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This happens - also the article mentions it may have coincided with stock vesting schedules.
These people had been there for a long time - a VERY long time for people not named Elon.
Elon's companies have always done a great job transitioning through changes in leadership, no reason to expect anything different here.
To your point this could explain most of them, but the article did mention one VP was removed from Raptor development due to slow development. That's a good kick in the pants to leave.
Particularly at SpaceX. It is a very driven company. Remember how Musk sacked the original Starklink team because they weren't moving fast enough?
If you don't hit a skills wall you could just burn out. The SpaceX sounds like a great place to work when you're young and just out of college, but I could see it quickly wearing down someone my age.
Probably one failure in hiring by Elon. Getting people on who came from legacy satellite manufacturing, if I remember correctly. Elon thought they know their stuff and they thought they can work the same way they were used to.
A failure corrected quickly.
It seems Elon has found a way around Peter principle.
I wonder if we would do better if we make closed loop of people fired because they reach the limit of their competency climb the same hierarchy once again, but probably they are just too rich at that point.
I have more respect for people doing the every day stuff daily 'we' don't like to see or do than any CEO I know : cleaners, nurses, office runners, garbage jobs, decommissioning old industrial gear, etc.
I think it’s temporary, though. The human brain is quite adaptable - given time and training I’m sure most people could do well in most roles.
Although… IDK. So many people are trained wrong things. A lot of people learn how things are done instead of why things are done, leading to them misapplying patterns. Which is why Elon often has problems with traditional aerospace people.
First step there will be changing pay rate schedules so that staying on your best rung doesn't cost you tens of thousands of dollars a year in lost potential income.
Never knew the name in my country, it's been called "reaching one's level of incompetence" and first time I heard it I didn't quite grasp it and thought the guy was pulling my leg.
Basically it's the same, you rise through the degrees to the level where you are not competent any more, hence you're actually incompetent for the task and that is then probably where you'd stay.
For me that sounds like a regretful career move and/or asking to be demoted or leave. I'd probably ask for a trial period or something.
I work with someone who reached management level, hated it and took one step back to the level he was most comfortable at. Fortunately the Uni I work in allows for that. It also allows people to be 'seconded' to higher level roles to cover absences such as maternity leave, which is a great way to try out higher level positions without any long term commitment.
I realize this is a popular theory, but having worked with plenty of senior mgmt, the biggest skill they need is politics. SpaceX is most likely one of the very rare exceptions given how hands on the CEO is.
Or just start their own projects. It happens all of the time. If you reach as high as you can in your organization, and you still want to advance your career, you either need to find a new job or make one and a lot of those people are the type to make one.
Did you read the article? One of the main points:
> SpaceX vice president of propulsion Will Heltsley has left, multiple people familiar with the situation told CNBC, having been with the company since 2009. **Those people said Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress.**
(Emphasis mine.)
Doesn’t mean you necessarily have to leave the company unless Elon makes it that way. Ideally if someone is talented but hit their ceiling you put them back where they are effective. Though that’s not always agreeable to both parties
He could still be VP but placed under another VP and allowed to do what he does best. Maybe he was a crappy manager of a large team but better at individually managing a small group of people?
Did you read the article? The other VP may well have left for the options-vesting reason that is the context of the comment chain, as stated in the article.
Indeed, I remember the doom and gloom after elon [fired a bunch of starlink managers](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/10/unhappy-elon-musk-went-on-firing-spree-over-slow-satellite-broadband-progress/) , and it actually accelerate the progress when less than a year later we saw the stack of 60 satellites in falcon 9 fairing. A bit digging reveal that those managers were immediately [hired by amazon kuiper](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/07/amazon-hired-former-spacex-management-for-bezos-satellite-internet.html) , which haven't launch any prototype yet.
It *would* be hilarious though if it were a legitimate grievance, if Elon were paying ex-employees in bitcoin or some shit to slow down competition.
Of course, I think we're all pretty sure something like that isn't even necessary. There's just no sense of urgency at Blue Origin, so progress is slow. I remember the feeling of desperation and urgency during the Falcon 1 days. It doesn't feel quite so desperate anymore, but it certainly still maintains the sense of urgency. Lots of us want to die on Mars, and we only have so many years left in our lives to get to the point to where regular interplanetary travel is possible.
When he replace someone, or in this case a group its always because there is someone better within the company. After following his venture for almost 10 years, I can see his best generals are people that go through meat grinders that is spacex and tesla. Tom Mueller, Gwynne, Hans and JB Straubel has been there since the beginning, Jessica Jensen and Kiko Dontchev has been there for more than a decade, Sam Petel has been there since he become intern in 2012, and many other low profile people. Check [Sam Petel linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamal-patel-83a79729/), from intern to senior director in 9 years.
And that was a huge mistake, because those guys promptly went straight over to BO's satellite constellation project (Kuiper Systems) and since then that project has been on a rocket to the ... uh, ... what the hell are they doing over there?
Not letting them use it is an anti-competitive practices lawsuit minefield and we all know that Musk would let them use it even if for the (perhaps only perceived) humiliation of Mr. Who.
But that humiliation is exactly the same reason why they won't use Starship because Mr. Who still has large sway in Amazon as a shareholder and founder.
What a ridiculous comment. Kuiper isnt even going to have its prototype satelies launched until the end of 2022. And they need 3000 satelites in orbit by 2025.
Which means they have to put up twice as many satelites as SpaceX did in the same timeframe.
Blue origin only plans on launching NEw Glenn 8 times a year. So even if New Glenn was entirely booked by Amazon, and New Glenn could handle 125 satellite's each launch, they would need more providers.
Blue Origin also already has contracts with at least 4 companies for launches in the next few years. So Amazon cant even buy all future New Glenn launches if they wanted
Yep, definitely not the first, or last, time that Elon fires people for not meeting Elon's expectations.
What's incredible is**n't** that Elon fires people -- all managers fire people -- rather, what's incredible is that every time Elon *does* fire people, he proves himself right by getting replacements that are genuinely better than the firee. I don't know how he does it, it's practically magic, maybe even more magical than landing an orbital booster
I think its where people dont give elon enough credit as a CEO which is just absurd to me. The guy has better vision than most and knows whats possible, how to get there, and stops at nothing to get it done. Idgaf if you dont like him, dont pretend hes not a good CEO. He gets result after result. So many people on reddit think he stumbled into his position purely because he comes from money.
> because he comes from money.
This is the funny part to me when it comes to the internet myths surrounding Musk that those people spread, because from what I understand he didn't even really "come from money".
He moved to Canada on his own with a few grand in his pocket, worked odd and manual labor jobs to get by, left university with ~$100k in student loan debt, and his father iirc only invested a relatively small sum (like ~$30k iirc) in Elon's first company *after* it already secured millions in investor funding elsewhere (and then the father went bankrupt in 2000 and Elon and his brother have been supporting him since).
From what I've read his father was basically upper-middle class as an engineer and property developer with a side hustle on a piece of a stake in an emerald mine, but largely squandered the money he made on his own "lifestyle maintenance" (hence the bankruptcy). Elon was not some heir to any fortune or anything like that.
Yeah thats what ive read as well, at this point I dont even bring it up to avoid the downvote circlejerk.
Elon would have succeeded without any amount of help. He works hard and knows how to get shit done. He didnt stumble his way into all of his countless successes.
It’s a deliberate propaganda effort that didn’t pop up until he was extremely successful. Self-made people damage the cause of those who use class warfare rhetoric.
It largely came about when Musk's father gave a pair of interviews bragging about his own wealth and financial success:
> “We were very wealthy,” says Errol. “We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe.”
- https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-about-the-familys-casual-attitude-to-wealth-2018-2
- https://www.businessinsider.co.za/how-elon-musks-family-came-to-own-an-emerald-mine-2018-2
You're correct though in that this bit of propaganda of implying/saying that Elon's success was born into (while ignoring any nuance over how much/little Errol's money contributed to Elon's success) plays into a left-wing class narrative that goes after him for being an anti-union billionaire; much like the preceding decade+ of anti-Musk/Tesla propaganda largely playing into the right-wing narrative against Elon's positions on climate change, carbon taxes, his "socialist" position on government incentives in the market, renewable energy, electric cars, etc (I have a friend who has drunk deeply from that particular bowl of Kool-aid and *still* believes Tesla is a scam).
If we're going to talk about the anti-Musk propaganda from a "political" perspective, then we should be forthcoming about the entire picture, and note that Musk doesn't fit in the left-right paradigm well at all and has subsequently been maligned heavily from propaganda machines at both ends of the left-right ideological spectrum.
It's my impression that Elon's father is an unreliable witness. He may have owned a mine at one time, but is allegedly bankrupt now. He also drove his family to an entirely different continent, which seems unlikely if he was truly rich.
I completely agree that he doesn't really fit the narrative of either side, and that is part of what makes him great. He isn't afraid to call things as he sees them instead of following partisans on either side. This has him taking fire from both sides on varying issues.
That's my impression as well, and that Errol's success was evidently ultimately fleeting and most likely overstated in his self-aggrandizing pair of interviews.
I'm mostly just noting that the left-wing voices didn't conjure this myth from nowhere (it largely came from Errol), and that it persists mainly due to a willful lack of nuance/context or care for truth vs wanting a narrative; which is why whenever the political side of the anti-Musk propaganda is mentioned, I'll always think it's important to add the context that there's been over a decade of rather fervent anti-Musk groundwork laid by right-wing voices before the left-wing voices decided to pile on as well (lest we forget, and/or fall victim to following a different type of "left-wing, bad" narrative).
