let’s see, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink…methinks the world could use a few more of these BSer tire kickers.
I am not necessarily a Musk fan but I do admire his accomplishments, particularly with SpaceX. In the early days when I started working on the Space Shuttle for NASA, the plan was for the shuttle to replace all other US rockets because it would be cheaper and it could be launched every two weeks. Well, the disillusion came quick for many of the new people that were hired at the same time as I did (many quit) when it took us years to get the first one finished and ready for the first flight. The vehicle was very capable but overly complex in order to meet the Air Force payload requirements and incredibly unsafe (as the two accidents demonstrated) in order to meet the congress budgets. The post flight inspections of engine components had to be more stringent than with new parts. The same with the tiles of the Thermal Protection System. All these components had been exposed to extreme environments during launch and reentry and just "visual inspections" were not enough. Launches every two weeks were a pipe dream.
After the Challenger loss in 1986, president Reagan reversed the plan for the Shuttle to replace all other US rockets for non NASA missions. Lockheed Martin and Boeing were competitors and had been the traditional providers of launch services for all unmanned missions for the DOD, NASA and commercial customers from around the world. Eventually, Lockheed Martin and Boeing decided to "join forces" and created the United Launch Alliance (ULA) so no contract bidding was necessary for launch services. Their prices became so high that the unmanned commercial market left the US and went to the Russian, Europeans, Chinese etc. The DOD and NASA's unmanned missions became the only ULA customers while at the same time ULA has been using Russian RD-180 engines in their Atlas V rockets. Now with the war in Ukraine, there will be no more cheap Russian engines and ULA will have to rely on Jeff Bezos untried new orbital engine.
As SpaceX got going with their launches, that eventually became very successful, their launch services have become very competitive based on price only. They have managed to bring back to US soil commercial launches not only from the US but from around the world using 100% US built hardware. They have not only managed to cut costs and increase reliability by increasing the reusability of their hardware but managed to also return US astronauts to space on US rockets launched from US soil. They are launching almost one rocket every week and that was unheard of during the Space Shuttle times.
Meanwhile, ULA still has not had a single successful flight of their manned crew capsule and they have lost their monopoly of launching payloads for the DOD and NASA since SpaceX can do it cheaper and quicker.
I am not sure how happy are the SpaceX employees since Elon is a workaholic and he believes that everybody should be the same way, but they have proven that the old way of doing business is not the only way. He, himself has said that "there is a fine line between being a genius and being insane".
As far as all of the other BS that comes out of his mouth, he would be better off with a lawyer as his mouthpiece.
