What SpaceX is doing is truly impressive. But while the Starship tower catches are spectacular, the most impressive thing about SpaceX is that they are the world leader both in number of launches and tons to orbit, while managing to recover the first stages and payload fairings in over 90% of launches where recovery was planned. These days SpaceX regularly launches multiple times per week, which would have been unthinkable even as recently as 5 years ago. I do agree though that when Starship comes fully online it will truly be a game changer for the launch industry, both in terms of cost per pound to low orbit as well as tons launched annually. Starship's payload volume alone will make some fairly wild things possible, such as launching a James Webb telescope analog fully assembled instead of it having to perform orbital origami in metal.
Imagine the JWST that could be launched with the origami now. It would be huge! But we could launch existing ones without all that work. But now they know more about the folding up of objects so it wouldn't be as long hopefully
@@nealramsey4439 True, but because Starship is reusable you might not need the spacecraft to perform that origami. JWST had to perform the origami because it had to be launched in one go straight to its final orbit. Instead with Starship you set up an orbital work yard where you can assemble the spacecraft and check out and test it before using a tug to move it into its final orbit. One of the many other tasks Starship could be tasked to is bringing materials, fuel and consumables for the work yard and tug up the gravity well. The work yard and tug would almost certainly also find many other uses.
Another excellent Optimist pod. Blank has long banged this drum, one of the few experts who combines SV history with contemporary pragmatism. Secretary of Defense Mattis like to borrow from Einstein, saying that given an hour, he'd spend 55 minutes defining the problem and five minutes solving it. Not here. The problem with Pentagon acquisition has been well-defined for more than a decade. To shatter the bureaucracy (1,000 micro-laws passed since 9/11; a 950-page NDAA) requires investment + process risk that exceeds the learned tolerance of congress and the military services. As Steve indicates, a large pilot could be tested by the COCOMs using the 1962 (two page) NDAA as a (flexible), bottom-up governance template.
Another great conversation! Thank you Joe, for taking the time to do this podcast with all the other things you have going on. I always learn something new and interesting!
17:07 ‘..watching SpaceX.. versus watching SLS slowly trundle out..’ this was a great description of what is wrong with government processes weighed down by regulations that Elon’s been beating the drum loudly recently! Every free, or purportedly free, country around the world must learn from what could soon be happening in the United States under the incoming administration team.
Steve Blank is a real one. Back in 2013 I was working in IT security, doing incident response aka "blue team" for Secure Works. A ton of interaction with national security types. One of the things that was on my mind at the time was CPU microcode. Literally the only person I've ever seen talk about this concept outside of geeks deep inside the industry itself was an article published by Blank. I was like, who is this guy? The fact that he even had any familiarity with such obscure subject matter and had the courage to publish an article like that was fascinating and indicated that he probably knows what he's talking about.
I saw an interview with Steve Blank so I watched after reading his first book I try to learn from him when ever possible) This is my first time watching The American Optimist, it was great. I subscribed. You have the ability with presenting the facts , good bad and ugly while maintaining ok how do we fix it optimism, thank you.
Excellent discussion. Reversing the contractor consolidation map as a starting point and add new companies. Get everybody in the room to work the framework. We have the talent, I'm certain. Cutting the Gordian knot of procurement will happen as these products and companies build on success. So much God stuff here. I'm Optimistic it can be done.
All my favorite college professors have held private sector jobs before teaching and all the ones I disliked were permanently academic. No surprise here, that John worked before teaching. I beleive that this is the fundamental problem with the beaucratic state. They hire pure academics/ have never worked private sector
Informative interview, highlighting the complexity of government and the AI revolution. The dogma and the status quo needs to be replaced with visionary/proactive policies. Palantir > Foundry/AIP platforms will dovetail perfectly with the Trump administration objectives (DOGE), in addition to shifting DOD to DOO. As a stockholder and forward thinking citizen, I hope this will materialize for the betterment of the country, assist in global stability and continue expansion of Palantir. On a side note, I look forward to the release of Alex Karp’s book “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief & the Future of the West”…
I somehow don't get why, during such a revealing discussion about innovation on Universities and its interconnection with DoD and comparing it to the speed of Chinese innovation, you fail to mention the fact that due to some law from eighties, every development project has to have a Chinese student involved? How can you be saying that we should be developing faster, yet having these Chinese spies involved in every step? Maybe I'm 100% wrong and I don't want to spread misinformation and there might be some exception that they cannot be involved in advanced technologies connected to DoD. But I heard about this before the end of Trump's 1st term, he specifically talked about it, wanted to stop it, but couldn't in time and of course Biden is paid by China so this surely didn't happen. I believe this has to do with China having all advantages because they are still rated as a developing country - but if they are our top adversary, this is completely bonkers and if you know about it, shouldn't you at least say that China is involved in every R&D project on US universities?
