> "Stuff like this happens all the time"

It just blows my mind that someone can create a successful space program from scratch and still people think "but he'll probably get tripped up by this tiny thing that even I noticed! Just waiting for company to go belly up."

> It just blows my mind that someone can create a successful space program from scratch and still people think "but he'll probably get tripped up by this tiny thing that even I noticed! Just waiting for company to go belly up."

(a) Elon isn't all of SpaceX, there is a whole managerial and engineering infrastructure there, which is primarily motivated by scientific, not aesthetic, needs. So, they choose the best design based on their calculations.

These solar panels are clearly designed for looks, an important business consideration, so the idea that they may have knowingly traded off on the engineering/science side is a real possibility. That is a real decision people can make and none of the parents claimed the company was doomed. It may even be a decision that makes business sense and results in more sales. Many decisions about how houses are built are based on aesthetics and not engineering concerns, which is why they don't look like warehouses.

(b) even in engineering-based organizations, misaligned incentives can silence science-based concerns. NASA, an organization that also successfully created a space program and had some of the best engineers in the world, ignored repeated warnings from an engineer about a tiny thing that would have prevented the Challenger disaster.

You may also recall that Tesla had immense problems making car door handles that actually work reliably (and the same with the doors themselves), largely because they prioritized fancy aesthetics over sound engineering. If they've taken the same approach with their solar panels, this would be completely unsuprising.

They prioritized fancy aesthetics over simplicity, not over sound engineering. Unless you believe sound engineering is just never doing hard things.

The doors were new, they were complicated, they took time. I don't think they revealed any fundamental engineering weaknesses of the company, just a reminder that anything new is hard.

Were the seatbelt bolts new and complicated?

Is having the diff not rupture the fuel tank and set the car on fire new and complicated?

Is having the engine block not spontaneously catch fire new and complicated?

I love this game!

Your choice of analogy is revealing: these were problems at Ford, as near as I can tell. (The first sounds like the Pinto.) Show me Tesla-scale problems at BMW or Audi, and I might take Musk's hilarious claim that he'll bankrupt those companies a little more seriously.

You remind me of how Americans talk about how the US is the best country in the world, and then compare themselves to Nicuragua or Afghanistan or Somalia or thereabouts. Sure, you can beat the astonishingly dysfunctional, but how do you compare against your real peers?

(Disclaimer: Musk knows what he's doing in space, to say the least, even though his car company is astonishingly dysfunctional. I hope he has the sense to keep SpaceX and Tesla independent!)

Without agreeing or not with your overall statement, I want to point out that this new type of panels have not been invented by Musk nor by his companies. It was invented by another company, that they then acquired.

>that even I noticed

It's even more mind-blowing that you think Musk is infallible, and that he's poring over the schematics of every in development.

Or perhaps they're too busy with the space program to be concerned about a detail like this :)

If a space program that has been operating for 60+ years can trip up seemingly inane details, I gather Space X may be at risk of over-looking pertinent details, from time to time.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/07/10/200775748/...

Bear in mind that "rocket science" is proverbial for a reason. Are you familiar with the THAAD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_De...)? What convinced me that it wasn't just corporate welfare was the part where one of the tests failed because the target rocket exploded in flight, so the THAAD rocket couldn't even be launched.

In general, SpaceX seems to be much more competent and much better-run than Tesla. My guess from thousands of miles away is that Musk is just temperamentally better suited to space than to cars. Space exploration is in its infancy, still a bleeding-edge field where every product is more or less a one-off, while car manufacturing is mostly about logistics, quality control, and the effective management of routine in general. I get the impression that SpaceX is the most efficient of all companies and agencies involved in space, even though Tesla is a strikingly inept car manufacturer; I just hope Tesla doesn't drag SpaceX down with it into bankruptcy...

You're probably very right on this one, but it probably pays to also remember that Elon Musk and his team are not infallible.

Hero worship to that degree is dangerous, blinding, and frankly a little scary to see on a site like HN.

If that's the case then eventually we should see or find a sound explanation for how these solar panels overcome that particular issue.

It's silly to act like something is above questioning because Elon Musk and Tesla are involved.