GigaOM » SpaceX

Elon Musk on his one regret from the NYT incident, spaceship scares & Russian missiles

Katie Fehrenbacher — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 22:47:37 +0000

Elon Musk — the CEO of Space-X and Tesla and Chairman of SolarCity — says he has a New Year’s resolution to have more fun. But in the meantime, there’s arguably not an entrepreneur alive today that thinks as big about solving global problems, has made as much money off of those solutions, and has such an appetite for risk, as Musk

During a wide-ranging interview with former Wired Editor Chris Anderson at the SXSW Interactive festival in Austin on Saturday afternoon, Musk talked about hair-raising attempts to troubleshoot a spaceship, showed off a video of a test landing of a reusable rocket, discussed his one regret from the Tesla incident with the New York Times, and talked about how he once considered buying missiles from Russia.

On his one regret from the New York Times review incident:

Musk said that the only thing he regrets from the interaction with the New York Times over the publication’s negative review of Tesla’s Model S, was that he never posted his own rebuttal of the New York Times’ rebuttal. Musk says he wrote a response to the New York Times’ journalist, which noted that he thought that the writer had committed a “low-grade ethics violation” and sent it to the New York Times’ editor, but he never published it himself.

Musk said he wanted to make it clear that he thought the writer had not “acted in good faith.” He also said he still might publish the response.

On spaceship anxieties:

Last Sunday SpaceX’s spaceship Dragon was able to connect with the International Space Station and delivered cargo to the astronauts on board. But before that connection happened, the spaceship suffered from a problem which Musk gave details of during the interview.

Basically three of the spaceship’s four thrusters stopped working, leaving the spaceship essentially floating in space, and the team couldn’t figure out why. Eventually the team used a pressure system to jolt the Spaceship and give it “the equivalent of the heimlich maneuver,” said Musk. That finally worked and all three thrusters started working again. Musk called the experience “extremely nerve wracking,” and said “that was hard core. I never want to go through that again.”

On testing reusable and landing rockets

Musk showed off a video, which he says was shown to the world for the first time at SXSW, of SpaceX testing a rocket that can launch and land in the desert. The video showed, to the tune of the Johnny Cash song Ring of Fire, a 10-story high rocket launch and then shortly after land back in place still in the launch position. The rocket had a tiny Johnny Cash cowboy on the side.

Traditional rockets launch but don’t land. And Musk says that to make interplanetary travel financially feasible rockets need to be built to land successfully. All other vehicles are reusable and can start and stop without having to be replaced, said Musk, adding, imagine if you were watching Star Trek and the Enterprise was replaced every time.

On his biggest mistake:

In response to a question about what his biggest mistake in life has been, Musk said that he has routinely made the mistake that talent always trumps personality when it comes to people he works with. He said he’s put too much weight on it being just about the brain, when having a good heart is very important. It’s a mistake he said he has made many times.

On trying to buy intercontinental ballistic missiles from Russia:

Musk says that back in 2001 and 2002, when he was just starting to get into the idea of building tech for space travel, he traveled to Russia three times trying to figure out how he could buy Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles to aid his idea. He says when he got back from his third trip he started to realize that his original premise to use that technology, and work outside of the U.S., was wrong. “The U.S. is a nation of explorers,” says Musk.

Musk also says he originally wanted to launch a spaceship to Mars that could crash into the planet and germinate a kind of greenhouse, and that he wanted to do such a stunt to help NASA increase their budget to travel to Mars. He said he had looked onto the NASA website and saw no section for Mars travel, and at first he thought maybe it was hidden somewhere.

On what he is most concerned about:

Musk says he will be very disappointed if humanity doesn’t land on Mars in his lifetime. “That’s the thing I’m most concerned about.”

On managing to have a family at the same time as his crazy life:

Musk says he does email on his phone while he spends time with his five kids, and says that’s how he’s able to spend time with them and run two companies. In response to that, interviewer Anderson said that he wasn’t able to do such a thing as it’s negative for both the email and the kids.

