>unless there was something so obviously wrong with the design that a conclusion was inescapable
Isn't that exactly what both Musk and Professor Sadoway are suggesting in the linked article?
Isn't that exactly what both Musk and Professor Sadoway are suggesting in the linked article?
You have to remember that the FAA had to approve these subsystems as well. I don't have any first-hand experience on just how detailed (or not) this certification process might be. Once again, how could anyone say anything at all without looking at data.
To make a really dumb analogy, it's like claiming to know what happened with a race horse that died clear across the country because you know race horses. Wouldn't you first have to see the veterinarian's records on that horse as well as such things as dietary and other data before really being able to say anything at all.
In other words, I am not detracting from the expert status some of these folks enjoy. Not at all. I think it is precisely because they might be domain experts at some level that they should behave with decorum and refrain from making comments without a full stack of the necessary data.
"Finally, the FAA changes so slowly that if this were even all possible, the adoption and certification would all take at least 50 years." --Eric Schmidt, http://longbets.org/4/
(In jest)
Also worth pointing out that the CEO of Google (yes...I know his company tests driverless cars) isn't really more of an expert on the FAA certification process than the average person here. I think he's on the right side of the bet, but I'd also note that the avionics which assist the pilot in controlling the plane and monitoring what's going on have changed more in the last 50 years than any other aspect of commercial aircraft.
Commercial considerations are a bigger factor than certification in new aircraft programme inertia: airlines' economies of scale hugely favour existing models, and expensive radical innovation in aircraft programmes can often be improved upon at lower research cost by rivals.
I don't know if that's what is happening here, but it is certainly not an uncommon PR strategy.
But I will say on the PR angle, he does compete directly with the entrenched manufacturers in the space arena and all discredit and doubt cast would serve him well.
That doesn't mean Elon is either right or wrong, but it's sufficient to explain why he feels a pressing need to be involved in the debate.
I worked in a hardware store after the first space shuttle accident in 1986. More than one customer thought the store should not be selling O rings since they caused the shuttle to blow up.
Sometimes, I just have to try and convince myself that I'm missing the sarcasm and the general public is smarter than it appears.
I do think Musk is a brilliant innovator, but that does not preclude him from also having an aggressive PR strategy.
FWIW, Boeing is a direct competitor to SpaceX for private launch contracts.
If the differential has 5 items, and the most likely is most likely by 99% just on demographics, then it's going to take a lot of lab data to refute that.
Similarly, heat dissipation is a first-order problem in battery design. Especially in these high-capacity designs using high-density chemistries. What else is on the differential?
Bollocks. Your analogies are crap too. Getting an FAA type certificate is a complicated, drawn out process, note, that doesn't make it a good process.
I'm betting Musk has as much data about those batteries as Boeing, the FAA, or anyone else alive.
You're betting that, are you? Based on a couple of paragraphs in a news article, you're betting that Mr. Musk has as much data as anyone alive - including the Japanese designers and manufacturers of the battery?
If there were a viable way of determining the facts of the matter, I would be happy to bet pretty much any sum you cared to name against you.
This kind of walled garden horseshit is what ensures no transparency in government contracts.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better
than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."
-- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper
proposing reliable overnight delivery service.
(Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
-- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981
"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
-- Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project.
http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm
As far as Smith and FedEx goes, according to Smith himself he wrote one paper that touched on the idea while an undergraduate. He doesn't remember what his grade was. The "C" notion came about, he says, because a reported asked him what his grade was and he said "I don’t know, probably made my usual C". [1]
[1] http://campusentrepreneurship.wordpress.com/2007/05/06/inter...
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp
The quote attributed to Lord Kelvin is a significant paraphrasing of a letter he wrote in 1896: