You are usually very healthily critical of things that are said by people. However, when it comes to Elon Musk, you seem to assume that whatever he says will be true. In this article you use one of his statements as proof that the price of the payload will drop to the level that Elon Musk says. I find this different treatment of sources quite dissonant.
Thanks for your answer and your openness to discussion.
I wouldn't focus on Elon Musk track record. If the track record is good, would we accept whatever he says? That would be a sort of Matthew's effect. I don't think it's a good principle to assess people's judgments based on their track records.
Instead, I propose to assess the assertions based on their own merit. "Someone says" shouldn't be trusted, whoever that someone is. If someone says "price will drop", why are they saying it? based on which data? based on which estimations that have been done by several people, not by a single individual? based on which analysis? In the article that you link I couldn't find such information. Otherwise, whatever this someone is saying is undistinguishable from marketing.
I think you already do this in general. My point is that you might have skipped this analysis for this particular assertion from Musk.
Track record should certainly be part of the assessment.
If you read books on individual performance, the best predictor of future performance is past performance. From a Bayesian standpoint, our prior should be strong that he will deliver.
You're saying something different: that's not a reason to take what he says wholesale. I agree. In Bayesian terms, the certainty is not extremely high.
But the 1st principles also reinforce his case I believe.
Also it's not just Musk's track record, but SpaceX and Tesla.
I did not, however, make any of this explicit in the article.
I can't find it, either. With the search terms of "elon musk (from:tomaspueyo)" in the search box on Twitter, the latest such tweet is in February. I must admit that I can't find any tweets that critical of Musk.
I'm not a paying subscriber (I just can't afford to subscribe to every blog that looks interesting) but, superficially, they don't appear to be particularly critical of Musk. Could you mention what he's got wrong?
I agree. The article is nice, but to expect that the development works exactly as Elon Musk says, appears a bit naive. A five minute 'research' on Wikipedia tells me that Falcon Heavy was delayed by 5 years w.r.t. plan. It's not unreasonable to expect something similar for the Starship. It does not change the big picture, but certainly the time line.
From an industrial delivery perspective, Musk has always delivered. Late, but delivered.
I am no blind fanboy, as the series on Twitter shows. But nearly all his industrial commitments have materialized, albeit late. We shouldn’t be biased against his execution because the character might not be likable.
Falcon Heavy is not really a good comparison. It's delays were partially technical, but just as much for other reasons. It was almost cancelled entirely multiple times as F9 capability rose to exceed original FH targets, for example. This does not apply to Starship.
Apr 25, 2023·edited Apr 25, 2023Liked by Tomas Pueyo
Two things this article brings to mind. 1) Early U.S. we settled around the waterways for precisely the reasons you mention. In KY, for example, corn was converted to bourbon and ham so it would not spoil. Waterways were used to take them to market. Eventually railroads became transportation hubs and then population really began to disperse when the roads/automobiles came. 2) The discussion of weight and how engineers worked to make every ounce count reminds me of the early years of the microcomputer industry when programmers worked to make every bit of memory count. It was in short supply and thus you had to make efficient/effective use of every bit of memory available to you. Today that is not a problem and if you look at the code of many programs they are not efficiently written.
Cheap & highly detailed space imagery will help insurgent movements greatly. Right now the biggest militaries have the best and most recent images. When Guerilla X can watch the regime's trucks on his/her phone, some things will change.
The Chicago futures market will change, but incrementally. Right now corn futures move on USDA reports which are less timely. Traders will have subscriptions to services that estimate corn yields in near real time.
If we ever enforce existing treaties on fishing, monitoring which ships are where in real time and what kind of nets they have out will be much easier; this will decrease Chinese fishing yields but may save threatened fish stocks.
Space terrorism will be easier too; see the wikipedia article on Kinetic bombardment, which emphasizes that cost of getting munitions into orbit has been a limiting factor. Our militaries will love this but it will be possible to disguise kinetic bombs as legitimate StarShip cargo within a few years; the more volume of space transport there is, the less checking of contents there will be (think shipping containers now).
Cheaply and quickly available methane plume detection from space will enable realistic methane waste fines & taxes in jurisdictions willing to enforce them; meanwhile groups like the EU will be able to add them as import taxes.