Other fun stuff:

“Its fun to gamble as long as you are the house,” said Musk.
People Musk admires: Founding father Benjamen Franklin, Google co-founder Larry Page, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
“My buddies from PayPal saved my butt,” said Musk, in reference to when Peter Thiel and the Founders Fund backed SpaceX in a crucial time before its successes.
“Don’t compete with China on a commodity product,” said Musk referring to the failure of solar companies like Solyndra.
“I would like to die on Mars, just not die on impact on Mars.”

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Revealed: the finalists for the 2012 Crunchies

Tom Krazit — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:00:44 +0000

The finalists for the 2012 Crunchies have been released, and now it’s time to decide who should rewarded for their technology innovation and leadership over the course of 2012.

The list of honorees follows below, and it’s a list packed with newcomers as well as Silicon Valley veterans. Thanks to all for voting in the nomination process, and now that we’ve narrowed it down to five candidates for each award, don’t forget to vote for which person or company you think is most deserving. Voting begins today (the voting page can be found here, and the rules are here) and closes on January 24th.

As a reminder, the Crunchies, a joint production with our friends at Techcrunch and Venturebeat, will take place on Thursday, January 31, 2013, from 7:30pm to 11:30pm at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco. You can purchase tickets here.

So, without any further delay, the nominees for the 2012 Crunchies are as follows:

Best Technology Achievement
Baumgartner Jump
Google Glass
Mars Curiosity
SpaceX docks with International Space Station
Tesla Supercharger Network

Best Collaborative Consumption Service
Airbnb
Get It Now/Postmates
Lyft
TaskRabbit
Uber

Best E-Commerce Application
Fab
Hotel Tonight
Karma/Facebook Gifts
Warby Parker
Zulily

Best Mobile Application
Evernote
Google Maps
Grindr
Instagram
Square

Fastest Rising Startup
Exec
Lyft
Pinterest
Snapchat
Stripe

Best Content Discovery Application
Flipboard
Instapaper
Pinterest
Prismatic
Tumblr

Best Design
Facebook Timeline
Medium
Paper by FiftyThree
Square
Svbtle

Best Bootstrapped Startup
FreshBooks
Instapaper
Nimbus
Techmeme
Upverter

Sexiest Enterprise Startup
Asana
Box
Cloudera
Plexxi
Zendesk

Best International Startup
Hailo
Rovio
Soundcloud
Spotify
Xiaomi

Best Education Startup
Codecademy
Coursera
Edmodo
Khan Academy
Udacity

Best Hardware Startup
Lit Motors
Lockitron
Makerbot
Nest
Raspberry Pi

Best Time Sink
Angry Birds Star Wars
Buzzfeed
Letterpress
Pinterest
WhatsApp

Biggest Social Impact
Donors Choose
Indiegogo
Kickstarter
Kiva
Reddit

Angel of the Year
Michael Arrington
Chris Dixon
Paul Graham
David Lee
Chris Sacca

VC of the Year
Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz
Matt Cohler
Jim Goetz
Michael Moritz
Peter Thiel

Founder of the Year
Nathan Blecharczyk, Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia (Airbnb)
Kevin and Julia Hartz (Eventbrite)
Elon Musk (SpaceX, Tesla)
Kevin Systrom (Instagram)
Nir Zuk (Palo Alto Networks)

CEO of the Year
Dick Costolo (Twitter)
Phil Libin (Evernote)
Marissa Mayer (Yahoo!)
Larry Page (Google)
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

Best New Startup of 2012
Coursera
Crowdtilt
Lyft
Snapchat
Waze

Best Overall Startup of 2012
Fab
Github
Instagram
Palantir
Square

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Yowza! SpaceX Grasshopper takes off and lands vertically in successful test

Barb Darrow — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 04:02:55 +0000

A SpaceX spacecraft, formally known as the Grasshopper Vertical Take Off and Landing Vehicle, lived up to its name in a recent test flight, the video of which was just released.

The Grasshopper craft, powered by a Falcon 9 rocket and Merlin1D engine, took off, rose 131 feet, hovered a bit and landed vertically, all in one piece. SpaceX aims to provide a space vehicle vehicle that can launch, fly, land, and then turn around to do that all over again. One of the backbreaking expenses of space programs is that so much of the sophisticated equipment cannot be reused. A more sustainable model would have to mimic commercial flights where vehicles are used over and over again.

