Elon Musk Testing ‘X-Wing’ Fins, Seafaring Spaceport Drones for Landing/Take-Off | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk Testing ‘X-Wing’ Fins, Seafaring Spaceport Drones for Landing/Take-Off

techcrunch.com

66 pointsph0rque23 comments

Folding lattice fins are old technology. Soviet N1 rocket had them. Russians have used them in ballistic missiles and air-to-air missiles since 70s.

They're apparently also used in the Soyuz launch escape system.

That's SOP for SpaceX, right? Take proven technology and actually make it work commercially.

Given that the primary lender and customer is the government, "commercially" is a stretch there.

7 launches this year. 3 Nasa. 4 commercial.

Pretty much. Rocketry isn't as fundamentally difficult as many people make out, and a lot of the stagnation in spaceflight is due to bureaucracy and excess risk aversion, not fundamentals. SpaceX had succeeded due not to being absurdly better at engineering, though they are good, but at striking the right balance of innovation, pragmatism, and risk.

The post-Grasshopper "F9R" testbed has flown with these before. You can see it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgLBIdVg3EM

And these fly-swatter fins work. I guess I needed a reminder of just how weird aerodynamics is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_fin

This article is sachharine.

Checkout one of the other several HN submissions.

(no disrepsect to the OP, just the sad state of TC)

Funny how the article implies Elon designed all this and engineers employed there have nothing to do with it. It's all him.

Same thing with Steve Jobs. The interesting thing is that there's an element of truth to it. Elon Musk's companies always seem to achieve amazing things.

It doesn't mean he's doing the bulk of the work, but he is playing a role that is irreplaceable, and it may not matter so much who the other people are so long as they are competent. It seems he is able to achieve similar results each time.

>Employ talented and inspired people

>Give them meaningful objectives

There

I would agree with this. That is the way to success... as well as finding people who share the goals that you'd like to accomplish.

The thing I like about Space X is their balance that was referred to earlier in these comments. Risk vs. profitability vs. engineering cool things. They also take the position of mitigating risk through USING their engineering and technology skills. At the heart of it, using repurposed thrusters from oil rigs to make a seafaring landing platform isn't "difficult" per se... but there certainly is ingenuity there. Not only did they make something cool with their engineering skills and ideas, but they made something that makes their development of "spaceships" safer.

Yeah pretty much. Not only inspired, but also inspire them through meaningful objectives.

I'd love to work for spacex or tesla. I don't care how much they'd pay. I'd just love to work on projects similar to what they've already done. Heck if I could otherwise feed myself i'd just happily work for free.

Opening line: "Let’s face it: Elon Musk is probably a time traveller sent back to help us leave earth behind and achieve the next phase of human evolution."

I wonder how much is Musk paying the media to continually publish lines like that one.

Nothing. He has the same 'reality distortion field' that Jobs had.

Often, when people talk of Jobs' reality distortion field, they refer to how he made you feel when you were in the same room as him, and he was talking to you. About how even if what he was asking seemed impossible from a technical point of view, as an engineer or designer or manager you couldn't say no to him, and in the end ended up being swayed by his arguments. Or how no matter what your intentions were, he'd be able to change your mind (e.g. http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Are_You_Gonna_Do_...). The media has then completely changed the meaning of "reality distortion field" to turn it into a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts - "Steve said it and we're convinced because he has the reality distortion field". But in that case, we're just watching a video of a keynote - there is no "reality distortion field, and thus he has a reality distortion field". As humans, we like being convinced and believing in fantastic, out-of-this-workld things - the latter form of the RDF is solely in the eye of the beholder.

I've never worked with Elon Musk nor do I know anyone who has, so who knows if he does have a proper RDF the way Steve did. But he definitely has a form of the latter - subconsciously, we want to see heroes conquering space just by the might of their hard work, smarts, and determination, and Elon is the perfect person to project that on to. Hence why journalists write glorious introductions like the one above without anyone having to ask them to.

Which is amazing given that Jobs' story is filled with so many achievements, disappointments, dramas etc.

I am surprised no one has written about the PR machine behind Musk. Because it is truly masterful.

Are you implying that Elon Musk doesn't have any achievements? Co-founding PayPal and then following up with Tesla and SpaceX aren't too shabby, considering that all three of those companies are profitable. He's a little dramatic pushing his "big ideas," but he's never been fired from his position as CEO as Jobs once was.

>Co-founding PayPal and then following up with Tesla and SpaceX aren't too shabby

He didn't co-found Paypal, and was an early investor in Tesla, not a founder. He did found SpaceX.

This isn't to take away from his accomplishments, just pointing out the inaccuracies that are perpetuated in the media that make him seem larger than life.

>but he's never been fired from his position as CEO as Jobs once was.

Wasn't he fired from Paypal after they acquired his company?

He created a company that acquired another company. Combining these companies together created Paypal and Musk was the largest shareholder in this entire thing. So yes, he did co-found Paypal.

"just pointing out the inaccuracies that are perpetuated in the media that make him seem larger than life" - You don't have a great track record so far, noting you have just made some incorrect statements yourself.

On that note, I've seen quite a few people come to this conclusion. They hear about him doing good things and think he must have some ulterior motive. They see him release patents and think he MUST be doing it for some secret business advantage. But no. That's just him. And now that you say it, I do actually think he is larger than life.

I stand corrected then. His PR machine had me fooled. Granted, he does seem to find himself in the middle of a lot of successful businesses.

> Opening line: "Let’s face it: Elon Musk is probably a time traveller sent back to help us leave earth behind and achieve the next phase of human evolution."

You always have to be careful with lines like that. Chances are that in some future history book Elon Musk will not be remembered as the person that 'helped us leave the earth' but as the great grandfather of the first inter-planetary war.

Writing history should be left to the future, there are no shortcuts so we'll have to see how it all plays out.

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