Increasing risk appetite is vital for progress
Speaking at a panel discussion at the Institute of Directors Scotland’s annual conference, the chairman of Dundee’s 4J Studios criticised the risk adverse nature of Scottish society.He said: “We have got into a comfort zone of how we can remove risk from every part of our lives – our business, our personal lives, civic society, everything.“That attitude is 100% wrong – we should be maximising our attitude to risk.
“We need to decide whether we want our society to be competitive in the 21st century or not, and if we do we need to change to that type of risk model right across the country.
Mr van der Kuyl pointed to Tesla founder Elon Musk’s moves into space exploration as a good example of someone taking risks.“SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space company, said they were going to put rockets up and land them on a ship so they could reuse them and people laughed,” he told the delegates.“One fell off the side of the ship and they said that’s OK, we’ll tweak the software.“In a traditional risk model there would be massive enquiries, everyone would be sat round a table gnashing teeth, delaying things for 10 years until they could make sure there was no mistake.“SpaceX just kept throwing them up until they got it right, which they did within a year.”
Fail early, fail forward, fail often.If you're not falling, you're not becoming a better skier. Failure to try is the biggest failure of all.Lots of aphorisms. SpaceX gets this. There are some others out there who do too, but not enough.
I would add that it is society in general. No one's a Winner, no one's a Loser, everyone gets a Participation ribbon handed out in a safe speech zone.
Quote from: JAFO on 11/05/2017 03:58 pmI would add that it is society in general. No one's a Winner, no one's a Loser, everyone gets a Participation ribbon handed out in a safe speech zone. Speaking as an early millennial now in my 30s... Noone asked me if I wanted a participation trophy. It was never about us being entitled... it was about the older generation being able to say THEIR kid won something.It's "underpaid, overworked grad student" millennials that are bringing us back to space, the way the older generation couldn't.
It's "underpaid, overworked grad student" millennials that are bringing us back to space, the way the older generation couldn't.
Quote from: rakaydos on 11/08/2017 09:33 pmIt's "underpaid, overworked grad student" millennials that are bringing us back to space, the way the older generation couldn't.nonsense. They are still being lead by other generations. They are not doing it themselves.
Quote from: Jim on 11/08/2017 09:52 pmQuote from: rakaydos on 11/08/2017 09:33 pmIt's "underpaid, overworked grad student" millennials that are bringing us back to space, the way the older generation couldn't.nonsense. They are still being lead by other generations. They are not doing it themselves.Even Elon Musk and Gwen Shotwell are only "slacker" GenXers. (I couldn't find a birth date for Tom Mueller, so he's up in the air.)
Age characteristic is like NASA of the 1960s -- just a coincidence, I'm sure.
Quote from: rakaydos on 11/08/2017 10:01 pmQuote from: Jim on 11/08/2017 09:52 pmQuote from: rakaydos on 11/08/2017 09:33 pmIt's "underpaid, overworked grad student" millennials that are bringing us back to space, the way the older generation couldn't.nonsense. They are still being lead by other generations. They are not doing it themselves.Even Elon Musk and Gwen Shotwell are only "slacker" GenXers. (I couldn't find a birth date for Tom Mueller, so he's up in the air.)Median age at SpaceX is 29, so right in the zone for 'official' Millennial status (born 1980 to circa 2000), and tech savvy. Cannot be too many older generation 'leaders', but no doubt there are some. Age characteristic is like NASA of the 1960s -- just a coincidence, I'm sure.
Our analysis in The Space Report 2012 showed that, as of September 2011, more than 70 percent of the NASA workforce was between 40 and 60 years old. By contrast, the age profile of the overall U.S. workforce was more evenly distributed, with less than 45 percent in this range. The NASA workforce also had small number of younger professionals, with less than 12 percent under age 35.
The 2011 edition of the annual Aviation Week Workforce Study found that 22 percent of U.S. aerospace and defense company workers were 35 years or younger, a percentage that nearly matches those 56 or older.
Quote from: rakaydos on 11/08/2017 09:33 pmQuote from: JAFO on 11/05/2017 03:58 pmI would add that it is society in general. No one's a Winner, no one's a Loser, everyone gets a Participation ribbon handed out in a safe speech zone. Speaking as an early millennial now in my 30s... Noone asked me if I wanted a participation trophy. It was never about us being entitled... it was about the older generation being able to say THEIR kid won something.It's "underpaid, overworked grad student" millennials that are bringing us back to space, the way the older generation couldn't.Different people age differently.My personal feeling is that the global wars and superpower rivalry that led to the first flowering of spaceflight raised a bar that was too high for normal times. Who does want to spend 5% of taxation on rockets (present nerds excepted)?Maybe you are just now living in a time when more things are possible without needing global conflict to make them happen.
Risk tolerance.If you boiled down the myriad reasons behind one young, private company building a rocket to land 150 tonnes or 100 people per flight on Mars and another prestigious, well-healed organization giving up on even landing on Mars -- though it has been promoting that goal for 40 years -- it would be these two words.
What people like Llian Rhydderch will never tell you is that this approach works only for things where profit is expected.Rare disease? Pure space exploration (or pure sciences in general)? Free market won't help you in this and many other cases.In fact, free market will come in new area only when someone else (usually that "totally unable to innovate" government) sufficiently develop it and lower risks - like with Internet (and yes, computers). Giving all credit for these things to free market is historical revisionism.
Quote from: AncientU on 11/05/2017 04:10 pmRisk tolerance.If you boiled down the myriad reasons behind one young, private company building a rocket to land 150 tonnes or 100 people per flight on Mars and another prestigious, well-healed organization giving up on even landing on Mars -- though it has been promoting that goal for 40 years -- it would be these two words.They haven't done it yet.
