Yeah SpaceX is an interesting company to follow when thinking about how to go about inventing the future.

What strikes me is the same as with the use of batteries. Often what they do is using pretty old technology in new modern ways.

E.g. if you compare Falcon 9 to the Space Shuttle you could say Falcon 9 was reverting to very old school technologies: Gas generator engine. Kerosene, boring of stage rocket. However they took this boring old design and used it in novel ways.

You see much the same with Starship. They are using something as old school in the rocket world as stainless steel. Thus part of the reason they can manufacture so fast is that they got a bunch of guys who are used to makig water towers in stainless steel putting them together.

Nintendo success was all built on this idea of using old technology in new ways and they had a lot of success with that.

The Tesla idea I feel was at its hear using a well established thing like Lithium laptop batteries, going crazy and stuffing 7000 of them in a car.

But I agree that the Raptor engine doesn't really fit into this picture. But then again they have always combined cuttign edge with the old.

That is one of the red flags I see with Fusion power. It is new technology all the way down. There is nothing there as far as I can tell which is old well proven, cheap and reliable. It makes me think much more of the Space Shuttle than a Falcon 9.

Doesn't mean I don't think it will get cheap and reliable eventually. I just suspect it will take quite some time. Just looking at the history of Steam power. Steam engines were quite clunky and uneconomical for a very long time. They could only be used economically in mining shafts with access to plenty of coal for many decades.