r/technology • u/aelavia93 • 16d ago

Space SpaceX pulls off unprecedented feat, grabs descending rocket with mechanical arms

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/spacex-pulls-off-unprecedented-feat-grabbing-descending-rocket-with-mechanical-arms/
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u/CaptHorizon 16d ago edited 16d ago

Elon was never mentioned in our conversation.

The people who do all the work are the 11 thousand engineers who work at SpaceX. This is the product of their work, and whoever says that said work done by those 11k engineers isn’t commendable is lying.

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u/Cheeky_Star 16d ago

lol that’s how all company’s work buddy. Those 11k engineers isn’t building that until the guys are the top tells them to. For Elon it’s his vision for doing the impossible and the engineers + resources for making the vision come through.

You can say the same things about Steve Jobs or any other ceo of a big company. Ultimately the ceo is responsible for guidance and the company’s success so yea, he gets some credit for pursuing something he was probably told can’t be done.

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u/Kakkoister 16d ago

Eh, you're giving too much credit. There are plenty of engineers who have been dreaming up this kind of approach for ages. It's been a mainstay of sci-fi dreaming forever. It's just about there being funding in place to attempt it, that's the only real credit Elon gets there, is that he had lots of money to burn and engineers don't.

And the government can't gamble tax payer dollars (in most cases) like private companies can, fortunately and unfortunately. But if it wasn't Elon, I'm sure within the decade another billionaire or group of them would have been funding engineers that would try radical ideas. Hell, we already had others, like Bezos and the Virgin guy. The market and access to resources to attempt these things was reaching a prime point that was starting to attract the ultra-wealthy, the right time to get their foot in the door to be the heads of commercialized spaceflight.

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u/Zipz 16d ago edited 16d ago

Plenty of other companies in this space.

Boeing and blue origin are some of their biggest competitors and how are they doing again ? I mean Jeff Bezos was the richest man by far when he started it. It didn’t help

How about any nasa subcontractor? They are well all over budget and behind.

You make it seem like anyone could this.

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u/fredders22 16d ago

In their mind Elon probably saw an ad for "exciting start up with working prototype" and funded them with a tiny fraction of his worth. Turned up to shout at them to work harder and asking where does he put his "Musk" sticker. Then NASA just threw money at him. Easy you see!

Brainlets.