What Motivates Elon Musk to Act So Quickly?
What Motivates Elon Musk to Act So Quickly?
This episode was going to be on the New Space's funding, but I'm still awaiting confirmation of a couple of interviewees. Additionally, I wanted to present some new results about the "Elon Musk approach." The concept originated during a two-hour webcast in which SpaceX founder Elon Musk toured the company's South Texas facility where the megarocket Starship is being constructed. Tim Dodd, an intellectual YouTuber, was taken by Musk through the massive tents, facilities, and launchpad.
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There are several reasons to be awestruck by Musk's latest endeavour: the Starship rocket stands 120 metres tall, the equivalent of over 40 stories, and is taller than the classic Saturn V. Except that this one will be completely reusable and quite adaptable, as it will be capable of orbiting 100 tonnes. This is four times the capacity of Falcon 9, and it will also transport men to the Moon and, eventually, Mars. Last week represented a watershed moment, with the two halves of the rocket being placed in dramatic form for the first time:
RGV Aerial Photography is responsible for this image.
What's more remarkable is the speed with which SpaceX is assembling all the components: buildings, such as the 400-foot metallic structure that will capture the rocket's first stage upon landing, are being constructed and erected concurrently with various iterations of the rocket. Due to a shortage of hangars, the firm deployed massive tents to house the most crucial manufacturing steps. There is no time wasted here.
Tim Dodd's video depicts an unpolished Elon Musk sweating in the early evening heat of South Texas, sleep-deprived, suffering from severe back pain, unconcerned about his physical appearance but perpetually focused and compulsive. As geeky as the interview is, it unquestionably has documentary value.
However, in addition to that value, there are further points to make regarding how the Musk technique applies to the construction of a massive spaceship. Here are five randomly chosen hints about SpaceX's culture and methodology.
- Musk's Approach to Engineering
I previously discussed Musk's strategy for manufacturing cars in the Monday Notes series on electric vehicles (see How Tesla cracked the code of automobile innovation), but the SpaceX founder adapted it for rocket manufacturing:
“Step one: Simplify the requirements. The requirements are unquestionably stupid; it makes no difference who issued them to you. It's especially harmful when they originate from an intellectual individual, as you may not question them sufficiently. Everybody is incorrect. No matter who you are, everyone makes mistakes from time to time. Every design is flawed; the only difference is in the degree to which they are flawed.”
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“Step two: Make a concerted effort to eliminate the component or process. If at least 10% of the time, pieces are not being brought back into the design, [it indicates that] not enough parts are being eliminated. The bias is frequently quite strongly in favour of adding this component or process step just in case we need it. Additionally, each necessary component and process must originate with a person, not a department, because a department cannot be questioned about why a requirement exists, whereas a person can”.
“Step three: optimise and simplify the design. This is the most frequent blunder made by a clever engineer: optimising something that should not exist”.
“Step four: shorten the duration of the cycle. You're travelling too slowly; up your pace! However, do not accelerate until you have addressed the other three points.”
“The concluding phase is to automate. A critical component of this is eliminating in-process testing once problems have been identified; if a product is reaching the end of a production line with a high acceptance rate, in-process testing is unnecessary. Personally, I have made the error of reversing all five stages several times. I literally automated, accelerated, simplified, and then deleted” when creating Tesla's Model 3.
- From the top, meticulous attention to detail
Musk appears to be an expert on his rocket. It appears as though he cannot be duped by anyone on the shop floor. He can quote the massive launch stand's weight (270 tonnes, in case you're curious), describe with great precision the distribution of the vehicle's heat load upon reentry into the atmosphere, the problem given by the heat tiles, and the difficulties of protecting the rocket's small wing hinges. He is in the trenches, much like Tesla was during the Model 3's "production hell." That is in sharp contrast to Jim Chilton, Boeing's SVP for Space and Launch, a 37-year veteran with a bird's eye view of the indefinitely delayed Starliner development, which appears to be the progeny of a decade-old committee.
- Failure is an unavoidable stage
Elon Musk has unexpectedly low expectations for the fall's maiden Starship orbital flight:
“Our objective is to reach orbit without blowing up. Even if the booster accomplishes its job and something goes wrong with the ship [shortly after launch], I'll consider it progress. To be quite candid, if it lifts off without blowing up the stand -'stage zero' [the tower, tanks, etc.] — which is significantly more difficult to rebuild than the rocket, that would be a victory. That is my primary focus".
This, too, is a Musk principle. He asserts:
“Everything you see here is unfinished. What was claimed last week may out to be untrue the next week. It may have been an oversight, a misunderstanding, or we had a superior idea”.
This is true for Tesla, whose vehicles are constantly upgraded, including essential components such as the autopilot (again, see episode 5 of our Future of car series: Code on Wheels). Owners seem unconcerned, but the New York Times advocated a more conservative perspective in an editorial rant, condemning the beta-testing culture that results in half-baked automobiles on the road. Risk-taking is not commonly accepted: in France, many want the "principle of precaution" incorporated into the Constitution to avoid excessive risk in any field, including science and technology...
- Iterations — many (unlike the space shuttle)
When Tim Dodd questioned Musk on NASA's approach to the space shuttle, Musk stated:
“The shuttle had almost no room for iteration due to the presence of passengers. As a result, you cannot be blowing up shuttles [during tests]. That is a significant issue. Indeed, the issue was one of insufficient iteration. Because [Nasa's engineers] were aware of many of the problems, but people were too fearful to address them”.
“There was an asymmetry in the risk/reward ratio: a severe penalty for making a mistake – you make a change and something goes wrong. However, if you make a change and it succeeds, you receive only a modest prize. The shuttle's primary flaw was that its design became immobile. Due to the fact that all space shuttle missions were crewed, making design alterations was a high-risk, low-reward proposition. The starship is empty, which means we can blow everything up. It's quite beneficial.”
The same logic holds true for SpaceX's human missions:
“SpaceX's Starship and Dragon [which transports passengers and cargo to the International Space Station] are designed in diametrically opposed ways. Dragon can never fail, and it must be subjected to extensive testing and has a large margin of safety. However, SpaceX must iterate swiftly in order to construct the world's first fully and rapidly reusable rocket, which results in several failures. Falcon is in the middle, where SpaceX can afford a landing failure but cannot afford an ascent failure”.
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- Everyone needs to understand The Big Picture
Musk addressed the difficult and frequently divisive issue of motivating employees to understand and execute the company's larger goal at one point. A philosophy that underpins the culture of many technology companies, such as Netflix:
“You truly believe that everyone should be chief engineer. This means that individuals must have a high level understanding of the system in order to recognise when they are performing an incorrect optimization,” Musk explained.
Again, none of this was delivered in a comfortable TED lecture, but when the SpaceX founder was frantically pacing across an unfamiliar and cluttered work floor. That is the point at which he is reimagining space exploration.