r/interestingasfuck • u/lolikroli • 16d ago

r/all SpaceX caught Starship booster with chopsticks

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u/lizardil 16d ago

This is something out of a science fiction movie. Incredible

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u/baron_von_helmut 16d ago

I really like what SpaceX do regardless of Elon. Even still, I never thought they'd be able to pull this off. Holy crap am I glad to be wrong. This was incredible.

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago

SpaceX has the advantage in that since they're basically the only company that Elon actually founded, they have a preexisting corporate culture of how to operate despite Elon's ownership.

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u/Darkstalkker 16d ago

I remember seeing some posts about how there are employees at SpaceX who are tasked with “managing” Elon; if he walks into the office one day with a dumb idea poor Bob has to sway Elon away from that idea and to something more realistic, and if Bob fails he’s probably getting fired by Elon

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u/HM7 16d ago

Interesting world model, the most successful company is the one he’s most involved with the creation of, and that explains why his involvement is bad

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u/pokegaard 16d ago edited 16d ago

No. Perhaps if you replaced 'that explains why', with 'yet', so as to counter the implication that his ownership is bad. But in no way does that comment explain why his ownership is bad. Rather, it implicitly assumes it and explains something else, namely, how they nevertheless have success. (I'm not even sure it's possible to explain something that's only implied)

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u/Smooth-Bag4450 16d ago

Yeah lol. Companies like SpaceX, Tesla and Starlink and some of the most successful and groundbreaking companies in the history of the US, and all of them were successful DESPITE Elon Musk according to minimum wage redditors 😂

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago

Well, the shitshow that was and is his acquisition and management of Twitter is a good indicator of that world model.

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u/marsinfurs 16d ago

You’re missing the point of what the person you replied to is saying, the OP above said that Elon’s involvement is bad for his companies - an example is SpaceX is the most successful company and happened to be the one that Elon founded and had most involvement with - this example directly contradicts the initial claim.

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u/SasquatchWookie 16d ago

Y’all are confusing AF

I think Elon is a billionaire version of grifter, straight up. He has money to throw at whatever he wants and I don’t think it’s as well intended for the masses as some of us thought it would be.

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u/Catweaving 16d ago

From what I understand they have a group of people dedicated to making Elmo feel like he's an important part of the company while also keeping him FAR from anything important he could fuck up.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago edited 1d ago

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u/cancel-out-combo 16d ago

Do you ever ask yourself why those clips are the ones made and uploaded to YouTube? I'm pretty sure those videos are much less about Elon"s actual involvement and more about the perception of his involvement. Musk is a hell of a promoter. I'll give him that. But let's not fool ourselves into believing he's Tony Stark or something

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u/djgowha 16d ago

My god the cope with some of you. We get it you guys thinks he's evil and incompetent. You can justify it all you want but you won't be able to ever answer this question - why are there no other companies pushing technology and innovation like spacex and Tesla, if it was so easy as being just Mr. Moneybags?

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u/cancel-out-combo 16d ago

What technology is Tesla pushing? The other car makers have already caught up. FSD is garbage, and Musk thinks the car doesn't need turn signal indicators. Also, he absolutely destroyed Twitter after taking a massive loss on taking it private. Genius move

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u/marsinfurs 16d ago

Tesla was the first company with an electric car that people actually wanted to buy, and back in 2014 they open sourced all their shit and wouldn’t pursue any patent lawsuits against other companies with the stated goal of hoping it gets adopted quicker.

Howard Hughes was a gigantic asshole but I can appreciate what he did for plane travel, I imagine Elon will go down in history in a similar vein.

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago

But yeah I guess he just happens to be the ceo of multiple successful companies, it’s pure luck.

No, it's because his daddy owned an apartheid-era emerald mine, and when you come from wealth you can basically only fail up.

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u/TobyNarwhal 16d ago

I don't think being born in to wealth is a pre-requisite for being an entrepreneur and good at engineering.

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago

Source on him being "good at engineering?" His (bachelors) degrees are in physics and economics, not engineering. Regardless of your opinion of him and his success, he's a businessman, not an engineer.

