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Elon Musk Teases Reddit With Bad Answers About BFR Rocket (reddit.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Rei writes:
On Saturday evening, Elon Musk took questions in a Reddit AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) concerning SpaceX's new design for the BFR (Big F* Rocket). But unlike the 2016 IAC conference where many audience questions seemed to be trolling Musk, this time the tables were turned. Asked why Raptor thrust was reduced from 300 tons to 170, Musk replied, "We chickened out." He responded to a statement about landing on the moon by quoting Bob the Builder, while responding to a user's suggestion about caching internet data from Mars by writing simply "Nerd." A question as to whether BFR autogenous pressurization would be heat-exchanger based, Musk replied that they planned to utilize the Incendio spell from Harry Potter -- helpfully providing a Wikipedia link for the spell.
A technical question about the lack of a tail? "Tails are lame." A question about why the number of landing legs was increased from 3 to 4? "Because 4." After one Redditor observed "This is one bizarre AMA so far," Musk replied "Just wait..." While Musk ultimately did follow up some of the trolling with some actual responses, the overall event could be best described as "surreal".
To be fair, Musk provided some serious answers. (And his final comment ended with "Great questions nk!!") But one Redditor suggested Musk's stranger answers were like a threat, along the lines of "Just wait. It will get way more bizarre than that. Let me finish my whiskey."
Musk replied, "How did you know? I am actually drinking whiskey right now. Really."
A technical question about the lack of a tail? "Tails are lame." A question about why the number of landing legs was increased from 3 to 4? "Because 4." After one Redditor observed "This is one bizarre AMA so far," Musk replied "Just wait..." While Musk ultimately did follow up some of the trolling with some actual responses, the overall event could be best described as "surreal".
To be fair, Musk provided some serious answers. (And his final comment ended with "Great questions nk!!") But one Redditor suggested Musk's stranger answers were like a threat, along the lines of "Just wait. It will get way more bizarre than that. Let me finish my whiskey."
Musk replied, "How did you know? I am actually drinking whiskey right now. Really."
Some of these damn nerds need to be straight up told.
The purpose of that AMA about the BFR was meant to distract the public from the layoffs at Tesla.
At what point do we ask why this guy is given billions of dollars in state and federal subsidies (which is promptly burned)? His latest car factory is actually human powered, behind schedule, and products are overpriced. Competition is coming, with second mover advantage. But quick look over here, we're giving batteries to an island with no electric grid to charge them, we're building rockets to nowhere, and a hyper loop vacuum tunnel that will someday (tm) work.
I think this story is a bit overblown and sensationalized. I think it was exactly the kind of candid responses people like. In nearly everyone one of those cases he followed up with very technical details of why things were designed the way they were. And to be fair, it was held on /r/space as opposed to /r/spacex and the /r/spacex community sort of invaded the AMA and posted the real technical questions. The nice thing there being a much higher level of technical questions were asked, but it did serve to alienate a lot of the /r/space community who probably isn't used to hearing about deep throttling ratios of methalox engines, etc.
----- obSig
He is building his alibi for when his crooked companies go broke that he is unstable and cannot be charged with the crimes of fraud and theft.
They can't take what they dish out. What a surprise. ...yet Musk provided serious answers after having a little fun. He didn't have to provide real answers, but even doing that hurt the precious snowflakes' feelings.
Geez, What have we come to?
...that the man *is* a fucking tool. Looking forward to his inevitable ousting.
I read through the AMA. Musk answered all of the top level questions in significant detail. He did add a quip here and there. For example his comment about chickening out, which was followed up by a couple of paragraphs about the difficulty of deep throttling engines and the benefits of having multiple engines for failure tolerance.
The only exception I noticed was when some nerd said "you can't land on the moon with a 3 MN engine" and Musk said "yes you can - Bob the Builder." Seems fair to me.
He made those answers but ALSO responded in full detail to the same questions.
There were a few non-answers there -- can't expect most people to go on the record saying "we don't know yet" or similar.
OTOH, some of those answers in the AMA were excellent and really interesting. Like what he had to say about the metallurgy required to build the oxygen turbopumps for Raptor (which is REVOLUTIONARY in itself; the US didn't manage to do this throughout the Cold War whereas the Russians did); or the aerodynamics of the BFS.
To be fair, Musk provided some serious answers.
This mischaracterizes the whole thing. Musk provided serious answers as a followup to almost every one of his quips. The serious answers were insightful, usually a full or several full paragraphs with meaty details suitable for the audience, and honestly impressive that a CEO could do that off the top of his head. Many CEOs have no idea about the technical details of their own company. Musk can speculate intelligently about the nature of an interplanetary packet network and answer questsions about metallurgy.
