Elon Musk: Tech Genius! Green Warrior! Biz King! Good Oligarch?

[Palinurus]

Re: Elon Musk

Today SOTT carries an article by Dana Hull (Hamilton Spectator, originally via Bloomberg) announcing a major speech from Elon Musk for tomorrow (September 27) on the stage of the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico:

https://www.sott.net/article/329338-Elon-Musk-to-outline-vision-of-SpaceX-mission-to-Mars-and-eventual-colonization

<snip>
The Mars speech will be a welcome distraction for a man who's been reeling of late. Tesla, which makes electric vehicles and energy-storage products, is blowing through cash as it races to build out a huge battery factory in the Nevada desert and start selling its mass-market Model 3 next year.

Tesla's bid to acquire SolarCity Corp., a debt-laden installer of rooftop solar panels, is embroiled in controversy over corporate-governance concerns. Musk is chief executive officer of Tesla and the chair and largest shareholder of SolarCity. Short seller Jim Chanos called the proposed merger, now worth about $2 billion in an all-stock transaction, a "walking insolvency."

Adding to Musk's headaches, SpaceX suffered a mystifying setback Sept. 1 when one of its rockets blew apart on the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Fla., destroying an Israeli communications satellite. "Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years," Musk said on Twitter, his most potent form of communication.

Such earthbound woes aside, going to Mars is no longer the stuff of science fiction. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has its own Journey to Mars program, which calls for sending American astronauts there in the 2030s. Lockheed Martin has a NASA contract to build a Mars-orbiting space station, while Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said, if elected, one goal of her administration would be to "advance our ability to make human exploration of Mars a reality."

<snip>

A lot of space enthusiasts are looking to Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002. The company makes rockets at its headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., and currently flies the Falcon 9. It makes money, thanks to contracts to launch commercial satellites as well as fly missions for NASA and the U.S. military. SpaceX has NASA contracts worth $4.2 billion to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting the Earth via its unmanned Dragon spacecraft and eventually ferry astronauts to the ISS. The closely held company has about 5,000 employees.

Human colonization of Mars won't be a cake walk. Getting to the Red Planet will take at least eight months with unknown risks to the human body and psyche. Even if space explorers survived the 155 million-mile journey and subsequent first manned landing, they would need to get to work immediately making the place habitable and producing the fuel needed to propel the rocket ship homeward.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, has said she'd gladly go to Mars but wouldn't be among the first. "I'm not a camper, and it would be like camping," said Shotwell in 2014. "Extreme camping."

SpaceX plans to fly an unmanned spacecraft to Mars as early 2018. The flights would continue about every two years and, if all goes according to plan, would culminate with the first human mission to Mars in 2025, Musk told the Washington Post in June.

"Mars is the closest planet that we can realistically settle," said Robert Zubrin, author of The Case for Mars and founder of the Mars Society, where Musk once served on the board. "Musk doesn't just want fame, or money. He wants eternal glory for doing great deeds."

 

[axj]

Re: Elon Musk

"Mars is the closest planet that we can realistically settle," said Robert Zubrin, author of The Case for Mars and founder of the Mars Society

Except for the Moon, which makes much more sense for a first settlement, but doesn't have the attraction of getting people there for the first time like Mars does.

 

[beetlemaniac]

Re: Elon Musk

"Mars is the closest planet that we can realistically settle," said Robert Zubrin, author of The Case for Mars and founder of the Mars Society

Except for the Moon, which makes much more sense for a first settlement, but doesn't have the attraction of getting people there for the first time like Mars does.

It's a mystery why the moon was not colonised during the space race era of the 1970s. It seems that the US government's main thrust of their space exploration program, at the time, was to colonise the moon. This was until an apparent change of heart and their priorities were shifted to other goals, ie. the International Space Station (a much more expensive and difficult endeavour than building a moon base, allegedly). This is according to a book written by Ingo Swann called Penetration. He alleges that both the USSR and the US seemingly lost interest in colonising the moon due to the existence of moon-bases built by extraterrestrials, as he seems to have witnessed through his activities in remote viewing with some clandestine part of the US military. His hypothesis may not be verifiable and he has recently passed away. However the actions of the governments in terms of their space programs seem suspicious enough to warrant some consideration on what actually went on at the time. Didn't Putin say aliens were real? ;)

 

[axj]

Re: Elon Musk

Well, Musk briefly tpuched on this in his Mars presentation today. According to him Mars is better than the Moon for colonization because:

- Mars has more diverse resources and an atmosphere
- The Mars gravity of 30% is probably better long term than the Moon's 16%
- The Moon night is about two weeks, whereas Mars has a 24h day like Earth

 

[Hindsight Man]

Re: Elon Musk

[ Didn't Putin say aliens were real? ;)

Gonna need a link there,since there's a lot of alleged quotes attributed to Putin flying about.

