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Musk endeavours

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odysseus2000
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Re: Musk endeavours

#67821

Postby odysseus2000 » July 17th, 2017, 9:51 am

If you could collect all the energy from all the sun light falling on the earth, how long would you have to collect the light to power the earth for a year?

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheEconomist ... 20/video/1

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kiloran
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Re: Musk endeavours

#67927

Postby kiloran » July 17th, 2017, 4:09 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:If you could collect all the energy from all the sun light falling on the earth, how long would you have to collect the light to power the earth for a year?

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheEconomist ... 20/video/1

Regards,

You would need a pretty big battery (maybe two!) to store all that energy ;)

--kiloran

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Re: Musk endeavours

#67940

Postby odysseus2000 » July 17th, 2017, 4:44 pm

kiloran
You would need a pretty big battery (maybe two!) to store all that energy


Yes, but the video illustrates just how much potential energy there is to be harvested & how little most of the participants understood. I susoect if you could ask most if the population you would get similar answers. The potential of solar energy is not understood by most people.

I suspect that within a few decades barring a major war most of humanity will gets its power from the sun & the young people reading history books will be amazed at how folk once burned oil, coal, wood, molecules & atomic nuclei.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#67943

Postby kiloran » July 17th, 2017, 4:55 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:
kiloran
You would need a pretty big battery (maybe two!) to store all that energy


Yes, but the video illustrates just how much potential energy there is to be harvested & how little most of the participants understood. I susoect if you could ask most if the population you would get similar answers. The potential of solar energy is not understood by most people.

I suspect that within a few decades barring a major war most of humanity will gets its power from the sun & the young people reading history books will be amazed at how folk once burned oil, coal, wood, molecules & atomic nuclei.

Regards,

I think you missed the ;)

--kiloran :D :D :D

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Re: Musk endeavours

#68503

Postby odysseus2000 » July 19th, 2017, 10:13 pm

Fascinating Musk interview, just part of a longer session, but interesting in its own right:

https://youtu.be/wxZIuJVQPL0

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Re: Musk endeavours

#68774

Postby odysseus2000 » July 21st, 2017, 10:27 am

Tesla financing, how much will a model s cost with Tesla financing:

https://youtu.be/fN26pKRGymc

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Re: Musk endeavours

#68792

Postby ReformedCharacter » July 21st, 2017, 11:43 am

An interesting but not very flattering look at the Hyperloop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk

RC

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Re: Musk endeavours

#68818

Postby ReformedCharacter » July 21st, 2017, 12:58 pm

Snorvey wrote:I think that's why he wants to bore holes everywhere - a hyperloop 30 feet under the ground isn't scary at all (mind you, I'm people had as many concerns about air travel back in the day)

About the only safety differences I can think of is that it would be harder for someone to shoot holes in it and it would reduce heating with concomitant expansion\contraction problems. Putting it all underground would seriously increase the cost probably destroying the already dubious economic advantage and presumably preventing the (implausible) solar powering of the motors.

I'm a bit doubtful about the safety of his rocketry too, but that's another matter.

RC

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Re: Musk endeavours

#68899

Postby odysseus2000 » July 21st, 2017, 7:55 pm

Interesting snap shot of the auto industry, setting out some of the huge changes taking place, although little if any about India:

http://www.investors.com/research/indus ... ent=social

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Re: Musk endeavours

#69545

Postby odysseus2000 » July 25th, 2017, 9:29 pm

Times they tried to break Musk, an interesting & short video about the forces ranged against him:

https://youtu.be/HxCH_lxQ4Nk

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Re: Musk endeavours

#70569

Postby odysseus2000 » July 29th, 2017, 6:20 pm

This is a condensed (circa 5 minute) version of the launch of the Tesla model 3, the most important car Tesla have made.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=you ... uK6BIVzcxU

If Tesla can make this car in volume it has the potential to do for them what the model T did for Henry Ford.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#84672

Postby dspp » September 30th, 2017, 10:14 am

The Musk Space X talk - here we go to Mars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdUX3ypDVwI
enjoy !
dspp

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Re: Musk endeavours

#84831

Postby odysseus2000 » September 30th, 2017, 11:01 pm

Actually I wonder if the FBR and the potential of fast Earth travel might not be more important in the short term.

If FBR works and is safe enough and costs about the same as a scheduled air fare would it not be a huge problem for both Airbus and Boeing?

Similarly if FBR does work would not a vacation on Moon Base Alpha not also be a huge money spinner?

Meanwhile the payload and size capability and cost make the FBR if it works likely the only game in town for satellite launches which is a hugely profitable business for both civil and military satellites and the long discussed asteroid mining ventures.

Currently SpaceX is private but given all these potential money making possibilities if Musk again gets into a tight financial spot would he float SpaceX like he did with Tesla?

There seem to be a lot of potential investment opportunities making FBR a pivot point of serious significance. Of course FBR may not work, but if it does...

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Re: Musk endeavours

#84843

Postby Itsallaguess » October 1st, 2017, 5:05 am

odysseus2000 wrote:
If FBR works and is safe enough and costs about the same as a scheduled air fare would it not be a huge problem for both Airbus and Boeing?