Commercial capture of space debris will become a necessary service; check out "Kessler Syndrome" for details. Likely to go from $0 profit to highly profitable as we near the Kessler catastrophe. Who pays? In his 2009 article, Kessler notes "the future frequency of collisions will produce debris at a rate that is proportional to the square of the number of objects in orbit".
Great article especially the historical context with transportation and how the cost went go down with constant innovation. But for SpaceX to exist, we should remember Nasa paved the way (with government undertaking the initial risk) and provided the tech and know-how that eventually brought down the cost with iterations/failures/learning/improvement cycle. The same happened with initial colonial expansions (Spanish empire funded the many voyages like the one Columbus undertook) and eventually private enterprise like British East India company took over (with private investors) and made the cost of shipping cheaper and transportation/navigation tech more advanced over the course of 2-3 centuries.
I am intrigued by this article but it also makes me think of how we’ve abused our opportunities in the past environmentally ... with space junk accumulating now what would this do to our future space environment now that we can put up “disposable” devices ?
When water was clean and ubiquitous the solution to pollution was dilution.... that didn’t work so well long term .... how does this translate to cheap space cargo ? Do we get daily reports of weather, UV Index, and falling space debris in your area today?
Side effects are definitely worth taking into account.
But should we live like in the 17th century because of pollution? I reckon we shouldn't. This type of progress is great. You just want to make sure you account for externalities.
This one area is concerning to me as well. We do have a lot of space junk (old dysfunctional satellites or orbital refuse floating around). This is an opportunity for some startup to send shuttles armed with robots to catch and obliterate those objects. Recently remember reading an article about how light pollution from satellites causing threat to astronomy. So def a concern.
A threat to ground-based astronomy. With much cheaper access to space, space-based astronomy will be come far more affordable and viable. As well as being inherently superior to ground-based in many ways.
Most of what I've heard about Starship has been about sending humans to the Moon and Mars. I'm a big believer in space exploration, but I think we have to send the right person for the job, and in every case I can think of, the right person is a robot.
Your emphasis on launch cost, rather than sending people to horrible places, makes Starship more interesting. I hope it succeeds!
That is a longer term project (an exciting one, of course), but in the shorter term a steady supply of Helium 3 could rapidly advance the pace of fusion research. Helium 3 produces little in the way of dangerous radiation, is easier to confine, and can produce direct electrical current without turbines and such (https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a235/1283056/). Extracting it from the Moon would likely involve launching automated mining, refining, and refueling infrastructures. Even better would be launching infrastructure that can self-replicate in situ. Cost of energy is arguably even more important to the development of civilization than ease of navigation (after all, if the energy is cheap enough, geography no longer matters). Bringing essentially unlimited clean energy to earth would be revolutionary in terms of raising the standard of living across the globe and eliminate one of the main causes of violent conflict. The end many of us feel could be just over the horizon could be staved off and replaced with something truly remarkable. For those interested in a fictionalized take on all of this, please check out my novel COLD TRAP (https://www.amazon.in/Cold-Trap-Jon-Waskan-ebook/dp/B00LETVKWS).
My understanding is that there might be some in the crust from the planet's formation, but it is created on the Moon due to solar interactions with the surface. So we just can't get it anyplace else nearby (there are sources in the outer solar system).
Correction: Spaceship should launch far more than 100 tons to LEO - it is targeting a launch capacity of 150 tons in a reusable configuration, or 250 tons in an expendible configuration. This is 100% to 357% more than the Falcon Heavy's 70 tons to LEO
I had read about the 100-150 range, but wanted to be conservative. I didn't know about the other configuration. That sounds interesting. I'll look into it. Thanks!
Construction surveying, mapping the ocean floor, shipping & aviation logistics, understanding traffic patterns, building smart cities and self driving vehicles
I know this data is coming from the US Dept of Transportation, but I don't understand how the per container mile cost can be just $0.16. Diesel is $3-$4 per gallon and most trucks give 6-9mpg. It should be a lot more than $0.16. I found this breakdown of costs interesting (even though it's a bit dated): https://www.pinterest.com/pin/16747829848767210/
I’m an aerospace engineering student and I can confirm that this is an important constraint being relaxed, but space is way way more complicated than the mass problem alone.