 

[Keit]

Re: Elon Musk

[ Didn't Putin say aliens were real? ;)

Gonna need a link there,since there's a lot of alleged quotes attributed to Putin flying about.

Yeah, I don't have the exact quote on my hands, but I think that Putin was asked once this question, if the Russian government has knowledge about aliens visiting Earth, and he replied something along the lines, that there are much more pressing and everyday issues that the government has to concern itself with. Basically, Putin is a realist, and aliens are definitely not on his mind as long as there are so many other more important problems that have to be solved first.

Besides, you need to understand Russian sense of humor. Here's for example an impromptu interview with Medvedev that was supposedly filmed without his knowledge. it's so funny that some people think that he was serious. ;)

https://youtu.be/zHCSpm2kepo

 

[Siberia]

Re: Elon Musk

[ Didn't Putin say aliens were real? ;)

Gonna need a link there,since there's a lot of alleged quotes attributed to Putin flying about.

Yeah, I don't have the exact quote on my hands, but I think that Putin was asked once this question, if the Russian government has knowledge about aliens visiting Earth, and he replied something along the lines, that there are much more pressing and everyday issues that the government has to concern itself with. Basically, Putin is a realist, and aliens are definitely not on his mind as long as there are so many other more important problems that have to be solved first.

Indeed. Also, here is the relevant quote from one of the sessions:

Q: (Heimdallr) We were wondering if Putin and his team of advisors are aware of the hyperdimensional reality, and if so, how they do they understand it?

A: He is somewhat aware, but in a different context.

Q: (Perceval) Would that context be kind of in a more military or technological context where they've been trying to use devices or...

A: More like a form of mental martial arts.

Q: (Ennio) So, he's battling through his mind basically?

A: Yes

Considering the level of ponerization of the global political scene, one has to be very strong-willed, sober and focused at all times in order to outmaneuver pathological thinking and activities of the vast majority of his political counterparts. It's no easy task to be constantly interacting with pathologicals and yet not aligning yourself with any of them. I guess that those are mostly the 'aliens' he has to battle with on a daily basis in the form of 'mental martial arts' and he has been showing remarkable success in this respect so far. Fwiw

 

[Palinurus]

Re: Elon Musk

For those interested, the following website gives an overview of Musk's speech for the IAC in Guadalajara, Mexico with plenty of lofty illustrations:

http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-mars-colony-talk-iac-2016-9

The complete speech is available on YouTube here (duration almost two hours, but you have to skip the first 20.45 mins. logo plus music projection):

https://youtu.be/A1YxNYiyALg

Because of the duration I declined to embed.

FWIW.

 

[axj]

Re: Elon Musk

He said that they are planning to focus the majority of SpaceX resources on the Mars mission and the new rocket in about 2 years and that he thinks it will take about 10 years until they can send the first people to Mars. He estimates that the cost of developing that huge rocket and building the first one is about $10 billion.

Their first unmanned rocket to Mars will go in two years.

 

[Palinurus]

Re: Elon Musk

The following article collects some reactions of diverse experts on Musk's plans:

http://www.space.com/34235-spacex-mars-plans-feasible-or-fantasy.html

Some snippets:

The plan is ambitious in nearly every way, from the technology Musk presented to the time line on which he hopes to accomplish these goals, not to mention the funding that will be required. Even so, the experts we talked to said it doesn't seem impossible, or even unachievable.
"There's no technical obstacle to the plan being executable," space policy expert John Logsdon told Space.com. "SpaceX has good engineers. They don't have to really invent much."

Logsdon said he thinks the main obstacles to SpaceX's Mars plans are money and time.

"The plan he is proposing on the timescale he is proposing seem to me to on the edge of fantasy," Logsdon said. He noted that Musk is known for setting ambitious goals on tight time lines, saying, "That's just Elon. That's his style." [SpaceX's Mars Colony Plan: By the Numbers]

In addition, Logsdon said that while Musk's plan seemed to explain how humans would get to Mars, there was a significant gap in planning as to how those spacefarers would establish a colony on the Red Planet. Technologies and procedures for surviving on the surface of Mars are, at best, still in the early planning stages. Supporting such a huge influx of people will require food sources, an economic system and energies supplies, which Musk did not explain, Logsdon said.

"He got a little hand-wavy there," Logsdon said.