Is there a reason why Musk would be allowed to control the BFR marketplace all on his own, with no further entrants, if it were shown to be successful?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: Musk endeavours

#84856

Postby PeterGray » October 1st, 2017, 9:18 am

Is there a reason why Musk would be allowed to control the BFR marketplace all on his own, with no further entrants, if it were shown to be successful?

Quite, I'm sure companies like Boeing and Airbus are watching very closely - just as big car manufacturers are watching Tesla closely.

If they think there is anything viable about fast rocket based Earth travel they will be all over it, with scale, experience and reputation that Musk is unlikely to be able to match.

Peter

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Re: Musk endeavours

#84941

Postby dspp » October 1st, 2017, 4:07 pm

I would expect that the Chinese would be the fastest followers if Musk gets this running.

regards, dspp

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Re: Musk endeavours

#84953

Postby ReformedCharacter » October 1st, 2017, 5:15 pm

I've been waiting with anticipation to see the first Falcon Heavy launch. That has 27 Falcon engines and reminds me of the joke by Werner von Braun who described an early first stage multi-engine rocket test as 'Cluster's Last Stand'. The BFR is planned to have 31 Raptor engines. I wonder how often they'll be able to get them launched at the first attempt, given the greatly increased chance of 'off nominal readings' during launch preparation.

I hope SpaceX do better than the Soviets did with their 30 engine first stage rocket, the N1 which was abandoned after 4 failed launches and some quite big explosions.

RC

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Re: Musk endeavours

#85025

Postby odysseus2000 » October 2nd, 2017, 1:28 am

Yes, but all the comments about competitors ignores the lessons from history, which is that incumbents often fall to newbies.

One can cite many 'invincible" corporations: IBM losing to Microsoft, Kodak losing to digital,...

Sure Boeing et al could compete with SpaceX, but why have they let SpaceX build such a big league? Because like all incumbents they are coining it with what they have and don't want to take risks. I worked as a project manager for a Nasa collaboration experiment and got to learn all manner of things about Boeing and how the US system works. With that knowledge I can easily see how SpaceX have got so far ahead and that if they can get the BFR working that they could eat the lunch of Boeing and Airbus.

Sure the BFR could fail like the Russian N1, but lets not forget that the N1 was begun in the 1950's and since then huge changes in microcomputer and machining have happened.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#88808

Postby woolly » October 17th, 2017, 10:23 am

Always an interesting thread, but the breadth of racy topics kind of sums up Musk's main problem - he's too thinly spread across a lot of glamorous and cutting-edge industries, all of which must throw up massive problems and demand a huge amount of time and energy to solve. The recent announcement of the pitiful Model 3 production rates is just the latest harbinger of a stock that surely has to fall?

Jean-Louis Gassée notes here: https://mondaynote.com/teslas-new-car-s ... 5c72c955d3 that Tesla's production process is almost embarrassingly incompetent compared with major auto producers, and that
Moving from fewer than 100K cars a year to 500K and up isn’t “more of the same”, it can’t be achieved through clever, conventional-wisdom-defying improvisation. That sort of growth is a bold jump in scale that requires a smooth, well-oiled and well-understood manufacturing process.


Might he be better off keeping Tesla's production rate as it is, doubling or trebling the price of his cars and settling for niche supercar producer status? Contrary to his own belief he is not some superhuman - from this serial over-promiser and under-deliverer there is a lot more sizzle than sausage.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#88850

Postby odysseus2000 » October 17th, 2017, 12:48 pm

wolly
Always an interesting thread, but the breadth of racy topics kind of sums up Musk's main problem - he's too thinly spread across a lot of glamorous and cutting-edge industries, all of which must throw up massive problems and demand a huge amount of time and energy to solve. The recent announcement of the pitiful Model 3 production rates is just the latest harbinger of a stock that surely has to fall?


The market is awash with bears predicting that Tesla must soon collapse and this is likely baiting in more shorts.

The shorts could be right, but Musk is more of a stock jockey than most CEO's and like Brunel has a habit of setting up the bear case and then demolishing it. In Brunel's case it was the bridge that critics said was no good as Brunel left the scaffolding up for much longer than normal adding fuel to the bear's case. It was only later when he revealed that the scaffolding had been left up since the completion but that it was doing nothing as the load bearing supports had been knocked as soon as the bridge was finished.

The setup in Tesla now is that any good news on model 3 production will set off a huge short squeeze, meanwhile there is the coming heavy truck launch. Shorts may be right, but if not they had better cover fast.

There is a similar setup in Apple where the bears have celebrated every negative news article. If the iPhone 8, watch and iPhone X are delivered as promised there is a setup for a big short squeeze and Apple stock has been slowly moving up despite these many negative stories.

We are now in one of the strongest stock markets since the Internet age one of 1999. There are reasons for arguing that the current market is currently much stronger as many valuations are nothing like they were in 2000 and some of the leaders of then have not that long passed their 2000 peaks, 17 years richer from earnings and strength as competitors have fallen.

Regards,


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