Elon Musk now owns 9.2% of twitter...update.. will soon be the sole owner as Board of Directors accepts his purchase offer

[Vic]

Actually NASA for ISS crew transport is twice as invested in Boeing/ULA than as SpaceX. The commercial crew contract paid Boeing about twice as much and so far Boeing has flown two test flights and SpaceX is about to launch its 5th crewed mission later this year.

As for flight records ULA is 100% successful across 145 flights and SpaceX Falcon 9 is 98.8% successful across 168 flights (166/168).

I also have a Tesla. It’s a fully functional electric entry level performance luxury sedan. It works great as a daily driver.

Thanks to its efficiency and the Supercharger network day trips and overnight trips are not overly painful. In fact using a Supercharger is easier than a gas pump. Autopilot works for the most part. To be fair full self-driving I didn’t pay for because a lot of it I wouldn’t trust or still isn’t functional.

However the image recognition is pretty good. The car recognizes and displays curbs, cars, trucks, vans, people, traffic cones, garbage cans, traffic lights, stops signs, speed limit signs, and painted arrows/lines/words on the road in real time. So the foundation for automated driving is there.

Musks timelines are shall we say “aspirational” if we are being charitable but the engineering teams at Tesla and SpaceX do seem capable of eventually reaching the goals he’s set out.

His current behavior is more like a mid-life crisis except magnified by being a centi-billionaire. Hopefully he either gets back to focusing on his companies which are great when punching upward at an entrenched market like launching or cars - or he steps back and let’s others manage his companies and they dial back some of the rhetoric.

I think there's some confusion about my statements in this thread, so let me try to clear it up. I agree with everything you said here, except for the last paragraph. Musk isn't having a midlife crisis, and his claims aren't just hyperbole. They are calculated cons to lure investors.
Think about it. Tesla does make amazing cars, but without Musk's promises of FSD, TSLA wouldn't be valued at more than every other automaker combined. It'd still be a valuable innovative automaker, but not valuable enough to make Musk the world's richest man.
And SpaceX has made incredible advances in rocket technology, but without Musk's promises about going to Mars (which BTW are just absurd, such as his recent TED interview when he promised he could send 100k people to Mars at a cost of $100k each) then SpaceX would just be another NASA contractor. Which is awesome, don't get me wrong, but once again not enough to make Musk the world's richest man.

 

[nickqt]

Despite earth turning into Venus 2.0, at least we can say we put a bunch of cool shit on Mars.

I’ve heard rumors that carbon capture is “audacious,” but nah, lets give up on avoiding extinction and spend all of our money and research on sending a few flesh bags to a dead planet so they can stand around and watch the machines do all the work.

We'd need to start up a carbon capturing plant every day for the next 67 years to offset the carbon we're putting out right now. Drop in a bucket levels of useful.

 

[Vic]

We'd need to start up a carbon capturing plant every day for the next 67 years to offset the carbon we're putting out right now. Drop in a bucket levels of useful.

I think the problem here is that carbon is valuable. It's the end product of CO2 that's not. Making more efficient usage of carbon products would be an important step. Capturing would help too, but something better would be to find an economically viable use for all this waste CO2.
And if we really want to solve this problem, then we have to get the US dollar off the oil standard (without crashing it). That's when renewables can take off without all these political headwinds.

 

[Brovane]

Until the lunar dust problem is solved, there is no economically viable reason to return to the surface of the moon.

Starship is a reusable launch system not a dedicated lunar lander like the Apollo Lunar Module.

 

[Roger Wilco]

We'd need to start up a carbon capturing plant every day for the next 67 years to offset the carbon we're putting out right now. Drop in a bucket levels of useful.

Still way better than Mars. And surely more R&D $ could accelerate advancements in carbon capture/sequestration tech?

 

[Vic]

Starship is a reusable launch system not a dedicated lunar lander like the Apollo Lunar Module.

I'm just saying there's no economically viable reason to return to the lunar surface as long as we don't have a solution to the ultrafine and highly corrosive electrostatic dust that it's made up of. It's the reason we haven't gone back. Nothing manmade can survive there for more than a day or 2. The dust sticks to everything and tears it apart at the same time.
The moon isn't just a dead world, it is hostile to human life. Mars is no different. Its dust storms sometimes cover more than half the planet. And anyone who thinks it can be terraformed needs to watch this vid from Matt O'Dowd.

 

[Vic]

Still way better than Mars. And surely more R&D $ could accelerate advancements in carbon capture/sequestration tech?

Yaknow, I grew up a huge scifi fan, read every scifi book I could, and fervently believed that we'd colonize the solar system and then the stars. So I 100% understand the appeal of what Musk is selling. As humans, we have always dreamed of exploring the next frontier.
But then I came to understand the scientific realities of space exploration, the insanely vast distances of space, the difficulties in harnessing the energies required to traverse those distances, the impossibility of FTL travel (or anything remotely close to it), and finally the sheer hostility of what's out there.
When my ancestors came to America, it was to find what they thought was the Garden of Eden. That rich prospect does not await us in space. We need to do what we can to preserve our Garden of Eden here on earth.

