Starbase Tour with Elon Musk [PART 1 // Summer 2021]

This short video clip quickly makes evident why SpaceX has become so dominant, now sending more than 90% of all global cargo to orbit every year. In short: Musk is operating from first principles, questioning everything from the ground up, willing to try things that others are unwilling to consider or have not even thought of before -- there are no sacred cows. The result is that SpaceX is leaving conventionally run competitors saddled with increasingly outdated, higher cost, less scalable systems and processes. Whenever I watch interviews of other CEOs of other space exploration companies (Boeing, Northrop Grumman, United Launch Allience, etc.) or CEOs of other satellite internet service providers (Viasat, Eutelsat OneWeb, Hughesnet, etc.), I come away with the sense they're so far behind they are not even properly competing against SpaceX. --- PS. If you enjoyed this video clip, you'll also want to watch Musk's tour of Starbase: ▶ this video link

If you don't mind a little Musk propaganda, I enjoyed these two videos [0] [1] from Everyday Astronaut where he toured the SpaceX factory and launch site ("Starbase") with Musk. My favorite quote was about the most common trap that engineers fall into, which is to waste time optimizing something that shouldn't exist in the first place. I'm sure that's not an original Muskism, but it stuck with me nonetheless. [0] ▶ this video [1] link

Maybe I'm a particularly dull engineer, but I've taken several aspects of personal advice from what he has said in interviews (the especially technical ones, not the ones aimed at a mass audience where he repeats his standard canned speech) and found them useful for myself personally. Here's two examples I've found particularly insightful that shows he has some ability to talk about engineering details. This example where he talks about the choice of steel for Starship as opposed to any other metal, something that would be an otherwise unsual choice: link This example that I've personally incorporated into my own thinking where he talks about his "five step process" for engineering design refinement (watch at least until he starts talking about Tesla Model 3 battery stuff): ▶ this video

If I had to choose between network television and YouTube, I would choose YouTube every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I mean, I enjoy Seinfeld too, but on the whole YouTube is both more entertaining and vastly more useful and educational than network television. Not because the content has the highest production values, but because the content matches my interests and needs. That's the true power of targeted advertising. It allows creators to focus on niches that can't be served by content produced for a mass audience. Even large 'niches' get dumbed down to the lowest common denominator for network television. Case in point: Here's Jay Leno interviewing Elon Musk about SpaceX Starship for network television [1] vs YouTuber Tim Dodd [2]. Leno's program is fine for people who don't follow space. For my niche Dodd is vastly better, but he can't draw a wide enough audience to make money on non-targeted ads like Leno can. And the thing is, everyone has their niches. There is no large population of people out there who are average in every way and need the network television version of everything. The average person doesn't exist. [1] Leno: link [2] Dodd: ▶ this video

Watch this walk around Starbase with Elon and Tim Dodd, and you'll get a pretty good sense that he has an engineering brain that really understands the complexities of design, build and execute more than anything. ▶ this video

> This is objectively false. I commend the response by user panick21 and would add that you can watch Elon Musk demonstrate his acumen in this three part interview on Everyday Astronaut. You can't fake this kind of breadth and depth of knowledge. ▶ this video

Everyday Astronaut's walk and talk with Elon Musk where he attempts to explain his management process, starts at 13:30 of part 1: ▶ this video Here's a rough summary: 1. Make requirements less dumb. 2. Delete part or process steps. If you're not occasionally adding things back (he says 10%) (ideally in improved versions), you're not removing things often enough. 3. Simplify, optimize, solve. Everyone's trained to jump to this because the educational process requires you to answer a question as posed, when often the question is dumb and shouldn't be dealt with as-stated. 4. Accelerate process 5. Automate Those tend to blur together at the edges. I'm sure if he formalized this and wrote it down for mass consumption it'd be presented differently, but it's his current mental model. Process testing - remove unnecessary in-process testing after production line debugging is done. Obviously there are nuances, he's not saying to do no in-process testing, but rather to remove testing which was intended to reveal information once that's already been collected and addressed. He cautions about false positives from in-process testing, and notes most testing can be done end of line with acceptable results. Finally, it's important to understand the context. The part about part/step deletion in particular, when things get added back 10% of the time, is not appropriate for all development processes. That would have to be adjusted a the specific product and market objective.

The recent interview of Elon by Tim Dodd is probably more informative and interesting this this could ever be. ▶ this video

I can see this as being a real story. I just finished watching this really very interesting interview with Elon as he walks around the spacex stuff ▶ this video He got vocally and visibly annoyed with the beeping noises that the machines were making. It was a useless cacophony of beeps and you could just see in his head he was thinking "How the hell do I make this better and quieter"

This series is said to eventually have three parts. Part one [0] and two (this submission) were filmed at the production site "Starbase" (Boca Chica village, Texas). The third and last part is going to be at the launch site, a few kilometers/miles further to the east, right next to the beach. Part three has not been released yet. Tim Dodd usually makes a good interview partner for Elon Musk because he is more knowledgable about rockets than most reporters and can ask way more interesting questions than they could. If you haven't seen the first part yet, I would recommend to start with it [0] instead of jumping right into this one. [0] Part 1: ▶ this video (53 minutes long!)

Here's a great complimentary nugget of wisdom Elon Musk shared on the tour he gave of Starbase recently that intersects with a closely related concept. 17:29 Possibly the most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize the thing that should not exist. And say, well, why would you do that? Well, everyone has been trained in high school and college that you gotta answer the question, convergent logic. So you can't tell a professor, "your question is dumb", or you will get a bad grade. You have to answer the question. So everyone is basically, without knowing it, they got like mental straight jacket on that is they'll work on optimizing the thing that should simply not exist. ▶ this video

>You're being repeatedly downvoted throughout this thread FYI, there's more upvotes than downvotes in total. The most noted visible one was at ~5 then magically dropped to -1. Even though it obviously has merit and hosts a lot of conversation below it, which makes the downvotes a bit suspect. >narrow reading of peoples comments. This seems like that KGB tactic of turning one's argument on its head. What is actually happening is I'm putting way more effort to answering to ill-informed comments because I just don't like watching obvious lies, even if comforting to some, on the web. This is more draining than giving I can say ... >The actual comment you originally replied t.... -Nnope. You picked the subheading right after the main lie: "Musk doesn't build any of that, he's just a source of cash, like a bank crossed with a toddler." >From your own links etc etc It takes trying to read what you've read negatively. For a more illuminating view, there's actually a part that partially answers this in the provided video: ▶ this video (timestamped link). It's his own stake. You're claiming it's 100% confirmation bias that Elon is given any credit. Let me _try_ to present another take: People remember conflict way better than success. So if it hurts them 20% of the time but succeeds 80% of the time, people WILL remember when it bit them in the ass. Because in that specific instance, everyone was against Elon, and it failed. But in the long the general practice has worked wonders. And obviou