It would be nice if some politicians in Canada would watch this. It seems like maybe they might actually start to take our military defense seriously but my concern is they will just blow a lot of money on expensive stuff instead of focusing on being effective. If we are basically going to rebuild we should take advantage of that to change the way we do things so we dont just get stuck in a trap.
No. They overtaken professors into gov runned research programs. Ie rocket technology. It was took over first by Wehrmacht, then by ss. And scientists didn't had too much choice.
The military comments are arguments for world military to eliminate the need for the competing country militaries. A world military with the responsibility to maintain current boarders and freedom of navigation for countries. Operate to world military under a UN mandate.
What did and has Steve Blank to do with Eric Ries or Elon Musk? To my knowledge nothing. It will be Elon Musk who will oversee his lean government administration Initiative!
Really enjoyed this podcast. Thanks Joe for putting this together and getting it out to all of us. Looking forward to more.
Glad you enjoyed it!
What SpaceX is doing is truly impressive. But while the Starship tower catches are spectacular, the most impressive thing about SpaceX is that they are the world leader both in number of launches and tons to orbit, while managing to recover the first stages and payload fairings in over 90% of launches where recovery was planned. These days SpaceX regularly launches multiple times per week, which would have been unthinkable even as recently as 5 years ago.
I do agree though that when Starship comes fully online it will truly be a game changer for the launch industry, both in terms of cost per pound to low orbit as well as tons launched annually. Starship's payload volume alone will make some fairly wild things possible, such as launching a James Webb telescope analog fully assembled instead of it having to perform orbital origami in metal.
Imagine the JWST that could be launched with the origami now. It would be huge! But we could launch existing ones without all that work. But now they know more about the folding up of objects so it wouldn't be as long hopefully
@@nealramsey4439 True, but because Starship is reusable you might not need the spacecraft to perform that origami. JWST had to perform the origami because it had to be launched in one go straight to its final orbit. Instead with Starship you set up an orbital work yard where you can assemble the spacecraft and check out and test it before using a tug to move it into its final orbit. One of the many other tasks Starship could be tasked to is bringing materials, fuel and consumables for the work yard and tug up the gravity well. The work yard and tug would almost certainly also find many other uses.
Another excellent Optimist pod. Blank has long banged this drum, one of the few experts who combines SV history with contemporary pragmatism. Secretary of Defense Mattis like to borrow from Einstein, saying that given an hour, he'd spend 55 minutes defining the problem and five minutes solving it. Not here. The problem with Pentagon acquisition has been well-defined for more than a decade. To shatter the bureaucracy (1,000 micro-laws passed since 9/11; a 950-page NDAA) requires investment + process risk that exceeds the learned tolerance of congress and the military services. As Steve indicates, a large pilot could be tested by the COCOMs using the 1962 (two page) NDAA as a (flexible), bottom-up governance template.
Well said!
Another great conversation! Thank you Joe, for taking the time to do this podcast with all the other things you have going on. I always learn something new and interesting!
Thanks! Appreciate it 🙏
17:07 ‘..watching SpaceX.. versus watching SLS slowly trundle out..’ this was a great description of what is wrong with government processes weighed down by regulations that Elon’s been beating the drum loudly recently! Every free, or purportedly free, country around the world must learn from what could soon be happening in the United States under the incoming administration team.
Steve Blank is a real one. Back in 2013 I was working in IT security, doing incident response aka "blue team" for Secure Works. A ton of interaction with national security types. One of the things that was on my mind at the time was CPU microcode. Literally the only person I've ever seen talk about this concept outside of geeks deep inside the industry itself was an article published by Blank. I was like, who is this guy? The fact that he even had any familiarity with such obscure subject matter and had the courage to publish an article like that was fascinating and indicated that he probably knows what he's talking about.