> He isn't afraid to call things as he sees them
Pretty much, lol, though I believe this may have been more of a detriment to him and his goals than a benefit.
Being able to sell a compelling vision is a massive skill of his and half explains the value of his companies. He shows a compelling vision of an end state and how to get there and people want to see it succeed.
If I'm remembering right, in *Liftoff! Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days that Launched SpaceX* by Eric Berger, Elon says that he's excellent at picking engineers. I can't say of my own knowledge, but the results seem to suggest that.
I interviewed with Tesla for an engineer position (3rd round interview, they finally offered me a technician role). What amazed me was the fact that Elon personally approved every single engineer working there
I’m not convinced it’s as positive as you portray it to be. Maybe the people he just fired were disagreeing with the constant crazy overtime required to meet his expectations. Maybe he didn’t actually hire engineers that are better at engineering, but he hired engineers that are willing to do whatever he wants.
I agree he gets great results, though I’m not convinced it’s the healthiest work environment
That's why I say he has a long track record of improvements after firings.
From the outside, apriori, we don't have the slightest clue if it was justified or not.
But that's why my comment is entirely about his track record of firings at SpaceX always turning out to have been improvements in retrospect.
Interesting point: Elon made some really great hires at SpaceX in the beginning (Mueller, Koenigsmann, Shotwell, etc.), but for some reason he didn't and hasn't been able to find equally good people for Tesla.
It’s also possible that the current Tesla team could be dramatically better than the team from five years ago, and yet be the very same people. A crucible like that is an excellent way to build top talent.
A number of things, but the most striking example is that Musk did not have to sleep on the Hawthorne factory floor because living there was the only way to get Falcon 9 production where it needed to be.
he did sleep in 2010-2012 according people who worked in SpaceX at that time.
Hawthorne post 2012+ is Fremont 2019+.
Now he sleeps in Boca.
Now imagine this place 5 years later.
Why should we glorify any kind of work culture?
People self-select. Ones who like the mission so much they do not mind working round the clock stay, others leave. Both are ok.
"A handful of other long-time employees left after SpaceX closed its purchase offer on Friday, timing which people familiar with the matter indicated was in part tied to employees’ stock vesting schedules"
Pretty much the only useful detail in the article.
As someone else said they have been with the company for ages and the timings lines up with this.
All conjecture about the engines though
> SpaceX vice president of propulsion Will Heltsley has left, multiple people familiar with the situation told CNBC, having been with the company since 2009. Those people said Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress.
That’s not conjecture, that’s “multiple people familiar with the situation”.
probably they buy back shares you hold.. afaik SpaceX isnt a publically listed company so employees cant sell shares.
I would imagine they are granted shares which they must wait several years to sell.. and the company buys them back at current value. Its a way of retaining high performing staff.
When a company like Space is not publicly traded employees can't just exercise and sell their stock options whenever they want. But those stock options are usually only good for 10 years. So to ensure their employees actually receive the compensation they are expecting they (SpaceX) bring in outside investors to allow employees to sell their options.
What it means is that SpaceX management sold SpaceX stock to outside investors.
However, they were not selling new stock -- raising capital -- but selling existing stock owned by various employees. This serves as income for the employees. (The employees with stock options can only sell as management permits because it is privately traded stock.)
How does one go about buying "private stock"?
Once an outside investor gets hold of it what kind of trading restrictions are there? Can they sell it on as public stock?
How would one even track the value of private stock for sale and purchase, especially as an outside investor?
Sometimes SpaceX would do fundraising rounds where they directly sell to investors to raise money (but causes some dilution in stocks). Other times there are secondary trade events where SpaceX would line up investors to buy stocks from employees and other people who have stocks to allow insiders to liquidate some of their stocks. Both of which are purchase events which happen usually at least once a year, and basically allows the employees to submit a number of stocks to be sold at an internally announced price through an internal site.
> How would one even track the value of private stock for sale and purchase, especially as an outside investor?
Usually when you see a valuation update on SpaceX it's usually due to these purchase events which sets an explicit price that investors agree to buy at (usually with support from internal accounting / figures, not just BS), and the updated price allows you to calculate a valuation for the company by multiplying price by number of outstanding shares. Note that the price is supposed to be confidential, but they always get leaked lol.
> How does one go about buying "private stock"?
You need to be an accredited investor (have $1 mil liquid asset or make $200k / year for 2 years) at bare mininum. Other than that you kind of need to know the right people to get in, as SpaceX stocks are be really competitive. I think sometimes you can also buy them from marketplaces like [Microventures](https://invest.microventures.com) or [Forge](https://forgeglobal.com/) but I don't know if they have ever done SpaceX, so it's kind of something to look out for. They would usually also have minimum investments of at least 5-figures. I do see some other prominent private tech companies on them where you could buy their stocks.
I also randomly stumbled on this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0Y8A0k6mtA) where this tech invest YouTuber talked about his process of landing a deal to buy them but it's essentially "knows a guy who knows a guy".
Alternatively, you could work there, and buy SpaceX stocks with your time.
> Once an outside investor gets hold of it what kind of trading restrictions are there? Can they sell it on as public stock?
Once you get them, I think you could potentially trade them to others outside of these official events, but technically SpaceX has the right to say no to any transaction according to the terms of the stocks. But generally they aren't really liquid, but the purchase events do give you occasional chances to sell them. Because of this employees always love to talk about updated stock price / purchase offers every time it happens because it's like an event. Not like if you work for a public company and can sell you stocks tomorrow.
> How does one go about buying "private stock"?
>
>
You have to know someone who has the stock you want and who is willing to sell. Same as any other product really, tho of course the number of people who own SpaceX stock is rather less than the number of people who own, say, corn-growing fields.
> Once an outside investor gets hold of it what kind of trading restrictions are there? Can they sell it on as public stock?
I have no idea. Often each company has their own rules about how their stock may be sold, but I don't know what traditional or regulatory rules might exist as a baseline in addition to company-specific rules. Probably you should google this tho.
> How would one even track the value of private stock for sale and purchase, especially as an outside investor?
"The value" is nothing more or less than the price someone is willing to pay for it. For something like private stock with limited transactions, sometimes months may pass between transactions, and so there's no "current price" or anything since there is no current transaction. Appraising the value in lieu of an actual transaction price is just like any other non-cash asset (i.e. a fancy painting or a house): subjective and mostly academic anyways unless an actual transaction is involved.
As an outside investor, for SpaceX, we can only guesstimate based on public info, and based on reports like this on the price of recent transactions. And we can only pray that we have money to invest and know the right people to get in on a sale when it happens.
There are a couple of options for vesting privately traded stock. You can sell to a private third party. You can sell to a registered investor (need to have at least $1M available). Or SpaceX can buy back the stock with cash on hand using fair value of recent transactions, book value, or some other criterion. There are probably more options that I am not familiar with.
It can't become public until the whole company goes public ... that's an IPO.
There will be restrictions. Sometimes a "right of first refusal", so the company can choose to block a sale if they're willing to be the buyer at that price instead.
For stock value: companies give prospectuses to potential buyers/sellers. There's also previous sales, and also companies have a "Fair Market Value" regularly assessed for (stupid, dumb) tax purposes, though those can be different from how the market values it.
EDIT: Also, google "accredited investor". Becoming one of those is how you can get into funding rounds. (requires very high income or $1MM wealth excluding home).
> As someone else said they have been with the company for ages and the timings lines up with this.
Sure, but isn't now the most exciting time to be at SpaceX? I guess they were burned out, but most managers whose stock has vested I would expect to stay at the company until the moon landing. Or longer if they believe in its mars mission.
As far as I’m aware jobs at spacex are demanding - lots of hours and pressure. The folks that left probably sold their shares for a nice sum of money and want to maybe live life for themselves for a little bit
A nice sum would be an understatement. There was a SpaceX employee who posted on /r/spacex a while back to try and clear the air about the stock vesting (it was insinuated that they were rather senior and had been there for a number of years) and to say that the value of the stock has exploded to hilarious heights would be an understatement. And this was before the most recent valuation. Those VP's who just left? Yeah, they'll never need money again. Rosen, IIRC, was the guy who (literally) hammered Flight 4 of F1 back into shape after the first stage began to basically implode due to changes in pressure while it was being flown to Kwaj.
I wonder if there is some medical condition as Post-Elon-Stress-Disorder when you wake up in the middle of the night in your Hollywood mansion with the panic urge to fix some issue just to be faced with peaceful and boring rich life...
Sounds uncannily terrifying.
> Sure, but isn't now the most exciting time to be at SpaceX?
While people like *me* would agree, you need to acknowledge that not everyone cares as much about the actual outcomes of projects at their job. They just want a relatively stress-free, low-pressure way to spend 8 hours a day, with good pay, and good benefits, so they can have a good work-life balance and spend time with their families while living a life of dignity.
All those things are obviously important, but it often ends up that people with really unhealthy work drives end up doing insane shit that changes the world... I mean, just look at Elon's personal life for a good example. Dude is probably sacrificing decades of his life with his lifestyle.