I have no idea what the submission is whining about. It was a pretty good Q&A, much better than you'd get from 95% of CEOs out there.
PR money well spent. Good ad.
his company is allways at the governments tit for corporate welfare?
He's a cool billonaire, a bit cooler than Jeff, way way fucking cooler than Mark or Larry, but adjusted for reality, Bill and Warren are indeed cooler.
Shitting on asperg Redditers is the only proper thing under the circumstances. It's not even worth the time if you actually have a life, so this was truly a casual "shit directly in their face".
TBH, the only thing separating slashdot from that faggotzone is less japtoons & catworship. And sometimes, I wonder about the japtoon part.
Many others are saying the same. If you read the AMA, you'll see that his pattern was to first reply with a playful troll, and then spend the next few minutes typing an actual thoughtful answer in reply to his troll comment. He was just playing around. This post is COMPLETE MISINFORMATION. A disgrace.
I have never seen such vehement defense of a public figure - ever.
See, I am in financial community and we ARE seeing some very serious problems with Musk's operations.
And yet you defend them without question.
So, Rei ...are you willing to go to jail for your hero? Or are you actually Musk himself?
If you are Musk, I have to ask some serious questions about accounting irregularities. There are things on the Tesla accounts that raise quite a few eyebrows as well as the purchase of Solarshitty which did nothing but line the pockets of Musk.
We are watching Musk. WE are watching.
He's gonna go to jail - he's NOT an American.
Ok, I'll give you that Musk is a tax soak. Unlike most tax soaks, he actually produces cool and worthwhile things with the public's money, so I'm willing to look the other way.
Oy vey! It's anudda Shoah, I tells ya! Anudda Shoah!
Thanks, Elon Musk, the answer to trolling is trolling.
Dear Elon, you can't fly heavier military tanks to the outer space because it costs much much much money from the nation.
So Rei, bullshitting as always.
You can fools the idiots here, but you can't fool US.
OP seems a bit disingenuous. For every one, he followed up minutes later with a more fleshed out and responsive answer. It seems obviously to me that his original comments were markers to track which ones he wanted to come back to.
Omeganon
As someone who:
a) always posts as AC specifically so that people have to take (or leave) my words on their own merit, and
b) has no opinion on SpaceX except that their landing videos are cool
I say this:
Making generalisations about ACs and what they think or tend to do is stupid, unless that generalisation is "post as AC".
Compared to the MIC who's been getting more for longer than you've been alive to launch crappier rockets, for more money and with a slower schedule?
Elon's doing pretty well. He has gotten a lot less per real world result than the other guys, to the point where if he's bidding, they drop out...
Do I need to name names and show budgets here? Does Elon get the import/export bank to loan his customers money to buy his products on our back?
The subsidy line-whine is getting pretty old in light of the facts. He's just usually a little late. Most people would be "never". Sour grapes much?
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Perhaps the United States Government might just have a national security interest in seeing another company that can produce orbital rockets. Especially a company that can actually produce it's own rocket engines in the US. Unlike ULA who mostly uses Russian engines. So there is that.
Who are always conventionally serious and plain in their communiqués, specially in a platform with so many readers.
Musk was clearly being nonchalant with the audience, not disrespectful or insulting.
But the anti-Musk brigade will never be satisfied no matter what. So, take it as you please.
The term "BFR" is substantially similar in scope and application to "BFG," which was used in the video game "Doom" as the "BFG 9000" assault weapon.
BFG stood for "big f****ng gun," so the use of the substantially similar "big f****ng rocket" is a clear attempt to misappropriate the trademark on the "BFG 9000."
The owner of the BFG trademark has suffered irreparable harm at the hands of Elon Musk and deserves substantial compensation.
Virtually every idea he has is derided by the armchair quarterbacks of the world, not that some of his ideas don't need some tweaking/reality checks. This despite the fact that he has done many things that were labeled by as impossible/crazy impractical (reusable rockets, EVs, aesthetic solar roofs, large scale battery storage, etc) only a decade ago. While he is certain to have his share of failures, history has proven that he's usually at least on the ballfield if not well on his way to home plate while the opposing team is still in the dugout fighting over who gets which position.
Why shouldn't Musk be yakking it up?
All those millions from NASA are plumping up his dividends and his bonus so he can go to sizes where no yacht has been before.
US taxpayers give NASA billions, NASA gives SpaceX millions, SpaceX pays out bonuses and uses some of it to try and reinvent the last 50 years of space exploration by smashing rockets into the ground and occasionally into the water. If NASA asks nicely SpaceX uses some of it to buy Russian rockets which it uses to launch payloads for NASA.