The video, shot in McGregor, Texas, shows the latest December 17 test flight. Previously, the Grasshopper flew 6 feet in September and 17.7 feet in November. SpaceX, helmed by CEO Elon Musk, said it plans more and more complicated test flights over the next few months.

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SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada hit big in NASA sweepstakes

Barb Darrow — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 15:58:55 +0000

Elon Musk’s SpaceX snagged a $440 million NASA contract to design a manned spacecraft but the company wasn’t the only winner. Aeronautics heavyweight Boeing also got $440 million and Sierra Nevada received $212.5 million to build their own entries for the space launch sweepstakes known as NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Program (CCiCap).

The goal is to launch manned spacecraft from U.S. soil in the next five years, according to NASA.

SpaceX is building both the spacecraft and the rockets to propel it, and will compete with Sierra Nevada and Boeing, which will design and construct their own spacecraft but rely on Atlas rockets from United Launch Alliance.

SpaceX Dragon crew in evaluation test.

Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser Space System was awarded $212.5 million as part of the same NASA Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) Program. The 21-month contract will begin in August 2012.

In May, SpaceX became the first private company to launch and recover an unmanned spacecraft. Musk, who co-founded PayPal and Tesla Motors, founded SpaceX in 2002.

With this contract, NASA, which no longer has the funds to build and field spacecraft and retired the space shuttle program after 30 years, provides seed money and expert help to these contractors. “We support them in developing these systems and to come up with some sort of design that will get people to and from the space station,” a NASA spokesman told me.

Other companies are working on a range of ancillary projects, including the design and construction of space hotels, etc., he said. All of this work — much of it now privately funded — could open up the realm of space travel to mere mortals.

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SpaceX launch scrubbed

Barb Darrow — Sat, 19 May 2012 13:55:47 +0000

The anticipated launch of the SpaceX rocket, slated for 4:55 a.m eastern time Saturday, was aborted at the last possible second.

The snafu almost immediately prompted questions as to whether the private sector is ready to take on the momentous challenges of a space program, although given the big NASA Space Shuttle disasters, that criticism seems a bit premature. SpaceX was co-founded and backed by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk who also co-founded PayPal and Tesla Motors.

But, proponents said this is a setback, not a disaster. Computer systems detected a combustion issue in one of the rocket’s nine engines and shut down the mission as the countdown hit zero.

“We aborted with purpose,” said SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell according to AP reports. “It would be a failure if we were to have lifted off with an engine trending in this direction … The software did what it was supposed to do.”

Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days.—
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 19, 2012

As the U.S. dismantled the space shuttle program, eyes turned to the private sector for funding and know-how to continue space missions. SpaceX’s goal is to ferry cargo and eventually people to the International Space Station. To date such missions have only been accomplished by the U.S., Russia, Europe and Japan.

In the U.S. other companies pursuing some aspect of space travel include Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada. And then there’s Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which plans to offer suborbital spaceflights as early as next year. The company is already booking reservations either directly or through its Accredited Space Agents at a mere $200,000 a pop.

Image courtesy of NASA TV

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The first photos of Tesla’s electric SUV the Model X

Katie Fehrenbacher — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:00:31 +0000

Elon Musk explaining falcon wings

At a sneak preview in Hawthorne, Calif. on Thursday, electric car maker Tesla unveiled its third car, an all-electric SUV, minivan hybrid called the Model X, for the first time. And yep, true to the rampant speculation on the Interwebs, it’s got so-called “falcon wing” doors, which are a Tesla-designed double-hinged play on gullf wing doors, named after Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Falcon rocket line for his other company Space-X (yeah, Tesla is just one of his three companies).

In contrast to gull wing doors that sweep out and up and take up considerable horizontal space, the Model X falcon wings lift up and have a double hinge so they take up a lot less horizontal space. Tesla designed the doors not only to add that extra cool-factor, but also to appeal to, say, a Mom or family driving to the mall and parking in a tight spot.

Because the doors open up vertically there’s also room to stand in the car while getting in and packing cargo (see photo) like kids and groceries. I fully stood up in the car with the doors open and I’m 5’11 and I had ample head room. The Model X is as roomy as any minivan out there and then some — it seats seven, and has cargo space in both the back trunk, and the front trunk (please don’t make me say frunk).

