
60 Minutes: Elon Musk and SpaceX [video] - pbreit
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50121782n
======
robomartin
It is really unfortunate that Aldrin and Armstrong seem so critical of efforts
like SpaceX. Both of these men are very intelligent and highly accomplished.
That said, every transition in thinking and technology has always found
opposition from those deeply invested in what is about to fade away. I would
hope that, in this case at least, things start to change as further proof of
the merits of private enterprise is produced.

Elon, if you are reading this, know that you have something pulling for you
that Aldrin and Armstrong will never have: The next generation. My kids want
to be like their mother and father (who are scientists) and we make it a point
to highlight people such as yourself as role models. They want to be just like
you. And so will countless others.

~~~
mkn
After seeing that clip, I wondered how Cernan and Armstrong could have said
the things they said and, eventually, how they could even feel qualified to
comment. I think the answer to both questions is related.

Armstrong and Cernan are just the Spam in the can. They're glorified pilots.
As such, they are extensions of the PR arm of NASA and the entrenched
aerospace industries. I've phrased that a little harshly, but not by much.
Certainly, as trained monkeys go, they are marvelously trained. And not just
any monkey could be trained to perform as they did in their, and I emphasize,
highly specialized and limited roles within the space program. But, when we
see a well-trained dog, the credit goes to the master.

If Armstrong and Cernan were rocket designers, if they had captained a startup
that created a new launch vehicle, then I could take their statements
seriously. If they were systems integrators, if they were manufacturing
engineers, if they were anything other than good pilots, then they might have
something useful to add to the discussion _on a national level_. Until then,
all I want to hear from them is how beautiful the Earth looks from space, how
fun it is to play golf on the Moon, and various other fun facts about events
that took place 40+ years ago.

I feel awful trying to cut these men down, trying to knock them back into
place. However, the truly shameful thing is that they've used their legacy to
usurp beyond their areas of expertise. I console myself that the bounds over
which they've stepped are generous bounds, the bounds of heroes, and it takes
a truly cataclysmic level of folly to behave as they have done. It would take
nothing less than the legendary ego of a pilot.

Cernan and Armstrong, rest on your laurels, and get out of the way of people
who are doing.

~~~
rdl
I really wonder what Von Braun would say about Elon Musk and SpaceX.

~~~
nikcub
None of his early literature mentioned private space exploration, but
considering he fell out with NASA over the bureaucracy and spent the last
years of his career in private industry, he would have been all for it.

~~~
burgerbrain
Consider also the similar passion and ambition both von Braun and Musk have
for manned spaceflight.

------
JDulin
The lack of government funding for a space exploration program makes me as sad
and angry as anyone. However, I find Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan's argument
against commercialized space-flight lame.

They say it would be less safe than a NASA program and that "To be without
carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go
beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our
nation to become one of second- or even third-rate stature..." Note though
that some of their argument was directed at the cancellation of NASA's planned
moon missions.

With that in mind, let's consider the shuttle program. In 135 missions, it had
an abysmal safety record that claimed the lives of 14 astronauts, making it
the deadliest spaceflight program in history. It's budget cost $196 billion
dollars over the craft's lifetime instead of the estimated $43 billion
(adjusted for inflation), while making around half of the promised flights.
The shuttle was an important (for both good and bad) craft that helped
accomplish great things, like build the ISS and Hubble space telescope. But
nationalist pride shouldn't make us blind to the fact that NASA's last program
probably set progress in spaceflight backwards, or at least slowed it, and
never attempted to leave low-Earth orbit. Those astronauts may not like it,
but Elon Musk has a clearer vision and more ambition than NASA (or the
politicians) have had for a very long time.

~~~
ADent
>The lack of government funding for a space exploration program makes me as
sad and angry as anyone

Lack of funding??? NASA gets 17 Billion a year and typically around 10 billion
is for manned space flight - 2011 has 9 billion.

How much more does NASA need?

~~~
InclinedPlane
Why the downvotes? It's one thing to say that NASA should have more money than
it does. However, the idea that $10 billion isn't enough is ridiculous. That's
a crap-ton of money, and the ROI of NASA manned spaceflight in recent years
has been abysmal.

~~~
burgerbrain
They are doing _mother fucking rocket science_.

I say give them what _they say_ they need, not what internet armchair
economists say they need. _None_ of the alternative uses for that money that
the US government is finding are as important.

~~~
InclinedPlane
NASA manned spaceflight has been almost exclusively an unmitigated boondoggle
from the time of the end of the Apollo program to today. The Shuttle program
was a bill of goods that never lived up to any of the claims it was sold on.
Not only was it one of the most dangerous orbital launch systems in history it
was far and away the most expensive heavily used launch vehicle in history. It
came very close to dooming all spaceflight, manned and unmanned, in the US on
at least three separate occasions. But the one thing it did better than ever
was funnel billions of dollars a year to high paying aerospace jobs in key
congressional districts.

