Is Elon Musk trying to do too much too fast? | Hacker News Reader

Is Elon Musk trying to do too much too fast?

latimes.com

45 pointsendswapper52 comments

“This raises serious questions about the reliability of the SpaceX launch vehicle,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, which receives money from Boeing Co., a SpaceX competitor. “They are taking this technology to the limits.”

Key quote on which the rest of the article appears to be constructed.

SpaceX is pushing the technology to the limits on purpose. This is not because they are doing "too much" but because they are doing everything they can to completely change the way rocketry is done.

When a Formula 1 car catches fire in the pits, do we call a halt to pressurised fuelling, or find ways to improve the safety of fuelling?

When a NASCAR crashes and burns, do we call a halt to car racing, or do we find ways to improve the safety and reliability of racing cars?

The simple answer to the "too much too fast" question is "no". Too much, too fast would be where SpaceX is unable to maintain their progress and makes mistakes they can not learn from.

Right now the focus of SpaceX is getting to the point where they can launch, land, relaunch. They will find more ways that quickly fuelling a rocket with supercooled fuel doesn't work.

Their competitors might simply say, "supercooled propellants are too hard," and stick to existing performance figures and trusted designs. SpaceX is choosing to do the hard thing because doing the hard thing is how you advance the state of the art.

"We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." — President John F Kennedy, Rice University address.

Did NASA try doing too much, too fast? They went from the "four inch flight" of Mercury-Redstone 1 in 1960 to the disaster of Apollo 1 (crew killed in a cabin fire due to high oxygen atmosphere) in February 1967 to success with Apollo 11 in July 1969, with many lessons being learned in the meantime.

I disagree strongly. SpaceX has always felt, especially to those in the industry, to have a blatant disregard for even basic elements of safety in their design and operation.

They _did_ supercool their propellants, and pushing that envelope was indeed worthwhile to see what they could gain from it. Unfortunately they _also_ decided to stage the payload to shave a day off of integration time.

SpaceX is a very interesting company, and I wish them the best because there are a lot of smart people working there on difficult problems. But I personally can't stand seeing them take unnecessary risks and treating it as a necessary cost of business. It terrifies me that they want to strap three of these Falcon 9 cores together, or that they want to put people on top of this thing.

As an amateur space and SpaceX follower, could you go into detail as to what elements of safety in design and operations you believe they have disregarded?

In operation, there were two events I was told in confidence by current and former employees that I would rather not disclose publicly. Without going into specifics, they both related to operational deficiencies in launch systems (hardware in one instance, software in another) that were not disclosed to NASA prior to launch.

This hits me particularly hard as this is not an industry where you ask forgiveness rather than permission. I was involved in situations with a separate contractor where we diagnosed technical problems days before a launch that in all likelihood would not have affected any other systems.

We still went to NASA, admitted our faults, and provided an analysis of the situation and mitigating steps we would take in order to get their blessing. They worked with us and we didn't disrupt the launch schedule, but we were fully prepared to if that was what it took.

For the design aspects, I admit it isn't my forte and I'm taking the word of other engineers who may have their own biases. In short, the use of many small engines used together (e.g. Falcon Heavy using 27 Merlin-1Ds and MCT using 9 Raptors) makes a lot of people who have been doing this for much longer than I very uncomfortable. This is especially true given that they are planning on launching Falcon Heavy missions so soon without having tested the cores operating together extensively (to my knowledge, at least).

I'm sorry if this comes off as overly aggressive or biased. I do really think that reusability, automation, and low cost are important goals to work towards. I also even think that SpaceX is making some of the greatest strides in the industry. But I'm very uncomfortable with the company that seems (at least to me) to be disregarding established knowledge that was gained through the hardships of an earlier era.

The way you make reliable rockets is to manufacture more of them and build more reliable system for manufacturing, or so that's the argument.

Agreed, with the caveat that you can make more reliable rocket _components_ that way, and you can use those components to assemble a more reliable system from them.

