[chipdart]

> Just to be clear, you're saying that Shotwell has contributed more to SpaceX than Elon?

Which contribution do you believe that Elon Musk had on the development of reusable rockets?

Let's put it this way: if you kicked Musk out of SpaceX and replaced it with absolutely any random guy as CEO, do you believe reusable rockets would never see the light of day?

[Prickle]

Yes, unironically.

In the USA you have the SLS, which can only be described as a congressionally designed failure.

Past experiments by NASA for self landing rockets had their funding denied as well.

In the EU there was the Arianespace CEO who explicitly said that self landing rockets were a waste of time.

In Japan, space experimentation and failures are such a public nightmare we would never have bothered.

The idea of losing dozens of rockets in order to aim for reusability would have been untenable.

Starship would not exist. Because the idea of a rocket with that many engines on the booster was also believed to be impractical.

Elon is egomaniacal sure, but that's only magnified by his status as a CEO. His behavior, unfortunately pretty close to the average person.

Doesn't change the fact that SpaceX under his leadership is the only reason we have reusable rockets, or the ridiculously ambitious Starship launches.

No one could have predicted the current incredible cadence of launches by SpaceX either.

[wustangdan]

Okay read Walter Isaacson and Vances biography and get back to me. There is hundreds of examples in each. Or read this thread that has a few snippets from the book. https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...

He is a constant technical driving force.

> if you kicked Musk out of SpaceX and replaced it with absolutely any random guy as CEO, do you believe reusable rockets would never see the light of day?

Would we have reusable rockets in the same timeline as SpaceX, absolutely not. The proof is all the other rocket companies that have failed to do so, including government entities.

So yah obviously if Musk never founded SpaceX, we would not have reusable rockets right now.

[JumpCrisscross]

> if you kicked Musk out of SpaceX and replaced it with absolutely any random guy as CEO, do you believe reusable rockets would never see the light of day?

Any time prior to ~2014, absolutely.

[elevatedastalt]

> do you believe reusable rockets would never see the light of day?

Correct.

You don't need a hypothetical, it's not like SpaceX is the first rocket making entity in the world. Why were all the other darlings incapable? SpaceX didn't invent a new branch of rocketry after all. And they hired from the pool of engineers who could have and did work at all the other rocket companies.

How did this same pool of scientists and engineers end up with a viable reusable rocket with 300+ successful landings only when they came together at SpaceX?

[bilvar]

Yes. Everyone was ridiculing him for believing they could do it. Including industry experts.