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Can you explain why you believe it is "PR hogwash"? It seems like they are putting a lot of capital and effort into making their stated vision a reality. I'm n

Can you explain why you believe it is "PR hogwash"? It seems like they are putting a lot of capital and effort into making their stated vision a reality. I'm not denying that SpaceX, like any other company, pulls PR strings and does greedy corporate things, but that doesn't mean they are flat out lying about Mars.

kranke155 3y ago
If they don’t intend to fly to Mars why they are spending immense capital on the Super Heavy? The Falcon 9 (+Heavy) is an immensity profitable rocket good enough for almost anything we want to place on Earth orbit AFAIK. If they do not intend to do anything else but be a profitable business, I don’t understand why the heck they would bother with the Super Heavy and Starship.
- p_j_w 3y ago
  > If they don’t intend to fly to Mars why they are spending immense capital on the Super Heavy? Because they think it’ll be more profitable than what they have now.
  - kranke155 3y ago
    Why invest so much? Profitable how? In what way? It’s a gigantic expenditure of company capital, and afaik there is no obvious need for it.
    - p_j_w 3y ago
      I don’t have the answers, but it’s a for profit company. Until they can show otherwise, there’s no reason to believe it’s anything but PR. They currently can’t show anything except transit. Nothing for life support for a human to survive a trip to Mars orbit let alone a colonization mission. They haven’t shown their claims to be viable at all. Musk’s claims to using SpaceX to colonize Mars have as much evidence backing them as his claims to using The Boring Company to build a hyperloop: none.
      - housemusicfan 3y ago
        In the early part of the last century, people said Tesla was a charlatan, an insane madman whose claims weren't viable at all.
        qbrass 3y ago
        In the early part of the last century, they weren't exactly wrong.
      - kcplate 3y ago
        It took SpaceX 6 years from conception to its first successful launch, then another couple of years to start regular launches of the falcon platform. Now, I pretty much can watch Spacex rockets launch pretty much every week from my backyard. Your argument that a for profit company would only do this for PR is odd. SpaceX doesn’t need to spend this capital for PR. What PR does the company actually need? Right now they are then only western space platform capable of reliably delivering passengers and supplies to and from the ISS.
        kranke155 3y ago
        Right now what’s being shared is little more than a conspiracy theory “SpaceX is building Super Heavy for PR” has as much credence as UFO kidnappings. OP wants it to be that way so it must be that way. That’s the only way I can read this insistence and the lack of evidence pointing towards it. If OP was saying “Starship is being build to carry the Roswell alien bodies back to the dark side of the moon” the amount of evidence indicating this would be similar, but no one would take OP seriously
p_j_w 3y ago
It’s quite simple: they haven’t shown they’re actually serious about it. Musk has made claims about launching manned missions to Mars, but he’s made similar claims about self driving cars and hyperloops, all of which were bullshit. The only claims he’s made that have come to any fruition are the ones with an immediate profit, a profile that colonizing Mars doesn’t fit. On top of all this, they haven’t even made it look like they’re serious about tackling the challenges of sending people on a long haul trip through space.
- pnpnp 3y ago
  Many of the design decisions they’ve taken don’t make sense otherwise. The rocket appears to be designed for reusability in Mars. They could have followed traditional designs and saved a lot of money.
  - p_j_w 3y ago
    I’ll believe this when they’ve shown that they’re working on solving the problem of life support on Mars rather than a glorified taxi cab to certain death.
    - pnpnp 3y ago
      I think the life support problem on Mars is a supply/demand problem. We haven't been able to make it yet, so why worry about developing life support systems? The initial proposals I have seen is to send robotic missions first to prove out the land/launch capability. Even if it's not SpaceX, someone else will probably follow this pattern.
- dgrin91 3y ago
  He also made claims about reusable rockets and electric cars. "Mars man bad" only makes sense when you cherry pick Elon quotes. You can say Elon is an asshole. You can say he exaggerates. You can say he lies. You can say he makes the world worse. But you can't say he isn't trying for Mars or self driving. The fact that the $1B+ he has directed towards a Mars-oriented vehicle hasn't gone to Mars _yet_ doesn't mean he isn't working towards it. Similar story with the $1B+ spent on self-driving. Maybe it will fail, but saying its all BS is self-delusion.