No matter how reliable your individual components are, the added complexity from using many of them together in an already complex system is an area of concern.

As a small example: the Falcon 9 has 9 Merlin 1-D engines pulling from shared RP-1/LOx on the first stage. Combustion instability in any one of the engines can induce a 'pogo oscillation' in the fuel lines that can stress the structure of the spacecraft. More engines means a higher risk of instability inducing such an event and damaging the spacecraft.

Afaik, no one really has a generalized solution for dealing with pogo oscillations but many (including SpaceX) have ad-hoc solutions for specific rocket designs.

The wrinkle here is that the Falcon Heavy is going to not only have 3 Falcon 9 cores, these cores will also be cross-supplying fuel/oxidizer to each other (i.e. the left and right cores will feed the center engines before separating).

Even small changes in rocket design can bring underlying issues to light [0], and ad-hoc solutions, by definition, shouldn't be expected to solve them across the board.

[0] Anecdotal again, I know, but: I was speaking with a solid rocket engineer a little while back who had helped diagnose a combustion instability. The root cause ended up being that the aluminum pellets embedded into the oxidizer were shaped such that they could clump together and create small bursts of excess thrust under certain conditions. This excess thrust had happened in just such a way that it created a standing wave inside the combustion chamber which vibrated the entire structure during flight.

Other designs didn't have this problem (e.g. slightly different lengths of the combustion chamber, slightly different ratios of fuel/oxidizer).

I fully respect your argument and where you are coming from. Thank you.

As an engineer, I fully support Elon Musk's approach. Space in general is unreliable and there are thousands and thousands of moving parts in space travel and the payloads they carry. A simple error or fault in any of these parts can create unpredictable outcomes. Remember the Apollo missions?Columbia space shuttle disaster?

So, to me it seems perfectly acceptable to focus on reducing the costs of these missions to the point where these missions become cheaper, some fail - we learn, and ultimately failures won't matter much because we cut the costs down by tenth or even twentieth. If we move at the pace of the current industry, it will take 500 years to out a man on Mars. Obviously I am exaggerating but you see my point. Let them try something new, fail but learn and ultimately speed has to matter because humanity has ambitions and Universe is friggin big.

We still need to account for the carbon emissions of such an explosion. A complete carbon study would include how much GHG we save thanks to the satellite we pace, how much we encourage emitting more GHG by making rockets ten times cheaper and encouraging satellite, how much energy we require to generate that weight of H2, how emissions of a normal launch at high altitude compare to ground-level emissions (hint: GHG from rockets are around 9x more harmful than the same weight of a Boeing 747's kerosen), and how frequently we have explosions that lead to no satellite launched and pollution. Whether SpaceX is actually advancing humanity is the real question here.

But it seems the aircraft industry is much worse (3-5% of global warming). https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/4c9ts4/what_are_the...

The best way to know would be to introduce a tax on GHG and let the markets decide which activities lose their affordability, instead of each of us trying to make a GHG calculation of our own activities.

Good points. One thing to note is that not every failure will or should lead to an explosion.

Just to be clear: you believe SpaceX has "a blatant disregard for even basic elements of safety in their design and operation," and you base this on two anecdotes from friends (which you won't share), and an element of the Falcon 9 that has never caused a loss of vehicle, and is arguably a point of reliability (Falcon 9 can still complete its mission with an engine out, while most other launchers cannot).

I disagree strongly. SpaceX has always felt, especially to those in the industry, to have a blatant disregard for even basic elements of safety in their design and operation.

Do you realize that this company does more testing and more rigorous tests than other launch service provider?

Source? I've heard that they have more sensors and telemetry on individual tests, but I hadn't heard that they're more rigorous than other providers.

This is my source: http://www.airspacemag.com/space/is-spacex-changing-the-rock...

It's four years old.

Well just one example: The static fire test that ended in the explosion is not even done by other providers.

