Given the interest in SpaceX there must be tens of thousands of people many with technical experience who might have good ideas for improvements or money saving. If such ideas were vetted by someone with appropriate experience some of the better ideas could be passed on to be reviewed by SpaceX staff. Would this sort of arrangement work? Seems like a massive resource is going to waste here.
No. They know what they are doing. Far more than us armchair engineers.
No. No, no, no, no, and no. Also no. If you or anyone else wants to advise SpaceX, do so as an employee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Quote from: Slarty1080 on 05/08/2018 10:42 pmGiven the interest in SpaceX there must be tens of thousands of people many with technical experience who might have good ideas for improvements or money saving. If such ideas were vetted by someone with appropriate experience some of the better ideas could be passed on to be reviewed by SpaceX staff. Would this sort of arrangement work? Seems like a massive resource is going to waste here.No. They know what they are doing. Far more than us armchair engineers.
In addition to Dunning-Kruger, if someone did send them a novel and original idea to improve things, taking it and running with it might be considered an opening for "intellectual property" lawsuits.It's one thing to take a published public tweet suggestion for an improvement to your Tesla and implement that. It could potentially be considered something something completely different to take a potentially patentable idea submitted without any authentication and implement it, and I don't think anyone wants to involve the legal department unnecessarily.
Quote from: ClayJar on 05/09/2018 12:17 amIn addition to Dunning-Kruger, if someone did send them a novel and original idea to improve things, taking it and running with it might be considered an opening for "intellectual property" lawsuits.It's one thing to take a published public tweet suggestion for an improvement to your Tesla and implement that. It could potentially be considered something something completely different to take a potentially patentable idea submitted without any authentication and implement it, and I don't think anyone wants to involve the legal department unnecessarily.That's not how patents work.If you disclosed it to them, then they can't PATENT it, but they can sure use it (unless it is already patented or filed for).If you disclosed it in a public forum, then probably nobody else can patent it either.-----ABCD: Always Be Counting Down
Quote from: meekGee on 05/12/2018 03:13 pmQuote from: ClayJar on 05/09/2018 12:17 amIn addition to Dunning-Kruger, if someone did send them a novel and original idea to improve things, taking it and running with it might be considered an opening for "intellectual property" lawsuits.It's one thing to take a published public tweet suggestion for an improvement to your Tesla and implement that. It could potentially be considered something something completely different to take a potentially patentable idea submitted without any authentication and implement it, and I don't think anyone wants to involve the legal department unnecessarily.That's not how patents work.If you disclosed it to them, then they can't PATENT it, but they can sure use it (unless it is already patented or filed for).If you disclosed it in a public forum, then probably nobody else can patent it either.-----ABCD: Always Be Counting DownMy recollection is that after the changes to the US patent system some years ago the 1 year grace period between public disclosure and filing was still in existence. It was modified so that if ClayJar disclosed his invention here he would have 1 year to file on it but nobody else would be able to file on it because his post would be prior art for them.
That's not how patents work.If you disclosed it to them, then they can't PATENT it, but they can sure use it (unless it is already patented or filed for).If you disclosed it in a public forum, then probably nobody else can patent it either.
Unsolicited suggestions are likely to be returned unopened, in the general case
Maybe a half dozen people with names many of you would recognize have told me that they read these forums.
Suggestions from the public might have limited applicability on highly technical issues, but there might be other areas that would be more applicable.Ideas for publicity along the lines of the Tesla Roadster for instance?Or ideas for rising funds perhaps? How about selling bits of old rockets? They must have loads of old kit that will never fly again that could be cut up into small parts and sold as “flown in space”?I suspect a lot of people would wish SpaceX well and might even be willing to donate some money to their cause if they simply made it easy to do so.