"Musk's mega-Mars plans are welcome news," Leonard David, author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet" (National Geographic, Oct. 2016) and a longtime Space.com contributor, said in an email. "But it is clear that there's far more needed in terms of technological and financial detail before climbing onboard his dream machinery."

"There are a number of 'DUD' (doable under duress) factors that must be dealt with before a true settlement on Mars becomes realistic," David said. Examples of DUD factors are "the types of machinery and power levels needed to run equipment for transforming the abundant resources on Mars into usable, life-supporting and sustaining supplies," he said.

The experts we talked to also agreed that Musk has certainly managed to inspire many people, both in the industry and in the general public, about space exploration. Logsdon said the atmosphere in the room during Musk's talk was "like a rock concert."

"His extraordinary vision and passion is tugging at the adventuresome spirit of humankind, at least those who hunger to be part of a plan that assures our species becomes multiplanetary," David said. He later added that "Musk has served notice that building the bridge between the third and fourth planets in our solar system is an attainable and realizable goal."

 

[bjorb]

Re: Elon Musk

Seems this Elon Musk guy will replace Steve Jobs as our new modern man prophet since he is so inspiring ...

Nowadays the only way people get ever inspired is through technology. Kind of shows the emptiness in their hearths.

The World is burning, yet they only care about their new gadgets and gizmo's. And now their possible adventure to Mars. The death red planet.

 

[Joe]

Re: Elon Musk

Interesting new development regarding the explosion of the Space X Falcon 9 rocket early last month.

https://www.rt.com/usa/361352-spacex-explosion-investigation-ula/

SpaceX rocket explosion: Rival firm’s building inspected as part of investigation – report

A SpaceX employee, investigating the September 1 rocket explosion, asked for access to a roof of the building operated by the company’s long-time rival, the Washington Post reported. Still images from the video of the blast were the reason for the request.

The images show a shadow, then a white spot on the roof of a nearby building belonging to United Launch Alliance (ULA), the newspaper said citing three industry sources familiar with the investigation.

The building is used for refurbishing rocket motors and is located about a mile from the Cape Canaveral Launchpad, where the SpaceX rocket exploded. Its roof has the launchpad in a clear line of sight.

The encounter between the SpaceХ employee and the representatives of ULA was described as “cordial, not accusatory” in the report. Nevertheless, the SpaceX employee was not allowed in. ULA instead invited Air Force investigators, who found nothing suspicious on the roof.

The Falcon 9 rocket exploded during fueling ahead of an engine test fire. About a week into the explosion, SpaceX chief Elon Musk said the company did not rule out sabotage as a possible cause while describing the incident as “the most difficult and complex” in the company’s 14-year history.

Investigators have since reported that they have narrowed down the cause to a breach in the helium line of the second stage. SpaceX is being assisted by NASA and the US Air Force with the probe. Neither would comment on the ULA building visit, citing the ongoing investigation.

SpaceX and ULA are competing for launch contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. ULA, an alliance between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, enjoyed a decades-long monopoly providing space services for the US military, until SpaceX sued the Air Force in 2014 for the right to compete. SpaceX’s cause won sympathy among some US lawmakers, who criticized ULA for its dependence on Russian-made engines used in the Atlas V rockets.

The Falcon 5 explosion has cast doubt over SpaceX’s other ambition – to provide manned space launches for NASA, according to Ars Technica. The US space agency is mulling buying trips to the International Space Station from Russia in 2019, the website reporting citing industry sources.

Since retiring the Space Shuttle program in 2011, NASA has had no domestic capability to fly manned space mission and has purchased trips in Russian Soyuz capsules. SpaceX and Boeing are both developing capsules that would make the US a fully space-capable nation again. Boeing has pushed back its schedule from late 2017 to early 2018, and the SpaceX disaster seems to make a similar delay inevitable.

NASA planners are concerned that neither company will be able to deliver on time and are considering a Russian contingency plan. Negotiations over additional Soyuz launches would have to take place soon considering that each spaceship requires several years of planning and production time.

 

[MichaelM]

New piece on WaitButWhy on Elon Musk's Mars Rocket with some estimates on cost, resources and timeline:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/spacexs-big-fking-rocket-the-full-story.html

 

[BHelmet]

The whole thing seems like an absurd distraction to me. Human physical bodies are already on a planet they are suited for. How does going to Mars solve anything? Really, what's the point?

 

[duyunne]

The whole thing seems like an absurd distraction to me. Human physical bodies are already on a planet they are suited for. How does going to Mars solve anything? Really, what's the point?

I take this in the same vein as climate denial. This sort of hyperbole fuels the fantasies of children, basically edging them toward escapism instead of responsibility