
Elon Musk Says SpaceX Will Send People to Mars by 2025 - lumberjack
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-says-spacex-will-send-people-mars-2025-n506891
======
stuart78
At first I was thinking of posting a joke about missed timelines, but then I
remembered that nobody else is setting audacious public goals quite in the way
that Musk does. So instead of a joke, I'll tip my hat to that and hope its
true.

~~~
rebootthesystem
Well, c'mon, space is hard, very hard. Extra-orbital space a lot harder. And
interplanetary space almost unthinkably hard.

And that's without people. Now add humans to that equation. Not easy.

I mean, we could barely refrigerate food 100~150 years ago and now we are
developing technology to build habitats on another planet? How cool is that?

------
parasubvert
A colleague of mine at Pivotal had previously interviewed with Elon for a
position at Tesla. He asked the recruiting coordinator: "what's he like? What
does he look for in an interview?"

The response: "The important thing to understand about Elon is that he wants
to retire on Mars". Deadpan serious.

Goals are dreams with a deadline.

~~~
sandworm101
I have trouble reconciling Musk's stated goals and his current decisions, his
daily status as a billionaire. Someone who truly believes in the dream should
be shovelling all of their cash into that dream. At this point he should be
selling his home to personally finance the first launches aimed at Mars. So
either he doesn't really believe, or he is on a conveniently circuitous route
that requires him to first gather untold riches to himself. By now I would
expect him to at least setup a substantial trust (17B?) payable only to Mars
exploration efforts.

~~~
nickff
There was a point after founding SpaceX and Tesla when Musk put all of his
money into the companies; he had to borrow money from friends to make rent.
This was just after SpaceX had blown up its third rocket, with no money left
for another try, while Tesla was losing money hand over fist because the
roadster was selling at a loss.

You can criticize Musk for many things, but he really does believe that his
goals are achievable, that he will achieve them, and that they are good
investments.

~~~
sandworm101
>>> ...and that they are good investments.

The really important dreams are rarely good investments. I don't think anyone
seriously believes the manned exploration of Mars will turn any profit. A true
believer wouldn't care. There are people who would hand over a dozen winning
lotto tickets for a chance to go to Mars. Musk faces that decision every day.
That makes it difficult for me to believe tales of his madman/dreamer
rhetoric.

And I'm not criticizing musk the person. I'm say that here is a disconnect
between the public dreamer persona and the known actions of the physical
person.

~~~
padiyar83
>>> .. I don't think anyone seriously believes the manned exploration of Mars
will turn any profit.

I think this will be the most profitable enterprise mankind has ever seen. A
earth full of mineral wealth untouched, available for whoever can lay their
hands on. If spaceX was trading today I would buy its stock in a blink and
hold on to it for the next 50 years.

~~~
wesleyy
Mining on earth is basically free compared to what it would cost to mine on
other planets.

------
carapat_virulat
I can't take seriously any Mars project that sends people without robots
paving our way there first. It sounds like romantic marketing with no real
long-term expectation.

As the article says one of the main reasons is to inspire people, but the
current world is structured in a way that tells a lot of people that they are
out, they won't ever be part of society in a meaningful way, they'll get some
money to stay alive and sort of make it through life, but they will never be
meaningful members of a community.

So in this kind of atmosphere seems very difficult to convince people to
participate in any kind of common project for all of us.

~~~
marvin
SpaceX hasn't made any public statements yet on _how_ they are planning to
send humans to Mars, but you can be pretty sure that robots will be a big part
of it. Lots of SpaceX people are big fans of Mars Direct and similar plans.

~~~
jmnicolas
They didn't state that said humans were coming back too ;-)

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sbardle
It's not going to happen by then. Musk is trying to provoke a greater interest
in space exploration. He has done the same for electric cars. This may lead to
greater public funding for NASA, and more private investment for things like
SpaceX. So I never take Musk's timing statements literally, but his hype-mode
is an intrinsic part of him realising his vision, sooner or later that is.

~~~
sandworm101
>> Musk is trying to provoke a greater interest in space exploration.

He is trying to build a market for his services. He doesn't want to finance
Mars himself. He want the public to get Nasa to pay for his company to send
things/people into space. I'll believe his lofty intentions when I see a
SpaceX-financed probe go to Mars, or the moon, or basically anywhere other
than to fulfil a contract.

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tejohnso
>vital for mankind to create a self-sustaining city on Mars to protect against
human extinction, and also to inspire people.

I think it inspires him, and many others, but working toward the many earthly
problems that cause human suffering right now would also be pretty inspiring.
Of course we should all tackle whichever issues are most interesting to us,
but in this regard I'm more of a Gates fan.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
You can have both, in my opinion. A huge Mars colonization project would yield
tremendous technological spinoffs, not to mention employment for thousands of
scientists and engineers, a national sense of purpose, a lot more research
spending into disease and immunity (imagine the medical risks of being cooped
up in a closed system with 50 other people for months at a time).

~~~
fidget
Given how, you know, polio is still a thing, it seems to be the whole
distribution area that we're struggling the most with, and less the raw
scientific aspects.

