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Musk endeavours

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ReformedCharacter
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Re: Musk endeavours

#137362

Postby ReformedCharacter » May 7th, 2018, 1:13 pm

There's an informative article in The Independent today describing concerns about crew safety when SpaceX transports humans into space. The issue is whether it is safe to fuel the 'stack' when astronauts are already aboard the vehicle, 'load and go', instead of the established order of fuel first then load the astronauts.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-styl ... 39061.html

Rocketry aside, it does perhaps illustrate Musk's attitude towards risk which will influence his other businesses, also.

With regard to Tesla, I'm not sure if 'innovators' always win the day. Ironically perhaps, Nikola Tesla an undoubted innovator and genius did rather less well than the established competition (Edison) who profited greatly from Tesla's innovations. I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar thing happen in the automotive industry with the long established companies being the ultimate beneficiaries in the push for electric vehicles.

RC

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Re: Musk endeavours

#137368

Postby odysseus2000 » May 7th, 2018, 1:58 pm

REFOtmedCharacter

There's an informative article in The Independent today describing concerns about crew safety when SpaceX transports humans into space. The issue is whether it is safe to fuel the 'stack' when astronauts are already aboard the vehicle, 'load and go', instead of the established order of fuel first then load the astronauts.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-styl ... 39061.html

Rocketry aside, it does perhaps illustrate Musk's attitude towards risk which will influence his other businesses, also.

With regard to Tesla, I'm not sure if 'innovators' always win the day. Ironically perhaps, Nikola Tesla an undoubted innovator and genius did rather less well than the established competition (Edison) who profited greatly from Tesla's innovations. I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar thing happen in the automotive industry with the long established companies being the ultimate beneficiaries in the push for electric vehicles.


It is interesting how risk is considered. The whole business of space flight is full of risk for the astronaughts. There are very many things that could go wrong & kill them. Whether load & go is a big enough risk to stop the program I don't know. Did they ever figure out what went wrong in the SoaceX launch pad explosion? Dunno above my paygrade to comment further.

Yes, innovators like Tesla have died poor in the past. The relevant question now is whether things have changed enough to make this less likely?

We now have much faster product cycles, over the air software adjustments & a whole host of other stuff that didn't exist before.

History teaches that if one applies old ideas & techniques against new ideas & new techniques one tends to lose. On paper the Iraq army was formidable, in practice it was easily defeated.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#137373

Postby ReformedCharacter » May 7th, 2018, 3:02 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:
Did they ever figure out what went wrong in the SoaceX launch pad explosion? Dunno above my paygrade to comment further.


Yes they did and the report on the cause was informative about how the company viewed risk.

The rocket propellants are pressurised (so that they may be expelled and burnt) by tanks similar in size to those worn by divers. These tanks are themselves contained within the propellant tanks and subject to various thermal stresses as the propellant is loaded. The pressurising tanks are over-wrapped with carbon fibre to allow them to be made lighter. The main cause of the explosion was a reaction between the carbon fibre over-wrap and the propellant due to the tank buckling as a result of the thermal stresses. The thing is, it was a known issue, which they chose to accept. The tanks did not behave as they were designed. Richard Feynman wrote about this acceptance of deviation from design in his report on the Challenger disaster.

So, it turns out that SpaceX chose to use a design that they knew was flawed, accepting the risk...

RC

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Re: Musk endeavours

#137911

Postby dspp » May 9th, 2018, 8:39 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:He also commented on moats, arguing that in the 21st century it is all about innovation, citing that it was obvious that the innovative Amazon would crush non-innovative Walmart.


Whatever I think about Walmart, or about Musk, the above comment by Musk is a category error. Walmart has been an innovator for a very long time, just in a very unflashy way in a very unflashy sector.

regards, dspp

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Re: Musk endeavours

#137923

Postby odysseus2000 » May 9th, 2018, 9:13 pm

dspp
Whatever I think about Walmart, or about Musk, the above comment by Musk is a category error. Walmart has been an innovator for a very long time, just in a very unflashy way in a very unflashy sector.


Yes, but Wmt stock over the last 3 years as gone from circa $70 to $83

Amzn over the same period has gone from circa $414 to $1607.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#138452

Postby BobbyD » May 11th, 2018, 11:11 pm

dspp wrote:
odysseus2000 wrote:He also commented on moats, arguing that in the 21st century it is all about innovation, citing that it was obvious that the innovative Amazon would crush non-innovative Walmart.


