Re:A skeptical response to Musk's hyperloop
by jdietrich on Wednesday August 14, 2013 @05:38PM
(#6214465)
Frankly, I'm sickened at the hubris involved in this kind of analysis.
Musk owns a space exploration company that is flying regular commercial missions, yet OP thinks that Musk has made elementary mistakes in his physics calculations. SpaceX are currently building a passenger spacecraft, but OP thinks that nobody has factored the effect of G forces on passengers into the design. They have reduced the cost of putting mass into orbit by an order of magnitude, but OP deigns to assess the validity of Musk's cost estimates.
Frankly, who the fuck is he to tell Elon Musk what is possible? Musk has degrees in both economics and applied physics. He has done the "impossible" in three industries and is an epoch-defining figure in electronic payments, space exploration and the motor industry. Musk isn't some crackpot with a big bank balance, he's a genius with an astonishing track record of revolutionising established industries from the outside, by ignoring old assumptions about what is possible.
Hyperloop might succeed or fail, but I genuinely can't think of a single person who has ever lived who might be better qualified to make that judgement than Elon Musk.
Musk owns a space exploration company that is flying regular commercial missions, yet OP thinks that Musk has made elementary mistakes in his physics calculations. SpaceX are currently building a passenger spacecraft, but OP thinks that nobody has factored the effect of G forces on passengers into the design. They have reduced the cost of putting mass into orbit by an order of magnitude, but OP deigns to assess the validity of Musk's cost estimates.
Frankly, who the fuck is he to tell Elon Musk what is possible? Musk has degrees in both economics and applied physics. He has done the "impossible" in three industries and is an epoch-defining figure in electronic payments, space exploration and the motor industry. Musk isn't some crackpot with a big bank balance, he's a genius with an astonishing track record of revolutionising established industries from the outside, by ignoring old assumptions about what is possible.
Hyperloop might succeed or fail, but I genuinely can't think of a single person who has ever lived who might be better qualified to make that judgement than Elon Musk.