One recent example is SpaceX doing the pad abort test, and a planned in-flight abort test for their Dragon 2 capsule, while Boeing is doing their testing on paper.

I don't think that's completely accurate. While Boeing is not going to do an in-flight abort test, they will be doing a pad abort test in October 2017. A technical demonstration of the abort system was one of the requirements of the requirements of the Commercial Crew Transport program.

Do you know where I can review the test methodologies and summary results of the top providers in space launching?

> When a Formula 1 car catches fire in the pits, do we call a halt to pressurised fuelling, or find ways to improve the safety of fuelling?

this isn't a really good example because, yes, after a bunch of terrible fires, they did call a halt to fueling during races. you can't remove fuel, either.

https://www.formula1.com/en/championship/inside-f1/rules-reg...

I guess I shouldn't pull examples from subjects I don't really know about :D

A Space-X booster failure isn't a disaster. Fortunately, Space-X fuels remotely. The USSR had booster explosions during fueling in 1960 and in 1980, each with tens of casualties. If Space-X can find out what's wrong and fix it, it's not a huge setback. If the craft had been manned, the pad abort system would have saved the crew; the payload module was unharmed for the first few seconds, enough time for the capsule to launch. The Falcon launch failure rate is about 4%, which is on a par with everybody else.[1]. But that's not counting this as a launch failure.

Tesla's "autopilot" was too much, too fast. It's not very good and was promoted as being more capable than it is. Tesla really needs to enforce hands-on-wheel strictly.

The Tesla Model 3 at $35K with big production volume is a big risk. It will probably come out late, at $50K+, and in lower initial volume. But it should make it out the plant door at some point. That's the biggest risk item in all this. Remember that when Musk announced the proposed Model 3 production schedule, the two top people in production quit. They clearly knew the goal wasn't realistic.

Tesla buying Solar City looks more like a bailout. The big Solar City risk is that they're building their own solar panels. They could be undercut by competition from China, as Applied Materials was. Solar City has the advantage that their plant sells to themselves, so they can resist competition to some extent. Solar City's big vulnerability is that they're heavily dependent on Government subsidies. Those are gradually going away as solar becomes able to stand on its own.

The big risks are financial, not technical. Hence the pressure at Tesla to cut costs, and probably use creative accounting, to get a profitable quarter.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/ei3h1B7.png

The risks must be technical, or we would already see production; which, if it were occurring, would be resolving any financial issues.

Maybe they should include a pad abort module on cargo missioms, so they can find out its performance next time a Falcon explodes during fueling.

Huge weight penalty. They'd never get to geosync orbit.

If rocket failures were a Poisson process with a low rate, you'd expect to see some clustering by random chance. And if they're being watched by the media, you should expect to see people making much of it, whether or not there's a systemic problem.

As with most news, I recommend waiting a decade and buying a history book.

Your assertion that there would be "some clustering by random chance" is correct, however rocket failures are most definitely not described well by a Poisson distribution. The simplest reasonable model would be to assume each launch campaign has a fixed probability of failure, and that the probability of any given failure event is independent of the others. In other words, a binomial distribution. And this is a commonly applied model, I've seen a number of people doing such calculations in the last few days.

However, these assumptions do not accurately reflect reality. When a failure occurs launches are stopped, the problem is identified, and the problem is fixed. A failure event should cause reliability to increase for subsequent launches; failures are not conditionally independent.

Yes, of course he is. Most people are not talented enough to run one company, let alone have the time. The primary thing that concerns me is I understand his rush.

As Tesla is rushing towards the Model 3, they remain largely without competition from other electric cars. From Musk's point of view, it's completely logical to press your lead. Very soon it will be extremely hard for gasoline-powered vehicles to compete - the relentless engineering of electronics has made its way to automobiles. Has any other vendor seriously evaluated a charging solution aside from Supercharger?