Quote from: Slarty1080 on 05/13/2018 12:18 pmSuggestions from the public might have limited applicability on highly technical issues, but there might be other areas that would be more applicable.Ideas for publicity along the lines of the Tesla Roadster for instance?Or ideas for rising funds perhaps? How about selling bits of old rockets? They must have loads of old kit that will never fly again that could be cut up into small parts and sold as “flown in space”?I suspect a lot of people would wish SpaceX well and might even be willing to donate some money to their cause if they simply made it easy to do so.The kind of amounts they could make from that might be useful to a couple of guys in a garage trying to get their first VC funding round, but to SpaceX it wouldn't be material.
i'm not so sure about no, no, no, no, no, etc. While, as individuals, few of us have the expertise required to advise in any sort of detail, we (and they - SpaceX) have an imagination, it's really hard to see how, even a so-called crazy idea can have unforseen effects. What I am reading here sounds like projecting the worst perceptions of NASA culture to Sp;aceX.For sure, I'm not dumb enough to go posting crazy, alien space bat comments into the middle of one of Dmitry's threads on BFR design specifics. I'm not qualified. At the same time if there is an issue or thought I can bring ujp, I'm not so afraid or lack self-confidence to think that my ideas have no value. We have no way of knowing what thought that may trigger in someone else...i.e. James Burke's Connections.So while there maybe many armchair rocket scientists, and 'mere' enthusiasts here, there is great value in questions and comments from the mouths of babes. Who really does know where the next great leap in imagination at SpaceX will come from?
Quote from: ChrisWilson68 on 05/13/2018 12:37 pmThe kind of amounts they could make from that might be useful to a couple of guys in a garage trying to get their first VC funding round, but to SpaceX it wouldn't be material.But they sell T shirts on their web site?
The kind of amounts they could make from that might be useful to a couple of guys in a garage trying to get their first VC funding round, but to SpaceX it wouldn't be material.
I have been on this website for about 10 years or more now. I have seen a lot of good ideas before they were actually tried.
Quote from: spacenut on 05/14/2018 02:11 amI have been on this website for about 10 years or more now. I have seen a lot of good ideas before they were actually tried. It's not enough that there are some good ideas from some members of the public. SpaceX employees' time is a precious resource. The question is whether it's worth their time to be reading through suggestions from the general public as opposed to listening to other SpaceX employees, going to industry and academic conferences, reading academic papers, talking to former classmates and coworkers in the field, etc.Edit: and, also, they should probably be spending some of their time actually doing their jobs.
It was pointed out to me by another member that I was the first to suggest the use of "grid fins" on Falcon for entry control before they appeared coincidence, maybe...
Quote from: Rocket Science on 05/14/2018 01:47 amIt was pointed out to me by another member that I was the first to suggest the use of "grid fins" on Falcon for entry control before they appeared coincidence, maybe...Well deserved kudos.But as to this thread, such a suggestion is something well known to practitioners of the art, aerospace engineers. Any competent aerospace engineer would have known of grid fins and would at least consider their use. Point being regarding the thread topic, this was not a "suggestion from the public" that SpaceX would not have entertained on their own.
Quote from: Slarty1080 on 05/13/2018 12:18 pm>Or ideas for rising funds perhaps? How about selling bits of old rockets? They must have loads of old kit that will never fly again that could be cut up into small parts and sold as “flown in space”?I suspect a lot of people would wish SpaceX well and might even be willing to donate some money to their cause if they simply made it easy to do so.The kind of amounts they could make from that might be useful to a couple of guys in a garage trying to get their first VC funding round, but to SpaceX it wouldn't be material.
>Or ideas for rising funds perhaps? How about selling bits of old rockets? They must have loads of old kit that will never fly again that could be cut up into small parts and sold as “flown in space”?I suspect a lot of people would wish SpaceX well and might even be willing to donate some money to their cause if they simply made it easy to do so.
...the offering of 3 million new shares raises SpaceX's valuation to $27.5 billion, according to Equidate and two people familiar with the fundraising."There is an unlimited amount of funding that the company could probably access globally in private markets," Hilmer said, adding that he has personally met many of "a diverse group" interested in SpaceX."Everywhere I travel around the world, investors of all types — individuals, family offices, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds or private equity — want to get into SpaceX," Hilmer said. "It's almost all investors I talk to."Such vast, unparalleled interest from private investors gives SpaceX "a lot of runway" to continue its "very long-term approach" to the development of its business, Hilmer said.
Quote from: Slarty1080 on 05/13/2018 03:30 pmQuote from: ChrisWilson68 on 05/13/2018 12:37 pmThe kind of amounts they could make from that might be useful to a couple of guys in a garage trying to get their first VC funding round, but to SpaceX it wouldn't be material.But they sell T shirts on their web site?That's marketing, not fundraising.