Whatever I think about Walmart, or about Musk, the above comment by Musk is a category error. Walmart has been an innovator for a very long time, just in a very unflashy way in a very unflashy sector.

regards, dspp


Genuine question. Are Walmart still innovative?

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Re: Musk endeavours

#138490

Postby GoSeigen » May 12th, 2018, 9:20 am

dspp wrote:
odysseus2000 wrote:He also commented on moats, arguing that in the 21st century it is all about innovation, citing that it was obvious that the innovative Amazon would crush non-innovative Walmart.


Whatever I think about Walmart, or about Musk, the above comment by Musk is a category error. Walmart has been an innovator for a very long time, just in a very unflashy way in a very unflashy sector.

regards, dspp


[OT]I'm guessing you mean that Musk's apparent definition of innovation is faulty as he fails to recognise some things that Walmart does as innovative when in fact they are. It is therefore a fallacy of definition (excessively narrow) rather than a category error.


GS

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Re: Musk endeavours

#138511

Postby dspp » May 12th, 2018, 11:49 am

Walmart's very strategic approach to company culture, pricing, positioning, marketing, product-selection, logistics in a well-thought-through and integrated way were extremely innovative at the time and continued incessantly. That is why Walmart has been so successful over many decades. It was not just a one-off thing, it continued for a very long time. That is why I consider it to be a category error to deride Walmart as having not been an innovator. Innovation is not just about the nature of the product, it is also about everything that lies behind it - especially when innovation is truly innovative. Of all people I would have expected Musk to get this if he had just thought for 5-secs longer on this occasion.

Whether Walmart is still an innovator is a valid discussion. I do not know - I have not looked at Walmart as a business for some time; no longer live in the USA; and don't visit that often these days, and so am not exposed to it (I appreciate that Walmart are also outside USA but the core is still USA). Walmart may still be innovating, or it may not, I simply do not know - does anyone else have a view ?

However what I can say is that the biggest long term threat & competitor to Walmart is Amazon (or its ilk), which has in essence taken Walmart's model and dematerialised the stores thereby stripping out the related costs, and hence driving down prices / up variety / and so becoming a category killer by virtue of scale and cross-subsidy in every market it chooses to enter. That is supply & delivery chain innovation, courtesy of that bigger disruptive innovation called the internet. Imitation is the sincerest form of innovation. The irony of course is that Bezos is behind Amazon, and is a competitor to Musk, i.e. Blue Origin vs Space X.

Good luck to them both.

regards, dspp

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Re: Musk endeavours

#138749

Postby ReformedCharacter » May 13th, 2018, 11:15 am

An article in the Independent about the Hyperloop makes interesting reading:

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-styl ... 12896.html

But there are naysayers and I find them persuasive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk&t=253s

Loopy or not?

RC

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Re: Musk endeavours

#138955

Postby Meatyfool » May 14th, 2018, 11:26 am

Buried in the company FAQ, Hyperloop's less publicity hungry sibling ... Loop. Dull name for what will probably be the most likely new mode of transport to appear - even 99% of a vacuum is going to be expensive to achieve.

https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/

Meatyfool..

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Re: Musk endeavours

#139452

Postby JamesMuenchen » May 16th, 2018, 8:55 pm

https://www.rt.com/news/426744-tesla-swiss-crash-fire/
A 48-year-German driver died on Thursday when his car hit a barrier on a motorway in the canton of Ticino, southern Switzerland. The car burst into flames and was attended to by Bellinzona firefighters, who say the blaze may have been caused by the Tesla battery.
....
The crash is one of several Tesla accidents currently under investigation. On Friday a Tesla Model S crashed into the back of a firetruck in South Jordan, Utah. Although the Model S can be driven autonomously, it remains unclear whether the car's autopilot feature was turned on at the time of the crash.
....
Last week a Model S crashed into a concrete wall and caught fire in Florida, killing two teenagers.
....
Meanwhile, a fatal crash in California, which happened when a Model X was on autopilot mode, is still under investigation.


I wonder when Tesla accidents will be mainstream enough that they stop reporting them.