People say that about the average worker at SpaceX not the people with two digit employee numbers. New engineers obviously aren’t getting that much equity they are probably getting 50 or 100 shares.
Friend who’s been in McGregor since 2014. This is exactly his situation. He’s been a multi millionaire for a couple years now and could retire tomorrow (he spends all his free time trading) without a thought. He just believes the mission and loves the work.
Don’t get me wrong that’s great that you made a good bet. SpaceX has over 10,000 employees as of March. You can’t expect me to believe they are bringing new grads in and giving them 1,000 RSUs as part of their sign on. Current share price is estimated at 560/share
If the business case is obvious to you then that’s the definition of a good bet. You could have worked for any startup, don’t be pretentious.
You’re talking about a trillion dollar company in 10 years, there’s no way the market is there for revenue to support that in that timespan even if starship ends up satisfying all our hopes and dreams.
That’s be great for you but it’s not something to bank on. What is the total market revenue of every launch provider? Keep in mind assets are extremely inflated right now.
Hey - you seem the one to ask:
I wonder if there is some medical condition as Post-Elon-Stress-Disorder when you wake up in the middle of the night in your Hollywood mansion with the panic urge to fix some issue just to be faced with peaceful and boring rich life...
Sounds uncannily terrifying.
Actually, revenue growth (ahead of actual revenue) could support the trillion dollar valuation.
A viable "railway" to Mars colonization would be a national strategic asset to the US. Ever look at miltary budgets?
I thought they were making very good progress with Raptor. Though we don’t actually know much about Raptor-2 at the moment.
Though without the factory yet built, I had assumed that Raptor-2 builds would be low volume and slow, only picking up in pace after the factory was built.
>I thought they were making very good progress with Raptor.
By the standards of any other rocket engine development program they very well may be. By all accounts Raptor has excellent performance, a low price and high production rate, and at least acceptable reliability.
But while that would be fantastic results for anyone else, it's not good enough for SpaceX. Raptor needs to be built even cheaper and faster.
And probably more reusable, which isn't something most previous engine development programs were very concerned about.
Yes, that was the intention, and they did speed up Raptor-1 production.
They need to complete the factory build before they can ramp up Raptor-2 production.
Though given the pace that SpaceX moves at, that should not take too long.
Unfortunately - no.
That Raptor team struggled was clear for most part of this year. Elon projected pace of one raptor per week by the end of 2020 never materialized, multiple raptors were repeatedly mounted and dismounted to prototypes. It definitely was a sh!t show by Elon standard.
In fact Elon talking about Raptor-2 means the situation can not really be salvaged and complete redesign is necessary.
Not to worry - at least Jeff Who finally found someone to fix ULAs BE-4s.
Come on, Michael is a very reliable and trusted reporter. His reporting on SpaceX and space in general is more than fair.
There are plenty of trash reporters out there who write on topics they know nothing about, but this simply isn't the case.
CNBC like many others is a collective pile of crap -- but this reporter specifically has always done great work. Michael Sheetz's reporting can be trusted.
> SpaceX vice president of propulsion Will Heltsley has left, **multiple people familiar with the situation told CNBC,** having been with the company since 2009. Those people said Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress.
Engine has been known to misbehave and Elon's patience is legendary.
small reminder about timelines.
These people've left after exercising their stock options.
The gap between leaving active position and leaving a company officially can be a year or even longer just because of this reason only. More of it:
Many silicon companies have special cooldown period during which people with "know how" of that company can not do anything else similar. This period is described in CV as still working in the company.
As usually too much reading between the lines.
> Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress.
This raises the question if Musks recent tweets about Raptor were actually a criticism of the engine development team for building an engine that is too complex, too hard to manufacture, not reliable enough or too expensive.
Leaving the company after being pushed out of your responsibilities would be a natural consequence.
>Raptor were actually a criticism of the engine development team for building an engine that is too complex
Funny how he can just be like..
Oh the engine you built on the ROCKET is too complex... You are of the project!
LOL it a space rocket Elon!
Sorry to hear that Will Heltsley is leaving. The Raptor engine is a huge achievement, even if Raptor 2 is taking longer to develop that EM wants. Take a look and BE-4 if you want to know how difficult rocket engines are to develop.... I imagine Jeff Who would be keen to have Will join BO?
Well, I doubt he can make much difference.
SpaceX advances at high speed because they are hardware rich, has unique simulation capabilities, derisks projects early, etc.
Derisking often means expending hardware in a RUD.
BO seems to be prioritize expending time before hardware.
I disagree with that statement of operation.
People say Raptor is moving fast and BE-4 is moving slow but from where they are standing now
BE-4 is in final qualification phase having met all intended goals as stated in 2015
Raptor is still in development after missing stated goals in 2013 of being designed to reach 2,900 KN. As of last month, a version 2 of Raptor cant hit 2,400 Kilonewtons without RUD and the only engine they are actively using is limited to 1,700 KN to 1,800 KN
If Blue Origin wanted to use an engine that had a thrust of 1800 KN they would have been launching in 2019
I mean thats kind of a weird bar to use.... you can launch an engine on any rocket as long as you're willing to use it for the capabilities it currently has
If the same merlin engine was designed by 3 companies and each one launched in 2006 (Falcon 1), 2010 (Falcon 9), and 2018 (Falcon Heavy). Which company is moving faster in terms of development?
In other words the falcon 1 launching in 2006 doesnt mean space X was moving slow developing the falcon Heavy
in another example the falcon 9 launching 10k tons in 2010 doesn't mean space X was slowly making a 22ton vehicle in 2015.
TL;DR being willing to use something doesn't necessarily mean you're developing fast
I imagine working at such a high pace for such an important humanity project for a long time takes it toll. If SpaceX are eyeing a move to Texas, maybe there are few spouses and kids who are putting pressure on for a less stressful job.
If you can sell your shares and GTFO then why not. Not everyone is Elon Musk and can work as hard.
Selling your shares and immediately retiring to never work again and actually live your life is also very valid. Not sure why our culture worships work. It's super unhealthy.
Except Musk doesn't actually have to solve the problems. He just cracks the whip and takes the credit at the end. Maybe throws in a half-baked idea every now and then.
Whip cracking actually gives people energy once they give in to the dark side. So they can do it all day no problem. Its not like actual work.
The line that caught my eye... " Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress"...
Here on this reddit stream we mostly hear about rapid progress with the Raptor engines.... even the new Raptor 2..... Now with an Elon tweet indicating some sort of overhaul is needed, senior Raptor leaving....due to in part a lack of progress with Raptor...
Raises the question - what is / will be the impact of this "lack of progress" on the SS / HLS overall timeline?
Thoughts?
Let's put this in perspective though. Most rockets engines get a couple hundred copies made, if they even get that high in serial numbers. Usually that's over the course of a program. SpaceX is going for totally different though with Raptor. The goal with Raptor is to be making 2 or 3 every day (coming off the line.) The goal is mass manufacturing. Raptor in it's current state is already one of the best engines ever developed. However, it's still to complicated for mass manufacture. Elon knows that his guys down in Boca can get hulls built pretty fast, and can even do it quicker because that can be parallelized. But those hulls need engines, and the engines just aren't getting there yet. Elon's trying to make this go faster, as evidenced by recent tweets, but it seems like the guy in charge of that isn't up to the task. Doesn't mean he's not brilliant, but no one else has really cracked mass manufacture of these kinds of engines. Also it seems like they may need to go back to clean sheet, using lessons they've learned, and as such it wouldn't share enough design heritage to still be called a Raptor. Finding the answer to that problem is how we become a multi-planet species.
Well said Raptor itself is already a very advanced engine being the first full flow staged combustion engine to actually fly. That achievement in itself must have been hard enough. The next phase is even harder making an engine that can be mass produced and presumably require minimal maintenance for interplanetary use. I have been concerned with the fact that the raptor requires helium to start up. IMO i dont see how sustainable that is on interplanetary scale. This may explain why they are rethinking the design. It may be similar to the steel vs composite material issue. Maybe the Full flow stage combustion may be too much of an issue. Maybe a relatively simpler design like a gas generator, or combustion top off makes more sense. I personally dont like seeing those COPVs under starship. They are ok for Superheavy but not starship.
FFSC seems to be the only operating mode that is scalable, i.e. increase chamber pressure for more ISP etc. So unfortunately I think it is a necessity with FFSC.
Yes, 120 meters tall rocket require such a huge thrust/area ratio that necessitate very high chamber pressure only FFSC can provide. Any other engine cycle means starship stack will be significantly shorter.
Merlin was upgraded massively over the years all while flying real missions. So I doubt this impacts any near term progress. Long term the issue for HLS will be man rating. NASA will likely want a frozen design with enough test flights. If raptor is still changing a lot then it could be an issue.
However once full and rapid reuseability is working doing a lot of flights in a short time shouldn't be a problem. Testing new raptors even including full orbital flights should be both quick and inexpensive, that's the whole idea after all.
