[hiddenkrypt]

Exactly my thoughts. The headline "Boeing vows to beat Musk to Mars" literally translates to "Elon Musk wins". His whole goal in founding SpaceX was to foster competition in the stagnant space vehicle industry, just like the Tesla's purpose was to get other auto manufacturers to work on electric vehicles (and to convince consumers that EV doesn't mean it has to suck).

[watty]

Just because one of his goals is to drive competition into the race to mars doesn't mean it's his only goal. I don't doubt he not only wants to speed up the race to mars but wants to be known as the first.

[rbanffy]

Elon Musk is the only human being that can use the Zaphod Beeblebrox pickup line, "Do you wanna see my spaceship?".

That's pretty awesome.

[dragonwriter]

> Elon Musk is the only human being that can use the Zaphod Beeblebrox pickup line, "Do you wanna see my spaceship?".

Is Richard Branson not a human?

[Chronic9q]

Hacker News has a huge boner for Elon Musk. They forget that others beat Musk and are well known for beating Musk (re: spaceships).

[rbanffy]

Only in the most literal sense they could be called spaceships. They are no more spaceships than a swimming suit is a boat.

[dragonwriter]

Those two sentences are contradictory. A swimming suit is not a boat, especially in "the most literal sense."

A suborbital manned spacecraft, OTOH, is a spaceship in every sense. (It's neither an orbital spaceship nor, say, an interplanetary spaceship, but it's definitely a spaceship.)

Saying they aren't is like saying a riverboat isn't a boat because it's not ocean-going.

[manicdee]

Does Richard Branson have passenger vehicles that can achieve interplanetary flight?

[dragonwriter]

No, but then neither does Musk, or anyone else, individual, corporate, or government.

[rbanffy]

Not even get into orbit.

[ballooney]

No one does.

[rbanffy]

Suborbital flight is a stretch, but I agree Branson seems to be an inspiration for Zaphod's movie depiction.

[cheeze]

Uhh, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos?

[wtallis]

For the moment, I suppose you can still make a case for casual use of the term "spaceship" to include suborbital flights. I doubt that will continue for very long as private orbital spacecraft and launch vehicles become less novel; the sub-orbital minor leagues probably won't be seen by most as being the "real thing".

[njloof]

Just ask Alan Shepard. You know, the first American in space?

[blacksmith_tb]

Presumably because in this sense, the Mercury wasn't "his spaceship" as he didn't own it or the organization that produced it (like Gagarin and the Vostok, for that matter).

[rbanffy]

Mercury was capable of staying in space. The rocket that put it on a suborbital flight is a different thing.

[ge96]

Havala kavulah!!!!!

[rdiddly]

I'm not a Musk fanboy but I do have to admit, the minute a real, adult, aerospace company like Boeing lets Elon Musk set its direction for the future, he does win. The larger more mature company had the infrastructure in place for this for years, yet never considered it or took action on it; that makes them look timid and unoriginal. There's an analogous situation with the mainstream auto manufacturers and autonomous cars. They jump late onto a bandwagon they should've been piloting.

I still think it's a pie-in-the-sky project though. Musk compares the Mars initiative to building the Union Pacific Railroad, but the UPRR was heading somewhere full of plunder and gold, where the natives didn't even wear clothes because the weather's so nice. This operation's headed for... Mars, where for miles around, it TOTALLY SUUUUUUCKS SOOO BAD, as Louis CK might say.

[Hermel]

No, everyone wins.

[imagist]

Where my cynics at?

Are we really so naive that we're just parroting whatever Musk's PR team says? Musk isn't doing this to further the human race, he's doing it to make money.

[solotronics]

I don't deny he has done well but I there are a few factors to consider

1. I would much rather Musk become rich by furthering humanity than someone making the next cat picture app

2. The companies are tackling some of the hardest problems and I think purely to make money he would have picked other easier problems to solve.

3. It is shortsighted to not embrace anyone pushing and striving for the important goals for humanity. Energy, transportation, space travel.

[imagist]

> 1. I would much rather Musk become rich by furthering humanity than someone making the next cat picture app

Agreed.

> 2. The companies are tackling some of the hardest problems and I think purely to make money he would have picked other easier problems to solve.

That's not necessarily true. Remember that Musk started with $165 million from sale of shares of PayPal when it was bought by eBay, so he could afford to wait a while for his companies to take off. When you have a large amount of money to invest and you're young, it makes sense to invest in things with a high up-front cost and long wait before you get a payoff--most companies aren't willing to take a risk on that kind of investment, and once it pays off, you own something with little competition and a long head start on your competitors.

And, incidentally, it puts Musk in the position of Silicon Valley's golden boy--which has numerous business advantages.

> 3. It is shortsighted to not embrace anyone pushing and striving for the important goals for humanity. Energy, transportation, space travel.

I agree, but we shouldn't do that naively. If we see Musk as being inherently good instead of as who he is, someone trying to make money, we'll be more likely to compromise our ethics because we view him as good.

Imagine a future where SpaceX sets up mines on the moon. This creates a situation where SpaceX has unprecedented control over a subset of its employees--they literally will die without the company's resources, because there aren't other options on the moon. If we naively trust Musk's intentions, we might let this happen without regulation and only add regulation after abuses for profit are discovered--which may be decades too late for the victims of the abuse. But if we realize that Musk is not ethically different from any other CEO, we will have the wisdom to preempt these kinds of problems with oversight.

[JoeAltmaier]

Then he'd be doing more dotcom startups. Its obvious to most of us, that he's chosen the weird collection of industries he has, because of a bigger vision.

[imagist]

As I said elsewhere:

That's not necessarily true. Remember that Musk started with $165 million from sale of shares of PayPal when it was bought by eBay, so he could afford to wait a while for his companies to take off. When you have a large amount of money to invest and you're young, it makes sense to invest in things with a high up-front cost and long wait before you get a payoff--most companies aren't willing to take a risk on that kind of investment, and once it pays off, you own something with little competition and a long head start on your competitors.

And, incidentally, it puts Musk in the position of Silicon Valley's golden boy--which has numerous business advantages.

[serge2k]

> literally translates to "Elon Musk wins". As opposed to anything else which you would also twist into Lord Elon winning.

[JBReefer]

Please don't be dismissive on HN, and if you are going to be negative, please provide a well thought out comment to support your position.

This is not Reddit.