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> there is nothing for us up there
Even if there weren't, just cheap access to launch satellites is enough to make SpaceX a big deal.
It's not how you start, it's how you finish.
> > what Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Google look like in hindsight.
Musk is 50, he's been selling smoke for 30 years. Tesla was incorporated in 2002, they have been selling smoke for 21 years.
He had plenty of time to get his companies to the aforementioned "hindsight" status.
Instead his focus is to dominate in the financial press, the tech press and on twitter, but in real life once you kick the tires and get behind the wheel it's the same old 150 year old autombile ownership experience, only exchaning one pollutant with an other for political and virtue signaling purposes and because the black pollutant is produced by Arabs.
> > Even if there weren't, just cheap access to launch satellites is enough to make SpaceX a big deal.
Always a big deal in "the future", but you sent this message from 5G or fiber I guess. That's exactly what I mean, the perpetual machine of hype convincing people that there is some product or technology in the works in R&D centers of Musk companies that will radically change their lives in "the future". Just look at the top reply in this thread to get an idea.
In the present you are using other companies that might not be as sexy and dominating in the press but get the job done today, the most important timeline there is.
None of the companies listed are delivering anything that is nearly as paradigm changing as you seem to want them to in order to justify dismissing Musks companies either.
> Always a big deal in "the future"
It's a big deal now, and has been for years. The last few months alone, SpaceX has launched more rockets and more satellites than all other launch operators, private or public, combined has for the entire year by a huge factor, and has e.g. launched the heaviest geostationary satellite ever (Jupiter-3), provided crew to the ISS (only one coming even close is China, in terms of number of launches, but not satellites), and launched more payloads than any other private provider (even when you exclude Starlink - though Starlink itself makes up the majority of all payloads launch into space this year), and been the launch provider for the first satellites from multiple countries.
The only way this is remotely financially viable is because of how significantly they've driven down launch costs.
It just gets comical when you try to downplay the scale of this.
I remember the pain in the ass of using a computer without a GUI, I also remember the pain in the ass of having to get to a computer instead of having one in my pocket, I remember the pain in the ass of having to go to a library instead of having the wealth of all human knowledge accessible thanks to a quick search, I remember how you lost track of friends that moved even just 10 miles away because you'd speak much less frequently, oh and I also remember the inconvenience of having to shop for groceries instead of having them delivered.
Quite simply when something removes pain in the ass and improves your life you tend to notice and remember.
Another thing I remember is the car ownership experience in 2002 and the 90s and 80s and 70s and I have been told stories about the car ownership experience in the 60s, 50s, 40s etc. The automobile is a 150 year old invention, the wheel itself is a 5000 year old invention, and yet here you are genuflecting to a guy you claim has brought forward something new. The only innovation is in the realm of milking subsidies, cult of personality, and reinventing the wheel for political purposes exchaning one pollutant for the other because the black pollutant is produced by Arabs.
> > It's a big deal now
For who? For the private jet and yacht owners? 80% of the population lives in urban areas (soon it will be 90%) , they'd be getting their internet with the 5G towers having a 2.5mi radius and fiber just like you are while you are typing this message.
The big rocket going up and landing on its butt is technical porn for the sake of technical porn, just like the Apollo program was, for the sole satisfaction of the same people who claim to be so far intellectually superior to stuff that impresses regular people like Michael Jordan's slam dunks or Patrick Mahomes throws on the run or Lionel Messi filtering passes.
In the end they fell for something even more useless and technical for the sake of technical, sold by a snake oil salesman. Irony.
None of the things you list came first from the companies you listed. Thank you for making my point for me.
> For who? For the private jet and yacht owners? 80% of the population lives in urban areas (soon it will be 90%) , they'd be getting their internet with the 5G towers having a 2.5mi radius and fiber just like you are while you are typing this message.
You can take every single Starlink launch out and SpaceX still has a huge impact as the largest, cheapest launch provider, and the biggest impact will be on things like weather prediction and the like, not private jet and yacht owners. You're revealing a major level of ignorance of what dominates the space industry.
> The big rocket going up and landing on its butt is technical porn for the sake of technical porn, just like the Apollo program was,
It represented a massive drop in launch costs, and you're against demonstrating a staggering level of ignorance.
If those companies have built on the shoulders of giants , then Tesla is an ant atop mount Everest considering that automotive is a 150 year old industry and the wheel is a 5000 year old invention and cult of personality is much older than both.
