Elon Musk: I'll put HUMAN BOOTS on MARS by 2026

a reply to: Xeven
Yes it is an electrical propulsion system. The issue is a source that can provide huge energy at low weight. Nuclear reactors are dangerous, LENR would be ideal but we don't have that kind of technology yet.

a reply to: ATSmediaPRO


While I commend the efforts towards "progress" and technological advancements...are there not bigger issues that SHOULD be dealt with here on EARTH first?

I know there are no written rules stating 'we must clean up our act before we go to another planet'.

But should one not pause and ask if this is what we should be focusing on, while war and disease are pretty much rampant?

I must say though, Musk sure knows how to build a nice spaceship.

a reply to: Sparkymedic

Wise words, but will they be heeded? Maybe not. Soon as we find some oil to drill - figuratively of course - we'll be there tomorrow. Any wisdom stands no chance when confronted by the people who think $$$ solves everything. No it doesn't. Neither does technology. We're poisoned by something no amount of money or technology can fix. Something called sin.

originally posted by: crazyewok

originally posted by: shaneslaughta
Looks like the Mars One mission has some competition to contend with.

Oddly enough the two plans are within a few years of each other.

With more and more advances in technology every day, i say not only is it possible;

They will succeed.

I also firmly believe that undertakings like these, will help the economy by creating more jobs in the private sector.

O2 recyclers, communications, computers, vehicles and a whole new array of textiles for the space age.

The future is here.

S&F for spurring my creativity OP.

I'm off to write another chapter in my short sci-fi novel.

I though mars one was useing Space X?

So two projects are likely intertwined.

Either way mars is a big planet there room to share.

Space X and Mars One are indeed working together.

originally posted by: Sparkymedic
a reply to: ATSmediaPRO


While I commend the efforts towards "progress" and technological advancements...are there not bigger issues that SHOULD be dealt with here on EARTH first?

I know there are no written rules stating 'we must clean up our act before we go to another planet'.

But should one not pause and ask if this is what we should be focusing on, while war and disease are pretty much rampant?

I must say though, Musk sure knows how to build a nice spaceship.

Did it ever dawn on you the solution to some of those problems lay in developing new technologies? The same new technologies which would help make a Mars Colony viable.

It's not a zero-sum game.

Also....not spending time/resources on this doesn't mean we would spin that time/resources on the problems you are concerned with.

Nobody ever seems to mention contamination in these discussions or almost never. But Mars is a highly sensitive area of the solar system and environmentally responsible exploration should take care not to contaminate it with Earth life.

The top three places in the solar system that we should not contaminate with Earth microbes, by international agreement are:

* Mars
* Europa
* Encladus.

This means it should be top priority for any Mars mission to show that you will not contaminate it with Earth life. Otherwise that would make study of Mars biology somewhere between hard and impossible. Since we can't totally sterilize any robots yet - they use a target probability of 1 in 10000 of contamination per mission (and in case of Mars that's been turned into guidelines without need to calculate probabilities because we know so little about habitability of Mars so far that the calculation is impossible).

After a hard crash on Mars, of a human habitat with hundreds of trillions of microbes, with the solar storms and ability of many microbes to create resistant dormant states - and many retaining extremophile capabilities - you'd surely declare Mars contaminated after that.

Any detection of life anywhere on Mars, your first guess would be, a colony established from spores spread from the human habitat crash site. And life could grow on Mars - just last year we got clear evidence of "warm seasonal flows" in the equatorial regions (previously found in a few rare spots in higher lattitudes) - and so far the only hypotheses for these are - some form of liquid, probably salty water on the surface.

What is his solution to this? We need to know, so that we can start to evaluate it, and look at it carefully to see if it works, and to find issues with it well in advance of his mission?

Robert Zubrn has said he doesn't think there is any issue involved in contaminating Mars and he is very influential in the space community - so possibly he is influenced by that - I don't know. But Zubrin's idea is simply a hypothesis and indeed one that would be a surprising and major scientific discovery in its own right if he was proved correct.

It's an interesting suggestion - but reason for studying Mars is to find answers to these things. Don't do it the other way around and assume an interesting, but most would say unlikely, minority hypothesis to be true.

The thing is - contamination of a planet with Earth life is irreversible. If we make a mistake here - through ignorance - or some flaw in our plans - we can never turn it back to an uncontaminated planet. So we must get this right - so that needs full and complete public disclosure of proposed solutions - and scrutiny of them by our best scientists and other experts world wide.

originally posted by: galadofwarthethird
a reply to: parad0x122

Point 2. Never throughout any of my posts did I claim Bill Gates "quote on quote invented the computer". He made it accessible to the public, for a profit. Period.