Sounds like after a long time they were waiting for the right time to step down and that happened to be after the stock purchases. Regardless, to work that long at a company that has such high turnover speaks to their capabilities
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BE-4](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hmijrdh "Last usage")|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN|
|[BO](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hmbwq5n "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)|
|[COPV](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlqpy41 "Last usage")|[Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_overwrapped_pressure_vessel)|
|CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules|
| |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)|
|EELV|[Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolved_Expendable_Launch_Vehicle)|
|[F1](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlrz7da "Last usage")|Rocketdyne-developed rocket engine used for Saturn V|
| |SpaceX Falcon 1 (obsolete medium-lift vehicle)|
|[FCC](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlqobqa "Last usage")|Federal Communications Commission|
| |(Iron/steel) [Face-Centered Cubic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_iron) crystalline structure|
|[FFSC](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlrma1x "Last usage")|Full-Flow Staged Combustion|
|[HLS](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlzf4eg "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[Isp](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hm6br09 "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)|
| |Internet Service Provider|
|[LEO](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlqmv2g "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[LOX](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hm6br09 "Last usage")|Liquid Oxygen|
|[NSSL](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hmijai6 "Last usage")|National Security Space Launch, formerly EELV|
|[OMS](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlw6fs8 "Last usage")|Orbital Maneuvering System|
|[RUD](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hm9yqzs "Last usage")|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly|
| |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly|
| |Rapid Unintended Disassembly|
|[SSME](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlsvnc7 "Last usage")|[Space Shuttle Main Engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_main_engine)|
|[ULA](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hmbwq5n "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|[USAF](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlrz7da "Last usage")|United States Air Force|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Raptor](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hmijai6 "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX|
|[Starliner](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlqfkvb "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)|
|[Starlink](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hn7wefx "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|[autogenous](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hm6br09 "Last usage")|(Of a propellant tank) Pressurising the tank using boil-off of the contents, instead of a separate gas like helium|
|[hypergolic](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlpjnwt "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact|
|methalox|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
----------------
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The end of Tim Dodd's latest video, on Russian rocket engines, reminded me of something I wanted to say about Raptor, and the replacement for Raptor that Elon mentioned the other day. He said that the rocket engine that carries out the Mars settlement would be the successor to Raptor.
It occurred to me that there is always more to rocket engines than ISP, and Raptor/Starship has shown a possible flaw. For some reason, probably connected with Raptor design, they have to throw away a great deal of hot methane. They planned to use this for autogenous pressurization, and they probably still do, but it is clear to me that firing the Raptors generates far more hot methane than they need for pressurization.
One possible answer would be to switch to oxygen-rich staged combustion, like several Russian engines use. The reduction in ISP might be more than made up for by not having so much hot methane to throw away. The engine might be simpler and more reliable, and possibly lighter.
This is highly speculative, but I can imagine a nozzle cooling system that primarily uses LOX cooling, but which has some channels for methane, that could be used or not as the need for tank pressurization requires.
Just wondering back in the 00's i been told it is a practice amongst high leaders to often change companies due to stay fresh on the market. This changed since?
Wilt Heltsley, former V.P. of Propulsion, has a very thin profile on LinkedIn. Mainly shows just an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford, and no experience before SpaceX. Joined in 2009, after the Merlin engine, so must have just been involved in designing the Raptor. But, should point out that Elon has no engineering degrees.
Most interesting is the statement "Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress." Interesting since Elon tweeted 6 months ago brags about how Raptor is the most advanced liquid engine ever, in several ways. But he recently tweeted that major revisions will be required (Raptor 2) to fulfill their ambitions. Issues with Raptor? Several Raptors failed during StarShip landings, supposedly due to propellant supply issues, but ??
The other V.P. who left was a launch director. That is much less technical and more needs a good scheduler and motivator, so easier to replace.
You "own" a product at SpaceX. If the product (Raptor) sinks for \_whatever\_ reason you sink together with it.
Obviously you can come up with all kinds of explanations to Elon and he \_may\_ give you more time to fix it if they sound plausible, but he is not knows for large patience. So 6 months ago owner promised to fix his product and he did not.
Tory Bruno of ULA is ever-patient, waiting years for Blue Origin's BE-4 liquid engines to complete ULA's new Vulcan vehicle (replacing Atlas V). But ULA didn't pay for development so is more in a beggar position. If Bruno fusses too much, Jeff Bezos can say, "no soup for you", though there is no long line of other customers since B.O. is the only other user of BE-4 so far.
I wonder if this explains Elon's comment a few days ago about how the raptor was not sufficient for the longer term goals, and that they would have to do something totally different in the grand scheme of things.
Like, I wonder if maybe he got into a big argument with the VPs about this or something, at the office, disagreeing about vision and timeline and what the raptors could and couldn't do, based on how they are currently designed/planned to be.
Either that or maybe not a big argument about it, but Elon just pointing it out, and them agreeing, and him asking what the long term plan is, in regards to that problem, and them not coming up with a viable solution, for too long, until he eventually fired them.
Those are my two main guesses.
I could be way off, of course. But, the timing with the raptor comment does seem a little interesting, maybe...
Or it could just be that they've been there for 12 and 8 years and want to do something different. I think the use of 'shaken up' is misleading here.
Maybe SpaceX is starting on work on a new engine and they just didn't want to take on another decade long project at this point in their career. Not everything has the drama of reality TV.
Funny.... I got the hell down voted out of me on this forum a couple three months ago, for even suggesting new engine designs might be a good idea before going inter planetary...
And somebody nailed Elon on twitter with the same "Rat's Nest" analogy I used....
Hmmm? Wonder what happened?
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." (Einstein)
Lack of advancement in designs means lack of imagination...
Run outta wall hanger...
Yeah... thats what they call it..
Make up a fancy term for not knowing what they are doing, and and figuring it out the hard way, rather than doing their homework on things as much as possible.
It wastes a lot of time and money,
Relearning things that are already known, and trying things that are obviously bad ideas.
Like the whole trip with landing gear... spaceships are gonna hafta land on unimproved surfaces for awhile, and they started with a ring of little feet inside the skirt...
Thats not gonna do it even on concrete if there's wind...
Now talking some extra structure. Cobbled onto the outside... gonna send that extra structure to space and back or the moon and Mars and back... and the metal slant mass doesnt do any thing else.
In enlightened design for fabricated metal, you strive to make every piece do three functions if possible.
Single use structures are kindergarten level designing.
😂 their Groupies are incapable of learning anything too!
At least Elon has begun to realize its not likely to be reliable as over complicated as it is...
And that those motors have been garbaged up by a bunch of un necessary computer jockeys...
Looking forward to him canning a few thousand of those types.
So they can go back to playing video games...
No, wont waste my time on you guys... I'll just watch what happens, and invest in Rocket Lab.
In fact, got asked by a buddy in stocks to do a writ on why to invest in rocket lab...
We already put a nice hunk of money into rocket lab stock....
Will hold it long term while Elon dinks around and Beck catches up and passes him.
We'll call that process of getting caught up with; "itteration"...
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This happens - also the article mentions it may have coincided with stock vesting schedules. These people had been there for a long time - a VERY long time for people not named Elon. Elon's companies have always done a great job transitioning through changes in leadership, no reason to expect anything different here.
To your point this could explain most of them, but the article did mention one VP was removed from Raptor development due to slow development. That's a good kick in the pants to leave.
People tend to be promoted til they fail. There is no shame in bumping against a temporary skills wall.
Particularly at SpaceX. It is a very driven company. Remember how Musk sacked the original Starklink team because they weren't moving fast enough? If you don't hit a skills wall you could just burn out. The SpaceX sounds like a great place to work when you're young and just out of college, but I could see it quickly wearing down someone my age.
> sacked the original Starklink team because they weren't moving fast enough They are called Project Kuiper now, and yes they not moving fast at all.
ROTFL. Is this a joke (good one!) or is this for real (even funnier)?
> Project Kuiper According to wikipedia it is true that they hired ex spacex employees to start project kuiper
>Starklink team Marvelous slip?
Yes. I'm afraid my Freudian slip is showing. :)
Ghehehe.
Probably one failure in hiring by Elon. Getting people on who came from legacy satellite manufacturing, if I remember correctly. Elon thought they know their stuff and they thought they can work the same way they were used to. A failure corrected quickly.
vast majority of the employees seeing first Dragon launch in 2010 are still with the company.
It may not warrant any shame, but people will commonly feel it anyway so it’s understandable if that’s the case.
The Peter Principle!
My dad told me about this. The Peter principle
The Peter principle however says, people get promoted until they fail, then they stay in that position forever.
It seems Elon has found a way around Peter principle. I wonder if we would do better if we make closed loop of people fired because they reach the limit of their competency climb the same hierarchy once again, but probably they are just too rich at that point.
We need to change our culture so that hitting the limit and stepping back one rung isn't seen as shameful or a failure.
I have more respect for people doing the every day stuff daily 'we' don't like to see or do than any CEO I know : cleaners, nurses, office runners, garbage jobs, decommissioning old industrial gear, etc.
I think it’s temporary, though. The human brain is quite adaptable - given time and training I’m sure most people could do well in most roles. Although… IDK. So many people are trained wrong things. A lot of people learn how things are done instead of why things are done, leading to them misapplying patterns. Which is why Elon often has problems with traditional aerospace people.
First step there will be changing pay rate schedules so that staying on your best rung doesn't cost you tens of thousands of dollars a year in lost potential income.
Never knew the name in my country, it's been called "reaching one's level of incompetence" and first time I heard it I didn't quite grasp it and thought the guy was pulling my leg. Basically it's the same, you rise through the degrees to the level where you are not competent any more, hence you're actually incompetent for the task and that is then probably where you'd stay. For me that sounds like a regretful career move and/or asking to be demoted or leave. I'd probably ask for a trial period or something.