Does seem to be something funny about battery technology though, nearly every day my Twitter-feed gets a clip of someone's E-cig exploding.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#141079

Postby ReformedCharacter » May 24th, 2018, 7:50 pm

ReformedCharacter wrote:
odysseus2000 wrote:
Did they ever figure out what went wrong in the SoaceX launch pad explosion? Dunno above my paygrade to comment further.


Yes they did and the report on the cause was informative about how the company viewed risk.

The rocket propellants are pressurised (so that they may be expelled and burnt) by tanks similar in size to those worn by divers. These tanks are themselves contained within the propellant tanks and subject to various thermal stresses as the propellant is loaded. The pressurising tanks are over-wrapped with carbon fibre to allow them to be made lighter. The main cause of the explosion was a reaction between the carbon fibre over-wrap and the propellant due to the tank buckling as a result of the thermal stresses. The thing is, it was a known issue, which they chose to accept. The tanks did not behave as they were designed. Richard Feynman wrote about this acceptance of deviation from design in his report on the Challenger disaster.

So, it turns out that SpaceX chose to use a design that they knew was flawed, accepting the risk...

RC


There's a very informative article\Musk interview here which addresses this issue, there's a link to a PDF on the page with a full transcript. Recommended, if you're interested in his rocket business.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/11/full-el ... ock-5.html

RC

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Re: Musk endeavours

#141163

Postby odysseus2000 » May 25th, 2018, 9:13 am



There's a very informative article\Musk interview here which addresses this issue, there's a link to a PDF on the page with a full transcript. Recommended, if you're interested in his rocket business.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/11/full-el ... ock-5.html

RC


Great article, thanks for posting.

It is interesting how there are so many slants on business & how effective sales & marketing are at putting an idea that stays long term in minds.

One slant re SpaceX is that they have cut lots of corners, have developed too rapidly & are never going to be as good & trust worthy as Boeing or one of the other US rocket makers. Then you read this & one gets a totally different picture. Which one is right?

In my view one has to look at results & so far what SpaceX have done & the regulatory hurdles they have jumped to get qualified for human flight is impressive as is there idea of moving the commercial aviation industry practices into rocketry with only the fuel being consumed, the rocket being re-useable the same day. All the things necessary for serious exploration & commercialisation of space.

One can also compare the slants of many car reviews to the reality. German makers are often considered the best, but having taken a Mercedes to bits I was not impressed with the engineering at all. Mercedes have leading margins in car making & seeing how they engineer things to the minimum yet charge the highest prices told me how they are a sales & marketing business first & foremost.

In terms of safety the crash tests that showed how much stronger is a model 3 is than a similar Volvo, often thought as leading in safety, was eye opening to how even Volvo have not done as good a job.

Human nature likes to pull the good down & one is seeing how this tendency is being fed by the media. Musk's idea to track reporters based on their articles has imho a lot of merit. Most of the media will cause anyone reading, watching to make poor decisions which is the main reason I gave up the TV & do not read newspapers other than glance at front pages at the supermarket.

Regards,

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Re: Musk endeavours

#141258

Postby odysseus2000 » May 25th, 2018, 2:08 pm

Interesting short little video where Musk says one could power all of China by solar:

https://youtu.be/n18_5jtSj5U

Of course he is selling solar, but with storage it looks very possible to me & the cheapest option too plus various other green advantages in doing it.

Looking at the cost of renewables, expected life, needed storage etc, plus the likely electric car economy that could use DC solar, the case for fossil or nuclear power looks very lame.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#141384

Postby odysseus2000 » May 26th, 2018, 12:08 am

Tesla model 3 review by TopGear:

https://youtu.be/1GrNv3ow9H8

Intereresting & informative!

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Re: Musk endeavours

#141398

Postby odysseus2000 » May 26th, 2018, 6:49 am

MOre analysis of the uber car fatal accident:

https://youtu.be/DbT2aBlC0no

Kind of mind blowing, how, according to this account, Uber are testing a car that they have deliberately made less safe than the factory original.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#141464

Postby ReformedCharacter » May 26th, 2018, 11:52 am

odysseus2000 wrote:Interesting short little video where Musk says one could power all of China by solar:

https://youtu.be/n18_5jtSj5U

Of course he is selling solar, but with storage it looks very possible to me & the cheapest option too plus various other green advantages in doing it.

