Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, has revealed some nuggets of wisdom in the Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session. Musk spoke about artificial intelligence, the Falcon 9, Mars expeditions and more.
On Monday, Jan. 5, the billionaire answered questions from eager enthusiasts on Reddit's AMA.
The chat was timed ahead of the launch of SpaceX's launch of the Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday, Jan. 6. The event was aborted 28 seconds before liftoff and has been rescheduled to Friday, Jan. 9 at 5:09 a.m. Eastern Time at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
When asked how the company intended to secure the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket upon landing -- using gravity or some other mechanism -- Musk responded that "mostly gravity."
"The center of gravity is pretty low for the booster, as all the engines and residual propellant is at the bottom. We are going to weld steel shoes over the landing feet as a precautionary measure," replied Musk.
Another query revolved around SpaceX's stratergy of deploying old-style rockets even though most were approaching reusability. Musk was asked if SpaceX was considering a hybrid craft, like the UK's SABRE program, or toying with a space elevator like NASA and Google.
"If you want to get to orbit or beyond, go with pure rockets. It is not like Von Braun and Korolev didn't know about airplanes and they were really smart dudes," Musk said.
Another fan quizzed Musk on computer singularity, whether artificial intelligence (AI) would take over human intelligence in the long term and eventually wipe out civilization and spark paranoia, or if everything is all just hype.
"There needs to be a lot more work on AI safety. And, with all due respect to the Roomba dude, that is not a concern," he said.
Musk then linked to a funny video of a cat in a shark costume chasing a duck while riding a Roomba.
Here are some interesting highlights of Musk's AMA chat session, with some tongue-in-cheek answers thrown in for good measure.
Question: What daily habit do you believe has the largest positive impact on your life?
Musk: Showering.
Question: You seem to have had to deal with a tremendous amount of adversity in a few of your ventures. Do you have any advice for those dealing with seemingly insurmountable adversity?
Musk: There is a great quote by Churchill: "If you're going through hell, keep going."
Question: I'll leave the technical questions to the experts. 1) do you plan on getting any sleep tonight and 2) how will you celebrate if the test is successful? Best of luck!
Musk: Yes, but probably only a few hours. Party at Cocoa Beach!
Check out the entire AMA chat.