And now we have the so-called Space Launch System. Another boondoggle jobs
program that is so ridiculous that fundamentals of its design have been
specified by the Senate itself. The Planetary Society, Space Access Society,
and the Space Frontier Foundation have all called for the SLS to be cancelled.
It's a poorly designed rocket, a huge waste of money, and overall a project
that is not likely to succeed.

I love space exploration. I love rocket engineers. But I cannot abide either
being abused to serve as pawns in congressional pork-barrel spending games.

This is not a question about what NASA manned spaceflight "needs", it's a
question about where the Senate wants to funnel money.

NASA manned spaceflight has spent a quarter of a trillion dollars over the
last 4 decades.

A quarter of a trillion dollars.

That is the cost of the Shuttle legacy and the ISS. Does anyone think that we,
the American taxpayers, actually got a pretty good return on that money?
Before you answer keep in mind that we could have easily paid for 150+ Saturn
V rockets as well as the appropriate payloads and spacecraft for them for less
money.

Meanwhile, companies like SpaceX have managed to build entire orbital
launchers from scratch for less than the cost of a single Shuttle flight.

 _None_ of the alternative uses for that money are as important? How about
using that $10 billion a year to buy commercial flights on Boeing, LockMart,
or SpaceX rockets? Right now only a fraction of NASA's funding is actually
serving the purpose of advancing the state of the art or improving access to
space.

There is an argument about whether the amount of money governments spend on
various activities could be better spent on spaceflight.

This is not that argument and has no bearing here. This is an argument about
whether NASA is a good conduit for spending money on manned spaceflight
activities. And there is overwhelming evidence that despite a handful of
successes it has not been. Over time it has gotten less efficient, less safety
conscious, and less capable. There is every indication that with Apollo era
budgets in place the NASA of today would not be able to get back to the Moon
in 10 years or even 20 years.

The unmanned spaceflight portion of NASA still does some pretty good work, but
the manned spaceflight portion has become a bureaucratic infused pork-barrel
shell of its former glory. There are lots of reasons for that, a lot of them
due to consistent political meddling from without, but it's still the truth.

~~~
burgerbrain
You'll have no argument from me that the agency could be better managed, and
that politicians need to stay the hell away from it.

And indeed, other arms of the space industry need much more funding. They will
ultimately do all the common varieties of manned spaceflight better, that is
inevitable.

The question is, will problems be _solved_ by reducing NASA's budget? I think
that is incredibly fucking unlikely. Instead as far as I am concerned we
should be shoveling money at all of them like coal into a locomotive. Don't
reduce NASAs budget so you can give more to Boeing and SpaceX.. give more to
Boeing and SpaceX _in spite of_ NASA's budget.

 _One half of a penny_ of every dollar you pay in (federal) taxes goes to
science^. That is appalling. For as shitty and expensive as those shuttles
were though, that money got us more return than pretty much the rest of that
dollar.

If you look at how we budget for science and think _"NASA is getting too
much"_ instead of _"Science is not getting enough"_ , then you are missing the
bigger picture.

^(ie, NASA. the money spent on the NSF isn't even worth bothering to
include...)

~~~
krschultz
Or we could take all that money and dump it directly into R&D.

If the government shit canned NASA tomorrow, and took that money and pumped it
into the project Google is doing on self-driving cars wouldn't the world be a
better place? Space is great, but how many lives could be saved by
implementing self-driving cars nationwide?

Or took all that money and pumped it into computer science R&D. Or biotech
R&D. Or nanotech R&D.

The argument for NASA often boils down to an argument for R&D, and there are a
lot of more efficient ways to fund R&D than spending a bunch of it on non-R&D
type stuff.

~~~
burgerbrain
Why is everyone so insistent on cannibalizing science to fund science? NASA's
budget should be pretty damn near the end of the list of programs to take
funding from, 1) because all the others are even worse than it is, and 2)
because it gets such a _fucking minuscule_ amount of funding compared to the
other things.

Furthermore, shitcanning all the non-manned stuff NASA does is a fucking
_terrible_ idea. Science without study of the universe is crazy.

------
rdl
Whoa. Greenhouse on mars as a photo op to get people interested in space
again?

Elon Musk is probably the most amazing entrepreneur of the modern day.
Electronic payments. Electric cars (which might prevent the next middle
eastern war), and solar power. Space.

~~~
dhughes
What's funny though is the Middle East is a sunny place which is perfect for
generating power from solar, if electric takes over from oil it may still be
in the energy business.

Add to that oil is used for more than just fuel for vehicles so electric power
and oil both in the Middle East, but I'm sure other sunny countries will
generate their own.

~~~
bdunbar
Generate power from the sun in Saudi Arabia - doable.

How do you get the power from there to where it can be used?