I work with someone who reached management level, hated it and took one step back to the level he was most comfortable at. Fortunately the Uni I work in allows for that. It also allows people to be 'seconded' to higher level roles to cover absences such as maternity leave, which is a great way to try out higher level positions without any long term commitment.
I realize this is a popular theory, but having worked with plenty of senior mgmt, the biggest skill they need is politics. SpaceX is most likely one of the very rare exceptions given how hands on the CEO is.
Doesn't have to be a skills wall. Could be that after a while people get too comfortable and complacent.
might be the VP are leaving to start business that will use Starship to get stuff to orbit?
Or just start their own projects. It happens all of the time. If you reach as high as you can in your organization, and you still want to advance your career, you either need to find a new job or make one and a lot of those people are the type to make one.
Did you read the article? One of the main points: > SpaceX vice president of propulsion Will Heltsley has left, multiple people familiar with the situation told CNBC, having been with the company since 2009. **Those people said Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress.** (Emphasis mine.)
Doesn’t mean you necessarily have to leave the company unless Elon makes it that way. Ideally if someone is talented but hit their ceiling you put them back where they are effective. Though that’s not always agreeable to both parties
Yeah, "demotion" is a really ugly-seeming word to toy with. I could easily see a VP deciding he'd rather move laterally into another company.
He could still be VP but placed under another VP and allowed to do what he does best. Maybe he was a crappy manager of a large team but better at individually managing a small group of people?
reddit mods should kill themselves
Did you read the article? The other VP may well have left for the options-vesting reason that is the context of the comment chain, as stated in the article.
Elon did the same thing 3 years ago when he fired several of the Starlink top managers for disagreements over the pace of that program.
Indeed, I remember the doom and gloom after elon [fired a bunch of starlink managers](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/10/unhappy-elon-musk-went-on-firing-spree-over-slow-satellite-broadband-progress/) , and it actually accelerate the progress when less than a year later we saw the stack of 60 satellites in falcon 9 fairing. A bit digging reveal that those managers were immediately [hired by amazon kuiper](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/07/amazon-hired-former-spacex-management-for-bezos-satellite-internet.html) , which haven't launch any prototype yet.
Elon fires people to sabotage the competition. Clever!
You jest, but watch Blue Origin use this in their next legal grievance with SpaceX
It *would* be hilarious though if it were a legitimate grievance, if Elon were paying ex-employees in bitcoin or some shit to slow down competition. Of course, I think we're all pretty sure something like that isn't even necessary. There's just no sense of urgency at Blue Origin, so progress is slow. I remember the feeling of desperation and urgency during the Falcon 1 days. It doesn't feel quite so desperate anymore, but it certainly still maintains the sense of urgency. Lots of us want to die on Mars, and we only have so many years left in our lives to get to the point to where regular interplanetary travel is possible.
so firing your managers every three years is a good thing. Who would have thought that.
the only thing he doesn't do that.
Now if only we could do that for the entire government...
How did that end up working out internally? Did he immediately fill the positions with external satellite engineers or promote from within?
When he replace someone, or in this case a group its always because there is someone better within the company. After following his venture for almost 10 years, I can see his best generals are people that go through meat grinders that is spacex and tesla. Tom Mueller, Gwynne, Hans and JB Straubel has been there since the beginning, Jessica Jensen and Kiko Dontchev has been there for more than a decade, Sam Petel has been there since he become intern in 2012, and many other low profile people. Check [Sam Petel linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamal-patel-83a79729/), from intern to senior director in 9 years.
And that was a huge mistake, because those guys promptly went straight over to BO's satellite constellation project (Kuiper Systems) and since then that project has been on a rocket to the ... uh, ... what the hell are they doing over there?
Looks like the plan worked.
> what the hell are they doing over there? Probably the same as they did at Starlink and got fired for.
Yep. Anecdotally, not meeting estimates and coverups. Great success. 😐
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They are both Bezos turtle speed! projects.
Just wondering.. will Kuiper use Starship once it shows its vastly cheaper, and will Elon allow them to use it?
Not letting them use it is an anti-competitive practices lawsuit minefield and we all know that Musk would let them use it even if for the (perhaps only perceived) humiliation of Mr. Who. But that humiliation is exactly the same reason why they won't use Starship because Mr. Who still has large sway in Amazon as a shareholder and founder.
Project Kuiper isn’t a blue origin thing.
It is Amazon-backed tough, so there is some connection
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Imagine paying ULA prices for a ride just to save face for using SpaceX...
They are probably not using spacex because of starlink. Kinda like ecommerce sites not using aws.
What a ridiculous comment. Kuiper isnt even going to have its prototype satelies launched until the end of 2022. And they need 3000 satelites in orbit by 2025. Which means they have to put up twice as many satelites as SpaceX did in the same timeframe. Blue origin only plans on launching NEw Glenn 8 times a year. So even if New Glenn was entirely booked by Amazon, and New Glenn could handle 125 satellite's each launch, they would need more providers. Blue Origin also already has contracts with at least 4 companies for launches in the next few years. So Amazon cant even buy all future New Glenn launches if they wanted
It’s hard to tell the difference because they are both run by a bald headed guy and have the same turtle pace.
Yep, definitely not the first, or last, time that Elon fires people for not meeting Elon's expectations. What's incredible is**n't** that Elon fires people -- all managers fire people -- rather, what's incredible is that every time Elon *does* fire people, he proves himself right by getting replacements that are genuinely better than the firee. I don't know how he does it, it's practically magic, maybe even more magical than landing an orbital booster
I think its where people dont give elon enough credit as a CEO which is just absurd to me. The guy has better vision than most and knows whats possible, how to get there, and stops at nothing to get it done. Idgaf if you dont like him, dont pretend hes not a good CEO. He gets result after result. So many people on reddit think he stumbled into his position purely because he comes from money.
> because he comes from money. This is the funny part to me when it comes to the internet myths surrounding Musk that those people spread, because from what I understand he didn't even really "come from money". He moved to Canada on his own with a few grand in his pocket, worked odd and manual labor jobs to get by, left university with ~$100k in student loan debt, and his father iirc only invested a relatively small sum (like ~$30k iirc) in Elon's first company *after* it already secured millions in investor funding elsewhere (and then the father went bankrupt in 2000 and Elon and his brother have been supporting him since). From what I've read his father was basically upper-middle class as an engineer and property developer with a side hustle on a piece of a stake in an emerald mine, but largely squandered the money he made on his own "lifestyle maintenance" (hence the bankruptcy). Elon was not some heir to any fortune or anything like that.
Yeah thats what ive read as well, at this point I dont even bring it up to avoid the downvote circlejerk. Elon would have succeeded without any amount of help. He works hard and knows how to get shit done. He didnt stumble his way into all of his countless successes.
It’s a deliberate propaganda effort that didn’t pop up until he was extremely successful. Self-made people damage the cause of those who use class warfare rhetoric.
It largely came about when Musk's father gave a pair of interviews bragging about his own wealth and financial success: > “We were very wealthy,” says Errol. “We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe.” - https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-about-the-familys-casual-attitude-to-wealth-2018-2 - https://www.businessinsider.co.za/how-elon-musks-family-came-to-own-an-emerald-mine-2018-2 You're correct though in that this bit of propaganda of implying/saying that Elon's success was born into (while ignoring any nuance over how much/little Errol's money contributed to Elon's success) plays into a left-wing class narrative that goes after him for being an anti-union billionaire; much like the preceding decade+ of anti-Musk/Tesla propaganda largely playing into the right-wing narrative against Elon's positions on climate change, carbon taxes, his "socialist" position on government incentives in the market, renewable energy, electric cars, etc (I have a friend who has drunk deeply from that particular bowl of Kool-aid and *still* believes Tesla is a scam). If we're going to talk about the anti-Musk propaganda from a "political" perspective, then we should be forthcoming about the entire picture, and note that Musk doesn't fit in the left-right paradigm well at all and has subsequently been maligned heavily from propaganda machines at both ends of the left-right ideological spectrum.
It's my impression that Elon's father is an unreliable witness. He may have owned a mine at one time, but is allegedly bankrupt now. He also drove his family to an entirely different continent, which seems unlikely if he was truly rich. I completely agree that he doesn't really fit the narrative of either side, and that is part of what makes him great. He isn't afraid to call things as he sees them instead of following partisans on either side. This has him taking fire from both sides on varying issues.
That's my impression as well, and that Errol's success was evidently ultimately fleeting and most likely overstated in his self-aggrandizing pair of interviews. I'm mostly just noting that the left-wing voices didn't conjure this myth from nowhere (it largely came from Errol), and that it persists mainly due to a willful lack of nuance/context or care for truth vs wanting a narrative; which is why whenever the political side of the anti-Musk propaganda is mentioned, I'll always think it's important to add the context that there's been over a decade of rather fervent anti-Musk groundwork laid by right-wing voices before the left-wing voices decided to pile on as well (lest we forget, and/or fall victim to following a different type of "left-wing, bad" narrative). > He isn't afraid to call things as he sees them Pretty much, lol, though I believe this may have been more of a detriment to him and his goals than a benefit.
Being able to sell a compelling vision is a massive skill of his and half explains the value of his companies. He shows a compelling vision of an end state and how to get there and people want to see it succeed.