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LargeCompanies
After watching the movie, "The Martian," I wondered why anyone would want to
live there... at least the first 1,000s of people.

It's not hospitable to humans and we as humans will need to create a vaccuum
tube like city that if penetrated could kill all who lived in it.

This thought might be way off per seeing one movie, so I'd love to hear
someone tell me otherwise..... like why inhabiting a inhospitable planet to
humans is a good idea.

~~~
jeremyjh
It would probably be thrilling for a couple of weeks, if you knew you were
going back to Earth after that. There are definitely some people who would
love to dive into the challenge of building a marginally comfortable existence
there. For most people it would be wretched misery. Philip K. Dick explores
this a little bit in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

------
blisterpeanuts
In my opinion, the end game for getting to Mars quickly and economically has
to be nuclear pulse propulsion[1]. With this approach, which was
technologically feasible back in the 1950s-60s when it was first being
studied, you could get to Mars in a couple of weeks.

Maybe use conventional means to robotically transport the shelters, building
materials, and other resources to Mars, and then the humans can be transported
via NPP, which would save tons of air and food resources compared to an eight
month conventional trip, and also be safer -- a much shorter time in space
means much less risk of cosmic ray exposure, micrometeorites, equipment
failures, medical emergencies, etc.

If we can overcome the safety issues and the political squeamishness of
manufacturing and launching into orbit hundreds of small nuclear explosives,
we can possess Mars. It just takes money and will.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion)

~~~
Symmetry
The problem is that the pusher plate is so heavy that you really want to
launch that off planet under its own power to make it worthwhile and that
would generate some fallout. There are things you can do to minimize that but
it would still be as bad as an open air thermonuclear bomb test like Castle
Bravo. The nuclear powers conducted lots of those but they do kill an expected
100 people each given some assumptions about the danger of low radiation
doses. On the other hand nuclear-thermal, nuclear-electric, and solar-electric
are all fine ways of getting to Mars faster.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
I would think you could launch a pusher plate using a very large, conventional
lift technology. The Saturn V had a lift capacity of 120,000 kg (260,000 lbs).
Surely that's enough to get one of these bad boys into orbit?

------
bbayer
> Regardless of who gets there first, Musk thinks it's vital for mankind to
> create a self-sustaining city on Mars to protect against human extinction,
> and also to inspire people.

I can understand inspiration part but don't get how this help preventing human
extinction. Wouldn't be wise to focus on unresolved problems like hunger,
poverty, education and incurable diseases? I understand that trying to reach
other planets can push forward technology to incredible levels but it would be
more meaningful if this technology can find areas to resolve Earth's current
problems.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
> Wouldn't be wise to focus on unresolved problems like hunger, poverty,
> education and incurable diseases?

Several times on HN I have posed replies that consist of the snappy comment:
"your logical fallacy is: " followed by a link. It doesn't usually go over
well.

Yes, it would be wise to do those things. I mean, to do them _as well_ : It's
not one of the other. The "don't go to Mars, fix poverty" argument is
something like Whataboutery or "Fallacy of relative privation"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism)

[http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-
fallaci...](http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-
fallacies/156-relative-privation)

~~~
noam87
I wonder... do we have the knowhow to build `logical_fallacy_bot` and deploy
it to the general Internet yet?

~~~
ziszis
I love this idea. Alongside factual_error_bot it would completely transform
political discourse.

Imagine if presidential debates had real-time scoring of what was being said.
Politifact is great, but 24h delay makes it substantially less impactful.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
People already use bots to harass their opponents on twitter, etc. It's not a
good thing. This sounds good for a short while, but think through how
misguided or malicious people would use it.

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sixQuarks
I love how these "news" organizations take snippets and off-the-cuff comments
from interviews and make it seem like Elon Musk has announced something.

This "news" is from an interview Elon did in Hong Kong. It's actually one of
the better and most interesting interviews of Elon because the host was pretty
knowledgeable. Well worth a full view:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiRLGpm5CiY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiRLGpm5CiY)

------
yummybear
"and thinks that his company will send somebody to Mars by 2025" \- the title
makes it seems like he makes a public promise/commitment.

------
dingdingdang
How about starting with a sustainable moonbase.

~~~
Symmetry
I'm a fan of moonbases myself but there are reasons why Mars might be easier.
An atmosphere and a ~24 hour day make heat management less of an issue and
solar power easier to do. Plus there's all this carbon floating around in the
air you can work with. The Moon's big advantages are that it's close and it's
easier to get up and down its gravity well. I think that makes it better for a
non-self-sustaining. base but probably worse otherwise.

------
agp2572
People before have given word that they plan to lead the expedition to space
and have given timeline of seven years since this TED talk in 2007. So far no
expedition to Moon has happened led by this speaker
[https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_space/transcript?language=en#t-976000)

"Talk about space always seems to be hung on ambiguities of purpose and
timing. I would like to close here by putting a stake in the sand at TED. I
intend to lead that expedition. (Applause) It can be done in seven years with
the right backing. Those who join me in making it happen will become a part of
history and join other bold individuals from time past who, had they been here
today, would have heartily approved." \- Bill Stone (TED 2007)

EDIT: Adding quote

