Comment by tcoppi
9 years ago
Somehow I think Elon Musk has made it through the middlebrow dismissal phase of this if the concept has made it this far(to include actual digging in SpaceX's parking lot even).
9 years ago
Somehow I think Elon Musk has made it through the middlebrow dismissal phase of this if the concept has made it this far(to include actual digging in SpaceX's parking lot even).
Musk could also be bullshitting to help get funding to create a boring machine that is just twice as good as what we have now. That would be a very profitable company and would reduce subway costs, etc.
Musk's a sales technique to promise the moon (Mars really) and then use the cash to build a revolutionary but realistic company.
SpaceX isn't going to colonize mars, but its putting satellites in orbit.
People said moving phonebooks to the internet was stupid. Then he founded Zip2. People said moving banking to the internet was stupid/insane. Then he founded x.com which merged with and became what we now know as Paypal. People said he couldn't possibly make rockets from scratch that go to space. Then he did it. People also said he wouldn't land rockets on boats. Then he did it. Then they said he would never refly a "launch proven" rocket. Then he did.
As absolutely insane as his goals are, betting against him overall tends to be a losing bet. I'd be careful about what you think SpaceX "isn't" going to do. If it is technologically possible, they will do it. Period.
There's people who will think any issue is stupid, but by no mean did the vast majority of people think those ideas were stupid. I particularly don't recall anyone saying reusable rockets were a bad idea.
And X.Com didn't become Paypal. Paypal became Paypal. Paypal was already developed before the merger and it was not Musk's idea.
I wouldn't be surprised if a 2x or 3x more efficient boring machine is the ultimate product of this and it makes future infrastructure projects much cheaper as a result.
I wouldn't be surprised that for such a niche industry he couldn't make it 20x more efficient. I also wouldn't be surprised if he could only increase efficiency marginally because its a hard problem. But these niche problems often have huge potentials for efficiency gain.
Somehow I think Elon, who's a pretty smart guy, has run out of challenges and is now resorting to trying crazier and crazier things.
Next up: Elon's Space Elevator! Elon's Fusion Reactor! Elon's Teleporter!