Elon Musk

Just think what he will achieve when he is truly hungry, both figuratively and literally.

i get that doing things *in* space is super difficult but we've been sending shit into orbit for 60 years now. why are these things constantly assploding

I highly recommend John D Clark's book Ignition! for some insights as to how frickin difficult it is to make rockets, which are basically balancing a small skyscraper on a controlled explosion.
https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf

i could do it

xxp because we've lost a ton of institutional knowledge about rocket science since the 60s, Elvis Telecom to thread

sweet thanks matttt

mattkkkk thxxxx!

If your rockets aren't exploding, you're not failing fast enough... it's all about disrupting the paradigms...

The physics at that speed are pretty wild. An interesting book I read quite a few years ago was the biography of Ben Rich the guy behind the Skunkworks and Lockheeds development.

SR-71 metal panels had to be setup so that when it was on the ground they did not meet, as when it would get up to full speed the metal would expand out. The plane could literally leak fuel on the ground.

In the Twitter fallout after the launch, a friend posted "I remember the space program from my youth. We were not blowing up that many rockets or platforms." and I had to point out - hfs yes we were. There's hours of earlylaunch failures all over YouTube. It's just that most of this happened before either of us were born. Tom Wolfe makes a mantra out of "our rockets always blow up" throughout The Right Stuff but once everything worked well enough, it's only later that (to take the Norman Mailer p.o.v.) NASA gets good enough to make the whole thing boring.

Hypersonic aerodynamics is nuts. Even nuttier when you're taking it on with pencil and paper seventy years ago. There's one famous story about the SR-71 pilot whose plane rapidly unscheduled its disassembly around him in flight - leaving him just falling in the air. Then there's Mike Adams in the X-15, and worse - Virgin Galactic's VSS Enterprise.

When I saw that some of the engines had conked out on launch (shades of the insane launch attempts of the N-1), I knew that things were about to get interesting. Undoubtedly, SpaceX will probably figure it out - they have to, because (deep breath) NASA's moon program is depending on it. I just wish they would launch out of Florida like everyone else does and stop fucking up South Padre Island.

I just wish they would launch out of Florida like everyone else does and stop fucking up South Padre Island.

this, an old friend lives there and she is PISSED

also please launch out of FL so I can attend live and point and laugh

I'm pretty much for a complete stoppage and moratorium on all rocket-building, moon programs, etc, either by Musk or NASA or anyone else.

Until we figure out what the hell is going on

Until the stars fall from the sky for you and I.

If the moratorium could be global I'd endorse that. We're cluttering low-earth orbital paths and generating space junk at a breathtaking clip.

Yeah when I hear ppl talking about the massive contingency involved in exploding a small skyscraper into space I just think “sounds like a big fucking waste of time then tbh let’s stop doing it”

There's a bunch of rocket launches in California that they don't even tell us about until they're done, spy satellites probably.. I remember a few years ago there's was this really weird cloud in the evening sky that everybody noticed, and the Feds were like 'don't worry about that, why don't you mind your own beeswax anyway'

For the record, I just wanted to make a Doors joke. I don't actually agree that we should stop space exploration.

is there anything more to be gained from shortv distance manned space flight? (actual question I don't know much about it)

I think bringing back lethal space viruses and infecting all of humanity might be the last true benefit

We haven't touched the monolith yet.

that's what Elon calls his junk from what I heard

Elon already touched the monolith, that's why he can see 5 years into the future

Musk and his followers are so scientifically uncurious that they wouldn't touch the monolith at all, but just piss on it.

A hilarious way to troll them is to innocently ask "why is SpaceX's Starship designed without any crew escape mechanism or abort systems?" and try to untangle the cult-speak word salad they'll respond with.

lol sacrificing a minivan

Salute to redditor DonaldRudolpho for turning the r/spacex subreddit into a roiling mass of cope and seethe with these basic factual observations pic.twitter.com/C9PGQ5Cydl

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) April 22, 2023

Speaking of John D Clark’s _Ignition!_, notice who blurbs the most recent printing

https://sheep.horse/2019/3/ignition_cover.jpg

I looked for a space-x thread but anyway:

The space agency is depending on Starship to land astronauts on the surface of the moon as part of its Artemis program. That first landing is tentatively scheduled for 2025, though 2026 or later is perhaps more likely.

epic sir

The checkmark on the dril account has now been removed again, and then I think it was added for a minute, then removed again. It's like a Looney Tunes cartoon but one side is some shitposter on his laptop and the other side is the richest man on the planet in corporate HQ fuming

— Wild Geerters (@steinkobbe) April 22, 2023

great success much data

BREAKING: The FAA had grounded the SpaceX Starship program pending a mishap investigation.

This will most likely take many months to complete and require an extensive remediation plan before being allowed to launch again.

— Christopher David (@Tazerface16) April 24, 2023

This is what happens to your launchpad when you think it would be funny to launch to the world's largest rocket on 4/20, instead of when it's ready.

It will probably be at least a year before the FAA will approve another Starship launch. pic.twitter.com/tXytW309a6

— Christopher David (@Tazerface16) April 21, 2023

Pshh. Guess the FAA is gonna be losing its checkmark... we'll see who cancels who, woke safety regulators..

The failure of the SpaceX launch yesterday can be directly linked to a personal decision that Elon Musk made 3 years ago to not install flame diverters on the Starship launchpad.

He overruled his own engineers on this design flaw, and admitted publicly.

It's his fault.

— Christopher David (@Tazerface16) April 21, 2023

And because of this decision, the launchpad was blasted apart and debris slammed into the engines at the bottom of the booster, damaging them.

Ultimately resulting in the spectacular cartwheels and explosion that we saw just moments later.

— Christopher David (@Tazerface16) April 21, 2023

and yet there are hundreds of weird nerds absolutely fuming into their keyboards all day today about how we're all just too stupid to appreciate his genius

extremely low qual religion

elons sock

omg I found his burner https://t.co/xDHDt2X1VV pic.twitter.com/qlfzw2DjrL

— Hurt CoPain (@SaeedDiCaprio) April 24, 2023

It’s definitely him pic.twitter.com/PGqoucEyo1

— The Flying Morgan Wallendas (@BlastArrow4) April 24, 2023

Musk responding to himself with an alt account pic.twitter.com/IgXHZttZbz

— Matt Novak (@paleofuture) April 25, 2023

I think that's actually the cringiest thing he's done yet

https://i.postimg.cc/GhbhS04T/5-B5-C08-FD-00-BB-4-BEA-B1-B2-86104-F920-ED1.jpg

Hope someone’s on the blower to child protection services

wait, if that's elon why is he paying attention to his child

imagine Lion King if Rafiki got so distracted he dropped Simba over the cliff

was it steve jobs who created this poisonous concept of the innovator as an individual with no actual tech knowledge but who makes big, bold decisions and demands unrealistic time frames etc etc? i mean that's what musk is obviously shooting for and failing dramatically, right?

neil breen perfected it

Jobs was just making phones and computers though, not things that explode or crash

The failure of the SpaceX launch yesterday can be directly linked to a personal decision that Elon Musk made 3 years ago to not install flame diverters on the Starship launchpad.

He overruled his own engineers on this design flaw, and admitted publicly.

It's his fault.

— Christopher David (@Tazerface16) April 21, 2023

why is he so brainless

feel like the business guy who dares to demand more has to go back before steve job, and tbf it kind of works but its a dangerous game, has prob killed more businesses than its made but you dont hear about them

elizabeth holmes vibes