Author Topic: Sky News interview with Elon Musk June 7, 2014 (Read 9050 times)

CuddlyRocket · « **on:** 06/08/2014 10:39 am »

Elon was in London to launch the right-hand drive Teslas, but the interview turned to SpaceX (at 8:00).

He's not very impressed with the idea of a manned mission to an asteroid!

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #1 on:** 06/08/2014 11:47 am »

Nice find, as I saw the item on the Sky News site and that was typically edited for mass media, playing on Tony Stark and trying to make Elon look a bit wacky at the end.

I like how he distanced himself from Branson!

AncientU · « **Reply #2 on:** 06/08/2014 12:11 pm »

Quote from: Chris Bergin on 06/08/2014 11:47 am

Nice find, as I saw the item on the Sky News site and that was typically edited for mass media, playing on Tony Stark and trying to make Elon look a bit wacky at the end.

I like how he distanced himself from Branson!

I like how he distanced himself from a superhero.
Thinks of himself as 'an Engineer' -- a billionaire Engineer, but still...
A good day for STEM.

sanman · « **Reply #3 on:** 06/08/2014 11:16 pm »

Elon Musk is Tom Swift - both entrepreneur and engineer.

TripD · « **Reply #4 on:** 06/09/2014 05:03 am »

I don't believe I have heard Elon so soft spoken about SpaceX ambitions. @8:30 "Maybe ultimately, we could have a city on Mars."

meekGee · « **Reply #5 on:** 06/10/2014 03:06 pm »

He had a down day...

savuporo · « **Reply #6 on:** 06/10/2014 05:02 pm »

"We went to moon forty years ago, and now we can barely make it to orbit - that's a drastic decline in capability"

"I think of myself as an engineer" - and he is.

AJA · « **Reply #7 on:** 06/10/2014 06:47 pm »

Since QuantumG's not gotten around to this yet... here's the transcript

S: Around the time you founded Tesla, you also, at the some sort of time founded SpaceX
A: SpaceX was founded a year earlier

Q: What was your idea with SpaceX?
A: With SpaceX, the goal is to accelerate the development of rocket technology. If you think about the fact that humanity was able to go to the moon in 1969, and now can sort of barely get to LEO, that's a huge decline in capability. What we'd like to do with SpaceX is to try to turn that around, and rapidly improve rocket technology to the point where, maybe ultimately, we can have a city on Mars, and be a multi-planet species. I'm not saying SpaceX is going to do all that, but we're going to try to to advance rocket technology as much as we can in that direction.

Q: And where are you now? What's the latest on that?
A: Right now we're launching quite a lot of satellites into orbit for various commercial customers. NASA's our single biggest customer, and they're about a quarter of our launches. We've done missions to and from the space station with cargo, including live cargo in some cases. Our next mission to the space station will include 40 mice - so, "the mousetronauts"- and it has the ability to maintain life support systems and everything. We'll be launching astronauts in about two years and keep going on from there.

Q: Like you say, you know, it's sixty years since the moon. How disappointing is that private industry has to step in here? Why did governments back away, and is it a pity that they've backed away?
A: Well I think what were doing at SpaceX is certainly in collaboration with NASA. NASA's been a big supporter, and I'm not sure we could've really gotten where we are today without NASA. But in general, commercial technology companies are better at advancing technology than governments. Or, should be - once it gets out of the fundamental research phase. And that's sort of what SpaceX hopes to be - to really drive the technology development a lot faster than it would occur otherwise, if it was just sort of a big government endeavour.

Q: Are you going to go for an asteroid first, or Mars first, after the moon?
A: Well, there's not many asteroids between here and Mars that are of any size.

Q: So Mars is the closest desination to do that.
A: After the moon, you're either going to go to a very small asteroid, or Mars. The big asteroids are between Mars and Jupiter.

Q: So you've got your eye on them already. Is there a rough date for the Mars landing in your mind?
A: About 11 or 12 years.

Q: At the same time you say that private companies can step in and do this. Is there a danger with the privatisation of Space? People have called it the Wild West. The wild west was famously the most ruthless example of capitalism ever. It was very hard on a lot of people. Is the same thing going to happen? Is this going to benefit all of us, or just the very rich who get there first?
A: Do you mean Mars?

Q: Well, space in general. Not just SpaceX, but the whole privatisation
A: Well, I think in order to create a self-sustaining city on Mars, you've gotta make it as affordable as possible to go there. Otherwise you won't get enough people. So I think you've got to get the cost of moving to Mars, roughly equivalent to a middle class home, and then there'll be enough people who want to sell their house and move to Mars. That's sort of the key threshold for it to become a self-sustaining.. "colony".. if you will. Kind of like the English colonies in the Americas - which started out with a lot of sort of, basically, rich people and the British government sponsoring people to go over, but eventually, you know, anyone could go over.

Q: So is it the same sort of thing, you know in the UK, Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic. D'you see you're doing a similar thing there?
A: We're pretty different from Virgin Galactic. Virgin Galactic is sort of more oriented more towards entertainment, you know, in having a quick-fun ride.

Q: So, not as serious as SpaceX?
A: SpaceX is sort of more, Martian colonisation, whereas Virgin Galactic, atleast in its initial efforts is sort of trying to give you kind of five minutes of weightlessness. So it's a different thing.

Q: And a last question - this happens a lot, I'm sure - there's always the Tony Stark comparison that's made, and Jon Favreau said that you're an inspiration for that. And I've read that you've sort of read comics, growing up, in South Africa. Do you ever see yourself as a bit of a superhero? Is that what you think?

What Elon said:
Not really, <laughs> no. ..
No, I mean, I think of myself as an engineer really. Try to create new technology that's important, but fun and cool at the same time.

What Elon SHOULD have said:
I think of myself as an engineer... so... YES. Engineers can do just about anything

QuantumG · « **Reply #8 on:** 06/10/2014 10:40 pm »

Wow, that interviewer is a piece of work, isn't he? It must be so annoying to go to trade events in the UK and put up with press like that. When every question is of the form "Would you say ...?" one quickly begins to hear the word "please" on the end.. like they're just trying to sock puppet you.

Here's my full transcript. Thanks AJA.