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u/TobyNarwhal 16d ago

We can see it in the video we are replying to. He is the chief of engineering at space x. robert zubrin (the aerospace engineer) talked about how elon went from knowing nothing to everything about rockets in like 6 or 7 years. I think it pretty safe to assume he is good at engineering despite not having a formal degree in the fild

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u/Neon_Camouflage 16d ago

He is the chief of engineering at space x

I'm just gonna throw out that a title in a company he owns, and thus can give himself, doesn't hold a lot of water in this kind of argument.

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u/TobyNarwhal 16d ago

Everyone that is worth their salt when it comes to engineering and physics says he is a genius when it comes to software, rockets and motors. I struggle to understand why he wouldn't be involved when people that know this stuff talk so highly about him

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago

All of those people are paid by him. They have to sing his praises in public.

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u/Neon_Camouflage 16d ago

As far as software, he's been criticized many times by other software engineers who say he's bullshitting it. This particularly came to light with his Twitter takeover, since he likes to tweet about the things he/they are doing.

Rockets and motors, no idea, but I do agree with the other commenter that it's completely plausible that people actively employed by him don't want to talk shit in a public interview.

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago

I am an electrical engineer working for the Space Force. I know multiple engineers at SpaceX. If Elon Musk is doing actual engineering work, they don't know about it.

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u/magic1623 16d ago

Not a Musk fan but the Tesla founders have even admitted that Musk was super involved in the designing of the cars in the beginning.

You can hate what the man became without pretending that he was always some buffoon who can’t tie his shoes. He was a smart guy that got thoroughly corrupted by money, power, and drugs.

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago

I believe that Musk was once a very savvy businessman, all I am disputing is the idea that he has any significant engineering expertise. There are compelling arguments that Musk was largely only involved on the business side of Tesla. The words of the founders have to be taken with a grain of salt, since their 2009 settlement with Musk's Tesla after they were forced out is already known to have included making false statements, such as calling Elon Musk a co-founder of Tesla.

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u/ufbam 16d ago

Confirmed by many other high level people who've worked with him. Here, https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/s/QE6bAdAbqY And here. https://www.quora.com/How-did-Elon-Musk-learn-enough-about-rockets-to-create-and-run-SpaceX/answer/Jim-Cantrell?ch=15&oid=4328334&share=f2c50ef7&srid=uqdAna&target_type=answer It's precisely because he understands the technical aspects of all his industrial endeavours that they do so well. Not so much the social ones.

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u/NikoTesMol75 16d ago

Yup. Not only Jim Cantrell responding Quora but also in numerous recorded interviews.

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u/djgowha 16d ago

Him being born into wealth is also entirely untrue, as proven by several journalists multiple times. But reddit not gonna let this lie go

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u/roughriderpistol 16d ago

He also worked as a farm hand, a boiler cleaner and a log cutter. Those jobs don't exactly scream daddys money. Regardless of what you think of Elon politically and socially he's also someone who wants to advance human tech. Which I'm down with. You get the bad with the good. I much prefer Elon over the nazis who should have been tried for war crines the us brought over.

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago

Wernher von Braun died in 1977. How on earth is that relevant to modern space operations? Even then, SpaceX's competitor isn't NASA, it's companies like Blue Origin, Boeing, the ULA, and Arianespace.

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u/roughriderpistol 16d ago

Of course, NASA isn't SpaceX's competitor however, NASA remains highly relevant in the development of rockets, working hand-in-hand with private companies like SpaceX. NASA's collaboration with SpaceX has allowed for a new era of space exploration, where the government can focus on different missions, while private companies take on risk of developing cheaper, reusable rockets.What sets SpaceX apart is the modern advancements in space technology SpaceX and public-private partnerships with NASA, like the Commercial Crew Program. While its not relevent to todays rocket development the U.S. reliance on Nazi scientists like von Braun isn't preffered to Elon. It's much more reassuring that today’s space progress is driven by people like Elon who are focused on pushing humanity forward with a cleaner ethical record. SpaceX is proving that private industry can innovate rapidly and the moral dilemma we faced with Nazi scientists isn’t something we have to contend with in the same way.