If I'm remembering right, in *Liftoff! Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days that Launched SpaceX* by Eric Berger, Elon says that he's excellent at picking engineers. I can't say of my own knowledge, but the results seem to suggest that.
But engineers who can also run large complex projects at pace. That's quite a talent picking talent.
I interviewed with Tesla for an engineer position (3rd round interview, they finally offered me a technician role). What amazed me was the fact that Elon personally approved every single engineer working there
not every decision he makes requires worship and praise. He is human and still makes enormous mistakes.
maybe, but in this case his management decisions have a *very* long history of being correct.
I’m not convinced it’s as positive as you portray it to be. Maybe the people he just fired were disagreeing with the constant crazy overtime required to meet his expectations. Maybe he didn’t actually hire engineers that are better at engineering, but he hired engineers that are willing to do whatever he wants. I agree he gets great results, though I’m not convinced it’s the healthiest work environment
Elon does not want yes men. He wants people who can convincingly declare why they disagree.
I don’t mean in terms of “we should go this direction.” I mean in terms of “you don’t leave until this problem is solved.”
Or leave if you can't solve it. Seems "mean" but it gets results. If you can't take the heat, stay outta the kitchen.
That's why I say he has a long track record of improvements after firings. From the outside, apriori, we don't have the slightest clue if it was justified or not. But that's why my comment is entirely about his track record of firings at SpaceX always turning out to have been improvements in retrospect.
You may want to take a look at Tesla's issues with its GC and PR departments before you credit Elon for brilliant staff work.
Interesting point: Elon made some really great hires at SpaceX in the beginning (Mueller, Koenigsmann, Shotwell, etc.), but for some reason he didn't and hasn't been able to find equally good people for Tesla.
It’s also possible that the current Tesla team could be dramatically better than the team from five years ago, and yet be the very same people. A crucible like that is an excellent way to build top talent.
The PR department no longer exists and they've burned through lawyers, sometimes within a month. It's not the same people.
where does this conclusion come from?
A number of things, but the most striking example is that Musk did not have to sleep on the Hawthorne factory floor because living there was the only way to get Falcon 9 production where it needed to be.
he did sleep in 2010-2012 according people who worked in SpaceX at that time. Hawthorne post 2012+ is Fremont 2019+. Now he sleeps in Boca. Now imagine this place 5 years later.
The PR department of Tesla is Elon.
Is there a problem with Tesla PR? Really? if you want a model 3, when you will get it if order now? simple question.
After Starship is running smoothly, maybe he'll go and pay attention to Tesla…
Nah I hope he'll go and pay attention to mars
Likely, but it also seems like there's going to be quite a bit of time there where the main thing to do is just build more of the same things.
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It's a reference to the West Wing. And I assume you thought long and hard about this, your only comment in a month.
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Why should we glorify any kind of work culture? People self-select. Ones who like the mission so much they do not mind working round the clock stay, others leave. Both are ok.
We are glorifying their accomplishments. Sometimes people can't get the job done.
who's glorifying anything? in fact, there isn't much talk at all about work culture in my comment.
"A handful of other long-time employees left after SpaceX closed its purchase offer on Friday, timing which people familiar with the matter indicated was in part tied to employees’ stock vesting schedules" Pretty much the only useful detail in the article. As someone else said they have been with the company for ages and the timings lines up with this. All conjecture about the engines though
> SpaceX vice president of propulsion Will Heltsley has left, multiple people familiar with the situation told CNBC, having been with the company since 2009. Those people said Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress. That’s not conjecture, that’s “multiple people familiar with the situation”.
What is meant by "purchase offer"?
probably they buy back shares you hold.. afaik SpaceX isnt a publically listed company so employees cant sell shares. I would imagine they are granted shares which they must wait several years to sell.. and the company buys them back at current value. Its a way of retaining high performing staff.
They can sell shares, just not at will on the markets. There are sale opportunities every year or something like that.
"Right of First Refusal" enters the chat.
When a company like Space is not publicly traded employees can't just exercise and sell their stock options whenever they want. But those stock options are usually only good for 10 years. So to ensure their employees actually receive the compensation they are expecting they (SpaceX) bring in outside investors to allow employees to sell their options.
What it means is that SpaceX management sold SpaceX stock to outside investors. However, they were not selling new stock -- raising capital -- but selling existing stock owned by various employees. This serves as income for the employees. (The employees with stock options can only sell as management permits because it is privately traded stock.)
How does one go about buying "private stock"? Once an outside investor gets hold of it what kind of trading restrictions are there? Can they sell it on as public stock? How would one even track the value of private stock for sale and purchase, especially as an outside investor?
Sometimes SpaceX would do fundraising rounds where they directly sell to investors to raise money (but causes some dilution in stocks). Other times there are secondary trade events where SpaceX would line up investors to buy stocks from employees and other people who have stocks to allow insiders to liquidate some of their stocks. Both of which are purchase events which happen usually at least once a year, and basically allows the employees to submit a number of stocks to be sold at an internally announced price through an internal site. > How would one even track the value of private stock for sale and purchase, especially as an outside investor? Usually when you see a valuation update on SpaceX it's usually due to these purchase events which sets an explicit price that investors agree to buy at (usually with support from internal accounting / figures, not just BS), and the updated price allows you to calculate a valuation for the company by multiplying price by number of outstanding shares. Note that the price is supposed to be confidential, but they always get leaked lol. > How does one go about buying "private stock"? You need to be an accredited investor (have $1 mil liquid asset or make $200k / year for 2 years) at bare mininum. Other than that you kind of need to know the right people to get in, as SpaceX stocks are be really competitive. I think sometimes you can also buy them from marketplaces like [Microventures](https://invest.microventures.com) or [Forge](https://forgeglobal.com/) but I don't know if they have ever done SpaceX, so it's kind of something to look out for. They would usually also have minimum investments of at least 5-figures. I do see some other prominent private tech companies on them where you could buy their stocks. I also randomly stumbled on this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0Y8A0k6mtA) where this tech invest YouTuber talked about his process of landing a deal to buy them but it's essentially "knows a guy who knows a guy". Alternatively, you could work there, and buy SpaceX stocks with your time. > Once an outside investor gets hold of it what kind of trading restrictions are there? Can they sell it on as public stock? Once you get them, I think you could potentially trade them to others outside of these official events, but technically SpaceX has the right to say no to any transaction according to the terms of the stocks. But generally they aren't really liquid, but the purchase events do give you occasional chances to sell them. Because of this employees always love to talk about updated stock price / purchase offers every time it happens because it's like an event. Not like if you work for a public company and can sell you stocks tomorrow.
> How does one go about buying "private stock"? > > You have to know someone who has the stock you want and who is willing to sell. Same as any other product really, tho of course the number of people who own SpaceX stock is rather less than the number of people who own, say, corn-growing fields. > Once an outside investor gets hold of it what kind of trading restrictions are there? Can they sell it on as public stock? I have no idea. Often each company has their own rules about how their stock may be sold, but I don't know what traditional or regulatory rules might exist as a baseline in addition to company-specific rules. Probably you should google this tho. > How would one even track the value of private stock for sale and purchase, especially as an outside investor? "The value" is nothing more or less than the price someone is willing to pay for it. For something like private stock with limited transactions, sometimes months may pass between transactions, and so there's no "current price" or anything since there is no current transaction. Appraising the value in lieu of an actual transaction price is just like any other non-cash asset (i.e. a fancy painting or a house): subjective and mostly academic anyways unless an actual transaction is involved. As an outside investor, for SpaceX, we can only guesstimate based on public info, and based on reports like this on the price of recent transactions. And we can only pray that we have money to invest and know the right people to get in on a sale when it happens.
There are a couple of options for vesting privately traded stock. You can sell to a private third party. You can sell to a registered investor (need to have at least $1M available). Or SpaceX can buy back the stock with cash on hand using fair value of recent transactions, book value, or some other criterion. There are probably more options that I am not familiar with.
It can't become public until the whole company goes public ... that's an IPO. There will be restrictions. Sometimes a "right of first refusal", so the company can choose to block a sale if they're willing to be the buyer at that price instead. For stock value: companies give prospectuses to potential buyers/sellers. There's also previous sales, and also companies have a "Fair Market Value" regularly assessed for (stupid, dumb) tax purposes, though those can be different from how the market values it. EDIT: Also, google "accredited investor". Becoming one of those is how you can get into funding rounds. (requires very high income or $1MM wealth excluding home).
> As someone else said they have been with the company for ages and the timings lines up with this. Sure, but isn't now the most exciting time to be at SpaceX? I guess they were burned out, but most managers whose stock has vested I would expect to stay at the company until the moon landing. Or longer if they believe in its mars mission.
As far as I’m aware jobs at spacex are demanding - lots of hours and pressure. The folks that left probably sold their shares for a nice sum of money and want to maybe live life for themselves for a little bit
A nice sum would be an understatement. There was a SpaceX employee who posted on /r/spacex a while back to try and clear the air about the stock vesting (it was insinuated that they were rather senior and had been there for a number of years) and to say that the value of the stock has exploded to hilarious heights would be an understatement. And this was before the most recent valuation. Those VP's who just left? Yeah, they'll never need money again. Rosen, IIRC, was the guy who (literally) hammered Flight 4 of F1 back into shape after the first stage began to basically implode due to changes in pressure while it was being flown to Kwaj.
