Musk , Mars and becoming an interplanetary species

[AnGrYcRoW]

This is a topic i find fascinating and it isn't discussed much here so lets give it a go, if there is enough interest i will update this regularly.

Cliffs :

Musk started his first company Zip2 in 1995 at age 24 with a 28000 dollar loan from his father, 4 years later the company was sold to Compaq , Musk ended up with 22 million

He immediately started a company that would eventually become PayPal , 3 years later (after Musk was ousted as CEO , a very interesting story unto itself ) PayPal was sold to Ebay for 1.5 Billion , Musk ended up with 165 million .

Musk for quite some time had interests in Space and renewable Energy , after realizing that no one had concrete plans to go to Mars he decided to do it himself to renew passion and interest in space travel , initially he tried to buy Russian rockets but got dicked around , so once again he said F it and decided to build them himself ( think for a second how extraordinary this is , there are big balls and then there is Elon Musk , he deserves his own category ) and in 2002 with 100 million of his own money he founded SpaceX with the goal of putting people on Mars , at this stage the list of people who didn't think he was nuts was very very short .

In 2004 Musk invested in Tesla motors ( because revolutionizing the aerospace industry isnt enough of a challenge ) and in 2008 took over completely


After three failed attempts and down to his last dollar on Aug 3rd 2008 SpaceX successfully launched its first rocket , if this rocket had failed Musk was finished, he would have had some equity in his intellectual property but SpaceX and Tesla would have died on the vine

Jump to today and Musks companies Tesla Motors , Solar City and Space X are combined worth over 50 billion dollars and it can be argued Musk has revolutionized the three industries he's involved in .

Now to the purpose of this thread .

Last week Musk stated that Spacex intends to make its first trip to mars in 2018 with the goal of having a permanent colony set up by 2040 .

So is he a mad man , a visionary genius , both ?

This 60 minutes piece is about 4 years old but if you aren't that familiar with Musk/SpaceX its a good place to start .





Or maybe everyone would rather bitch about Trump, trannies and sjw's lol


I must sleep , cheers

 

[no fat chicks]

Musk for president

 

[ironwolf]

Genius.

 

[uncommon]

Hes awesome. Seems half crazy too.

Can mars sustain an atmosphere?

Would mars be worth living underground?

Would the threats of earths extinction apply to mars simultaniously? (supernova or something macro)

 

[M3t4tr0n]

I wish I could live couple hundred years in the future when we live on other planets and have already integrated with aliens and androids etc. I want a green girlfriend with 3 breasts or some kinda fembot hybred.

 

[JDragon]

The 2018 target is obviously not realistic. However, I applaud him for setting ambitious goals. NASA and Co. always talk about the mid-2030s, which will mean that in the real world, I will not live to see man set foot on Mars.

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

Musk for president

Hey, we already had one African-born President, why not a second?

Trump/Musk 2016.

Lol Trump Musk sounds like a really bad cologne.

 

[The Witcher]

I literally have every book written on elon musk. A seriously fucken awesome dude.

 

[PrinceOfPain]

2018's a bit soon I'd think, but still I vote 'visionary genius'.
Getting us off of the planet is probably the single most important initiative that can be engaged in by science today.

Of course, it'll probably loosen the nuclear trigger fingers a little, since MAD will have a less restraining effect when absolute destruction is no longer assured.
I don't trust MAD as a long-term form of prevention though.

 

[ironwolf]

2018's a bit soon I'd think, but still I vote 'visionary genius'.
Getting us off of the planet is probably the single most important initiative that can be engaged in by science today.

Of course, it'll probably loosen the nuclear trigger fingers a little, since MAD will have a less restraining effect when absolute destruction is no longer assured.
I don't trust MAD as a long-term form of prevention though.

I'd say early meteor detection and a way to stop meteors from hitting the earth is more important. But yeah it's time we get out to Mars.

 

[PrinceOfPain]

I'd say early meteor detection and a way to stop meteors from hitting the earth is more important. But yeah it's time we get out to Mars.

I've kind of been living under the assumption that we could detect meteors early... maybe not do anything about them, but at least see them coming

 

[OverCoronavirus Pressure]

This is a topic i find fascinating and it isn't discussed much here so lets give it a go, if there is enough interest i will update this regularly.

Cliffs :

Musk started his first company Zip2 in 1995 at age 24 with a 28000 dollar loan from his father, 4 years later the company was sold to Compaq , Musk ended up with 22 million

He immediately started a company that would eventually become PayPal , 3 years later (after Musk was ousted as CEO , a very interesting story unto itself ) PayPal was sold to Ebay for 1.5 Billion , Musk ended up with 165 million .

Musk for quite some time had interests in Space and renewable Energy , after realizing that no one had concrete plans to go to Mars he decided to do it himself to renew passion and interest in space travel , initially he tried to buy Russian rockets but got dicked around , so once again he said F it and decided to build them himself ( think for a second how extraordinary this is , there are big balls and then there is Elon Musk , he deserves his own category ) and in 2002 with 100 million of his own money he founded SpaceX with the goal of putting people on Mars , at this stage the list of people who didn't think he was nuts was very very short .

In 2004 Musk invested in Tesla motors ( because revolutionizing the aerospace industry isnt enough of a challenge ) and in 2008 took over completely


After three failed attempts and down to his last dollar on Aug 3rd 2008 SpaceX successfully launched its first rocket , if this rocket had failed Musk was finished, he would have had some equity in his intellectual property but SpaceX and Tesla would have died on the vine

Jump to today and Musks companies Tesla Motors , Solar City and Space X are combined worth over 50 billion dollars and it can be argued Musk has revolutionized the three industries he's involved in .