I wish I lived in a world where Elon had better pick one damn company to run, because the market to build electric cars was so overwhelmingly competitive. Or where the utilities were so ahead in renewal energy creation and storage that Tesla would be silly to also have to go through the insane trouble of building a battery factory. Or acquire a solar company, lol.

Musk's achievements impress me especially in comparison to his peers. Who's bothering to challenge the dealership lobby? Who's ready to start pushing software updates over the air to their entire fleet? Hopefully Apple, Google, Amazon, Uber, etc get into the game and also contribute to pushing things forward. Because honestly the old guard hasn't made me as excited. I hope Elon inspires millions to be as disruptive.

In the words of Peter Thiel "Elon Musk the man who knows no risk"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FvxrxpW2ckQ&feature=youtu.be&t...

A friend at Stanford had a lecture taught by one of Musk's old friends who's now a partner at Greylock. The friend said they all used to fly to Vegas 10-15 years ago and that Elon used to just double down after doubling down at blackjack – that it was very indicative of his perception of risk.

Apparently he and Peter Thiel also used to debate about who was going to get to Mars first. In the lecturer's words: "Yeah, looks like Elon is probably gonna win that one now."

that's a great story it just reaffirms the "Know no Risks" personality.

Frankly I don't care...

I wake up some mornings and occasionally when I have those crappy "entrepreneury/startyupy" days when everything is going to shit and I wonder if it's worth all the effort - I think about what Elon Musk is doing and then STFU and get out of bed and get on with it.

Having read the recent biography about the guy, the only thing I worry about is that he is physically on a aircraft too much while flying between SpaceX and Tesla (along with other places). He's too important to the future of the human race to lose because of some crappy accident. Ditto his work schedule - for the love of god, please someone make sure he doesn't die of a heart attack/stress or something else!

I find myself doing the same from time to time! It really does help me push through.

I've tried the same line of reasoning with my girlfriend as well; not much success.

YMMV.

So I work in cleantech, and here's my favorite climate change joke:

They say humans won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late.

To me, Musk is acting like your typical super-smart engineer under a fire drill. Perhaps Musk thinks that we aren't adapting fast enough to the changes in our environment, so he's basically putting every drop of effort he has into trying to engineer solutions.

Engineers are a weird bunch. They love fixing problems more than they love money. Also, they recognize the tools available and use them to their advantage. Remember social engineering is still engineering. Perhaps Musk sees capitalism and markets as a tool and is using it to his advantage (having rich people on your side adds to your toolkit).

What would you do if we had to switch 87% of our energy sources from fossil fuel[1] to something else in the next 30 years[2]? No really, what would you actually try to engineer to pull it off? Now you're in Musk's mindset. Luckily, that's double-digit trillion dollar opportunity if you can actually pull it off[3], so you can use the markets as a tool (and everyone wins[4]). Musk knows the next Googe will be an energy company[5].

Also, he wants to die on Mars. Everyone's got to have a hobby.

[1]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11951

[2]: http://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/ipcc/sites/default/files/AR5_SYR_Figu...

[3]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...

[4]: http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/S/5/6/3/What-If-Its-A-Ho...

[5]: http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-internet/

I loved this part.

Greg Autry, a space industry expert who teaches at USC’s Marshall School of Business, said that Musk’s aggressive cuts to the cost of launching rockets “even scares the Chinese.”

I doubt that the Chinese are actually that "scared". They have clearly been taking the very long view with their exploration program.

Everyone can have their own opinion regarding how many rockets and African internet satellites and Tesla drivers and astronauts are worth risking to push technology as far as fast as Musk can. What's harder to argue, I think, is that Musk has pushed right up near the line where one or two more lost SpaceX rockets or dead Tesla drivers could send many of his plans into a tailspin.

There's almost a feel like Steve Jobs in 1985, sword of damocles hanging overhead. History may prove Musk "right" as it did Jobs, but he nonetheless similarly risks losing quite a lot, as do we all in a sense.

Does his companies have Aldus Pagemakers and Pro Tools as Apple had and saved many times from bankruptcy?