My bad I must have read this wrong from you previous post---> "And as far as his directive to mankind is concerned, without him and his company, you probably wouldn't be typing this type of slander"

Once again, no where in there did I claim that Bill Gates created the computer, but apparently that concept is having a difficult time entering your brain. Are you denying that Microsoft was one of the foremost prevalent companies to bring PC's into people's homes?

As for the rest of your rant, it's entirely opinion based. Show me some financial statements that clearly show that the 28 billions dollars that his foundation donated went into his pocket please, because everything that you've said thus far was biased and based on your own, misinformed, opinion.

Since we're on the subject of facts, here's some real factual information, not a paragraph of conjecture:

$51 Million Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to Support Small Dynamic High Schools to Boost Student Achievement

Helping Poor Farmers, Changes Needed to Feed 1 Billion Hungry | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

If you'd even taken the time to research even slightly you would've found that there's plenty of real information to read over in the press releases, which there's dozens of, and you would also see that not only do they do their best to help the less fortunate, but they strive to remain transparent in the process.

a reply to: ATSmediaPRO

Its admirable that Mr Musk is driving towards the goal. And he might succeed. But what about if he DOES succeed. I have some concerns.

1. Do they have a space suit design that will be reliable for YEARS of use? These people are not coming back. Are they going to have space suits that they can put on day after day, for DECADES and have them work? As far as I know there is no such design. The NASA suits used in the shuttle program, were used on brief forays, had to be kept under tightly controlled specs when not in use, and are really like miniature space ships in their own rights. These suits are going to get dirty, be exposed to falls, tears, radiation, etc, and for a period of decades. Once one stops working the owner will not be able to go outside. Have they really thought about this?
2. Radiation shielding on the surface. Will they be able to adequately shield the colonists for long durations? How will this be accomplished?
3. Redundency of critical systems. Do they have enough hardware so if say the heating unit that keeps them from turning into a block of ice at night fails, they can repair or replace it? No hardware stores exist on Mars, what ever they take is going to be all they have.
4. Biological containment. Do they have plans in place not to contaminate Mars with Earth bacteria? Or to protect themselves from potential Mars pathogens? If someone coughs in the airlock they could release an organism that could run wild on Mars, possibly killing organisms that already live there. NASA routinely sterilizes probes for this reason. A human colony will be anything but sterile.


Those are the main concerns. There are a lot of other things but these are really the most critical.

Bravo Elon for taking the bull by the horns and moving forward with the space race .NASA did a great job in the early years , but now has stalled , opening this sort of thing to the private sector will produce competition and growth , way beyond anything NASA can produce so quickly ...

Bill Gates HELPED to produce a mediocre OP SYS , that sold well because frankly , there was nothing else at the time ,so gained market share , its left most of the world using a poor OP SYS , because , they dont know any different...The space race could use his investment , his buddie Paul Allen helped invest in spaceship One and now Stratolaunch Systems , so its possible for Gates to do the same ....just dont run the bloody spaceship on windows

The world needs People like Musk , Richard Branson ,Allen and all the other Space Explorers to move forward , this indeed could be a golden age....

Elon = JFK

Wear a bullet proof helmet at all times. Controllers gonna control. Nuff said.

originally posted by: Rob48
a reply to: Nyiah

I wonder what all the conspiracy theorists will do once there are permanent bases on the moon and Mars. No doubt all the secret alien bases will move to Venus

Likely all of them will be dead from old age, but on a more serious note....

Does it not seem like Elon actually has not done anything that could not have been done 50 years or more ago?

These space companies time is just like Valve time, IE, 1000 times slower than in the 1960's.

a reply to: ATSmediaPRO
Is he the new Howard Hughes?

a reply to: parad0x122
Well considering I already linked your exact quote in parenthesis in my other post then yes. That is exactly what you said and implied. And yes if Microsoft did not exist somebody else or another would fill in that void and I would still be typing this on a keyboard.


As for the rest....We shall see. So far do you see any of it? I am quite sure it helped somebody somewhere but do you see or know anybody that does not work for them both directly or indirectly who is helped? Are the people who are starving Africa any less starving now that they got some of the money? Are there any less homeless or any less small family farms going out of business and losing there land because of all the help they have been getting? Last I checked in that department there helping Monsanto spreed there products much more then the so called poor small farmers of the world.

So ya! We shall see. And no a bunch of sites sponsored by the same people who's job it is to sponsor them is not really something I would call concrete information. In fact the people who made the websites and who maintain the public image are likely getting a much bigger cut of all those free moneys then the people in Africa or in the so called poor farmers in the bread basket.

So ya so far all these projects have been going on for years. And yet? Well I am quite sure the money is going somewhere and may helped somebody somewhere. But like I said. What are the chances that some 10 years from now you would have this conversation still, and you would still link you so called profs. And yet! how likely it is that not much would have changed out there in the world.