I saw an interview with Steve Blank so I watched after reading his first book I try to learn from him when ever possible) This is my first time watching The American Optimist, it was great. I subscribed. You have the ability with presenting the facts , good bad and ugly while maintaining ok how do we fix it optimism, thank you.
What about Boeing and the SLS, do you call that an embarassment?
Excellent interview and even a little pushback. Hopefully that inspires you Joe
Mr Lonsdale is a very good interviewer. Very successful in his own right, but ego-less enough to give his guests most of the airtime.
Excellent discussion. Reversing the contractor consolidation map as a starting point and add new companies. Get everybody in the room to work the framework. We have the talent, I'm certain. Cutting the Gordian knot of procurement will happen as these products and companies build on success. So much God stuff here. I'm Optimistic it can be done.
Appreciate it, well said!
All my favorite college professors have held private sector jobs before teaching and all the ones I disliked were permanently academic. No surprise here, that John worked before teaching.
I beleive that this is the fundamental problem with the beaucratic state. They hire pure academics/ have never worked private sector
Great video Joe, thanks for sharing! Subbed.
Thanks 🙏
Informative interview, highlighting the complexity of government and the AI revolution. The dogma and the status quo needs to be replaced with visionary/proactive policies. Palantir > Foundry/AIP platforms will dovetail perfectly with the Trump administration objectives (DOGE), in addition to shifting DOD to DOO. As a stockholder and forward thinking citizen, I hope this will materialize for the betterment of the country, assist in global stability and continue expansion of Palantir. On a side note, I look forward to the release of Alex Karp’s book “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief & the Future of the West”…
He's such a legend. Joe great job! be well all!
Hello from Ukraine!
anduril. Thats what they were saying needs to exist. one company, called anduril. They spent 50 minutes saying there is a need for anduril
X86 gained RISC's 1 instruction per cycle.
favourite pod to share with the left
Next podcast on Energy
Ha, not crazy. Brilliant!
Steve Blank is a "genius"... let's run him spaceX.
I somehow don't get why, during such a revealing discussion about innovation on Universities and its interconnection with DoD and comparing it to the speed of Chinese innovation, you fail to mention the fact that due to some law from eighties, every development project has to have a Chinese student involved? How can you be saying that we should be developing faster, yet having these Chinese spies involved in every step? Maybe I'm 100% wrong and I don't want to spread misinformation and there might be some exception that they cannot be involved in advanced technologies connected to DoD. But I heard about this before the end of Trump's 1st term, he specifically talked about it, wanted to stop it, but couldn't in time and of course Biden is paid by China so this surely didn't happen. I believe this has to do with China having all advantages because they are still rated as a developing country - but if they are our top adversary, this is completely bonkers and if you know about it, shouldn't you at least say that China is involved in every R&D project on US universities?
It would be nice if some politicians in Canada would watch this. It seems like maybe they might actually start to take our military defense seriously but my concern is they will just blow a lot of money on expensive stuff instead of focusing on being effective. If we are basically going to rebuild we should take advantage of that to change the way we do things so we dont just get stuck in a trap.
It's time for america to have rods from god with spacex starship and space force
9:30 Germany wasn't outsourcing advanced technology to professors?
No. They overtaken professors into gov runned research programs. Ie rocket technology. It was took over first by Wehrmacht, then by ss.
And scientists didn't had too much choice.
Euclides. 🙂👍👍👍💯💯💯💯💯🇺🇲🦅. Hello. You. 🙂👍💯
❤❤❤❤❤ content boss
What! How is it embarrassing??????
The military comments are arguments for world military to eliminate the need for the competing country militaries. A world military with the responsibility to maintain current boarders and freedom of navigation for countries. Operate to world military under a UN mandate.
What did and has Steve Blank to do with Eric Ries or Elon Musk? To my knowledge nothing. It will be Elon Musk who will oversee his lean government administration Initiative!
How smart does it have to get when it all boils down to who has enough rocks with which to pound heads into sand ?? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Gosh!!!
Who dis man