Rear of the Model X with trunk closed

The Model X is built on the backbone of the Model S, Tesla’s sedan that will be delivered to customers this Summer, and the Model X prototype that we checked out on Thursday was Tesla’s most advanced prototype at a launch to date and little will be changed for the production version, said Musk.

Tesla execs drove us around a short driving track and the car handled like the Model S — it has the same low, long, bottom battery pack design. It’s pretty amazing to ride in a minivan/SUV that can handle like a sports car. Musk says the Model X can go zero to 60 in 4.4 seconds. Think of it as the first cool, green, sporty minivan.

The Model X will be priced similarly to the Model S, said Musk, (Model S costs $50,000 to $70,000) and will have about the same electric driving range, with potentially 10 percent less range, because it’s a heavier car (the Model S has three range option, 160 miles, 230 miles and 300 miles).

OK, enough talk, I know you want to see the first photos of Tesla’s Model X! So here you go:

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12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:14:37 +0000

Lose your love handles, call your mom more often, get that promotion: If you’re like many of us, you’re already thinking over some New Year’s resolutions that will make you a better “you” in 2012. But how are the tech industries’ thought leaders approaching the new year? We asked 12 of them for their resolutions and published those from Dec. 27, 2011, through Jan. 7, 2012, on gigaom.com. We have bundled them together here in a single document for the convenience of our valued GigaOM Pro readers. Be sure to check back over the coming months for further thoughts and advice from some of the tech industry’s most well-known names. Companies mentioned in this report include Sprint, Facebook and Amazon. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.

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Elon Musk on Colbert: $30K Electric Car Still In the Pipeline

Josie Garthwaite — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:38:48 +0000

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk took on the Colbert Nation last night, chatting with Stephen Colbert about living large, Tesla’s long-discussed plans for a $30,000 third-generation electric car (after the Model S), and timelines for private space travel (with his other startup, SpaceX). Best line from Colbert: With the SpaceX rocket using about “as much fuel as 2 million Hummers, are you trying to break even as spectacularly as possible?” Here’s the clip — enjoy:

The Colbert Report

Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Elon Musk

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

2010 Election

Fox News

The Daily Sprout

Craig Rubens — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:00:51 +0000

RGGI Auction Sells Out at $3.07 a Ton: All 12.5 million allowances auctioned last week by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, North America’s first cap-and-trade system, sold for $3.07 each, raising some $38.5 million for the member states – Green Inc.

McKinsey Sees Clean Coal Viable in 2030: A new report from McKinsey & Co. estimates that carbon capture and storage technologies at new power plants will be economically feasible in 2030 at a cost of $43 to $65 per ton of abatement. So, in short, hurry up and wait – Green Car Congress.

Kia Eying Ultra-Capacitors for Fuel Cell Car?: The South Korean automaker is reportedly considering ultra-capacitors as an energy storage device for its next-gen fuel cell vehicles with a total voltage of 450v – Telegraph via Autoblog Green.

DOE Puts $17.6M into Early State PV Projects: As part of President Bush’s Solar America Initiative, the Department of Energy has announced up to $17.6 million in funding for six different photovoltaic module developers who are working on new solar designs – DOE.

Mr. Musk, We Have Ignition: Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk saw success with his cosmic venture and has successfully launched his privately-funded SpaceX Falcon 1 into orbit – Register.

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Michael Jackson to Skype: Beat It

Om Malik — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:10:22 +0000

[qi:026] The exodus of senior management from eBay’s Skype division continues. Ten days after co-founder Niklas Zennstrom decided to say sayonara to the P2P telephony company, Michael Jackson, one of its early employees and VP of operations, has left the building. I had wondered why eBay (EBAY) didn’t bump him up to the top spot.

He was said to be chatting with a mobile payments company, but that information turned out to be not true. (My bad!) Instead, he is joining one of Skype’s earliest backers, Mangrove Partners. He’ll take the title of general partner, and is likely to go back to his first love: telecom and mobile. So Euro startups with mobile thrillers, it’s time to call MJ.

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