Do you like Spacex and Elon Musk's companies?

[Metalhead7]

i think i like Spacex, it always make me feeling good when i see some news about their progress.

[CasuallySamsonite]

Not really, Elon Musk is a fraud and over-rated in my opinion. I do think that the entire future of humanity does depend on us getting to a point that space travel is common place, and a big part of that will be the development of space based industry. But for the time being, it's not really helpful to develop space travel for the wealthy few, or as some kind of tourism venture... what we need is the ability to launch space based mining and manufacturing capacity and the space based infrastructure to further expand our reach skyward.

[Snsl153]

I agree, he is an overrated fraud, just like that woman who founded 'Theranos', Elizabeth Holmes.

[Valso]

The wealthy few are a necessary evil because without their money no technology can be developed, including the technology for space mining. Like everything new, this too will be owned initially by the wealthy few and then, a decade or two later, everyone will have it. It was the same with electricity when Tesla created the first machine that produces it, it was the same with cars and with computers - at the beginning only the richest people had it, nowadays everyone has it.

[MuddyMole]

He's an opportunist who's just very good at bullshitting/marketing and lobbying governments.
The secret to Tesla's success was never innovation (brushless motors, lithium batteries, etc are all old tech) - it was getting the taxpayer to pay for everything, with government grants to pay for R&D, and government subsidies allowing them to price their cars competitively.
It's the same story with SpaceX, which is mainly funded (to the tune of $3.5 billion) by NASA (ie. the American taxpayer).

Basically, if you're an American, you'd better like his companies, because you're paying them enough, whether you buy one of his cars or not.

[Zeldaismyqueen]

I prefer NASA and the ESA. I have no interest in an evil billionaire sending rich people to space. James Webb telescope is 1000x cooler than capitalist space men.

[monorprise]

NASA and ESA employ Musk's SpaceX to accomplish their objectives, they are not competitors.

James web Telescope on the other hand is a great example of a poorly managed Government project by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center using Northrop Grumman as their prime contractor. A project which started in 1996 with a $500 million dollar budget ended up taking 20+ years and nearly $10 billion dollars.

This is for a telescope that only has fuel to last 20 years at best, so they best start working on the next one.

SpaceX by contrast gets results on a budge and timetable via better business practices.

[jestergent]

Zeldaismyqueen! You have embarked on a journey. You learned you need to test a spacecraft to fly to proxima centari b, 30 times. When you hit 30, you know the craft will be statistically safe enough to send us to the next planet. Our human race can expand.

You learn you can do this faster if you don't have to wait and pay for the fuel. Instead of 2 years, the trip will be 6 months. Someone is asking to make this happen , just send them up, they would love the experience and will pay the fuel. Or you can wait 2 years to save man kind...

Every day you spend your time working hard to get us to proxima centari b. You are fascinated and motivated to see alien life, also.. just to get us off this planet.

You actually spend 1 minute to stare at a post, and the post says you are an evil billionaire sending rich people to space. Your mind quickly darts back to what you were focused on, researching more reusable rocket designs. .. .. .. if I can just figure out how to increase oxygen supply during a 4 year journey... etc.

[Katya98]

Of course, there is a lot of marketing and pr in this, but Elon Musk does everything wonderfully. it literally expands the limits of human capabilities.

[OpenClose]

Honestly, yeah.

Tesla has shown that you can make the "green" car a car people seek out. Any time this happens, it reduces the necessity for top-town policies to make the changes we need. By "need" I mean through top down policies or markets. I prefer the latter when possible, but not afraid of the former when necessary. Got my Model Y back in June.

SpaceX is cool for what they're able to do. Though I guess there's some speculation on how much money catching boosters really saves. It's still groundbreaking stuff. I'm more conflicted about StarLink. People in developing countries or countries with government censorship need unfettered internet access now more than ever, in an age of people clinging to authoritarians and strongmen. But at the same time, I don't like what it's doing for ground astronomy.

Elon is give or take. I basically just see him as Tony Stark, including Tony's biggest flaws. Wish he was more pro-worker and would take a break from Twitter. But as far as super-billlionaires go, he more or less seems to be doing what I would hope someone would when throwing that kind of money around. Make EVs good cars. Reinvigorate space travel. Try to get us to Mars. If more billionaires were futurists I might not mind them so much. That and if they pay their taxes. But at the very least, it's nice to see more of a legit engineer on top. Kind of an Asperger's hero, too, if it's true he has it.

[monorprise]

Musk is one of the greatest innovators of our time.
He has proven things can be done, and solved the key problems being their being done.

I do think he needs to tone down the Politics, even thou I mostly agree with him, business and politics do not mix.

[crossdressingrihno]

SpaceX is either the future or is a stepping stone to the future but either way it's playing a pivotal role in our future so yeah I definitely like SpaceX
Tesla is pretty eco-friendly and so they despite not being my favorite car company I definitely support them
Although my favorite car company is Volkswagen

[Grond21]

I think those who like NASA more or dislike SpaceX have not actually looked into it. They don't know how impressive it is, they don't know how significant it is, nor do they know how utterly inept NASA has become.

[jshm2]

You're wrong, then.

They are not only dangerous and unpredictable in their tech progress. But a rather large tax blackhole the public doesn't need right now.

[andreasderjuengere]

He's a PR stuntman and an opportunist.
HE doesn't have the ideas - it's people who are long dead, or who got hired by him.
His companies... you mean the one's that kicked him out?

[Massageman]

What's not to like - he took calculated risks and had several successes in various areas of business. THAT is how our country will prosper, not by taxing us to death.

[omnivert]

I like them as well as scared of them.

Because these people always try experimenting something and it fails on first time a lot of times.

So I think its a horror

[t-8900]

Not a fan but he did a ore points for his free speech advocacy

[Randy888]

i like all of them. Tesla is starting the transition to electric cars and spaceX starts s[ace stuff.

[CuriousMufuxka]

What progress is what I ask myself when I see another trip to ISS. Underneath that is possibility of a 6 month shuttle to Mars. It's not going to happen!

[jamesgoldman]

Tesla excluding the Lotus-like roadster I could leave, spaceX do nothing for me but PayPal I like

[exitseven]

Yes, it is good to see somebody with vision making a difference in the world.

[Iron_Man]

Too expensive just to go up real high in the air for five minutes if you don’t see dark space to me it’s not space

[MrTaboo]

Yes. It's how space travel will become everyday thing like flying.

[nik4play]

Yes, I love his insight, and his ability to be at the cutting edge.

[crmoore]

Generally speaking, yes.

[kitkills]

I think NASA's more impressive.

[monorprise]

You are confusing the apple for the tree. NASA is a tree, SpaceX is one of their apples. What Musk and SpaceX brings to NASA is a new better managed and more accountable contracting model that gets results.

[kitkills]

I'm talking about the work before Musk came and made it all about rich asshats.

[Jltakk]

They are lesser scams than NASA.

[monorprise]

True, but you should clarify that as NASA/congressionally administrated projects. SpaceX works for NASA, they just contract more accountability and get better results for a far more affordable price.

NASA in short loves SpaceX.

[dudeinohio]

Yes I do