Quote from: launchwatcher on 05/13/2018 07:57 pmQuote from: Slarty1080 on 05/13/2018 03:30 pmQuote from: ChrisWilson68 on 05/13/2018 12:37 pmThe kind of amounts they could make from that might be useful to a couple of guys in a garage trying to get their first VC funding round, but to SpaceX it wouldn't be material.But they sell T shirts on their web site?That's marketing, not fundraising. Well why not sell rocket parts as marketing then?
Remember Boaty McBoatface...
No. No, no, no, no, and no. Also no.
People are typically overly optimistic when evaluating the quality of their performance on social and intellectual tasks. In particular, poor performers grossly overestimate their performances because their incompetence deprives them of the skills needed to recognize their deficits. Five studies demonstrated that poor performers lack insight into their shortcomings even in real world settings and when given incentives to be accurate. An additional meta-analysis showed that it was lack of insight into their own errors (and not mistaken assessments of their peers) that led to overly optimistic estimates among poor performers. Along the way, these studies ruled out recent alternative accounts that have been proposed to explain why poor performers hold such positive impressions of their performance.
...conclude that you are a functional expert (and have not designed and/or built functional tech with tiny margins more or less from scratch)...
For those of you that have not read any of the links/papers I've posted about the Dunning-Kruger effect (originally published in 1999), I'll copy the abstract of the 2008 replication and meta-analysis below. QuotePeople are typically overly optimistic when evaluating the quality of their performance on social and intellectual tasks. In particular, poor performers grossly overestimate their performances because their incompetence deprives them of the skills needed to recognize their deficits. Five studies demonstrated that poor performers lack insight into their shortcomings even in real world settings and when given incentives to be accurate. An additional meta-analysis showed that it was lack of insight into their own errors (and not mistaken assessments of their peers) that led to overly optimistic estimates among poor performers. Along the way, these studies ruled out recent alternative accounts that have been proposed to explain why poor performers hold such positive impressions of their performance.
Dunning-Kruger specifically applies to imcompetent, poor performers. While that might apply to some here, saying it applies to all seems like an unsupported generalization. Many of the posters here are quite successful in various technical fields. I've re-bolded your quote differently, to emphasize that DK applies to poor performers:Quote from: vaporcobra on 05/20/2018 08:57 pmFor those of you that have not read any of the links/papers I've posted about the Dunning-Kruger effect (originally published in 1999), I'll copy the abstract of the 2008 replication and meta-analysis below. QuotePeople are typically overly optimistic when evaluating the quality of their performance on social and intellectual tasks. In particular, poor performers grossly overestimate their performances because their incompetence deprives them of the skills needed to recognize their deficits. Five studies demonstrated that poor performers lack insight into their shortcomings even in real world settings and when given incentives to be accurate. An additional meta-analysis showed that it was lack of insight into their own errors (and not mistaken assessments of their peers) that led to overly optimistic estimates among poor performers. Along the way, these studies ruled out recent alternative accounts that have been proposed to explain why poor performers hold such positive impressions of their performance.If you are going to quote Dunning-Kruger, you also need to quote the opposite Imposter Syndrome. This is where people who are actually competent doubt their own ability. It can be defined as 'a feeling of “phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.”' They ascribe their own success to luck, or people somehow overlooking their obvious flaws.Neither of these is a new observation. As Yeats said in 1919, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
I see your intent, but you are misapprehending their studies by extrapolating expertise somewhere to expertise everywhere. I can all but guarantee you that even the most expert of experts readily (and perhaps even more easily) suffer from Dunning-Kruger in areas outside of their expertise. One step further, being aware that one is an expert in certain subjects can effortlessly and unconsciously inflate self-confidence in ways that irrationally extend beyond the reaches of one's actual expertise. It's pretty easy to observe (very ironically) in terms of technical and engineering-minded folks' understandings of the humanities and social sciences more generally.
Quote from: vaporcobra on 05/22/2018 05:40 amI see your intent, but you are misapprehending their studies by extrapolating expertise somewhere to expertise everywhere. I can all but guarantee you that even the most expert of experts readily (and perhaps even more easily) suffer from Dunning-Kruger in areas outside of their expertise. One step further, being aware that one is an expert in certain subjects can effortlessly and unconsciously inflate self-confidence in ways that irrationally extend beyond the reaches of one's actual expertise. It's pretty easy to observe (very ironically) in terms of technical and engineering-minded folks' understandings of the humanities and social sciences more generally. I fully agree with you on your wider point. However its quite funny, given that you (and I take a guess here) are not an expert on the Dunning-Kruger effect, how do you know that your layman opinion that the Dunnning-Kruger effect is actually applicable is not suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect? A nice circular problem here Back to topic. In various interviews, Elon Musk and I guess also Gwynne Shotwell responded to the question "how to help SpaceX" with something along the lines: Talk to friends and politicians and make them aware that a spacefaring future and a Human occupation of Mars is a fight-worthy goal for our society. Why dont we take their advise and do just that, shell we?
probably no one outside of SpaceX is going to come up with a useful suggestion that SpaceX has not already considered.