Here's a business opportunity. Six years ago I was at a Business Plan Pitch by someone who wanted to use a special photography to spot the build-up of cyanobacteria in large bodies of water. The problem was back then they needed airplanes to fly overhead to take the pictures. The pictures were accurate to within 1-2 meters. But the cost was expensive due to cost of flying. Getting that camera into space (you need higher resolution too, but that is happening), and this becomes viable, IMHO.
Many farms would also benefit from detailed photography, that currently depend upon airplanes. Drones are cheaper, but for large acreage, still not as viable. But from space? They might be.
Real time, complete coverage of the Earth in multiple electromagnetic spectrums (visible light, infrared, radar, radio etc.) with high resolution gives so many options.
1) Environmental &plant health tracking.
2) Animal movement tracking for research, herding, conservation and fishing
3) Real time economic activity tracking without having to wait for quarterly or monthly disclosures
4) Emissions tracking, allowing more precise and efficient emission taxation.
5) Climate modelling improvements and weather forecasts
6) Earth resource exploration
7) Real time traffic tracking and optimization
8) Law enforcement, finding missing persons. Flight MH370 would have been found immediately with constant real time radar coverage of the Earth.
9) Disaster management.
10) Military applications obviously.
11) Big nightmare: Space based, almost inescapable mass surveillance by everyone, not limited to territorial or communication access anymore.
Most importantly, our ability to store, categorize and analyze the satellite generated data is improving immensely as well.
This is another example of the network effect: Every new technology can potentially connect with every other technology, with the total number of connections growing quadratically with the number of technologies.
12) Bonus: Keeping track of rocket launches adding to the big satellite family.
In the epic flood of 1993 in Iowa, passable roads kept changing as floodwaters drained through rivers. A road open one hour could be flooded the next, and vice versa. Information was shared informally between people, and always slower than the water. What if you could see the water from space?
With the mass constraint gone, business will thrive. Real time monitoring of the earth is something we at Quub are striving to achieve. The danger is in the resolution. Take it too far and the tools no longer serve the public good but become the oppression inherent in the will of the State. The limit of two meters per pixel is sufficient for almost all real time data coming in. Think of it as a motion picture view and not a still life. The data moves through time and that is where we will find some gold.
I see the market for Earth observation going through a boom. Companies not used to thinking about space are starting to understand its importance and integrating it into their strategic plans.
The real killer app for LEO has not been found yet. Once we have the VisiCalc of Space, things will change like never before. I am bullish on the future. Will there be bumps in the road? Yes. But overall the concept of space data will go from esoteric to commonplace. That is when the fun really begins. Exciting times!
We see municipalities pretty much left out of the conversation. The imagery is too expensive and most towns are too small to hire analysts. Water management is another area that suffers as well. We have a plan to address these issues. Forestry management, shipping systems, oil and gas firms - all of these use satellite data to some extent, but they need to go further.
You are usually very healthily critical of things that are said by people. However, when it comes to Elon Musk, you seem to assume that whatever he says will be true. In this article you use one of his statements as proof that the price of the payload will drop to the level that Elon Musk says. I find this different treatment of sources quite dissonant.
Thank you for the feedback Rafa. I will pay attention to this in the future.
I wrote a series on Twitter last week that is quite critical of him.
But from an industrial delivery standpoint, I can’t find big commitments that didn’t end up happening, even if they happen late.
If you believe this track record is not as good, please lmk specifics so I can correct my judgment!
Thanks for your answer and your openness to discussion.
I wouldn't focus on Elon Musk track record. If the track record is good, would we accept whatever he says? That would be a sort of Matthew's effect. I don't think it's a good principle to assess people's judgments based on their track records.
Instead, I propose to assess the assertions based on their own merit. "Someone says" shouldn't be trusted, whoever that someone is. If someone says "price will drop", why are they saying it? based on which data? based on which estimations that have been done by several people, not by a single individual? based on which analysis? In the article that you link I couldn't find such information. Otherwise, whatever this someone is saying is undistinguishable from marketing.
I think you already do this in general. My point is that you might have skipped this analysis for this particular assertion from Musk.
