Starlink, Ukraine, and the challenges of a market economy going to war
Around 20,000 Starlink satellite units have been donated to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February, playing an important role in battlefield communication for Kyiv’s […]
Elon Musk
What makes SpaceX different?
Imagine if you had gone to work at Space X in 2005 and gotten in the ground floor of the Falcon 1 program, or imagine […]
NASA, SpaceX, and the development of extravehicular space suits
In 2017, NASA decided to design, test, and produce xEMU [Extravehicular Mobility Units] suits in-house. As a result, the Agency would serve as the prime […]
Should R&D and Procurement be separated or paired together?
Basically research and procurement are incompatible. New developments are upsetting to procurement standards and procurement schedules. A procurement group is under the constant urge to […]
Could there be a SpaceX-style entrant in the world of fighter aircraft?
Such joint efforts and the use of digital engineering could allow smaller defense firms to focus on design work, whether for the whole aircraft of […]
Is SpaceX 50x more productive than usual government programs?
Here’s an example: five years ago, Elon Musk was working on his reusable rocket, the one that can take off and then land on the […]
What Elon Musk would do over in the Starship design
Irene Klotz: In hindsight, if you were doing this all over again is there anything you would’ve done to make the path shorter? Elon Musk: […]
Production can be 1,000% harder than design, says Elon Musk
Designing the production system of a new product is at least an order of magnitude or two orders of magnitude harder than designing to initial […]
The best IP protection is to innovate fast enough
The real way I think you achieve intellectual property protection is by innovating fast enough. If your rate of innovation is high, then you don’t […]
Elon Musk recommends reasoning from first principles
Well, I do think there’s a good framework for thinking. It is physics. You know, the sort of first-principles reasoning. Generally, I think there are […]