The rocket is the rocket. These things happen. However, a static fire test is pretty rare these days, and usually doesn't take place with the payload loaded, but SpaceX wanted to shave a day off the schedule[0]. Bonus points, for insurance not paying for the loss.[1] So they do run their rocket launches in an odd way.

What's more troubling is the Tesla autopilot product release. That is indefensible. Let's be honest here people, if it's outside the lab, it's a release. Sure you can call it a "beta", you can throw up a "Hey don't use this, it's beta," click through warning, but it's still a release. If you didn't think that people were going to hear "autopilot" and think autopilot, then you're too naive to be in the consumer industry.

No, it's not a level 4 autonomous vehicle, and yet that's how people are going to treat it, because that's what you demo. That's what you're calling it. That's what "autopilot" means. Level 3 is the worst level, because it lulls the driver into complacency, and then into a completely preventable accident.

[0] http://spacenews.com/falcon-9-pad-explosion-highlights-uniqu...

[1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/09/01/spacex_bl...

Don't even bother reading it: whenever there is a question on the headline of an article from a serious major news outlet, the answer is NO. Seriously it's like that EVERY time. 100%. Literally. Early ages of click-bait when it wasn't even clicking but buying read-bait. Sensationalism and controversy always sell but they have to keep some kind of integrity to be taken seriously, right? Anyway: Challenger, Columbia, Apollo 1. Those were actual disasters. That was actually taking it too far. And the industry learned from those failures and put in place the necessary failsafes to avoid them. Doesn't mean there aren't more to come. Blowing up stuff to get into space is still blowing up stuff. Nevermind driving thousands of cars in actual traffic millions of miles. But what SpaceX is doing, testing on production non manned vehicles, doesn't even compare to what both USA and Russia were doing during the space race. The only problem is it upsets shareholders, and I'm pretty sure the amount of people trying to short this stock is reaching critical mass, so they better be more careful because the real shitstorm of defamation and FUD is yet to come...

a rocket explodes and suddenly everyone turns on the golden boy.

in other words, journalists just making noise.

Yeah, because a rocket exploding is not important when you run a rocket company...

I mean, couldn't they focus on all those rockets that did not explode?

No. It is not that rocket exploding is not a set back. Of course it is. BUT, it is not a set back of the magnitude the press wants it be. This is inherent to the rocket business, especially when those rockets are new technology.

Are you being sarcastic? Because one of the failure modes of a rocket is to explode. It is unfortunate, but not unexpected. It's basically unavoidable for any rocket manufacturer, and certainly not a cause to condemn SpaceX.

Isn't it obvious? Look at him, look at what kind of people he is looking to hire. He is not looking at people that are mature, balanced and harmonious. He is looking for people to burn with passion and work enormous efforts. Well when you conduct your life like this you can't have too many outcomes but most likely one of those worthy of drama awards :) For who is wise enough these simple priciples are everywhre around us to observe and learn.

I hope he doesn't up like the real Tesla who ended up broke. Tesla was trying to do some really advanced things like wireless energy transmission.

The real Tesla wasn't a billionaire before he started doing big stuff.

He wasn't a billionaire, but he was multimillionaire which was pretty rich for the time.

Most of the popularized Tesla stuff is fantasy and pseudo science.

He invented a lot of stuff. He way ahead of his time. You have to put yourself in the context of the 1900's.

Mostly because few people where messing with electricity at the time. He showed up right after steam engines took off and you could cheaply generate a lot of power.

Oh yeah, he was a total quack! The stuff he worked on toward his death was so useless that the federal government decided to immediately classify all of his papers as being sensitive to national security and locked them away. O_O

I think Elon Musk is extremely smart and talented but I also think he's been extremely lucky so far (but his luck seems to be running out lately).

Since Paypal, he's been on a winning streak and this has just boosted his confidence to stratospheric heights - As a result, he probably bit off more than he could chew.

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