Track record should certainly be part of the assessment.
If you read books on individual performance, the best predictor of future performance is past performance. From a Bayesian standpoint, our prior should be strong that he will deliver.
You're saying something different: that's not a reason to take what he says wholesale. I agree. In Bayesian terms, the certainty is not extremely high.
But the 1st principles also reinforce his case I believe.
Also it's not just Musk's track record, but SpaceX and Tesla.
I did not, however, make any of this explicit in the article.
Do you have the link of the twitter series about Elon Musk ? I can’t find it
I can't find it, either. With the search terms of "elon musk (from:tomaspueyo)" in the search box on Twitter, the latest such tweet is in February. I must admit that I can't find any tweets that critical of Musk.
Here are the articles, might be easier:
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/what-should-twitter-do-next-part
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/a-roadmap-for-twitter-part-2-subscriptions
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/twitter-20-final-part-ads-and-user
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/elon-mgmt-twitter
I'm not a paying subscriber (I just can't afford to subscribe to every blog that looks interesting) but, superficially, they don't appear to be particularly critical of Musk. Could you mention what he's got wrong?
I agree. The article is nice, but to expect that the development works exactly as Elon Musk says, appears a bit naive. A five minute 'research' on Wikipedia tells me that Falcon Heavy was delayed by 5 years w.r.t. plan. It's not unreasonable to expect something similar for the Starship. It does not change the big picture, but certainly the time line.
I agree on the timeline point.
From an industrial delivery perspective, Musk has always delivered. Late, but delivered.
I am no blind fanboy, as the series on Twitter shows. But nearly all his industrial commitments have materialized, albeit late. We shouldn’t be biased against his execution because the character might not be likable.
Musk antagonized former supporters when it became obvious he was not a liberal. Best to ignore a lot of criticism directed at him.
Falcon Heavy is not really a good comparison. It's delays were partially technical, but just as much for other reasons. It was almost cancelled entirely multiple times as F9 capability rose to exceed original FH targets, for example. This does not apply to Starship.
Two things this article brings to mind. 1) Early U.S. we settled around the waterways for precisely the reasons you mention. In KY, for example, corn was converted to bourbon and ham so it would not spoil. Waterways were used to take them to market. Eventually railroads became transportation hubs and then population really began to disperse when the roads/automobiles came. 2) The discussion of weight and how engineers worked to make every ounce count reminds me of the early years of the microcomputer industry when programmers worked to make every bit of memory count. It was in short supply and thus you had to make efficient/effective use of every bit of memory available to you. Today that is not a problem and if you look at the code of many programs they are not efficiently written.
The parallels are indeed striking. I hadn’t thought of these two specific examples, but you’re right. Thank you!
Cheap & highly detailed space imagery will help insurgent movements greatly. Right now the biggest militaries have the best and most recent images. When Guerilla X can watch the regime's trucks on his/her phone, some things will change.
The Chicago futures market will change, but incrementally. Right now corn futures move on USDA reports which are less timely. Traders will have subscriptions to services that estimate corn yields in near real time.
If we ever enforce existing treaties on fishing, monitoring which ships are where in real time and what kind of nets they have out will be much easier; this will decrease Chinese fishing yields but may save threatened fish stocks.
Space terrorism will be easier too; see the wikipedia article on Kinetic bombardment, which emphasizes that cost of getting munitions into orbit has been a limiting factor. Our militaries will love this but it will be possible to disguise kinetic bombs as legitimate StarShip cargo within a few years; the more volume of space transport there is, the less checking of contents there will be (think shipping containers now).
Cheaply and quickly available methane plume detection from space will enable realistic methane waste fines & taxes in jurisdictions willing to enforce them; meanwhile groups like the EU will be able to add them as import taxes.
Commercial capture of space debris will become a necessary service; check out "Kessler Syndrome" for details. Likely to go from $0 profit to highly profitable as we near the Kessler catastrophe. Who pays? In his 2009 article, Kessler notes "the future frequency of collisions will produce debris at a rate that is proportional to the square of the number of objects in orbit".
Wow, love these. Thank you!
I'll look into these.