~~~
nradov
Bill Stone is a skilled engineer but anyone who knew about him from scuba
diving circles wouldn't have taken that seriously. He is infamous for over
promising, under delivering, and taking excessive unnecessary risks. So not
really comparable to Elon Musk in any meaningful way.

~~~
marvin
Not to mention that there _still_ isn't a cheap launch vehicle available
that's cheap enough for lunar exploration to be feasible for a private
initiative. SpaceX themselves could probably send a probe to the Moon soon if
they wanted to; the Falcon 9 is likely a lot cheaper than what SpaceX charge
their customers.

------
SCAQTony
Presuming one does not care about the problems of low gravity and what cosmic
radiation can due to your eyes, body and brain. That you're okay with the
antarctic cold 24/7 (Actually a year on Mars is 2-years long so perhaps it's
14-days for a single week) and that living in a surrounding vacuum with no
water or life whatsoever with lots of dust and dust storms seem like solitude,
then Mars is just the place for you!

Perhaps "terraforming" Australia's outback or the Sahara desert so as to
create a swell place to live would be a more worthwhile project than living in
a oxygenated and lead lined prison on Mars?

~~~
EwanG
Funny thing about that - I suspect doing either of those would be 10x harder
than terraforming Mars. Why? Because there are no Martians to complain about
the ecological havoc your changes are making, or to complain that you are
depriving them of their livelihood, or possibly destroying culturally
significant land forms. I can only imagine the ecological impact reporting
that would have to be done in Australia, and I imagine the countries that own
the Sahara have their own equivalent.

------
cdiamand
I found the 'Wait But Why' articles on Musk and his mars ambitions to be
pretty illuminating. They go in depth on why he wants to go to mars and also
some proposed ideas for colonization.

[http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-
coloni...](http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-
mars.html)

~~~
loganu
I didn't particularly love the last one, on Musk's "secret sauce," but the
rest of the Musk series was absolutely fantastic. You could give it to someone
that has never seen a car or rocket, and by the end of it they'd understand
the majority of the energy, auto, and space industries.

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rogeryu
Sending people to Mars, and then what?

Will it be a "simple" round trip? The real problem is what to when you're
there. Is there a base station? I don't see that happen before 2025. Maybe on
the moon, but not on Mars. Maybe a return trip to Mars by 2025 or 2030, but
not staying there.

~~~
alkonaut
Any round trip to Mars would require making the return fuel on site, correct?

If that's the case then just making a couple of unmanned return flights to
test that seems it would take a decade.

A one-way ticket to Mars is certainly doable with current tech but unless
we're sending Donald Trump I fail to see how we as a planet could get behind
that concept.

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mrfusion
I've been wondering if we're going to have problems with Mars 30% gravity. I
don't think we know at all yet?

If it is a problem I was thinking people might wear well distributed weight
suits most of the day? You could also sleep and spend time in a large
centrifuge type structure.

~~~
nickff
NASA (in their infinite wisdom) have neglected reduced-gravity research
entirely. For an organization that claims to be in favor of manned space
exploration, they display little interest in its primary challenges.

~~~
robotresearcher
> NASA (in their infinite wisdom) have neglected reduced-gravity research
> entirely.

Got some evidence for that surprising claim?

NASA is the only organization in the history of the world that has actually
put people onto a reduced-gravity body.

------
diyseguy
I think it's interesting that SpaceX is in Redmond and Redmond can be
linguistically morphed into 'Red World.'

------
kaonashi
Not by any private actor, governments are just better at this kind of thing.

------
return0
There has been a shift of public opinion since the space age. People dont just
want to avoid extinction, they want to live forever.

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jstoiko
> Musk thinks it's vital for mankind to create a self-sustaining city on Mars
> to protect against human extinction

Wouldn't it be more economical to try to save our planet first?

~~~
noir_lord
Yes because we can only do one at once.

Even if we went full green/sustainable that doesn't stop a nuclear war, big
hunk of rock hitting us from space or Yellowstone going boomboom at some
point.

~~~
Pinckney
I've always found that human extinction argument rather dubious. The main
mechanisms of extinction in those cases are atmospheric dust and fallout. If
we can maintain a closed ecosystem on Mars, we can do it underground, for a
fraction of the cost, much less danger, and with a crew that rotates.

Dinosaurs died out because they didn't have nuclear power plants or indoor
greenhouses.

A major impact would still be a tragedy of unimaginable proportions... but
putting a bunch of technocrats on mars isn't going to change that either.

~~~
mrfusion
We probably have a few 1000 people in submarines at any given time. I wonder
if there are any crazy plans for them to repopulate the world in a surface
disaster? Hopefully they have some women.

Edit: upon further thought it would be prident to store frozen embryos on
board with the associated equipment to use them to ensure genetic diversity.