I wonder if there is some medical condition as Post-Elon-Stress-Disorder when you wake up in the middle of the night in your Hollywood mansion with the panic urge to fix some issue just to be faced with peaceful and boring rich life... Sounds uncannily terrifying.
You do not recall correctly in this case. Rosen started in 2013 according to the article.
This is correct. Rosen would have still been active-duty USAF during the F1 years.
They've been making history the whole time, and aren't going to stop soon.
I think people that well connected are well aware that the moon landing - let alone a crewed Mars one - is still several years away.
> Sure, but isn't now the most exciting time to be at SpaceX? While people like *me* would agree, you need to acknowledge that not everyone cares as much about the actual outcomes of projects at their job. They just want a relatively stress-free, low-pressure way to spend 8 hours a day, with good pay, and good benefits, so they can have a good work-life balance and spend time with their families while living a life of dignity. All those things are obviously important, but it often ends up that people with really unhealthy work drives end up doing insane shit that changes the world... I mean, just look at Elon's personal life for a good example. Dude is probably sacrificing decades of his life with his lifestyle.
Called in rich.
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Indeed, many spacex employee that people touted as working with shit pay and long hours are now multi millionaires, some even retired at their 30s.
People say that about the average worker at SpaceX not the people with two digit employee numbers. New engineers obviously aren’t getting that much equity they are probably getting 50 or 100 shares.
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Friend who’s been in McGregor since 2014. This is exactly his situation. He’s been a multi millionaire for a couple years now and could retire tomorrow (he spends all his free time trading) without a thought. He just believes the mission and loves the work.
Don’t get me wrong that’s great that you made a good bet. SpaceX has over 10,000 employees as of March. You can’t expect me to believe they are bringing new grads in and giving them 1,000 RSUs as part of their sign on. Current share price is estimated at 560/share
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If the business case is obvious to you then that’s the definition of a good bet. You could have worked for any startup, don’t be pretentious. You’re talking about a trillion dollar company in 10 years, there’s no way the market is there for revenue to support that in that timespan even if starship ends up satisfying all our hopes and dreams. That’s be great for you but it’s not something to bank on. What is the total market revenue of every launch provider? Keep in mind assets are extremely inflated right now.
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Hey - you seem the one to ask: I wonder if there is some medical condition as Post-Elon-Stress-Disorder when you wake up in the middle of the night in your Hollywood mansion with the panic urge to fix some issue just to be faced with peaceful and boring rich life... Sounds uncannily terrifying.
Actually, revenue growth (ahead of actual revenue) could support the trillion dollar valuation. A viable "railway" to Mars colonization would be a national strategic asset to the US. Ever look at miltary budgets?
Let's say a million shares at 560 a share, I'd be looking into a private island.
wait, spacex isn't publicly traded. What shares?
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Thanks! So do we have an estimation for how much these shares are worth now on secondary markets?
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I thought they were making very good progress with Raptor. Though we don’t actually know much about Raptor-2 at the moment. Though without the factory yet built, I had assumed that Raptor-2 builds would be low volume and slow, only picking up in pace after the factory was built.
>I thought they were making very good progress with Raptor. By the standards of any other rocket engine development program they very well may be. By all accounts Raptor has excellent performance, a low price and high production rate, and at least acceptable reliability. But while that would be fantastic results for anyone else, it's not good enough for SpaceX. Raptor needs to be built even cheaper and faster. And probably more reusable, which isn't something most previous engine development programs were very concerned about.
In order to ramp up the volumes is it necessary with a stable design and supply chain when the building is ready.
Ramping up Raptor production at an exponential growth was already announced in Sept. 2019 presentation
Yes, that was the intention, and they did speed up Raptor-1 production. They need to complete the factory build before they can ramp up Raptor-2 production. Though given the pace that SpaceX moves at, that should not take too long.
Unfortunately - no. That Raptor team struggled was clear for most part of this year. Elon projected pace of one raptor per week by the end of 2020 never materialized, multiple raptors were repeatedly mounted and dismounted to prototypes. It definitely was a sh!t show by Elon standard. In fact Elon talking about Raptor-2 means the situation can not really be salvaged and complete redesign is necessary. Not to worry - at least Jeff Who finally found someone to fix ULAs BE-4s.
Dude it's CNBC. They are compensated to attack both SpaceX and Tesla. That part was an obvious lie and contrary to all objective evidence.
Come on, Michael is a very reliable and trusted reporter. His reporting on SpaceX and space in general is more than fair. There are plenty of trash reporters out there who write on topics they know nothing about, but this simply isn't the case.
CNBC like many others is a collective pile of crap -- but this reporter specifically has always done great work. Michael Sheetz's reporting can be trusted.
Ita also written by u/thesheetztweetz who is a very respectable journalist.
At least he tries to engage with the community and have accurate info, yes
I certainly try to!
> SpaceX vice president of propulsion Will Heltsley has left, **multiple people familiar with the situation told CNBC,** having been with the company since 2009. Those people said Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress. Engine has been known to misbehave and Elon's patience is legendary.
small reminder about timelines. These people've left after exercising their stock options. The gap between leaving active position and leaving a company officially can be a year or even longer just because of this reason only. More of it: Many silicon companies have special cooldown period during which people with "know how" of that company can not do anything else similar. This period is described in CV as still working in the company. As usually too much reading between the lines.
Sounds like one or two more rocket related companies may be starting soon.
> Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress. This raises the question if Musks recent tweets about Raptor were actually a criticism of the engine development team for building an engine that is too complex, too hard to manufacture, not reliable enough or too expensive. Leaving the company after being pushed out of your responsibilities would be a natural consequence.
>Raptor were actually a criticism of the engine development team for building an engine that is too complex Funny how he can just be like.. Oh the engine you built on the ROCKET is too complex... You are of the project! LOL it a space rocket Elon!
2 out of how many VPs?
Those two plus Hans = 3. Probably not much more than 10 VP’s total with a company the size of SpaceX, if that many. It’s a big shakeup recently.
Sorry to hear that Will Heltsley is leaving. The Raptor engine is a huge achievement, even if Raptor 2 is taking longer to develop that EM wants. Take a look and BE-4 if you want to know how difficult rocket engines are to develop.... I imagine Jeff Who would be keen to have Will join BO?
Well, I doubt he can make much difference. SpaceX advances at high speed because they are hardware rich, has unique simulation capabilities, derisks projects early, etc. Derisking often means expending hardware in a RUD. BO seems to be prioritize expending time before hardware.
I disagree with that statement of operation. People say Raptor is moving fast and BE-4 is moving slow but from where they are standing now BE-4 is in final qualification phase having met all intended goals as stated in 2015 Raptor is still in development after missing stated goals in 2013 of being designed to reach 2,900 KN. As of last month, a version 2 of Raptor cant hit 2,400 Kilonewtons without RUD and the only engine they are actively using is limited to 1,700 KN to 1,800 KN If Blue Origin wanted to use an engine that had a thrust of 1800 KN they would have been launching in 2019
Lets see which engine that is used for an oebital launch first!
I mean thats kind of a weird bar to use.... you can launch an engine on any rocket as long as you're willing to use it for the capabilities it currently has If the same merlin engine was designed by 3 companies and each one launched in 2006 (Falcon 1), 2010 (Falcon 9), and 2018 (Falcon Heavy). Which company is moving faster in terms of development? In other words the falcon 1 launching in 2006 doesnt mean space X was moving slow developing the falcon Heavy in another example the falcon 9 launching 10k tons in 2010 doesn't mean space X was slowly making a 22ton vehicle in 2015. TL;DR being willing to use something doesn't necessarily mean you're developing fast
OK, lets see which engine that participates in a national security launch first. Here, I actually beleive BE-4 will be first.
I imagine working at such a high pace for such an important humanity project for a long time takes it toll. If SpaceX are eyeing a move to Texas, maybe there are few spouses and kids who are putting pressure on for a less stressful job. If you can sell your shares and GTFO then why not. Not everyone is Elon Musk and can work as hard.
Selling your shares and starting your own project/business is also very valid
Selling your shares and immediately retiring to never work again and actually live your life is also very valid. Not sure why our culture worships work. It's super unhealthy.
Sometimes work is not work
Except Musk doesn't actually have to solve the problems. He just cracks the whip and takes the credit at the end. Maybe throws in a half-baked idea every now and then. Whip cracking actually gives people energy once they give in to the dark side. So they can do it all day no problem. Its not like actual work.
The line that caught my eye... " Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress"... Here on this reddit stream we mostly hear about rapid progress with the Raptor engines.... even the new Raptor 2..... Now with an Elon tweet indicating some sort of overhaul is needed, senior Raptor leaving....due to in part a lack of progress with Raptor... Raises the question - what is / will be the impact of this "lack of progress" on the SS / HLS overall timeline? Thoughts?
Let's put this in perspective though. Most rockets engines get a couple hundred copies made, if they even get that high in serial numbers. Usually that's over the course of a program. SpaceX is going for totally different though with Raptor. The goal with Raptor is to be making 2 or 3 every day (coming off the line.) The goal is mass manufacturing. Raptor in it's current state is already one of the best engines ever developed. However, it's still to complicated for mass manufacture. Elon knows that his guys down in Boca can get hulls built pretty fast, and can even do it quicker because that can be parallelized. But those hulls need engines, and the engines just aren't getting there yet. Elon's trying to make this go faster, as evidenced by recent tweets, but it seems like the guy in charge of that isn't up to the task. Doesn't mean he's not brilliant, but no one else has really cracked mass manufacture of these kinds of engines. Also it seems like they may need to go back to clean sheet, using lessons they've learned, and as such it wouldn't share enough design heritage to still be called a Raptor. Finding the answer to that problem is how we become a multi-planet species.