Quote from: Dalhousie on 12/30/2017 01:36 amQuote from: AncientU on 11/05/2017 04:10 pmRisk tolerance.If you boiled down the myriad reasons behind one young, private company building a rocket to land 150 tonnes or 100 people per flight on Mars and another prestigious, well-healed organization giving up on even landing on Mars -- though it has been promoting that goal for 40 years -- it would be these two words.They haven't done it yet.Exactly. After 40 years and uncounted billions wasted, they gave up.
That is, until a new administration comes along and re-directs to Mars (again). Has happened before (and will happen again IMO).Personally I refer to it as Moon-Mars Ping-Pong: roughly every decade the direction of US BLEO HSF changes course to either the Moon or Mars.
(computer and IT technology (ICT) is merely one example. Imagine leaving government bureaus of the US and Russia/Soviet Union in charge of innovating in ICT since 1960 and imagine what our computer platforms would be looking like today.
Quote from: AncientU on 12/30/2017 01:19 pmQuote from: Dalhousie on 12/30/2017 01:36 amQuote from: AncientU on 11/05/2017 04:10 pmRisk tolerance.If you boiled down the myriad reasons behind one young, private company building a rocket to land 150 tonnes or 100 people per flight on Mars and another prestigious, well-healed organization giving up on even landing on Mars -- though it has been promoting that goal for 40 years -- it would be these two words.They haven't done it yet.Exactly. After 40 years and uncounted billions wasted, they gave up.No, the point is that Spacex hasn't done it
neither
Quote from: Jim on 12/30/2017 09:04 pmneitherFor one who is so certain about everything, that's a bit non-committal.Hang it out there, Jim.
Quote from: AncientU on 12/30/2017 09:19 pmQuote from: Jim on 12/30/2017 09:04 pmneitherFor one who is so certain about everything, that's a bit non-committal.Hang it out there, Jim.No, I am certain that neither of them will go to Mars in my lifetime.
Quote from: Llian Rhydderch on 12/29/2017 10:48 pm(computer and IT technology (ICT) is merely one example. Imagine leaving government bureaus of the US and Russia/Soviet Union in charge of innovating in ICT since 1960 and imagine what our computer platforms would be looking like today. It was government spending and needs in 60's that launched the IC chip industry. There would be not consumer electronics of the 70's.
Quote from: Llian Rhydderch on 12/29/2017 10:48 pm(computer and IT technology (ICT) is merely one example. Imagine leaving government bureaus of the US and Russia/Soviet Union in charge of innovating in ICT since 1960 and imagine what our computer platforms would be looking like today. It was government spending and needs in 60's that launched the IC chip industry. There would be not consumer electronics of the 70's
Quote from: Jim on 12/30/2017 09:31 pmQuote from: AncientU on 12/30/2017 09:19 pmQuote from: Jim on 12/30/2017 09:04 pmneitherFor one who is so certain about everything, that's a bit non-committal.Hang it out there, Jim.No, I am certain that neither of them will go to Mars in my lifetime.What would it take to moderate your certainty?If in the next few years SpaceX did build a fully reusable launch vehicle that cost a small fraction of the Shuttle refurbishment costs to reuse it then would you start to have doubts?
The internet is a poor example in several ways.AOL and compuserv and several other online pre-internet services were getting quite large by the time the government sponsored commercial use of the internet overtook them with globally working email.
It is quite possible even with modest delays in this happening, inter-provider email (the killer app of the day), the internetworking of these providers would have produced something very, very different, with all content curated by these massive platforms.
As one example, Minitel in france took off and got a monopoly, which remained for a very long time after the internet.
Standardisation of railway gauges or container sizes might be a better example, but even here it's unclear, as they were often developed by single companies that 'won' in the market in their region before standardisation.
They'll be opening brew pubs on Mars before that certainty would budge... and then it would be to complain about the availability of Bud Light.
Quote from: AncientU on 01/02/2018 12:20 pmThey'll be opening brew pubs on Mars before that certainty would budge... and then it would be to complain about the availability of Bud Light.Many a successful business plan has been spoken in jest. Consider...Ingredients (water, Barley, Hops) untouched by any Earth pollution. Made by people who take pride in their work. On Mars, 10gals of home brew (and a pleasant evening of oblivion for the staff of "Musk Villas") . On Earth 66 pints of "Authentic, Made on Mars Micro Brew" at $200+* a pint. *Allowing for targeted shipping cost levels and a modest profit.
Quote from: Jim on 12/30/2017 09:31 pmQuote from: AncientU on 12/30/2017 09:19 pmQuote from: Jim on 12/30/2017 09:04 pmneitherFor one who is so certain about everything, that's a bit non-committal.Hang it out there, Jim.No, I am certain that neither of them will go to Mars in my lifetime.You were also certain that Obama would be one-term president.
The result of Obama's second term was Trump.
The biggest risk is not taking any risk... In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.
Going back to the original post in this thread, which talked about the risks SpaceX took to achieve reusability, I kind of see it the opposite. Musk's analogy: It's like there's a pallet with $ millions in cash falling through the sky. Why wouldn't they try to catch that?
And now that SpaceX has shown it works, I think any company that isn't designing their next rocket for reusability is taking a huge risk.
But looking at SpaceX's business decisions in general, it's fair to say that they're very comfortable taking risks, and that's typical for this new group of billionaire entrepreneurs, as evidenced by Mark Zuckerberg's famous quote:Quote from: Mark ZuckerbergThe biggest risk is not taking any risk... In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.