But it seemed kind of like an attention grab, and odd the way everyone clung to the ideas that seemed pretty mundane. In the video, they're using a spare air cylinder which has the risk of the person inside letting go of the mouthpiece and possibly not able to access it due to being shoved into a tiny tube. You could replicate the design without those risks by simply binding their arms and maybe using a gag strap for the regulator (see o2 CCRs) or FFM as they supposedly did.
<deleting entirely reasonable points about how iterative commercial successful technology is>
Mega props to all the support people.
I'm not aware of your tech product development background. If it is extensive then this isn't so much a reply to you as it is informative for others.
When you develop new applications of old tech, or new applications of new tech, you go thru distinct cycles. Basically you go:
- People With Idea: "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could <insert idea>?"
- Everyone Else: "Yeah, but that's impossible!"
- PWI: <does tech research, comes back with documentation showing it's not impossible>
- EE: "okay, but nobody is going to want to buy that!"
- PWI: <do market research to show that actually, people might buy it>
- EE: "yeah, but how will <thing 1> work? and what about < thing 2>? and what about the UX?"
- PWI: <build functional prototype that actually solves thing 1, uses a super hack to temporarily work around thing 2, and that has terrible UX>
- EE: "see, we told you this would never work! thing 2 is a total hack! I can see the duct tape from here! And the UX is TERRIBLE! Nyah nyah nyah!"
- PWI: "oh come one, we are building functional prototypes - the entire point of them is to prove it's possible and work around technical challenges. We focus on UX much later in the process"
- EE: "that's what everyone says! thing 2! UX! it sucks!"
- PWI: <keeps prototyping>
- EE: "haven't we cancelled that stupid idea yet?"
- PWI <still prototyping>
- EE: "okay, seriously?!? that team is wasting money! It's a waste of time! No, they can't have any cycles from the UX team. Put them on <our old cash cow>!"
- PWI "here's a fully working prototype. We got a bit of personal time work out of a few people in UX, and as you can see we've got a much more useful prototype..."
- EE: "if anyone in UX has time to work on this useless idiocy, then we should put them to work on <our old cash cow>!"
- PWI: "we're going to go show what we have to <person in charge>"
- EE: "we will be there to undermine you the entire way!"
- PWI: "ta da! that idea we had kinda works!"
- EE: "but it's stupid and dumb. Also, if you do decide to do it, you should let us own it, because this team doesn't understand how to do product development. They only prototype!"
This process is where Musk shines. He is very good at letting his people run with things and prove them out. He's also smart about when to shut things down.
What's most interesting about this wrt the MMLP (Musk Mini Life Pod - my name I just made up) is that it was obviously exactly that - a PROTOYPE. I've seen and built hundreds of protos, and I'd put what we saw at about step 11.
It also clearly NOT a submarine. NOT A SUBMARINE. As a prototype it's currently functioning as a submarine. But that's so obviously not where it's headed from a product perspective, I'm shocked none of you have figured it out yet.
It's a space rescue pod. It inflates, which means it can be packed small. It's one-size-fits-all and requires little to no training to deploy. I'm betting by the time non-astronaut humans are in SpaceX space ships, there will be at least one of these for every person on board. They are building them as submarines now and testing them in shallow swimming pools because that's WAAAAAY easier than any other alternative. It's how NASA has been testing prototypes for decades.
The MMRP will work like this: **** happens and it looks like you're going to be spending time in either unconfined space or within a spaceship that has ruptured, you pull out this thing, tear off the plastic case, press a button, wait a few seconds, step inside the inflated ring at the bottom, pull the ring up over your head, and then press another button, and volia, you are sealed inside a life-sustaining pod. Your PLB goes off automatically, identifies you via biometrics or your badge, sends your vitals and location out via RF, and perhaps even floods the air supply with drugs to slow your breathing and calm you down so you have the best long-term chances for survival.
It was stupid of Musk to talk about it as if it's a submarine and that it's good to go. But that seems to have been his only real mistakes.