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I've been following space news since I was a kid in the 70s, and now I'm to the point where I find these repetitions of "Mars in ~25 years" to be more pathetica

I've been following space news since I was a kid in the 70s, and now I'm to the point where I find these repetitions of "Mars in ~25 years" to be more pathetically sad than anything else. Maybe Musk and SpaceX will succeed, maybe not. But either way, he's not playing the same tired tune I've heard my entire life.

nickff 10y ago
Musk is aiming for humans on Mars in 8 years (2024); this is one of the reasons I am most optimistic about it.
- vkou 10y ago
  Has he even started working on figuring out how to keep humans perpetually alive in a sealed bubble? SpaceX employs a lot of rocket scientists, who have delivered pretty impressive results. What do its life scientists have to show us?
  - Super_Jambo 10y ago
    I think SpaceX's plan is to take your money and deliver you to Mars, what you do next is your problem. Assuming they can make that work and turn a profit well good for them. I mean their worst case is you get bored and take up space on a flight home. Slightly less worse case you die and provide some fertilizer for other brave colonists. Best case, martian backup to earth civilization and a whole bunch of new expertise for humanity. Assuming you give a damn perhaps you should look into it yourself?
  - erispoe 10y ago
    SpaceX is clearly focusing on one problem only: transportation. Because it's the transportation costs is the major roadblock to develop a commercial space industry beyond LEO. That's a smart move to foster an ecosystem of companies specializing in other aspects. Once it becomes possible to send people and cargo to Mars for a reasonable price, it starts to make sense to create a company specializing in, say, inflatable habitats. Bigelow Aerospace [1], doing exactly that, inflatable habitats, could benefit immensely from cheaper transport of cargo to LEO and to Mars. [1] https://bigelowaerospace.com/ https://bigelowaerospace.com/
  - InclinedPlane 10y ago
    Musk has been very clear that the ITS is not a complete colonization package, it's just a transportation system. That said, we have decades of experience with habitable spacecraft. Mir was inhabited for over 12 years, and the ISS has been inhabited continuously for nearly 16 years. That part of the technology we have a pretty good grasp on.
    - vkou 10y ago
      We really don't! Mir and the ISS house only a few people, and are constantly being resupplied. We have no experience with building, or maintaining self-sufficient - or even somewhat-kinda-sorta close-to-self-sufficient biospheres. Without them, Mars is a pipe dream - it would be far too difficult to maintain any kind of colony. Unlike building rockets, the thing with ecology is that we don't even know what the hard parts are going to be.
MrZongle2 10y ago
This is pretty much how I feel. At this point, I expect to see practical implementations of general AI and fusion reactors before I see a man on Mars. It's the same old lip service from the political arm of NASA and the Executive Branch. Bah. Musk is disrupting the status quo, thank God. I fear he'll end up more like Preston Tucker than Henry Ford, but I'm glad he's charging ahead.
- novalis78 10y ago
  I am starting to feel the same way about Thorium reactors. I really hope thorconpower.com succeeds with their setup in Indonesia.
ifdefdebug 10y ago
> been following space news since I was a kid in the 70s ... me too. Fact is, NASA is currently not even doing human spaceflight. If it wasn't for the Russians and the Chinese, human spaceflight would be a thing of the past.

nickff 10y ago

Musk is aiming for humans on Mars in 8 years (2024); this is one of the reasons I am most optimistic about it.

vkou 10y ago
Has he even started working on figuring out how to keep humans perpetually alive in a sealed bubble? SpaceX employs a lot of rocket scientists, who have delivered pretty impressive results. What do its life scientists have to show us?
- Super_Jambo 10y ago
  I think SpaceX's plan is to take your money and deliver you to Mars, what you do next is your problem. Assuming they can make that work and turn a profit well good for them. I mean their worst case is you get bored and take up space on a flight home. Slightly less worse case you die and provide some fertilizer for other brave colonists. Best case, martian backup to earth civilization and a whole bunch of new expertise for humanity. Assuming you give a damn perhaps you should look into it yourself?
- erispoe 10y ago
  SpaceX is clearly focusing on one problem only: transportation. Because it's the transportation costs is the major roadblock to develop a commercial space industry beyond LEO. That's a smart move to foster an ecosystem of companies specializing in other aspects. Once it becomes possible to send people and cargo to Mars for a reasonable price, it starts to make sense to create a company specializing in, say, inflatable habitats. Bigelow Aerospace [1], doing exactly that, inflatable habitats, could benefit immensely from cheaper transport of cargo to LEO and to Mars. [1] https://bigelowaerospace.com/ https://bigelowaerospace.com/
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  Musk has been very clear that the ITS is not a complete colonization package, it's just a transportation system. That said, we have decades of experience with habitable spacecraft. Mir was inhabited for over 12 years, and the ISS has been inhabited continuously for nearly 16 years. That part of the technology we have a pretty good grasp on.
  - vkou 10y ago
    We really don't! Mir and the ISS house only a few people, and are constantly being resupplied. We have no experience with building, or maintaining self-sufficient - or even somewhat-kinda-sorta close-to-self-sufficient biospheres. Without them, Mars is a pipe dream - it would be far too difficult to maintain any kind of colony. Unlike building rockets, the thing with ecology is that we don't even know what the hard parts are going to be.

MrZongle2 10y ago

This is pretty much how I feel. At this point, I expect to see practical implementations of general AI and fusion reactors before I see a man on Mars. It's the same old lip service from the political arm of NASA and the Executive Branch. Bah. Musk is disrupting the status quo, thank God. I fear he'll end up more like Preston Tucker than Henry Ford, but I'm glad he's charging ahead.

novalis78 10y ago
I am starting to feel the same way about Thorium reactors. I really hope thorconpower.com succeeds with their setup in Indonesia.

ifdefdebug 10y ago

> been following space news since I was a kid in the 70s ... me too. Fact is, NASA is currently not even doing human spaceflight. If it wasn't for the Russians and the Chinese, human spaceflight would be a thing of the past.