Quote from: vaporcobra on 05/08/2018 11:26 pmNo. No, no, no, no, and no. Also no. I'd say yes, on these lines of evidence:a) Almost everything in rocketry was predicted by science fiction writers.
These were not experts, but came up with good ideas that were later implemented. Amateurs have the advantage of looking further out than engineers, who need to obsess about the problems of today.
c) An interested amateur and a professional are not as far apart as you might think. Lots of people on NSF have engineering degrees and/or decades of experience. If they joined SpaceX they could contribute right away. Their ideas are no worse from having originated from outside. See also recent math developments, where amateurs and unknowns have made significant strides.
Oh my god. Mods: please, please lock this unproductive and circular thread before I lose my last modicums of faith in humanity To anyone who genuinely believes that forums chatter (L2 or not) is a significant influence on companies on the envelope of technological systems development, please read this paper on the Dunning-Kruger Effect. And then read it a second, third, fourth, and fifth time. If, after five reads, you are still keen to conclude that you are a functional expert (and have not designed and/or built functional tech with tiny margins more or less from scratch), you are quite literally a dictionary definition of Dunning-Kruger. I'm not trying to be mean or to personally attack anyone. It's just a simple reality of human cognition that unless you assume you are layperson (as I personally do), you will inevitably wind up inflating personal perceptions of expertise. In all aspects of life (not simply being a spaceflight fan on forums), assume you know nothing until you have incontrovertible, empirical evidence showing otherwise. Do not assume - as many of you clearly do by arguing/implying that SpaceX actions and your forum comments are in any sense connected - that correlation has ANYTHING to do with causation unless you have direct, repeatable evidence. For those of you that have not read any of the links/papers I've posted about the Dunning-Kruger effect (originally published in 1999), I'll copy the abstract of the 2008 replication and meta-analysis below. QuotePeople are typically overly optimistic when evaluating the quality of their performance on social and intellectual tasks. In particular, poor performers grossly overestimate their performances because their incompetence deprives them of the skills needed to recognize their deficits. Five studies demonstrated that poor performers lack insight into their shortcomings even in real world settings and when given incentives to be accurate. An additional meta-analysis showed that it was lack of insight into their own errors (and not mistaken assessments of their peers) that led to overly optimistic estimates among poor performers. Along the way, these studies ruled out recent alternative accounts that have been proposed to explain why poor performers hold such positive impressions of their performance.Mods: I know this is only tangentially related to spaceflight, but it is explicitly related to this thread and to how users interact on public/private forums dedicated to technology. If you think this comment should be removed, I'd argue that the thread should commensurately be locked or removed.
The discussion should not be about CAN armchair engineers make useful suggestions. The discussion should be how can you implement a cost effective filter to find the gem within the garbage. The signal to noise is just too low for being useful.
Quote from: meekGee on 05/12/2018 03:13 pmThat's not how patents work.If you disclosed it to them, then they can't PATENT it, but they can sure use it (unless it is already patented or filed for).If you disclosed it in a public forum, then probably nobody else can patent it either.That's how it's supposed to work but searches for prior art are not always reliable. [...]
Quote from: LouScheffer on 05/19/2018 08:07 pma) Almost everything in rocketry was predicted by science fiction writers. .. after being first invented by scientists / engineers.
a) Almost everything in rocketry was predicted by science fiction writers.
These calls to even ban the possibility of lesser trained minds being able to make suggestions are haughty and arrogant. Issues around patents and liability are legitimate issues. But only a fool thinks he has nothing to learn from a less educated person.
We came up with our own idea, and we actually sort of crashed the meeting with Elon himself and presented the idea. And, after speaking with him and one of his VPs, Doug Field, they essentially said ‘This is a good idea, but here’s the problem we are facing right now, so you guys go talk with us.’ And it snowballed from there,” he said.
