
Splashdown of Crew Dragon DM-1 - jamesknelson
https://twitter.com/Commercial_Crew/status/1104015953531203584
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davedx
Meanwhile, in Boca Chica...

[https://twitter.com/TheFavoritist/status/1104023515630571531](https://twitter.com/TheFavoritist/status/1104023515630571531)

"Starhopper is being moved right now! Most likely going to the launch pad in
Boca Chica."

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benj111
I remember back in the day watching videos of the Grasshopper going up and
down and thinking impressive, but they're just going to disappear like 99% of
other tech companies that do impressive demos.

I'm glad to be eating my hat, and to reminded that perennially '10 years away'
tech does occasionally make it to market.

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JulianMorrison
They did the work of getting there incrementally. Small, then big. Expendable,
then landable. Cargo, then crew.

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benj111
Yes, they got _here_ incrementally, but then any journey is done one step at a
time.

At the time of Grasshopper the whole idea of a reusable private rocket was 10
year away tech.

I just went to check the Grasshopper dates, thinking it would be about 10
years to first successful landing. Grasshopper started testing in 2012, so my
mentions of '10 years away' are definitely metaphorical.

~~~
Diederich
Indeed.

What I'm probably most excited about is Gwynne Shotwell's (President and COO
of SpaceX, very level-headed, DEFINITELY not someone who indulges in 'Elon
time') prediction and confidence that Starship will start transporting
passengers point to point within 10 years:
[https://www.inverse.com/article/44830-spacex-s-shotwell-
on-b...](https://www.inverse.com/article/44830-spacex-s-shotwell-on-bfr-earth-
trips-this-is-definitely-going-to-happen)

That's...nuts. And amazing.

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lykr0n
Good job SpaceX and NASA. Whenever I feel like the future is not that bright,
I look at what is happening in the new American Space Race.

I'm calling it now. Within a year Crew Dragon is going to be landing the same
way the Falcon is now.

~~~
awrence
That is most probably not going to happen. It was the original plan but it
would have involved landing legs coming out of the heat shield which NASA was
queasy about and would have involved quite a bit more effort to develop.

Crew dragon is (on the cusp of) delivering human launch to ISS capabilities
back to NASA which was the core mission and a crucial objective for NASA so it
wouldn't be dependent on Russian launch capabilities now so unsurprisingly
inflated to outrageous prices since the shuttle was retired (not that the
shuttle wasn't outrageously expensive either). Roscosmos had charmingly
started charging 90mm per seat. Space X will charge 20 and will be capable of
launching 7 astronauts vs 3 max capacity on Soyuz.

But Crew Dragon will have little to no part to play in the final objective of
planetary colonisation so Space X doesn't care for it beyond that and is
focusing full steam ahead on Starship.

Terrific mission though. Bravo Space X.

~~~
Diederich
Yes. I think it's easy to understand most everything SpaceX does.

Musk wants humans to become an interplanetary species, full stop. Everything
SpaceX does is in support of that.

Vast amounts of money and resources will be required for the final goal,
likely more than SpaceX will ever have or control. So, in order to get others
to spend big on the main goal, SpaceX needs to demonstrate realistic
capabilities, such as bootstrapping a permanent settlement on Mars, though
dependent on regular shipments from earth.

To accomplish that, SpaceX needs a lot of cash.

Crew Dragon is about the cash. Starlink is (mostly) about the cash.

I'm less certain about the following, but it might be accurate: Tesla is about
the cash necessary to bootstrap a Mars settlement. If Tesla really goes big,
Musk's shares will be worth many more billions than they are worth right now.
I would not be surprised if, at some time in the future, he cashes out of
Tesla and drops it all on SpaceX.

~~~
awrence
Exactly. Although I wouldn't personally think he built Tesla to potentially
support Space X. He gave it the same 10% slim chance of success when he
started as Space X, and he allocated to it roughly the same amount of funds ~
100mm to each (for a total = to his entire net worth). So by going after Tesla
as well he significantly hindered his chances of succeeding with Space X as
that narrowed funds available for that project by half and if he had failed
the fourth Falcon 1 launch it would have been game over for that. If all he
cared for was Mars, it would have made a lot more sense for him to throw 200mm
into Space X and greatly increase his chances of successfully developing an
orbital vehicle and grow from there in partnership with NASA.

I think generally his core vision or at least core mission statement is to
help humanity scale and survive and he'll allocate funds / explore
opportunities however he seems best to achieve that.

One pillar of that vision is planetary colonisation to act as a hedge /
diversification against a single planet extinction event. The other is making
Earth life sustainable hence sustainably electrifying all forms of fossil fuel
use cases the founding venture for that being Tesla.

All that said, I have a hard time at this point imagining Elon ever being
resource constrained for his goals. He just has too many promising potential
revenue lines. Hell, he could maybe fund all of it one day with a single
asteroid capture for all we know.

His core constraint is time and he'll do whatever he can to speed things up.
Crew Dragon was an important deliverable but ultimately obviously can't be
expanded to serve the final vision and it makes sense to quickly move on with
all the additional knowledge gained from the effort as a huge benefit.

Starship development should make the next few years just fascinating for us
space nerds.

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Diederich
My guess is that he didn't start Tesla with the idea of using it as a
(possible) cash cow for SpaceX. It was, as you said, to help humanity scale
and survive.

What follows is definitely a bit more 'out there' than usual, and I don't hold
strongly to it.

As Mr. Mush has gotten older, I suspect that his internal calculations related
to the possibility of the collapse of human civilization have gone up
enormously. Specifically, and he's said this multiple times, he thinks AI is
the number one threat to human civilization, followed very closely by climate
change. (Note: this isn't terminator style AI. It's software/hardware that is
smarter than any human, or indeed all humans put together, but in the hands of
very few people.)

My _guess_ is that these have changed his perspective on the relative
importance of SpaceX and Tesla in the greater scheme of things.

> Starship development should make the next few years just fascinating for us
> space nerds.

I am utterly pumped.

~~~
awrence
That's very possible. Although I'm not sure how he imagines escaping to
another planet would be a solution for whatever threat AI specifically might
pose. I'm pretty sure it would find a way to follow you through the solar
system :)

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emerongi
Seems like the whole mission was a 100% success?

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jamesknelson
Seems that way. The program director is on the stream right now saying
"Everything happened perfectly, almost right down to the second".

It's pretty amazing watching this. I've been following this company since when
I was in high school, before their first (failed) launch. However many years
later, they're one step away from actually launching humans.

Can't wait to see them launch people later this year!