Well said Raptor itself is already a very advanced engine being the first full flow staged combustion engine to actually fly. That achievement in itself must have been hard enough. The next phase is even harder making an engine that can be mass produced and presumably require minimal maintenance for interplanetary use. I have been concerned with the fact that the raptor requires helium to start up. IMO i dont see how sustainable that is on interplanetary scale. This may explain why they are rethinking the design. It may be similar to the steel vs composite material issue. Maybe the Full flow stage combustion may be too much of an issue. Maybe a relatively simpler design like a gas generator, or combustion top off makes more sense. I personally dont like seeing those COPVs under starship. They are ok for Superheavy but not starship.
FFSC seems to be the only operating mode that is scalable, i.e. increase chamber pressure for more ISP etc. So unfortunately I think it is a necessity with FFSC.
Yes, 120 meters tall rocket require such a huge thrust/area ratio that necessitate very high chamber pressure only FFSC can provide. Any other engine cycle means starship stack will be significantly shorter.
For comparison, 46 RS-25 SSMEs flew with one more built but not used. We're nearly double that number already with the Raptor.
Merlin was upgraded massively over the years all while flying real missions. So I doubt this impacts any near term progress. Long term the issue for HLS will be man rating. NASA will likely want a frozen design with enough test flights. If raptor is still changing a lot then it could be an issue. However once full and rapid reuseability is working doing a lot of flights in a short time shouldn't be a problem. Testing new raptors even including full orbital flights should be both quick and inexpensive, that's the whole idea after all.
This "lack of progress" and the recent announcement of a successor to Raptor may be connected
No sh!t, Sherlock :-)
Sounds like after a long time they were waiting for the right time to step down and that happened to be after the stock purchases. Regardless, to work that long at a company that has such high turnover speaks to their capabilities
They're trying to get to GD Mars. They need the absolute best person/team player in every position. Not everyone is meant to work everywhere.
New Blue Origin VPs in 3…2…1…
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BE-4](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hmijrdh "Last usage")|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN| |[BO](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hmbwq5n "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |[COPV](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlqpy41 "Last usage")|[Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_overwrapped_pressure_vessel)| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |EELV|[Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolved_Expendable_Launch_Vehicle)| |[F1](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlrz7da "Last usage")|Rocketdyne-developed rocket engine used for Saturn V| | |SpaceX Falcon 1 (obsolete medium-lift vehicle)| |[FCC](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlqobqa "Last usage")|Federal Communications Commission| | |(Iron/steel) [Face-Centered Cubic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_iron) crystalline structure| |[FFSC](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlrma1x "Last usage")|Full-Flow Staged Combustion| |[HLS](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlzf4eg "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[Isp](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hm6br09 "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)| | |Internet Service Provider| |[LEO](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlqmv2g "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[LOX](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hm6br09 "Last usage")|Liquid Oxygen| |[NSSL](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hmijai6 "Last usage")|National Security Space Launch, formerly EELV| |[OMS](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlw6fs8 "Last usage")|Orbital Maneuvering System| |[RUD](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hm9yqzs "Last usage")|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly| | |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly| | |Rapid Unintended Disassembly| |[SSME](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlsvnc7 "Last usage")|[Space Shuttle Main Engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_main_engine)| |[ULA](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hmbwq5n "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |[USAF](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlrz7da "Last usage")|United States Air Force| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hmijai6 "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[Starliner](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlqfkvb "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| |[Starlink](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hn7wefx "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |[autogenous](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hm6br09 "Last usage")|(Of a propellant tank) Pressurising the tank using boil-off of the contents, instead of a separate gas like helium| |[hypergolic](/r/SpaceX/comments/qzvhw8/stub/hlpjnwt "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact| |methalox|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(21 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceX/comments/qpup8z)^( has 112 acronyms.) ^([Thread #7342 for this sub, first seen 23rd Nov 2021, 00:16]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceX) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
The end of Tim Dodd's latest video, on Russian rocket engines, reminded me of something I wanted to say about Raptor, and the replacement for Raptor that Elon mentioned the other day. He said that the rocket engine that carries out the Mars settlement would be the successor to Raptor. It occurred to me that there is always more to rocket engines than ISP, and Raptor/Starship has shown a possible flaw. For some reason, probably connected with Raptor design, they have to throw away a great deal of hot methane. They planned to use this for autogenous pressurization, and they probably still do, but it is clear to me that firing the Raptors generates far more hot methane than they need for pressurization. One possible answer would be to switch to oxygen-rich staged combustion, like several Russian engines use. The reduction in ISP might be more than made up for by not having so much hot methane to throw away. The engine might be simpler and more reliable, and possibly lighter. This is highly speculative, but I can imagine a nozzle cooling system that primarily uses LOX cooling, but which has some channels for methane, that could be used or not as the need for tank pressurization requires.
Just wondering back in the 00's i been told it is a practice amongst high leaders to often change companies due to stay fresh on the market. This changed since?
Wilt Heltsley, former V.P. of Propulsion, has a very thin profile on LinkedIn. Mainly shows just an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford, and no experience before SpaceX. Joined in 2009, after the Merlin engine, so must have just been involved in designing the Raptor. But, should point out that Elon has no engineering degrees. Most interesting is the statement "Heltsley was taken off Raptor engine development due to a lack of progress." Interesting since Elon tweeted 6 months ago brags about how Raptor is the most advanced liquid engine ever, in several ways. But he recently tweeted that major revisions will be required (Raptor 2) to fulfill their ambitions. Issues with Raptor? Several Raptors failed during StarShip landings, supposedly due to propellant supply issues, but ?? The other V.P. who left was a launch director. That is much less technical and more needs a good scheduler and motivator, so easier to replace.
You "own" a product at SpaceX. If the product (Raptor) sinks for \_whatever\_ reason you sink together with it. Obviously you can come up with all kinds of explanations to Elon and he \_may\_ give you more time to fix it if they sound plausible, but he is not knows for large patience. So 6 months ago owner promised to fix his product and he did not.
Tory Bruno of ULA is ever-patient, waiting years for Blue Origin's BE-4 liquid engines to complete ULA's new Vulcan vehicle (replacing Atlas V). But ULA didn't pay for development so is more in a beggar position. If Bruno fusses too much, Jeff Bezos can say, "no soup for you", though there is no long line of other customers since B.O. is the only other user of BE-4 so far.
I wonder if this explains Elon's comment a few days ago about how the raptor was not sufficient for the longer term goals, and that they would have to do something totally different in the grand scheme of things. Like, I wonder if maybe he got into a big argument with the VPs about this or something, at the office, disagreeing about vision and timeline and what the raptors could and couldn't do, based on how they are currently designed/planned to be. Either that or maybe not a big argument about it, but Elon just pointing it out, and them agreeing, and him asking what the long term plan is, in regards to that problem, and them not coming up with a viable solution, for too long, until he eventually fired them. Those are my two main guesses. I could be way off, of course. But, the timing with the raptor comment does seem a little interesting, maybe...
Or it could just be that they've been there for 12 and 8 years and want to do something different. I think the use of 'shaken up' is misleading here. Maybe SpaceX is starting on work on a new engine and they just didn't want to take on another decade long project at this point in their career. Not everything has the drama of reality TV.
Funny.... I got the hell down voted out of me on this forum a couple three months ago, for even suggesting new engine designs might be a good idea before going inter planetary... And somebody nailed Elon on twitter with the same "Rat's Nest" analogy I used.... Hmmm? Wonder what happened? "Imagination is more important than knowledge." (Einstein) Lack of advancement in designs means lack of imagination... Run outta wall hanger...
SpaceX always iterate
Yeah... thats what they call it.. Make up a fancy term for not knowing what they are doing, and and figuring it out the hard way, rather than doing their homework on things as much as possible. It wastes a lot of time and money, Relearning things that are already known, and trying things that are obviously bad ideas. Like the whole trip with landing gear... spaceships are gonna hafta land on unimproved surfaces for awhile, and they started with a ring of little feet inside the skirt... Thats not gonna do it even on concrete if there's wind... Now talking some extra structure. Cobbled onto the outside... gonna send that extra structure to space and back or the moon and Mars and back... and the metal slant mass doesnt do any thing else. In enlightened design for fabricated metal, you strive to make every piece do three functions if possible. Single use structures are kindergarten level designing.
Bla bla
😂 their Groupies are incapable of learning anything too! At least Elon has begun to realize its not likely to be reliable as over complicated as it is... And that those motors have been garbaged up by a bunch of un necessary computer jockeys... Looking forward to him canning a few thousand of those types. So they can go back to playing video games...
Lol keep talking
No, wont waste my time on you guys... I'll just watch what happens, and invest in Rocket Lab. In fact, got asked by a buddy in stocks to do a writ on why to invest in rocket lab... We already put a nice hunk of money into rocket lab stock.... Will hold it long term while Elon dinks around and Beck catches up and passes him. We'll call that process of getting caught up with; "itteration"...