kranke155 3y ago

If they don’t intend to fly to Mars why they are spending immense capital on the Super Heavy? The Falcon 9 (+Heavy) is an immensity profitable rocket good enough for almost anything we want to place on Earth orbit AFAIK. If they do not intend to do anything else but be a profitable business, I don’t understand why the heck they would bother with the Super Heavy and Starship.

p_j_w 3y ago
> If they don’t intend to fly to Mars why they are spending immense capital on the Super Heavy? Because they think it’ll be more profitable than what they have now.
- kranke155 3y ago
  Why invest so much? Profitable how? In what way? It’s a gigantic expenditure of company capital, and afaik there is no obvious need for it.
  - p_j_w 3y ago
    I don’t have the answers, but it’s a for profit company. Until they can show otherwise, there’s no reason to believe it’s anything but PR. They currently can’t show anything except transit. Nothing for life support for a human to survive a trip to Mars orbit let alone a colonization mission. They haven’t shown their claims to be viable at all. Musk’s claims to using SpaceX to colonize Mars have as much evidence backing them as his claims to using The Boring Company to build a hyperloop: none.
    - housemusicfan 3y ago
      In the early part of the last century, people said Tesla was a charlatan, an insane madman whose claims weren't viable at all.
      - qbrass 3y ago
        In the early part of the last century, they weren't exactly wrong.
    - kcplate 3y ago
      It took SpaceX 6 years from conception to its first successful launch, then another couple of years to start regular launches of the falcon platform. Now, I pretty much can watch Spacex rockets launch pretty much every week from my backyard. Your argument that a for profit company would only do this for PR is odd. SpaceX doesn’t need to spend this capital for PR. What PR does the company actually need? Right now they are then only western space platform capable of reliably delivering passengers and supplies to and from the ISS.
      - kranke155 3y ago
        Right now what’s being shared is little more than a conspiracy theory “SpaceX is building Super Heavy for PR” has as much credence as UFO kidnappings. OP wants it to be that way so it must be that way. That’s the only way I can read this insistence and the lack of evidence pointing towards it. If OP was saying “Starship is being build to carry the Roswell alien bodies back to the dark side of the moon” the amount of evidence indicating this would be similar, but no one would take OP seriously

p_j_w 3y ago

It’s quite simple: they haven’t shown they’re actually serious about it. Musk has made claims about launching manned missions to Mars, but he’s made similar claims about self driving cars and hyperloops, all of which were bullshit. The only claims he’s made that have come to any fruition are the ones with an immediate profit, a profile that colonizing Mars doesn’t fit. On top of all this, they haven’t even made it look like they’re serious about tackling the challenges of sending people on a long haul trip through space.

pnpnp 3y ago
Many of the design decisions they’ve taken don’t make sense otherwise. The rocket appears to be designed for reusability in Mars. They could have followed traditional designs and saved a lot of money.
- p_j_w 3y ago
  I’ll believe this when they’ve shown that they’re working on solving the problem of life support on Mars rather than a glorified taxi cab to certain death.
  - pnpnp 3y ago
    I think the life support problem on Mars is a supply/demand problem. We haven't been able to make it yet, so why worry about developing life support systems? The initial proposals I have seen is to send robotic missions first to prove out the land/launch capability. Even if it's not SpaceX, someone else will probably follow this pattern.
dgrin91 3y ago
He also made claims about reusable rockets and electric cars. "Mars man bad" only makes sense when you cherry pick Elon quotes. You can say Elon is an asshole. You can say he exaggerates. You can say he lies. You can say he makes the world worse. But you can't say he isn't trying for Mars or self driving. The fact that the $1B+ he has directed towards a Mars-oriented vehicle hasn't gone to Mars _yet_ doesn't mean he isn't working towards it. Similar story with the $1B+ spent on self-driving. Maybe it will fail, but saying its all BS is self-delusion.