Great article especially the historical context with transportation and how the cost went go down with constant innovation. But for SpaceX to exist, we should remember Nasa paved the way (with government undertaking the initial risk) and provided the tech and know-how that eventually brought down the cost with iterations/failures/learning/improvement cycle. The same happened with initial colonial expansions (Spanish empire funded the many voyages like the one Columbus undertook) and eventually private enterprise like British East India company took over (with private investors) and made the cost of shipping cheaper and transportation/navigation tech more advanced over the course of 2-3 centuries.
True!
I am intrigued by this article but it also makes me think of how we’ve abused our opportunities in the past environmentally ... with space junk accumulating now what would this do to our future space environment now that we can put up “disposable” devices ?
When water was clean and ubiquitous the solution to pollution was dilution.... that didn’t work so well long term .... how does this translate to cheap space cargo ? Do we get daily reports of weather, UV Index, and falling space debris in your area today?
Side effects are definitely worth taking into account.
But should we live like in the 17th century because of pollution? I reckon we shouldn't. This type of progress is great. You just want to make sure you account for externalities.
This one area is concerning to me as well. We do have a lot of space junk (old dysfunctional satellites or orbital refuse floating around). This is an opportunity for some startup to send shuttles armed with robots to catch and obliterate those objects. Recently remember reading an article about how light pollution from satellites causing threat to astronomy. So def a concern.
A threat to ground-based astronomy. With much cheaper access to space, space-based astronomy will be come far more affordable and viable. As well as being inherently superior to ground-based in many ways.
Yes! Send MEGAMIRRORS to space!!!
Most of what I've heard about Starship has been about sending humans to the Moon and Mars. I'm a big believer in space exploration, but I think we have to send the right person for the job, and in every case I can think of, the right person is a robot.
Your emphasis on launch cost, rather than sending people to horrible places, makes Starship more interesting. I hope it succeeds!
I will write substantially more on this topic. But I agree with you: for the first few decades, we should send plenty of robots!
Reducing the cost of obtaining Helium 3 (Tralphium) could speed up warp speed engines research and open new research fronts.
That is a longer term project (an exciting one, of course), but in the shorter term a steady supply of Helium 3 could rapidly advance the pace of fusion research. Helium 3 produces little in the way of dangerous radiation, is easier to confine, and can produce direct electrical current without turbines and such (https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a235/1283056/). Extracting it from the Moon would likely involve launching automated mining, refining, and refueling infrastructures. Even better would be launching infrastructure that can self-replicate in situ. Cost of energy is arguably even more important to the development of civilization than ease of navigation (after all, if the energy is cheap enough, geography no longer matters). Bringing essentially unlimited clean energy to earth would be revolutionary in terms of raising the standard of living across the globe and eliminate one of the main causes of violent conflict. The end many of us feel could be just over the horizon could be staved off and replaced with something truly remarkable. For those interested in a fictionalized take on all of this, please check out my novel COLD TRAP (https://www.amazon.in/Cold-Trap-Jon-Waskan-ebook/dp/B00LETVKWS).
Oh that's a novel idea. Tell me more! Sources?
Why would it be cheaper to mine it on the Moon than on Earth?
My understanding is that there might be some in the crust from the planet's formation, but it is created on the Moon due to solar interactions with the surface. So we just can't get it anyplace else nearby (there are sources in the outer solar system).
Interesting
Good to see that Jon Waskan had a good source.
I´ve just heard of it in some interviews.
Correction: Spaceship should launch far more than 100 tons to LEO - it is targeting a launch capacity of 150 tons in a reusable configuration, or 250 tons in an expendible configuration. This is 100% to 357% more than the Falcon Heavy's 70 tons to LEO
I had read about the 100-150 range, but wanted to be conservative. I didn't know about the other configuration. That sounds interesting. I'll look into it. Thanks!
In one of the diagrams above, you showed a payload to LEO, for Starship, of up to 150 tons.
Construction surveying, mapping the ocean floor, shipping & aviation logistics, understanding traffic patterns, building smart cities and self driving vehicles
I love these!