 

[nickqt]

Still way better than Mars. And surely more R&D $ could accelerate advancements in carbon capture/sequestration tech?

I'm not against trying, I just think that humanity is like the Coyote in Road Runner cartoons - it has already ran off the cliff, and just hasn't actually looked down just yet. I've been sitting here looking down for awhile and while we should be doing everything we can to mitigate the fall, the fall isn't apocalypse porn, it's our future.

 

[Brovane]

I'm just saying there's no economically viable reason to return to the lunar surface as long as we don't have a solution to the ultrafine and highly corrosive electrostatic dust that it's made up of. It's the reason we haven't gone back. Nothing manmade can survive there for more than a day or 2.

Starship isn't a dedicated Lunar Vehicle so the prospects of economically viable reasons to the lunar surface isn't really relevant to SpaceX business plan. NASA wants to return to the lunar surface and is willing to pay significant funds to SpaceX to develop a means to land on the lunar surface. It just so happens that Starship already under development can meet NASA's requirements with minimal modifications. Starship as SpaceX is developing it is a extremely flexible reusable spacecraft and launch system.

The Starship launch system is attempting to do what NASA had hoped to accomplish with the shuttle. That is a fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicle that can reach Orbit. As long as Starship can launch Starlink V2 satellites then the launch system is economically viable. Everything else is just a bonus. Even if sending a million people to Mars or developing a self sustaining colony on Mars isn't feasible. I am of the same opinion as you that it isn't feasible with current technology and will not be feasible for a long time. The Starship launch system as a fully reusable vehicle will open up opportunities in space by significantly reducing the cost to reach orbit. Starlink will just be the first of many new opportunities for the space industry.

“By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible.” – Mikhail Bakunin

FYI - NASA is aware of lunar dust issues and they are working on engineering solutions to the lunar dust issue. However we will not know if they work for sure until we actually go back to the lunar surface and try out those solutions on the lunar surface.

Dealing with dust: A back-to-the-moon dilemma

 

[Brovane]

We need to do what we can to preserve our Garden of Eden here on earth.

What do you think Tesla is trying to do?

Tesla 2021 impact report.

Tesla’s purpose is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. We strive to be the best on every metric relevant to our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. To maximize our impact, we plan to continue increasing our production volumes and the accessibility of our products. In more concrete terms, this means that by 2030 we are aiming to sell 20 million electric vehicles per year (compared to 0.94 million in 2021) and deploy 1,500 GWh of energy storage per year (compared to 4 GWh in 2021). If we were to achieve such a vehicle delivery milestone through a consistent growth rate, the total Tesla vehicle fleet would surpass tens of millions of vehicles by 2030, and each of those vehicles could save tons of CO2e emissions every year of usage. Furthermore, each product we make must be continuously improved at each step of its lifecycle: from manufacturing to consumer use to recycling. We must also improve every metric, including the energy and water used to make our products, how safe our customers and employees are and the affordability and accessibility of our products. Each of these themes will be covered in this year’s Impact Report.

 

[zinfamous]

Yup. In the meantime, it's absolutely astounding what Musk was able to achieve with Tesla. Becoming a car company from scratch is just ridiculously difficult.

Musk didn't do that...let's be clear: He bought into the board of a car company that was already built by real engineers (e.g: now Lucid Motors, founded by the engineers and people that actually built Tesla, and left Tesla because of Musk's late appearance to the company, seem to have already built better actual cars than Tesla) ...then basically thumbed his rapey, incestuous fat fingers onto a company that was already built for profit and for the future....started screaming about how to better spend his own money, fired a bunch of talented people because they wouldn't donate their 24-year-old blood to him to feed his inbred Afrikaaner babies, and so it goes.


...this is exactly his legacy as Tesla. Let's not believe this fucking bullshit myth about this pure human garbage...just saying.

 

[zinfamous]

Yaknow, I grew up a huge scifi fan, read every scifi book I could, and fervently believed that we'd colonize the solar system and then the stars. So I 100% understand the appeal of what Musk is selling. As humans, we have always dreamed of exploring the next frontier.
But then I came to understand the scientific realities of space exploration, the insanely vast distances of space, the difficulties in harnessing the energies required to traverse those distances, the impossibility of FTL travel (or anything remotely close to it), and finally the sheer hostility of what's out there.
When my ancestors came to America, it was to find what they thought was the Garden of Eden. That rich prospect does not await us in space. We need to do what we can to preserve our Garden of Eden here on earth.