Now to the purpose of this thread .

Last week Musk stated that Spacex intends to make its first trip to mars in 2018 with the goal of having a permanent colony set up by 2040 .

So is he a mad man , a visionary genius , both ?

This 60 minutes piece is about 4 years old but if you aren't that familiar with Musk/SpaceX its a good place to start .





Or maybe everyone would rather bitch about Trump, trannies and sjw's lol


I must sleep , cheers

I'm all for an extremely wealthy guy with these aspirations.
Regardless of whether he succeeds.
What he's trying to do is actually, honestly altruistic and I support that completely.

 

[BearGrounds]

Cart before the horse type thinking, if you ask me. We haven't even learned to live properly on our current planet yet, but we're ready to entertain the notion of colonizing another? Yea, no. Let's get shit figured out here first, then we can talk branching out into space.

 

[JDragon]

Cart before the horse type thinking, if you ask me. We haven't even learned to live properly on our current planet yet, but we're ready to entertain the notion of colonizing another? Yea, no. Let's get shit figured out here first, then we can talk branching out into space.

Much of the technology we enjoy today has its roots in mankind's attempts to conquer space. Pushing the frontier in space is the right thing to do. People who say 'yeah but you could do so much with xyz billion dollars' are missing the point.

 

[Irenaeus]

I'm following the launches, the landings and the spacex reddit regularly, as well as the Orbital Mechanics podcast, so you could say my interest is above average.

I'd like to note that the Mars 2018 is an umanned expedition, and mostly a proof of concept for SpaceX. They will roll out their havy launcher, the Falcon Heavy late this year, and the FH will launch the test mission for their Red Dragon capsule (based on their currently flying Dragon 1) in 2018, and then simply send it all the way to Mars on it's trial run. Simply put, it might be ambitious to get that going by 2018 - space is hard work, after all - but it's a surprisingly low effort operation, since it simply utilizes their future "off the shelf" equipment. What's still up for debate is what kind of cargo the Red Dragon will have. It will be by far the largest vessel that has landed on Mars, it will land propulsively, which is awesome. And later potential customers can simply buy a new flight using the same standardized craft and architecture.

Note that SpaceX is the only provider of launch vehicles which have open prices on their site, and note that they already have payload capabilities for Mars missions listed: http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities

Finally, the most exciting cargo for the demo is a small, two stage rocket that will be launched from the Red Dragon and return to Earth with a small payload of samples. Which is awesome.

Their first manned mission is tentatively set for 2024 or 2026 (I think), but we'll know more about that in september when they unveil the architecture of the Mars Colonial Transporter.

Oh, and they're trying to land yet another rocket on wednsday. It has somewhat poor odds, considering the high-energy mission, but I'm still excited.

Cart before the horse type thinking, if you ask me. We haven't even learned to live properly on our current planet yet, but we're ready to entertain the notion of colonizing another? Yea, no. Let's get shit figured out here first, then we can talk branching out into space.

Never let perfect be the enemy of good. I don't see why living better here and exploring space is seen as diametrically opposed goals. Mankind use more money on makeup than rockets, ffs, but somebody using makeup rarely get told that they should focus on making the world better instead.

 

[BearGrounds]

Never let perfect be the enemy of good. I don't see why living better here and exploring space is seen as diametrically opposed goals. Mankind use more money on makeup than rockets, ffs, but somebody using makeup rarely get told that they should focus on making the world better instead.

Perfect isn't what I expect. Just a standard of life/maturity here that indicates we're ready.

 

[ripskater]

I don't believe anyone has ever been to the moon. So I don't think anyone will go to mars either.

 

[INTERL0PER]

Cart before the horse type thinking, if you ask me. We haven't even learned to live properly on our current planet yet, but we're ready to entertain the notion of colonizing another? Yea, no. Let's get shit figured out here first, then we can talk branching out into space.

The reason we are going to Mars is not purely for the joy of space travel and exploring new frontiers or other such romantic notions. It's to help preserve the species.

At really any time, an asteroid could hit earth and seriously fuck shit up. It's happened before. Several times. Even if it doesn't make us go completely extinct, it may set our progress as a species back by hundreds of years.

Getting to Mars and colonising it is simply about creating a "back up" of the human race. If we can create a self sustained colony on Mars, the chances of our survival as a species rise dramatically. Giving us more time to learn how to live properly on both planets.

 

[BearGrounds]

The reason we are going to Mars is not purely for the joy of space travel and exploring new frontiers or other such romantic notions. It's to help preserve the species.

At really any time, an asteroid could hit earth and seriously fuck shit up. It's happened before. Several times. Even if it doesn't make us go completely extinct, it may set our progress as a species back by hundreds of years.

Getting to Mars and colonising it is simply about creating a "back up" of the human race. If we can create a self sustained colony on Mars, the chances of our survival as a species rise dramatically. Giving us more time to learn how to live properly on both planets.

How long does a colony on Mars last without a fully habitable home planet to support it? If we get set back to start on Earth, we're set back to start, period, no? Seems to me such an effort would be futile in the event of such a scenario. Any colony living on mars, without our home planet's support (which actually has an environment conducive to life), would be doomed. They'd basically have to sit there praying for alien saviors.

 

[OverCoronavirus Pressure]

Cart before the horse type thinking, if you ask me. We haven't even learned to live properly on our current planet yet, but we're ready to entertain the notion of colonizing another? Yea, no. Let's get shit figured out here first, then we can talk branching out into space.

That's how exploration works.
You do it and learn about the benefits later as you've laid the foundation.
Staying in one place isn't going to pay off in the long run and the human race is in it for the long run.