~~~
rdl
Same way we use geothermal in or hydro in inconvenient locations today -- make
aluminum there, or other energy intensive products. Also water desalination
for local use. Maybe synthetic fuels, like hydrogen, or using waste to fuel
conversion (which uses energy). Saudi has ok port infrastructure although it
is at risk to Iran and Somalia.

------
reason
This guy is my hero, more so than any entrepreneur out there.

What always fascinates me about Elon's story is his ability to self-teach
himself the subjects he needs to effectively compete in an industry. He
literally taught himself rocket science. I can barely finish a book on
business.

~~~
brandall10
Same here... when people ask "where will the next Steve Jobs come from" - my
attitude he's already amongst us, and his goals are loftier and perhaps more
socially pragmatic.

Keep in mind the man wants see Mars in his lifetime, taken in that perspective
learning rocket science is a pretty small feat. Creating SpaceX is the first
step to that goal, and leaving anything on the table - ie. just being a
CEO/leader, and not being able to work hand-in-hand with the
engineers/scientists he has under employ is a risk.

To me, the key takeaway is if you want something bad enough the seemingly
difficult becomes doable.

------
jeremyrwelch
was shocked to see Elon tear up a bit when the interviewer asks him about Buzz
Aldrin's criticisms.

~~~
joering2
what he should have said is that he can't comment because neither he nor his
company is in making or deciding on politics. elon is a businessman after all
- the government decided to retire space program but there still be a need to
travel both cargo and life. he's seeing future opportunity and betting on it,
which should be every wise businessman approach.

~~~
stevear
I respectfully disagree.

Being human is something we have washed away with dedicated PR staff. I feel
'numb' to public figures now, especially political and that takes something
intangible away.

Elon is leading us into space by setting incredible goals and asking for the
best from the best. He is a leader in more than one sense. Showing emotion and
character is important in leadership and I thought it was appropriate and
touching.

~~~
joedevon
Hear hear

------
stevear
I really wish a reality show would focus on SpaceX and take us along for the
ride so to speak. One way to really get kids excited about science again is
bring things like this to the forefront-- show everyone it's an adventure,
hard work and a ton of risk but ultimately leaving an indelible mark in
history.

~~~
rdl
You could possibly pay for a mars (and certainly moon) mission just by doing a
bunch of movies, reality shows, etc.

$5b incremental cost to do a moon mission, probably, for SpaceX in a few
years. $10-20b to do Mars Direct. That's not incredibly far off from a major
video game or movie franchise.

~~~
joering2
where are you getting your numbers from. I am not an accountant for NASA but
they sound extremely low!

~~~
rdl
Zubrin, Mars Direct. He estimated $10-15b to do it, and if you were SpaceX,
you could probably do it for less. The key to making Mars cheap is to do
multiple launches -- first launch is a fuel production facility (automated)
which uses Mars resources to make fuel and oxygen, then housing, then a return
vehicle. Launch the crew once everything is set up, in a vehicle which can't
return on its own -- they use the stuff already on Mars to live and return.

I mostly just made up the moon number, based on it being a whole lot easier
than Mars. I think you could probably do a recreation of Apollo pretty cheaply
(a quick flight to the moon, simple landing, etc.). Certainly a trip to the
moon without landing wouldn't be THAT hard once you had a rocket able to
escape from earth gravity (maybe 2x as hard as launching to GEO?). You could
maybe do it with a Falcon 9 in a single launch, so that's about $2b. It's less
fun if you don't land, though.

------
mckoss
This was a really great episode of 60 Minutes - also see the in-depth story on
face blindness; it's an excellent demonstration of a mysterious capacity of
(most) people's ability to recognize faces.

BTW - 60 Minutes should be retitled "40 Minutes" - from the time codes on my
DVR I find that the Musk story was 15 minutes, and the face blindness story
was 25 minutes. Is it any wonder people would rather consume video online
(rather than watch 20 minutes of Cialis ads).

------
mukaiji
For Elon:

"Here's to the Crazy Ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The
round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're
not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote
them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you
can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race
forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because
the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world - are the
ones who DO!"

------
sethbannon
Elon is a testament to dreaming big and achieving. Truly inspiring stuff.

------
htf
SpaceX's launch prices are already much lower than its competitors. Things
will become even more interesting in a few years when SpaceX starts reusing
its rockets. Launching stuff to orbit will become so cheap, it's difficult to
fully comprehend the impact SpaceX will have. The imagination runs wild.
Massive spaceships anyone?

~~~
InclinedPlane
There are several "big things" that will happen.

First, there will start to be a lot more people going into space.

