this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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94 successful Falcon 9 launches this year so far (0 failures) - 90% with reused boosters, with a single booster being flown for the 19th time yesterday - no launch system has ever come close to these kinds of numbers before.
If by "many failures" you are referring to Starship, those are literally test articles/pathfinders/prototypes tested to destruction. It's a different development approach than NASA's, so I am not sure how the comparison is applicable. It took many failed booster landings early in the Falcon program to perfect the droneship landing, and look where it is now.
Starship is a very ambitious program, really pushing the boundaries of our technological capability and challenging a lot of existing conventions. Even Elon admits success is far from certain, but declaring it doomed based on the test flight results so far is really premature.
Oh boy! Do you mean kind of like Hyperloop and Full Autonomous driving? Or maybe the laughable Human/Robot AI program, where Its stated goal is "to understand the true nature of the universe"?!?! How do you not see Musk is a narcissist, if he believes his own idiocy, he is an idiot, if not he is a con man, there is no between.
I don't, I just don't believe the economic forecast Musk is claiming. Just like when he in 2019 claimed buying any other car than a Tesla would be stupid, because only Tesla would have full self driving next year.
I don't know much about the Hyperloop - I was never interested in it, and it never seemed like a real project, some kind of Musk BS probably, but I don't know enough to debate it. Full Autonomous driving is definitely also a very ambitious project. I do think it is in principle feasible, and has great potential, but also serious possible obstacles. I think it's worth pursuing to figure it out. I would say that selling it to the mass market is premature at this point, and has been overhyped by Musk a lot. Also don't know anything about the Human/Robot AI program, that also sounds like Musk BS, so I don't really follow it.
I do think Musk is a narcissist, I don't think he is an idiot. I don't think calling him a con-man is really justified. I also don't think he is a genius, more like someone with decent amount of technical competence who often unreasonably clings to slightly insane visions and an ability to assemble talented people and push them to try to execute on those visions and ideas, which sometimes leads to legitimate breakthroughs, for example in case of SpaceX.
I would never take Musk's predictions, economic or technological at face value, he is clearly always talking far ahead of anything currently happening, an his predictions are notoriously unreliable and wildly optimistic. I don't think that takes away much from the actual achievements of both Tesla and especially SpaceX however.
I also personally would never buy a Tesla, for a variety of reasons - I actually have a lot of disagreements with the Tesla philosophy, and will probably never own a self-driving car either, but whatever.
Problem is he promised it was basically ready in 2016, and would be available for customers "next year". Yes "we" will eventually get there I think, but it will probably not be Tesla.
I agree, He is mostly an idiot because he can't help being a narcissist, it makes him behave irrationally with over confidence.
Exactly, obviously he has some sort of competence running a business, but you can be both competent in one way and an idiot in others at the same time.
Yes I admit the success of Tesla is a huge achievement, and I too defended Musk for making the electric car cool and also show it was feasible. When the critics began. I still admit that's a significant achievement, but today as ThunderF00t says, just because he may have been a net positive, doesn't mean we should look the other way when he does harm later.