[mikeash]

The answer is "extremely far, so it's not sensible to compare them."

It's perfectly fine to say "We are going to attempt to build something, here's our plan" and then fail. It's completely unacceptable to say "We have something" when you don't.

The only way Theranos could be analogous to Musk is if he had got up on that stage in Guadalajara and said "we have a Mars rocket ready to go, we've tested it extensively, it works, we'll begin commercial flight soon, the line for reservations is on your left, please bring your checkbooks."

[shard972]

> The only way Theranos could be analogous to Musk is if he had got up on that stage in Guadalajara and said "we have a Mars rocket ready to go, we've tested it extensively, it works, we'll begin commercial flight soon, the line for reservations is on your left, please bring your checkbooks."

Devils advocate but isn't that what SpaceX told facebook when launching their satellite? I would assume they asked for money to launch that thing and I would also assume facebook didn't want it blown up.

[mikeash]

There's no comparison to be made between an accident occurring in an inherently risky field and peddling technology that you know doesn't work.

Nitpick mode: Facebook didn't own that satellite and their only involvement in it was a plan (now, obviously, altered) to lease a decent chunk (but by no means all) of its capacity from its owner once it was operational. I'm not sure why everyone decided it was Facebook's satellite.

[schappim]

It makes for a better story!

[will_hughes]

Pretty weak argument there.

If Spacecom wanted a demo to prove SpaceX could launch rockets, they only had to look at the previous 28 Falcon 9 launches that all (bar one) launched successfully.