Only to ignorant bigots who hate visionaries.

-but at least he admitted that this idea for a fully resuable rocket may very well fail-which is a first for him.

No, it’s not. More ignorant bigotry.

“He brought that upon himself: every time he makes a presser (like the National Press Club appearance last week), he comes across as arrogant. No real eye contact with the camera or audience, always referring to notes, etc-he’s not a good speaker.”

Not everybody is a good teleprompter reader like Bush 43 – and let’s remember how hard a time HE had speaking when he had to talk sans notes.

If you’re looking for a reason to dislike someone, you can find anything to focus on. Musk communicates just fine, and people like to hear what he says, which is why he gets invited to speak so often.

And contrary to your opinion, Musk is likely to keep telling everyone that we need to become a multi-planet species, and that one of the reasons he started SpaceX was to help that along. If you don’t like that, tough, but some people like to know what motivates a person to do what they do, and people understand what Musks’ companies goals are because they understand his personal goals.

“but at least he admitted that this idea for a fully resuable rocket may very well fail-which is a first for him”

Again, selective hearing. Musk has been quite public about the odds of his previous launches being successful – he thought the first Falcon 9 launch only had a 50% chance of being successful (it was close to 100%). You hear what you want to hear, but not necessarily what is being said.

Rand: He brought that upon himself: every time he makes a presser (like the National Press Club appearance last week), he comes across as arrogant. No real eye contact with the camera or audience, always referring to notes, etc-he’s not a good speaker. And he keeps getting way, way, ahead of himself-but at least he admitted that this idea for a fully resuable rocket may very well fail-which is a first for him.

“Cite” instead of “site,” Mr. Euler.

exactly. The experimentation and implementation going on in the space community concerning “people” flight is in my view nothing short of breath taking…and the tonic that the industry needs. It is also the “thing” that nitwits on the right wing of the GOP always site when they say “let private industry do it” except in this case of course people like Whittington like Whittingtonspace so much, they ignore their own rhetoric.

A lot of these notions will fail, not have enough money or just be wrong; but that is what happens when one is having an economic revolution.

Robert

Stop making things up about what I believe. You must be the one who believes that — you’re the one who keeps calling him “Lord Musk.”

“. (and given early jet tech and the number of accidents of some early jetliners-they had a point) Only when jets proved safety and reliablity did things really take off.”

a fairly fact empty comparison.

First off you lack precision on your point. “Jets” what is that? The turbojet engine or is it a jet powered airplane? There is a difference and it affects the point you are trying to make.

There was a period in the development of turbojets for airplanes that they were safety issues…but those were worked out fairly early in the development of the power plant, because unlike the Germans or British the US never really forced the engine into an operational airplane “before its time”. By the time of the P 80, F84 and F86 (which was a very very short time after the development of the powerplant in the US), the engine had been made very “safe” in terms of operational use. The main US contribution to that was twofold, some work on the combustion chambers and most important “the jet fuel control”.

That one development (which was a GE thing) more or less took the powerplant from being very tempermental to “routine”.

What was lacking was that the powerplant had to be ‘economical’. That was found out only through experimentation and use. There is a reason the US military put the turbojet on operational airplanes even though it was not economical to operate…they needed and the US could pay for the performance. The later is not always true…the german economy at the end of WW2 really could not support the cost of the turbojets in their military airplanes…they would have been far better with a larger number of piston powered airplanes.

If you meant “jets” as in jet airplanes…then your point is absurd. There were no real incidents of jet powered airplanes in commercial (or SAC service) having issues because of the powerplant…the one issue that plauged commercial jet service at its infancy was that the Brits had no idea how to do pressurization…but Boeing had learned those lessons in the B-29…and had no real issues with either the B-47, B-52 or the 707.

Musk will rise or fall on the same issues that were in play in the 707 development…is his product economical enough based on what he can charge. He is being very very careful in that respect, he is after all a business man.

the reality is that your comparison is like most of your rhetoric…useless. It is Sarah Palin world, ie something that sounds good and so you say it effortlessly but that is only because you dont have a clue what you are saying…

and I dont mind flaming you out every time.

RGO

“and what a good accomplishment OSC seems on the verge of.”

I see that as the unintended consequence of so many people dissing SpaceX so much – they miss all the other great work being done in the commercial aerospace sector.

And not just Orbital Sciences and their cargo spacecraft, but CCDev crew participants (Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corp. and Boeing) and the sub-orbital folks (Virgin Galactic, XCOR, Masten, Armadillo, etc.). And then there are the companies that build the little things that make the bigger things possible, like Altius Space Machines and Paragon Space Development Corporation.

There is a lot of innovation going on out there, and SpaceX just happens to be further along than everyone else.

It’s fitting to remember the accomplishments of Steve Jobs in this regard, and how his “Think Different” TV ad applies to these new innovators of space too:

http://www.proposedsolution.com/articles/classic-apple-advert/

“Rand: Musk is way, way ahead of himself. ”

he has gone farther on far less money then NASA did with Cx and the same is true with SLS and Orion.

the sad thing with you is that you are so blinded by your “dislike” or whatever goofy thing it is that you are incapable of seeing what a great accomplishment Musk and SpaceX have done…and what a good accomplishment OSC seems on the verge of. goofy RGO

“And he may have more trouble-along with Sierra Nevada and Orbital: Boeing is seriously considering development of a crewed variant of the X-37B spaceplane developed for the USAF”

Not quite – you didn’t read the rest of the article, which is behind the pay wall. Clark summarized it over at HobbySpace:

http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=32968#c

“John Ebon, Boeing’s manager for their exploration systems, said that for the CCDev program they had done a trade study comparing a X-37 derivative vs a capsule can decided the capsule was the way to go.”

The X-37 is only being looked at as a cargo carrier of last resort. Oh, and Boeing is also working with SNC on the Dream Chaser.

The commercial crew competitors are set, and now it’s just a matter of who can finish their vehicles and how much money is available from NASA and Congress to start crew transportation services.