> > Weather predictions and the likes
Yeah sure weather and the like bro. Let us cook. As always with space enthusiasts people who want to play with rockets and watch technical porn for the sake of technical porn would find all sort of excuses to find fools who’d buy into the hype and finance them playing with expensive toys with no quality of life returns for consumers.
It already happened in the 60s with the Apollo program where the selling point to those who financed it was that somehow it was crucial to beat the Soviets to retrive those precious lunar rocks that contained god knows what secrets.
> > Ignorance
Unlike you, I do know exactly where my quality of life comes from, who signs it off, and who is just talking and making empty promises. You instead seem confused and out of touch on the subject.
How about indigenous people in rural Alaska? Africa? Polynesia? Central Asia?
Look, I realize that Elon Musk has become the designated Emmanuel Goldstein du jour, but let's not be ridiculous.
If anything an higher amount of exterior aestetics satisfaction and a much higher level of satisfaction for the interiors given the interior assembly quality and the beauty of the woods and white cream leather.
And also an higher utility because I can use my car 24/7/365 and I can do a quick 30 seconds splash and go of gas and I am ready to drive coast to coast if necessary.
And if I feel the need to go crazy I can go to the local track and rent a 600HP monster for one hour for some 500$. Push it to its limit in total safety and in an environment that is geared to let the car express all her power and feedback.
And if I feel the need to go even crazier I can go to same track and rent a 200HP bike for 170$ and really push and even overtake the guy in the 600HP Vette.
Think how many laps can I buy for the price of a Tesla.
All the above is stuff that you discover while hanging out in the real world among motorheads. A tight community of motorheads is the best antidote against PR campaigns from corporate overlords, and Musk is the worst offender among them all, but the same is true for all the brands if they were to start employing the same cult-like tactics.
Just ~infinite area and resources and energy and ability to dominate the Earth from a physics standpoint?
The Mars rover and helicopter are much more of a contribution to knowledge than the tremendous expense of sending a human to Mars, and taking them home again. I suspect we will find that's something a human can just barely endure.
Commercialization of space is a scifi fantasy, nevermind "colonization."
This is a ridiculous straw man.
- Sent from rapsey's iPhone.
Which is something you couldn't do back in 2007.
Everything a Tesla does could be done and still can be done by a 2007 car. Sorry if I don't buy into the grandiose vision of substituting one pollutant with an other because the black pollutant is produced by Arabs.
Sending it from an iPhone, no. Sending it from a smartphone, yes. Palm VII could access the web, with limitations, in '99. Expansions were available for earlier devices.
That same year I worked on a iPad-like tablet (we were not first, nor did we have any illusions that we were) with a built-in phone.
Treo 90 (2002) provided a Palm OS PDA with a phone (but also a keyboard).
There were many other similar devices around then.
There was a whole multi-year fad of touch-focused smart devices that rose and died again because the hardware wasn't consumer-ready years before the iPhone.
Anyone around then with an interest in tech will have been aware of a wide range of app-capable devices that frankly made the first iPhones rather underwhelming to most power users.
The genius of the iPhone was to time the release right at a point where the available hardware was good enough to attract regular consumers, not in inventing something particularly new. That doesn't diminish what Apple did, but this idea that what they did was something revolutionary that wouldn't have happened in some variant without them is bizarre.
My bad, Tesla is revolutionary instead, 150 year old automotive industry, 5000 year old history of the wheel.
Literally reinventing the wheel for political purpose. A true revolution in the history of virtue signaling and subsidies milking /s
Then I became a 1% at the country level.
My first Pc was a Dell with pirated XP
My first smartphone was an iPhone
My first social media was Facebook
My first online purchase delivered at home was Amazon.
My first car was my dad 2000 BMW.
After all the talk I have stepped and driven a Tesla, it’s the same experience of back in the BMW, and the same experience my dad had the first time he drove a car back in the 70s.
The hype is not warrented by the underlying product whereas the other stuff I mentioned produced a big leap in the quality of life of the majority of the population, even though they were not the first of their kind and you fancy 0.1%ers had access to the very early iterations in the form of products made by companies that have now ceased to exist.
Musk is just good at playing the game. And as they say, don't hate the player. Hate the game.
No one put you in charge of speaking for "us".
Me, I enjoy having worldwide communications, accurate weather forecasts, crop information, and all manner of other remote sensing.