Ask HN: What should I ask Elon Musk for HTBTF?

48 points by sama ↗ HN
I'm recording the next episode of this tomorrow w/Elon (http://www.ycombinator.com/future/) and have time for a few more questions. Any requests?

85 comments

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Tesla's self-driving technology is much of America's first real interaction with coming autonomous vehicle technology. Let's say he's stopped on the street by my grandmother. How does he explain to an older person the ways in which this revolution will be controllable, compatible with humans, and not destructive to much of our labor-driven society?
What could NASA learn from SpaceX and vice-versa?
What does he do to keep his energy level to the point that he can do all he's doing. From a distance it seems like he must have superman levels of energy.
Good question. What's his work out, sleep and diet like ?
He actually has already discussed his sleep, diet, and exercise habits in this interview:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE4iFYqi4QU

The part you're looking for is 2-3 minutes in but its worth watching the whole thing as they ask him some questions that are different from the usual ones.

Because he gets nine hours a night, has scrambled eggs and salmon every morning after his daily cardio and yoga....err no he doesn't, he's like the rest of us. Six hours and coffee if your lucky! He really is human!
I suppose this is one of those self sustaining phenomena, like a fire. Doing it, gives him the energy to do it further..

Getting there is harder..

What other companies would he be starting if he had the time
He answered this question before. I think his answer was supersonic jets, or electric jets. Also, Hyperloop.
How long until a solar powered spacecraft?
If there is one thing you can change in the process of battery R&D, what would it be?

And likely a related question: Which scientific data is not readily available but would help battery R&D?

How does he assess risks?
He thought that Tesla would most likely fail, and yet he invested 50% of his Paypal money on Tesla, and the other 50% on SpaceX.

Risk is irrelevant to Elon.

Even if risk is irrelevant to Elon—assumption—he still likely assesses it.
Would be interested to know what his biggest regret is and how he dealt with it.
Is the work in making rechargeable lithium ion cells that retain their capacity over hundreds of thousands of charge cycles going to be commercialized in batteries and if so, what is the timeframe for that?

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3060005/mobile-wireless...

The same goes for the aluminium ion cell:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/stanford-rese...

Also, why did Tesla call the Model S 100D the first electric car to surpass 300 miles on a single charge when the Tesla Roadster 3.0 already hit that milestone?

Is he really going to attempt terraforming / colonisation of Mars any soon?
The other day I pulled up behind a Tesla Model X with a SpaceX license plate frame. The driver looked to be no more than 22 years old. The Hyperloop competition drew more team designs than the last DARPA Grand Challenge. How much of doing what you do is about inspiring the next generation to take moon shots?

Follow up: how the blazes do you keep the SpaceX factory floor so pristine? I've been inside clean rooms that look worse ;)

There's a zamboni like floor cleaner that goes and cleans the rows. Since they are assembling the engines not in a clean room, you still have to be worried about small things falling into them.
Does he worry that the low gravity of Mars may not be sufficient to sustain life? We know we can survive in zero g for a few years but the damage to the body can include vision impairment, bone lose, etc... Does this maybe make Venus a better target?
Well it depends. If human will move to Mars, do they really need not to lose their bones strength and so? If people on Mars will keep 1/3 of what their body compared to Earth because there is about 1/3 gravity, they will be fine for Mars becausee they adapted. But they won't be able to come back.

Venus gravity is just little lower than Earth's but that mean it is harder to land same amount of cargo there (compared to Mars) + you are definitely not coming back because of it anysoon.

Why would they not be able to come back? Just build their bodies back up. Or keep them in shape to begin with.
10 days later I realize... interestingly we know what happens to the body when it's exposed to zero gravity and 1g of gravity... but we really don't know what happens at 20% or really anything between zero and one g...
Question for Elon:

What do think humanity's purpose is? You believe that colonizing space will protect us from extinction-- what purpose do we have to as a species to go on?

Is there any mantra you repeat in your head to keep yourself going or guide your way through difficult decisions?
My girlfriend wants to ask: do you have any ideas for an upcoming space engineering thesis (2 years till graduating)
How does he balance the skepticism that comes with an analytical mind, with the optimism necessary to pull off something new?

Put another way, how do you build something cool without succumbing to bullshit?

What will be future with neural lace technology look like in 2022? (5 years)

Would we cheat death with same consciousness without dependency on our physical body?

What will be future with neural lace technology look like in 2022? (5 years)

Would we cheat death with same consciousness without dependency on our physical body?

Not an Elon maniac here or familiar with your podcast but it might be interesting to ask what he considers his biggest strength and biggest weakness. I rarely hear this asked of successful people.
Does he think it prudent for someone to challenge the payment processors with a new network?

More specifically, does he think it's possible to supplant the current payment landscape with a new centralized system (non-cryptocurrency)?

The background for this question is that it seems like everybody hates PayPal. Venmo, while gaining quite a bit of traction, doesn't seem like it's going to be the one. The rest of the challengers seem to have either died off due to regulation or lack of uptake.

How big of a role does empathy have in truly solving some of the world's biggest problems?
What does Elon base his ethics on? There seems to be an underlying philosophical framework for the types of projects that he thinks are important for humanity. He seems to put a lot of weight on future lives -- is he a utilitarian/consequentialist?
What's cost of sending a ship to Mars? If $x, can a group provide another $x so in effect we can send 2 ships. Spread the risk and/or send double the supplies at the same time knowing that we get window of launch opportunity only every 24 months