Tell you what come back to this in 10 or 20 years and see who all those billions really helped. Because so far in all the years they have been going on...Well its a bit miffy as to who its really helping. But one thing is for sure, there still seems to be as many schools losing funding even for outdated textbooks, and as many starving people in Africa and worldwide as before this whole foundations thing got started years ago.

Like I said. We shall see.

a reply to: jayKyte

While that is interesting and all good for sending some people in space. Its nowhere near what would be needed for any serious space venturing, much less colonizing mars. And like I said building the technology is the easy part. At this pace I would not expect any colonize on mars any time in the next 500 hundred years at least not in any serious way or means. I mean not unless you will find some suicidal brainwashed or stupid people who would be willing to go through with it.

I suppose you can always do as we always have done send convicts and the undesirable to mars to colonize it, because mining in a coal mine would be more fun and easier with all that tech. I do not even believe we have a spacesuit which would be able to stand up to any long term wear and tear in any such environment, much less something which you would have the capability of basic movements which we would take for granted here on earth and which would be a requisite for any such long term missions.

I mean sure you can go to mars. Sure you can send people in space, we can even put some boots on mars, but then they would have to take off and come back shortly, maybe they can plant a flag or something in all that time and say a witty quip. But colonizing mars actually building structures like he said, ya I see nothing they showed which would lead me to believe that would be happening, or they have the capacity to achieve any of that.

a reply to: galadofwarthethird

Implication does not equal a statement. It leaves much room for erroneous (read: broken) assumptions, much like your assumptions regarding our little Bill Gates debate. Actually, I can see a lot of that ignorance oozing over into your other responses in this thread as well. They almost shout "I'm right, because I said it."

Sounds like someone is a bit butthurt over a previous Microsoft experience, to be honest.

Regardless, I fail to see your point? We can't go back in time and "un-donate" money to see whether people after the fact were positively or negatively affected, so I'd say it's a pretty moot point.

Bill Gates is the devil?

Is that it?

a reply to: parad0x122

The truth is, I do not care who bill gates is. That is for the idolaters and scallions, but yes bill gates like everybody else is looking out for bill gates interests. Its been like that since, well I dont know, somewere around forever. And like I said none of this supposed help from rich and affluent people has done any good for anybody but those that profit from it. The majority is just a sham.

Now to answer your questions.

Is bill gates the devil? - No hes just a man, he is far from the devil, in fact hes human all to human, and more so the devil is a caricature and character humans have made up, its up there with Santa Claus, and pretty much all the other things you believe in. And no I dont have nothing on Microsoft other then the crappy things they always try to push each and every year, you know them as version 1.2's.

But the real question is, on topic. So how exactly is the guy and people in the op going to get to mars and build colonies there, for somebody claiming such things, I would think they would at least have some sort of plans or diagrams or anything really, so far nothing much as in zilch.

Someone asked earlier about suits.

I saw an article on RT about their new crew capsules and the proposed mission to the moon.

They have developed some pretty funky semi-rigid suits that would fit the bill. It seems Russia is going to the moon to stay, they think they can make money from it.

originally posted by: shaneslaughta
reply to post by shaneslaughta

 

The future is here.

That’s why you can’t pull out a thumb drive without breaking it. And dropping it. Oh no. Forget saving homs

I am bo diddle. I am cecil the lion. Satan would rip your head off and not think twice about it.
Elon Musk needs to putt out thine own eye if he thinks that Dragon X is going to be any sort of reliable way to get things to space.
And centaurs. Ahhh the f@$ internet.

I think you outta vote for trump or get ready to hear the trumpets.

They fix this with what George Soros refers to as the wall of money.

Remove the will rogers statue.

I'm very much convinced Elon Musk and his company Space X have the technical capabilities of putting humans on Mars by 2026. However, there is more to the story than technical capabilities alone.
When people start making plans for colonizing our solar system, a new race will begin: a colonization race.
A race implicates there will be more parties/companies/states involved in this colony race and that means that there must be some rules in place once space between earth and Mars is filled with spaceships etc.
We need interplanetary laws!

Personally, I don't think Musk will put the first human on Mars. I don't say his company doesn't have the technical experience, but building a transport system for our solar system that facilitates colonazation of planets, that's of the greatest stratigic importance to all nations on the world. All nations on the world like to dominate space. There is no way Space X will start building a interplanetary highway without the (heavy) involvement of the US government.
There are times that I compare this stage in our history to the prequal of Frank Herberts Dune, in which the Space Guild has created a monopoly on interstellar transport. I don't think they'll allow Elon to create this monopoly.
How will they (government) stop him from achieving this? Simple, they'll issue some "rules"