for Telsa's IPO is June 28th

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ivanstojic
For some reason, this title reminds me incredibly of an (approximate) quote
of:

Hank Rearden on why his metal is stronger, cheaper, lighter...

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mkramlich
Musk strikes me a bit as the Howard Hughes of our age. Except without the
urine collection. (I think.)

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weev
Elon Musk is a ZOG agent who bilked his investors. Don't trust him.

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danbmil99
He should get his car working first

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mkramlich
The Roadster model has shipped. I saw one parked in downtown Boulder last
week.

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MrFoof
Indeed. There are a fair number of these out there, and they've been out there
for several years now. I've encountered four different ones in just Boston's
Back Bay. I'm sure if you hunted around you'd find plenty more in just the
Boston metro. Though like most exotic and semi-exotic cars, my guess is about
30-60% of all production ends up in Southern California.