Looking at the cost of renewables, expected life, needed storage etc, plus the likely electric car economy that could use DC solar, the case for fossil or nuclear power looks very lame.

Regards,


I'm not good at maths but decided to have a go to see if his figures look credible. I'll say that again, I'm not good at maths. So if anyone is inclined to point out any basic errors in my calculations I'd be grateful. The figures I have used are rough and ready and rounded to make it easier for me:

I Ha of solar panels = 1,500,000 kWh per year (actually this was calculated for India not China)

China consumes 6000TWh power per year, therefore it would require

6,000,000,000,000,000 / 1,500,000 (4,000,000,000) Ha to produce all of China's power requirements.

That is 40,000,000 km2. China's total land area is c.10,000,000 km2. So it looks to me that if all of China's land were given over to solar panels, it would generate only a quarter of the country's present power requirements. OK solar panel efficiency will improve but so far it takes a long time (decades) to make relatively small incremental improvements. Please correct my maths!

RC

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Re: Musk endeavours

#141496

Postby odysseus2000 » May 26th, 2018, 2:17 pm

Hi RC,

Here is my calculation, which could be wrong, so please correct me if you find errors. I have used en to indicate a power of 10**n

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... es_by_area
Land area of China is

9.3e6 sq km, = 9.3e6 x e6 sq m = 9.3e8 ha (1 ha =10e4 square meters)

Let's assume solar input is 1 kw/square meter, panels are 20% efficient & produce for 8 hrs, so the approx total per Ha per year is:

1e4x1x0.2x8x365 kWh per year

=5.84e6 = 5.84e3 MWh

China total power consumption

https://www.worlddata.info/asia/china/e ... mption.php

5.9e9 MW hr

Number of Ha needed is
5.9e9/5.84e3
~e6

About e6/9.3e8 ~ 0.1% of the available area.

We disagree on the available output power, where as I have 5.84 MWh per year, per Ha, you have1,500 MWh per year per Ha.

We agree on China total power consumption more or less, I have 5.9e9 MWhr, you have 6e9MWhr, but I think your required land calculation should be with the denominator in watts to match the numerator also in watts:

6e15/1500000000 = 4e6 Ha which would agree with mine, but as you have the power output at 1500/5.84 = 300 bigger than mine that doesn’t make sense, so I am confused and I must be doing something silly, but must get on with another outside job before rains come, I will check back later.

Regards,

dspp
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Re: Musk endeavours

#141502

Postby dspp » May 26th, 2018, 2:40 pm

ReformedCharacter wrote:Please correct my maths!

RC


I think your maths are wrong.

Using my panels which are Panasonic 330W, and my yields which are 2880kWh/yr from 12 panels I get 175 kWh/yr/m2 of panel. That is in Dorset.

That translates to 1.75 GWh/yr per hectare, or 0.18 TWh/yr per km2.

That implies that 3,425 km2 of panel would yield 600 TWh/yr that you say China consumes.

But my calculation is that China consumes 5,356 TWh/yr as it is 3,927 kWh/yr/per capita x 1.364 billion people. This is electrical consumption, there is of course also thermal consumption for heat and vehicles etc. However 3,927 kWh/yr would be a reasonable number for total elec per capita.

That in turn suggests 30,576 km2 of panels. The land use number would be higher as that is panel area, not land area, so say 60,000 km2 of land.

Since China has 9.5 million km2 this can easily be done. It is just 0.6% of land area.

Similar sums show that pretty much any country can do it. So does practical experience - Portugal went all winter with zero coal use in the last winter.

regards, dspp

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Re: Musk endeavours

#141515

Postby GoSeigen » May 26th, 2018, 3:32 pm

dspp wrote:Since China has 9.5 million km2 this can easily be done. It is just 0.6% of land area.

Similar sums show that pretty much any country can do it. So does practical experience - Portugal went all winter with zero coal use in the last winter.

regards, dspp


Why China? The problem energy consumers are in the USA; how does 100% solar look for them and what if you include conversion to solar from fossil fuel for heating and vehicle use (since the claim is that fossil fuels can be rendered obsolete)? I could do this calculation but as you've already had a go would you mind repeating for the US? Thx, GS.


GS


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