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I hate to say it, but I am well and truly tired of this flim flam man. This latest gambit is surely the most cynical plot of them all. He really is the latest S

by billiam 12y ago

I hate to say it, but I am well and truly tired of this flim flam man. This latest gambit is surely the most cynical plot of them all. He really is the latest Steve Jobs, whose marketing genius was imagining a never-ending string of products that define a superior class of people. The Musk M.O: 1. Identify industry with big inefficiencies that depends on huge government subsidies. That's cars, commercial space vehicles, mass transit and now: colonizing another planet with the 0.1%. 2. Convince the media and envious government officials you are Tom Swift, boy inventor. Have these governments fight over how many billions to give you to build your space car factory. 2. Use these taxpayer dollars and gigantic tax breaks to create iconic products and services for the elite class, effectively transferring huge dollars from the poor to the rich. 3. Rinse and repeat. I see no evidence at all that Musk cares any more about technologies to enable several billion of us to live together without slaughtering each other than he does about money

informatimago 12y ago
I wonder. Elon Musk is not an idiot. Then why did he say that to go to Alpha Century you needed 40 years? Why does he participate to this world wide disinformation? Since 1904, we know that to go to Alpha Century, if you can accelerate to a non negligeable fraction of the speed of light, then you need a time that below the distance, and non negligeably close to zero. In clear terms, to go to a star that is 4 light years away, with a 1 g constant accelleration, you need to travel for about 2 years. If you put in space a nuclear reactor (that can produce energy for more than ten years), and if you can use that energy to produce constantly a 1g accelleration, then you can easily go to Alpha Century, in 2 years, spend 2 years there, and come back in 2 years, for a total travel of 6 years. Now tell me we can't with the current technology build a space ship that can work safely for 6 years! Of course, when you come back to Earth, 82 years will have passed on Earth. I hope you put your saving in a good investment fund. Anyways, I'm wondering why Elon Musk, amongst all others, is propagating this lie? It looks like quite a confirmation for a complot theorist...
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  You are massively overestimating the time dilation on that trip. You need to be getting into the 90%c range before you start getting into decent amounts of time dilation and then you start hitting into the increase in energy required for the same acceleration, as your nuclear power plant or whatever has also slowed down along with you, while you are increasing in effective mass. edit - also, it is Alpha Centauri

by billiam 12y ago

informatimago 12y ago

I wonder. Elon Musk is not an idiot. Then why did he say that to go to Alpha Century you needed 40 years? Why does he participate to this world wide disinformation? Since 1904, we know that to go to Alpha Century, if you can accelerate to a non negligeable fraction of the speed of light, then you need a time that below the distance, and non negligeably close to zero. In clear terms, to go to a star that is 4 light years away, with a 1 g constant accelleration, you need to travel for about 2 years. If you put in space a nuclear reactor (that can produce energy for more than ten years), and if you can use that energy to produce constantly a 1g accelleration, then you can easily go to Alpha Century, in 2 years, spend 2 years there, and come back in 2 years, for a total travel of 6 years. Now tell me we can't with the current technology build a space ship that can work safely for 6 years! Of course, when you come back to Earth, 82 years will have passed on Earth. I hope you put your saving in a good investment fund. Anyways, I'm wondering why Elon Musk, amongst all others, is propagating this lie? It looks like quite a confirmation for a complot theorist...

lotsofmangos 12y ago
You are massively overestimating the time dilation on that trip. You need to be getting into the 90%c range before you start getting into decent amounts of time dilation and then you start hitting into the increase in energy required for the same acceleration, as your nuclear power plant or whatever has also slowed down along with you, while you are increasing in effective mass. edit - also, it is Alpha Centauri