I know this data is coming from the US Dept of Transportation, but I don't understand how the per container mile cost can be just $0.16. Diesel is $3-$4 per gallon and most trucks give 6-9mpg. It should be a lot more than $0.16. I found this breakdown of costs interesting (even though it's a bit dated): https://www.pinterest.com/pin/16747829848767210/
Thank you Krishnan! It's been some time since I researched these numbers. Worth double checking. I'll do that for the next time I use them. Thanks!
I might have figured it out. Current hypothesis: the cost might not be per mile but per ton.
That makes sense! Thanks for looking into it, Tomas!
I’m an aerospace engineering student and I can confirm that this is an important constraint being relaxed, but space is way way more complicated than the mass problem alone.
Please tell me more. I’d love to understand this better!
Here's a business opportunity. Six years ago I was at a Business Plan Pitch by someone who wanted to use a special photography to spot the build-up of cyanobacteria in large bodies of water. The problem was back then they needed airplanes to fly overhead to take the pictures. The pictures were accurate to within 1-2 meters. But the cost was expensive due to cost of flying. Getting that camera into space (you need higher resolution too, but that is happening), and this becomes viable, IMHO.
Many farms would also benefit from detailed photography, that currently depend upon airplanes. Drones are cheaper, but for large acreage, still not as viable. But from space? They might be.
I love it! I would invest in companies working on this
Prediction of earthquakes volcanic eruptions based on geographic and gravity etc alterations. Flood plain evaluation. Damage assessment
Real time warfare applications
Weather monitoring Pollution source monitoring Space junk garbage collection
Power generation.
So many options! Great ideas. Are you pursuing one?
Re business ideas:
Real time, complete coverage of the Earth in multiple electromagnetic spectrums (visible light, infrared, radar, radio etc.) with high resolution gives so many options.
1) Environmental &plant health tracking.
2) Animal movement tracking for research, herding, conservation and fishing
3) Real time economic activity tracking without having to wait for quarterly or monthly disclosures
4) Emissions tracking, allowing more precise and efficient emission taxation.
5) Climate modelling improvements and weather forecasts
6) Earth resource exploration
7) Real time traffic tracking and optimization
8) Law enforcement, finding missing persons. Flight MH370 would have been found immediately with constant real time radar coverage of the Earth.
9) Disaster management.
10) Military applications obviously.
11) Big nightmare: Space based, almost inescapable mass surveillance by everyone, not limited to territorial or communication access anymore.
Most importantly, our ability to store, categorize and analyze the satellite generated data is improving immensely as well.
This is another example of the network effect: Every new technology can potentially connect with every other technology, with the total number of connections growing quadratically with the number of technologies.
12) Bonus: Keeping track of rocket launches adding to the big satellite family.
Love it! Clearly a new industrial era beckons
In the epic flood of 1993 in Iowa, passable roads kept changing as floodwaters drained through rivers. A road open one hour could be flooded the next, and vice versa. Information was shared informally between people, and always slower than the water. What if you could see the water from space?
Ah, great example! Yes indeed, crisis mgmt
With the mass constraint gone, business will thrive. Real time monitoring of the earth is something we at Quub are striving to achieve. The danger is in the resolution. Take it too far and the tools no longer serve the public good but become the oppression inherent in the will of the State. The limit of two meters per pixel is sufficient for almost all real time data coming in. Think of it as a motion picture view and not a still life. The data moves through time and that is where we will find some gold.
Very interesting, Joe. I hadn't thought about resolution as a potential solution for the surveillance pbm.
Just looked at your company's video. Interesting too! What's your opinion on this market and what's coming?
I see the market for Earth observation going through a boom. Companies not used to thinking about space are starting to understand its importance and integrating it into their strategic plans.
The real killer app for LEO has not been found yet. Once we have the VisiCalc of Space, things will change like never before. I am bullish on the future. Will there be bumps in the road? Yes. But overall the concept of space data will go from esoteric to commonplace. That is when the fun really begins. Exciting times!
What are some companies or industries that you think should be thinking more about this?
I imagine you guys have some target segments, where some customers get it and some others don't. What are some examples?
We see municipalities pretty much left out of the conversation. The imagery is too expensive and most towns are too small to hire analysts. Water management is another area that suffers as well. We have a plan to address these issues. Forestry management, shipping systems, oil and gas firms - all of these use satellite data to some extent, but they need to go further.