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"Musk exists because of gub'ment subsidies" is Big Oil lobby meme. Any other car manufacturer can get the same exact EV credits if they manufacture electric cars, and companies like GM do get the same credits with the Volt. By the way, the subsidies for electric cars are no where near the hidden subsidies that traditional internal combustion engine cars get through oil subsidies.
And SpaceX never took anything close to a subsidy ever... unless you think NASA paying them to provide a service, bringing cargo and crew to the ISS, is somehow a "subsidy".
In terms of the most efficient form of transportation, rocketry is probably dead last.
But, hey, when it comes to handwavium and vaporware, why not dream big. Promise the moon, Mars, and ballistic missile shuttles.
FWIW- The efficiency hierarchy (frictional and fuel consumption) is:
water, surface vessels
steel wheel on steel rail, electric traction rail
pneumatic tire on pavement, regardless of powerplant
In terms of the most efficient form of transportation, rocketry is probably dead last.
But, hey, when it comes to handwavium and vaporware, why not dream big. Promise the moon, Mars, and ballistic missile shuttles.
FWIW- The efficiency hierarchy (frictional and fuel consumption) is:
water, surface vessels
steel wheel on steel rail, electric traction rail
pneumatic tire on pavement, regardless of powerplant
Expensive? Yes!
Inductrack is a passive, fail-safe electrodynamic magnetic levitation system, using only unpowered loops of wire in the track and permanent magnets (arranged into Halbach arrays) on the vehicle to achieve magnetic levitation.
Advantages:
The lack of air resistance could permit vactrains to use little power and to move at extremely high speeds, up to 4000-5000 mph (6400-8000 km/h, 2 km/s), or 5-6 times the speed of sound at sea level and standard conditions. Travel through evacuated tubes allows supersonic speed without the penalty of sonic boom found with supersonic aircraft. The trains could operate faster than Mach 1 (at sea level) without noise.
To travel 300 miles (from LA to SF), would take 5 minutes @ 4000 mph.
(Add extra time for comfortable acceleration / deceleration - about a minute for 3G acceleration and the same for 3G deceleration)
Lack of progress suggests that making large scale Halbach arrays are the challenge to overcome.
(FYI : most refrigerator magnets are Halbach arrays - only magnetic on one side)
And SpaceX never took anything close to a subsidy ever... unless you think NASA paying them to provide a service, bringing cargo and crew to the ISS, is somehow a "subsidy".
They obviously make their dime off it. They don't do charity work for DOD or any of their more black-ops clients either. They are simply feeding at the federal trough. Any way you slice it. In the real world of course, there is nothing wrong with that. It's only in extra-galactic la-la-land that such practices come into question.
They obviously make their dime off it. They don't do charity work for DOD or any of their more black-ops clients either. They are simply feeding at the federal trough. Any way you slice it. In the real world of course, there is nothing wrong with that. It's only in extra-galactic la-la-land that such practices come into question.
I still fail to see how selling a service to the federal government (NASA, DOD, NRO, whatever), while undercutting traditional big government contractors by over 50%, is "accepting government subsidies".
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That's how Drew Barrymore died after all.