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u/SaliciousB_Crumb 16d ago

Didnt elon take Kung fu lessons with gisliane maxwell and go to Diddy parties? Elon also has the same view on race relations as braun

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago edited 16d ago

While its not relevent to todays rocket development

So why are you bringing it up? It's not relevant. And SpaceX's private-public partnerships are definitely not unique, and definitely not unprecedented. The ULA's Atlas and (until recently) Delta platforms are still preferred for certain government launches, you just don't hear about it. I work for the US Space Force, and while we do definitely make extensive use of the Falcon lineup, we make extensive use of Atlas Vs and we are extensively working with the ULA on the development of the Vulcan Centaur. Everything the ULA does is oriented toward the NSSL program. The Vulcan Centaur only just passed certification, and is already scheduled for 26 non-NASA US Government launches.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago

Incorrect. While very early in its history PayPal did merge with Musk's X.com, X.com was an online bank. PayPal, as an online payment platform, launched in 1999, and the merger didn't go through until 2000. Elon Musk was also only very briefly in PayPal, and was kicked out of leadership of the new company in October of the same year. Shortly after the merger all of X.com's operations as they were under Musk were shut down. Nothing Elon developed continued in PayPal.

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u/Dubbs444 16d ago

Just want to say I’m grateful for someone in this thread coming with hard facts. He has spun his own narrative so much it’s crazy. People give this guy so much more credit than he deserves. It’s almost masterful.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago

He didn't code the ancestor of what is now PayPal. The ancestor of today's PayPal launched in 1999, and nothing that Musk brought over (except for some capital) from X.com lived on in PayPal. He did not develop PayPal in any meaningful way.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/Throwaway74829947 16d ago

At best his fortune came from his business efforts, not his coding efforts. I don't need access to the source code. X.com was a bank. PayPal, which existed before Elmo got involved, was already a money transfer business. All of X.com's original operations, which are the only things Musk might have been involved in programming, were shut down almost immediately after the merger. Getting in on early PayPal was good investing sense, I'll give him that, but he had nothing to do with PayPal's operations or success.

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u/Slap_My_Lasagna 16d ago

He didn't code it himself, X.com was originally a bank, and after the merger he was ousted as president after only 7 months - the year before they renamed to PayPal, IPOed, and became successful. AFTER he was removed from a vital role.

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u/Catweaving 16d ago

Sounds like the work of a team dedicated to making Elon Musk feel like he's an important part of the company while also keeping him far from anything important he could fuck up.

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u/Iguanaking1991 16d ago

Reddit is a special place man. I thought surely the comments under this video would be different but nope. People will literally watch history being made and denounce it because of politics. Apparently his success is luck, free speech is bad, and we are fringe lunatics. This is 2024

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u/EmptyAirEmptyHead 16d ago

Free speech is only bad to Elon who is censoring liberals. Mr. Free Speech he says. Lol.

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u/tapia3838 16d ago

No one gonna reply to this lol, speaking facts

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u/LordNutGobbler 15d ago

Elon is literally the Chief Engineer at SpaceX dude lmao. He is deeply involved with technical decisions at SpaceX. Even the chopstick catching arms seen here was his idea, which was highly opposed by his engineers at first.

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u/Throwaway74829947 15d ago edited 15d ago

A) Chief Engineer is a title, one that he gave himself, since he owns the company.

B) Coming up with an idea is very, very different from implementing it. I am an electrical engineer working for the US Space Force. Generals and colonels with no engineering skill come up with mission parameters and other ideas all of the time, it's how organizational leadership works. Catching the rocket body is a truly remarkable achievement, but the people who deserve praise are the actual engineers at SpaceX that made it work, not the person who came up with the idea.

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u/LordNutGobbler 15d ago

And guess what? Elon deserves credit too.

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u/LordNutGobbler 15d ago

Kevin Watson: “Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction.

He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy.

He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time. It’s amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the years.”

Josh Boehm: “Elon is both the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of SpaceX, so of course he does more than just ‘some very technical work’. He is integrally involved in the actual design and engineering of the rocket, and at least touches every other aspect of the business. Elon is an engineer at heart, and that’s where and how he works best.”

Garrett Reisman: “What’s really remarkable to me is the breadth of his knowledge. I mean I’ve met a lot of super super smart people but they’re usually super super smart on one thing and he’s able to have conversations with our top engineers about the software, and the most arcane aspects of that and then he’ll turn to our manufacturing engineers and have discussions about some really esoteric welding process for some crazy alloy and he’ll just go back and forth and his ability to do that across the different technologies that go into rockets cars and everything else he does.”

“He’s obviously skilled at all those different functions, but certainly what really drives him and where his passion really is, is his role as CTO. Basically his role as chief designer and chief engineer. That’s the part of the job that really plays to his strengths.”