Exclusive Robert Zubrin Interview Part 3: Will Elon Musk lead us into the future?

1 posted on 04/27/2020 1:25:03 PM PDT by amorphous

Musk lives off taxpayers and is a carnival barker.

Tesla is a failure and he did not deliver one ventilator....but got lots of press for saying he would build them.

2 posted on 04/27/2020 1:36:28 PM PDT by Erik Latranyi (The Democratic Party is communism)

Zubrin is a rabid Never Trumper who compared him to Hitler numerous time.

3 posted on 04/27/2020 1:49:35 PM PDT by Kozak (DIVERSITY+PROXIMITY=CONFLICT)

Dr. Robert Zubrin is president of The Mars Society.

4 posted on 04/27/2020 1:52:19 PM PDT by amorphous

Thanks for triggering the poor souls with Musk Derangement Syndrome.

5 posted on 04/27/2020 1:53:55 PM PDT by Moonman62 (http://www.freerepublic.com/~moonman62/)

6 posted on 04/27/2020 2:00:14 PM PDT by amorphous

A static test firing of Starship SN 4 is scheduled for Wednesday, iirc. It passed the cryo pressurization test.

7 posted on 04/27/2020 2:08:50 PM PDT by amorphous

To: Erik Latranyi

Musk, like most entrepreneurs, is full of energy and ideas but a hit or miss proposition as to implementation, followup, and whether hot ideas actually become viable, profit-making businesses over the long term.

Musk's Space-X is a genuine and formidable success that reinvigorated the US launch industry with cheap access to orbit based on reusable launchers. This has set competing Russian, Chinese, and European launch businesses back on their heels. Largely because of Space-X and Musk, the US is again leading the world in providing access to space.

Yes, Musk received subsidies for doing that, but they were competitively awarded by the US government to accomplish national objectives. In the early phase of development, for sake of national and industrial development, the US government also subsidized travel by steam, rail, auto, and aircraft.

The federal subsidy for carrying airmail was essential to airline survival for many decades. As Eddie Rickenbacker's autobiography revealed, during the Depression Eastern Airlines would send packages of rocks and scrap metal by air so as to keep the business going based on the federal airmail subsidy.

Notably, the federal government began subsidizing newcomers to the launch business like Musk's Space-X because the established aerospace giants like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin were milking the taxpayers while failing to develop cheap reusable launchers as promised. In the long term, subsidizing Musk was a better deal for the taxpayers than getting robbed forever by the cozy LockMart-Boeing duopoly.

As for Musk's Tesla auto and his hyperloop projects, both remain works in progress. There is no doubt that electric autos will one day be a fully viable and cost-effective form of travel, but it is not clear that Tesla will be one of the survivors in the business. As for Tesla's visionary hyperloop concept, there are major technical and practical obstacles, but the concept continues to draw independent interest from experts and entrepreneurs.

8 posted on 04/27/2020 2:29:45 PM PDT by Rockingham

I see it as you do. I don’t instinctively “like” Elon Musk as a person, but he swims against the tide of conventional wisdom and thought and dreams big. I respect that. My personal feelings about him, his politics, and some of his peculiar statements are irrelevant and beyond the care of him, you, or anyone else for that matter.

Some of his ideas seem feasible and some do not, but at least he has ideas and that is how great things for humanity are started. If he makes money on it great for him! If he loses money on them I hope it’s not from taxpayers.

P.S. - I think the Hyperloop idea is pretty cool. Will it work or be economically feasible? Who knows, but the science is pretty fascinating to me as are the possibilities.

9 posted on 04/27/2020 2:37:32 PM PDT by volunbeer (Find the truth and accept it - anything else is delusional)

To: Erik Latranyi

“Tesla is a failure ...”

I am certainly not a Musk fanboy, but Tesla is technologically far ahead of every other US assembled EV in the market. Whether he can make money on it is another matter but, then again, it is not clear that Ford or GM can make money on EVs either.

10 posted on 04/27/2020 3:03:39 PM PDT by riverdawg

A longtime space enthusiast, Musk recognized that the cost of raw materials was a minor component of building a rocket, so vertical integration and modular engineering could reduce costs dramatically. And in founding SpaceX, Musk recruited experienced rocket engineers and picked up on other ways to reduce costs and make rockets reusable.

Any of ten thousand other innovators could have done what Musk did. Yet it was Musk who did it. So also with the Hyperloop and Musk's tunnel boring efforts, which remain works in progress. I too do not endorse Musk in other respects, but I wish him and his projects all possible success.

11 posted on 04/27/2020 3:34:35 PM PDT by Rockingham

To: Erik Latranyi

12 posted on 04/27/2020 4:34:30 PM PDT by mowowie ( day)

In some ways Elon Musk is reminiscent of Howard Hughes of the 1920’s —1930’s.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-learned-rocket-science-for-spacex-2014-10

13 posted on 04/27/2020 8:05:45 PM PDT by Ozark Tom

Yes he is... Likewise, a genius @ engineering...

14 posted on 04/27/2020 9:17:44 PM PDT by amorphous

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