Quote: (11-16-2017 11:34 PM)Higgs Bosun Wrote:
Quote: (11-16-2017 10:29 PM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:
He's launched 17 rockets into space just this year, and has now landed a total of 20 first stages. He launched a secret govt payload today, and saved the govt a shit ton of money over the other usual sources. All the other rocket makers get govt money too, only Musk does it for far less than the others.
He may be beta talking about wanting female companionship, and he may be having problems with Tesla, but he's absolutely kicking ass with the rockets, with absolutely new first stage reuse, and with huge cost savings.
Absolutely. I'm not a fan of Tesla, in fact I hope it fails miserably along with the future of the entire nascent electric/self driving vehicle industry. But that's just my own personal distaste towards what a transformation of the automotive industry in that direction portends for future societal transformation rather than anything particular to Tesla or Musk himself.
With that said, I have to give Musk massive props for what he has achieved and the balls he has brought to entrepreneurship. When you amass a fortune amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars by the time you're in your early 20s and revolutionize an entire industry in the process like Musk had done with Paypal, most dudes would happily rest on their laurels and satisfy themselves with sticking to what has already worked for them.
But Musk? He plowed the entirety of his Paypal windfall into not 1, but 2 industries just about guaranteed to make a much richer man than Musk completely bankrupt: fucking Space Rockets(!) and electric cars. I've already said my bit about Tesla, but Musk doesn't get anywhere near the credit he deserves for SpaceX on this forum. It's an achievement that's completely unprecedented and still unmatched for a private individual acting on his own behalf and not on a government commission (like Boeing, Arianespace, etc) to launch shit into orbit, let alone become an industry leader in the launch industry.
People point to the fact SpaceX is getting government contracts as if that's evidence of Musk being a public-handout shyster when in reality SpaceX was massively successful before receiving any government attention. Look at who launched shit for the government before SpaceX came along: United Launch Alliance, a consortium of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the Defense Industrial Complex in a nutshell. I'm pretty sure there was very little interest in the Pentagon to let a little upstart kid from South Africa with a paltry $300m in the bank to fuck with Boeing and Lockheed's income stream, and Musk certainly knew that the government was not going to come swooping to the rescue if he wasn't successful in the private launch market on his own merits.
Another thing I'll have to give Musk props for is he was a huge advocate of domestic American manufacturing a decade before the 2016 election. He's always made it a point to build his shit in house rather than being a true "prime contractor" which is literally like assembling glorified legos produced by other companies all over the world. He builds just about every nut and bolt in his rockets in house in the USA, and even Tesla has made strides to bring components previously only available from Asian manufacturers in house. In the beginning Tesla's electric motors were purchased from a Taiwanese supplier, now they're made in Tesla's American plants. Musk has also made a massive (granted hugely subsidized) investment to make the US into a leader in lithium battery cell production, another industry that was previously dominated by Asian suppliers.
I could go on but this should do for now. Do I give a shit about Musk's romantic shenanigans, given what he has accomplished outside of his love life? Nope, he's not a faggot, that's good enough for me. Even here, Musk might have had his missteps but note he's never been involved with dogs unlike many (if not most) of the world's Elite Tier men. Calling Elon Musk a "beta" while extolling the virtues of some no name tatted hoodlum "Alpha" because the latter's great accomplishment of pumping and dumping his women doesn't reflect well on what we're trying to accomplish here I don't think.
This is pretty much my take as a veteran of the aerospace industry. SpaceX also launches commercial satellites which is huge business. SpaceX is so successful that it has forced the other launch providers and rocket companies to up their game.
Not only is SpaceX launching satellites but they are pushing hard to go to Mars. Now I have my doubts that they will do it, at least in their stated time frame (~2024). But NASA is planning to go to Mars sometime in the mid to late 2030's. Can you image if SpaceX has already been on Mars for a decade by the time NASA even gets its first manned mission to Mars? And SpaceX would have done it on a tiny, tiny budget compared to NASA's budget.
As for Musk the man. He's an admitted workaholic and complete control freak. I have friends who have worked for Tesla and SpaceX and I have interviewed with both companies in the past. Both companies have a reputation for driving their workers really hard. And that starts with Musk. He has ambitious goals and he only hires people willing to work long hours and put work ahead of one's personal life. They openly admit if you want life-work balance then Tesla and SpaceX are not for you. The interview process is long and involved with both companies.
1. Interview with HR recruiter.
2. Take a 1 hour engineering test that is emailed to you. (Tesla). SpaceX gave me a design problem to solve. I had a week to do it. I spent about 40 hours on it. They got back to me and said they were not going forward with me. No explanation given.
3. If you "pass" the test you have a phone interview with an engineering manager who will grill you with technical questions.
4. If they like you, you have a second phone interview with a group of engineers.
5. If they still like you, you have an on-site interview where you will give a 45 minute presentation.
6. After the interview you will step outside and they decide if they want to continue the interview. If they like what they heard you continue the interview. If they are not impressed the interview is over.
7. They make a decision to make an offer or not.
Here is where it gets nuts. Musk musk give final approval to ALL new hires for both Tesla and SpaceX. Isn't he busy enough running like 5 companies? I guess he doesn't trust his own people to hire the right people.
Another thing I thought was really strange is that they asked about my grades in college. Now this makes sense for a new college graduate but asking a 18-20 year veteran about 20-25 year old college grades is asinine IMO. I have a portfolio of accomplishments and experiences I can share with them and they care about my grade in calculus from 1992?