Second, there will start to be significant off-Earth infrastructure. Not just
satellites, the GPS system, that sort of thing, but meta-infrastructure. Space
stations where people do actual work (instead of just research). Systems of
transportation. Fuel depots. Repair facilities. Etc. Instead of mounting
expeditions to the Moon or Mars or asteroids we will undertake commuter trips.
A regularly scheduled vehicle will ferry crew up to an Earth orbit station.
There they will travel in a craft that never touches the surface of a planet
from that station to another station in orbit of the Moon and they'll take yet
another ferry ride down to a lunar colony.

Third, as a consequence of all of this there will start to be a significant
effectively permanent off-Earth population and off-Earth economy.

Fourth, as an additional side effect of so much activity significant effort
will be spent tackling the medical and other problems of living in space for
long periods of time.

And then all of this snowballs until sooner than you realize it there are kids
going to college who never knew a time when mankind didn't have cities in
orbit, on the Moon, on Mars, etc.

------
rglover
I had no idea that Neil Armstrong and other veteran astronauts are against
Musk and SpaceX. Other than being in the government's back pocket, I can't
think of a reason why people who have _been_ in space would not support going
back (putting safety aside, which was considerably the same thing back in
NASA's early days).

~~~
CrankyPants
They aren't. They're just opposed to terminating a functioning program before
we have a better one ready to go.

------
chauzer
Elon Musk is amazing. That was a great piece on what SpaceX is doing.

Here's an episode of Risk Takers on Bloomberg for Elon Musk:
<http://www.bloomberg.com/video/73460184/>

Great episode as well.

------
pkrumins
Anyone knows why these "60 minutes" shows are actually just 15-20 minute
shows? Is it 60 mins on TV and just 15-20 on the internet?

~~~
learc83
Because that was just one segment of the show. The other part of that episode
was on "face blindness."

------
reneherse
What an awesome human being. (And a thoroughly sleep deprived one, in some of
those segments, I am certain.)

Truly inspiring.

------
avar
It refuses to play on the CBS website for some reason so I've downloaded the
torrent, their adverts work just fine though, but not the actual video.

------
shingen
Nobody deserves it more than Elon. After PayPal the guy could have just done
what so many others do, lay down and casually invest, chill on a beach, and
let others do the hard work.

Instead he's killing himself running multiple ground breaking companies,
directly challenging near government monopolies in GM / Ford / Boeing /
Lockheed (protected by massive lobbying, deep political ties going back
decades, and regulation designed to protect them from competition).

If America could get a few more Elon Musks, we might start to get our mojo
back. Hey there immigration policy.

~~~
hristov
Elon Musk is certainly to be commended but when you talk about him challenging
government monopolies, it should be mentioned that the government helped him
out quite a bit too. Tesla was bailed out with government loans. AFAIK even
his rocket business benefited from government orders, although I think he had
to sue the government to get their orders.

~~~
Arjuna
_"Tesla was bailed out with government loans."_

Respectfully, can you please cite a source for this assertion?

Emphasis in italics is mine:

"The loans are part of the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program,
which provides incentives to new and established automakers to build more
fuel-efficient vehicles. Created in 2007 and appropriated in September 2008,
the $25 billion ATVM aims to reduce America's dangerous dependence on foreign
oil and create "green collar" jobs. _The program is entirely unrelated to the
stimulus package or the so-called "bailout" funds that General Motors and
Chrysler have received._ " [1]

[1] [http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-
gets-l...](http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-gets-loan-
approval-us-department-energy)

~~~
eaurouge
You just cited a source for parent's assertion, although I'm not sure you
realize. IIRC the loan came through at a time Tesla was finding it hard to get
a loan through other sources. You could argue that Tesla was more deserving of
government funds than Detroit auto, but it seems to me the government did bail
the company out.

Also see: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailout>

~~~
Arjuna
_"You just cited a source for parent's assertion, although I'm not sure you
realize."_

I disagree with this, because the funds available under the Advanced
Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program are not related to the
Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). They are entirely different programs,
under different government departments: ATVM is under the Department of
Energy, while TARP is under the Department of the Treasury.

 _"You could argue that Tesla was more deserving of government funds than
Detroit auto [...]"_

One "Detroit auto" company did participate in the ATVM loan program: Ford
Motor Company [1].

[1] <https://lpo.energy.gov/?projects=ford-motor-company>

~~~
hristov
I did not say that Tesla participated in TARP. I said Tesla was bailed out
with government loans. The phrase "bail out" has generally understood meaning
in the English language that is not limited to TARP.

~~~
jholman
While we're quibbling (and I have no idea why some in this thread have been
mentioning TARP), it's not clear to me from any of the cited evidence that
ATVM was a bailout. Is someone assuming that all government loans, whether
"stimulus" or for some other ostensible reason, are bailouts?