Musk read sci fi.

and so did a bunch of fucking nerds over all the years

Musk learned how to steal money from nerds that never actually learned shit about anything and honestly, probably think that if humans get sent to Mars, suddenly Jedis will exist. So. illiterate nerds give Musk all of their money.

end of story.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Musk didn't do that...let's be clear: He bought into the board of a car company that was already built by real engineers (e.g: now Lucid Motors, founded by the engineers and people that actually built Tesla, and left Tesla because of Musk's late appearance to the company, seem to have already built better actual cars than Tesla) ...then basically thumbed his rapey, incestuous fat fingers onto a company that was already built for profit and for the future....started screaming about how to better spend his own money, fired a bunch of talented people because they wouldn't donate their 24-year-old blood to him to feed his inbred Afrikaaner babies, and so it goes.


...this is exactly his legacy as Tesla. Let's not believe this fucking bullshit myth about this pure human garbage...just saying.

Didn't know the first part about musk buying into the board and the original founders leaving. But a quick wiki search shows yeah...

Tesla was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning

Musk didn't show up till 2004 by dropping a $6.5M investment

 

[pmv]

Musk read sci fi.

and so did a bunch of fucking nerds over all the years

Musk learned how to steal money from nerds that never actually learned shit about anything and honestly, probably think that if humans get sent to Mars, suddenly Jedis will exist. So. illiterate nerds give Musk all of their money.

end of story.

I think the sad truth is that reading too much science-fiction can do to people something akin to what reading too many romance novels did to Madame Bovary.

 

[Brovane]

Didn't know the first part about musk buying into the board and the original founders leaving. But a quick wiki search shows yeah...

Tesla Lawsuit Drama Ends as Five Company Founders Emerge

Eberhard and Musk have reached a rather unexpected resolution–instead of agreeing to share the title of “founder”, the pair has designated five people as company founders, including Musk, Eberhard, JB Straubel, Mark Tarpenning, and Ian Wright.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Tesla Lawsuit Drama Ends as Five Company Founders Emerge

Eberhard and Musk have reached a rather unexpected resolution–instead of agreeing to share the title of “founder”, the pair has designated five people as company founders, including Musk, Eberhard, JB Straubel, Mark Tarpenning, and Ian Wright.

Agreeing to a title and actually doing the thing are totally different

 

[zinfamous]

Tesla Lawsuit Drama Ends as Five Company Founders Emerge

Eberhard and Musk have reached a rather unexpected resolution–instead of agreeing to share the title of “founder”, the pair has designated five people as company founders, including Musk, Eberhard, JB Straubel, Mark Tarpenning, and Ian Wright.

Ooo, they went to court to make a reality happen!

lol.

 

[brycejones]

Tesla Lawsuit Drama Ends as Five Company Founders Emerge

Eberhard and Musk have reached a rather unexpected resolution–instead of agreeing to share the title of “founder”, the pair has designated five people as company founders, including Musk, Eberhard, JB Straubel, Mark Tarpenning, and Ian Wright.

So Musk wasn’t an actual founder.

 

[Brovane]

Ooo, they went to court to make a reality happen!

lol.

Martin Eberhard sued to be declared the one of only two Tesla founders. He lost in court.

 

[brycejones]

Martin Eberhard sued to be declared the one of only two Tesla founders. He lost in court.

There was a trial with a verdict?

 

[Aikouka]

Tesla does make amazing cars

As someone that has to reboot their Tesla about once a week due to something failing, I find this amusing. Last time was no audio including turn signal noise. The time before that it was refusal to connect to WiFi, which meant no software updates. WiFi failure is the usual culprit.

And SpaceX has made incredible advances in rocket technology, but without Musk's promises about going to Mars (which BTW are just absurd, such as his recent TED interview when he promised he could send 100k people to Mars at a cost of $100k each) then SpaceX would just be another NASA contractor. Which is awesome, don't get me wrong, but once again not enough to make Musk the world's richest man.

SpaceX isn't a publicly traded company though. Musk being a blowhard about future goals doesn't really mean much. His ability to launch at a ridiculously high cadence at a comparatively low cost is what makes SpaceX so popular with NASA.

 

[Brovane]

There was a trial with a verdict?

Eberhard sued and settled. If Eberhard sued and settled, Not sure why this still has to be a issue for some people.

 

[Commodus]

As someone that has to reboot their Tesla about once a week due to something failing, I find this amusing. Last time was no audio including turn signal noise. The time before that it was refusal to connect to WiFi, which meant no software updates. WiFi failure is the usual culprit.

That makes a good case for buying another EV... you shouldn't have to reboot your car every few days like it's an old Symbian phone!

 

[kt]

I am surprised that so many people don't know that Musk wasn't the original founders of Tesla.

 

[kt]

As someone that has to reboot their Tesla about once a week due to something failing, I find this amusing. Last time was no audio including turn signal noise. The time before that it was refusal to connect to WiFi, which meant no software updates. WiFi failure is the usual culprit.

Microsoft Windows ME for cars? Better reboot it once in a while, or it will crash and burn.