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Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend by Reubachi on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @10:32AM (#38264496)
Why bring politics into this? You're pushing your own prejudices and opinions on a topic that doesn't need it to make "sides", at your own detriment.

Well established fact that Musk is a figure head, and like any other other figurehead, they matter significantly less to the end result than the giant teams of engineers and supply chain managers do. Of course he is an intelligent, financially sound business man.

But it's very much a fact that the bit's you're romantically idealizing would exist without Elon Musk. Apple was not steve jobs. Ford was not Henry Ford. Toyota was not a single Toyoda.

Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend by agent327 on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @02:15PM (#38268055)
Did you, by any chance, miss all the political anti-Musk rhetoric in this thread? Why are you singling me out, and not telling all those other people to leave politics out of it?

As for your "facts": without Musk, there would be no SpaceX, no giant teams of engineers, and no supply chain managers. Same as without Steve Jobs (do you hate him so much that you can't even capitalize his name?): without him there would be no Apple, no Mac, no iPhone. You seem to believe that companies and products spring fully formed from the ground, that nobody has to take the initiative to create them. Giant teams of engineers and supply chain managers don't just decide to come together to spend years and millions (if not billions) of their own time and money to build a car, or a computer, or a rocket. Can you point to even a single example where such a thing happened?

How would the 'bits' have come to exist without Elon Musk? Who would have taken the initiative, who would have paid for it? If you're right, why is SpaceX the only game in town? Surely there are plenty of other engineers and supply chain managers that would be up for building the worlds largest reusable launcher in their own time, with their own money?

Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend by TheOtherHobbes on Wednesday November 15, 2023 @08:58AM (#38276639)
I believe there may have been some rocket projects back in the 60s that worked quite well without him. Or anyone like him.
Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend by agent327 on Wednesday November 15, 2023 @04:38PM (#38282915)
That's not what we were talking about, and you know it. Elon Musk transformed the space industry with his cheap, reusable launchers, something that nobody before him has done, that was in fact considered to be impossible since launchers were widely considered to be multi-billion dollar, one-shot vehicles.

That transformation can be credited ENTIRELY to Elon Musk, and nobody else, and without him, it might never have happened, as neither governments, nor government contractors have any reason to not choose the well-trodden path, and to not pork-barrel the hell out of any project of this type. It took a person who had both a vision and a hell of a lot of money to make it happen, and there aren't so many of those around.

Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend by kcb on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @03:03PM (#38268850)
> Well established fact that Musk is a figure head

Except there's many testimonies from engineers at his companies that attest the exact opposite.