Mars or Bust!

SpaceX founder and rockstar guy Elon Musk wants to get humanity to Mars ASAP:

"Ultimately, the thing that is super-important in the grand scale of history is, are we on a path to becoming a multiplanet species or not?" Musk said during a talk Monday (Aug. 1) at a meeting of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in San Diego.

"If we're not, well, that's not a very bright future," Musk continued. "We'll simply be hanging out on Earth until some eventual calamity claims us."…

"That's kind of how I'm judging SpaceX," said Musk, who also founded the company and serves as its chief technology officer. "Are we helping move things in that direction?"

Musk also notes that getting the rocket technology right will be "super damn hard."

Previously, Reason covered Buzz Aldrin's desire to get to the red planet.

Reason also ran an cover story by New York Times writer John Tierney on Mars as the final frontier in 1999.

For the complete Reason Mars archive, go here. 

Comments

[Res Publica Americana]

We can't allow this to happen. This tea-bagging redneck anti-government militia nut is just going to cut corners and create unsafe vehicles, experiment on black people from obscure tribes in Kenya, and declare himself Supreme Emperor of Mars once he gets there, or some such ludicrous shit.

Private entities cannot be permitted to operate independently -- we must rip them apart with the forces of government! Fuck yeah!

[You forgot to mention the ....]

..carbon footprint and the second-hand smoke.....

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Elon Musk started Telsa Motors, and invested in SolarCity.

As for anti-government, Musk's companies have taken hundreds of millions in government loans.

[sevo]

"As for anti-government, Musk's companies have taken hundreds of millions in government loans."
I don't think there would be a Tesla Motors absent that money.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Almost certainly not.

[Mr. FIFY]

Then Tesla Motors should not exist.

[yonemoto]

find me a company that doesn't use FRNs and I'll show you one that hasn't taken government loans.

Zing!

[rts]

Humanity, get your ass to Mars!

(you read the above in Arnold's voice)

[Mongo]

The pig on Green Acres?

[Slap the Enlightened!]

Who gonna care about going to Mars in 100 years? Can't we talk about something really important, like gay marriage?

[Zeb]

Fuck off.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Always been curious: why do you want to slap the enlightened? Enlighten me, would you?

[fish]

And after the enlightenment....the slappin!

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Someone picked up on that.

[Slap the Enlightened!]

Always been curious: why do you want to slap the enlightened?

Because they aren't worth the bullets to shoot them. That's why.

[FatBurgerNanny BigButt]

More important, let's talk force-feeding vegetables to our captive schoolchildren.

[Warty]

I see that Ron Paul has crashed the economy again.

[SIV]

He should leave poor Ben Bernanke alone!

[James Anderson Merritt]

No, it was Bernard von Nothaus and his heinous acts of terrorism in issuing and circulating the Liberty Dollar, who caused the crisis. Haven't you been keeping up with the news? Just like our very delicate environment was tipped into chaos by the presence and activity of people, the introduction of von Nothaus's currency "pollution," however slight, was enough to topple the economy, which has been teetering on the tipping point for some time. Really. That's the consensus.

By the way, let's not call it a collapse. It's "human-induced economic climate change."

[yonemoto]

Nothaus's currency "pollution," however slight, was enough to topple the economy

Multplier effect, duh.

[Joe M]

So fucking stupid. How the hell can people take that clown seriously?

[The Other Kevin]

You know, the first 3/4 of that made a lot of sense. Then he went back to beating the same fucking dead horse again.

[Warty]

You read an entire Krugman column? Hats off to you, you lunatic.

[Joe M]

Ya me too. It does start off sounding okay, but that's just because he's admitting the economy is in trouble. Of course, he goes flying right off the rails when he claims the answer is more of the same thing that hasn't helped so far. And of course he says all this talk of deficits instead of jobs is irresponsible.

[BakedPenguin]

The Fed has by no means done all it could, partly because it was more concerned with hypothetical inflation than with real unemployment, partly because it let itself be intimidated by the Ron Paul types.

Holy fuck. At first I thought this was a threadjack, but Krugnuts is living on a different planet than the rest of us.

[Warty]

Well, I mean, it was just a threadjack anyway.

[Billy Shakespeare]

... Krugnuts is living on a different planet than the rest of us.

He's already made it to Mars.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

That is depressing.

[The Other Kevin]

It's Friday and I'm bored. Rest assured, I will not be making THAT mistake again.

[Tulpa]

The point is that it's now time ? long past time ? to get serious about the real crisis the economy faces. The Fed needs to stop making excuses, while the president needs to come up with real job-creation proposals.

And then he needs to do something about these high temperatures and my hair turning gray.

[Mr. FIFY]

My God... the way people lap up anything Krugman posits, it's simply disgusting. Like pigs in their slops.

[Fist of Etiquette]

How about a little decorum here. Sharon Stone died on Mars. Or somewhere around there, I forget.

[Episiarch]

Well, consider that a divorce.

And Mars is a red state, right? All this TEAM RED TEAM BLUE shit blurs together after a while.

[Joe M]

It's more of a PLANET RED PLANET BLUE kind of thing.

[Fist of Etiquette]

In the furture shooting your spouse in the head is how you divorce them? I fucking knew gay marriage was going to lead something like that.

[Joe M]

It's not the way, it's a way.

[Warty]

You got what you want. Give those people air!

[Episiarch]

See you at the party, Warty!

(throws Warty's arms off lift)

[Res Publica Americana]

GET TO DA CHOPPA???

[Warty]

DO IT! KILL ME NOW!

[Res Publica Americana]

GIT DAH-OON! ARRGHHH

[Brett L]

Wasn't Traci Lords the Princess of Mars?

[Episiarch]

I thought she was a floozy in Fast Food.

[Brett L]

Aha!. Dejah Thoris.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Okay, I'm just disappointed. ERB only said Dejah Thoris was black-haired about twenty billion times in the course of the series. How do you cast a blond for the role, and not dye the hair. I can live with a blond Dagny Taggart, but this crossed the line.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Question mark at the end of that last sentence.

[Brett L]

I didn't think too much after the 'Slave Girl Leia' outfit they stuck her in.

[Jingles]

"super damn hard."

I like this guy's way of thinking. Does he have a newsletter?

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Doesn't look like it. Does he do twitter?

[some guy]

Good luck Mr. Musk. I suggest you cast off NASA. That's just deadweight you don't need at this point...

[NASA]

Nice space company youse gots there... be a real shame if something bad happened to it.

[C3PO]

Nice space company you have there. Be a real shame if we gave you $75 million so we don't miss the shuttle.

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3.....index.html

http://www.engadget.com/2011/0.....-spacefli/

[SIV]

OT:
Chupacabra!

or some perversion of UNHOLY GOVERNMENT SCIENCE?

"You know how they do their government secret testing on animals?

[Hank]

"...To me, it looked like half-human."

Really? That looked half-human?

Also: "KSAX". Hehe.

[Mongo]

Nice find, SIV -- it's our neck of the woods!

My guess is a badger with mange...

[CE]

Mars Needs Saloons, a classic essay from L. Neil Smith:

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle200.....10-02.html

[Atanarjuat]

Sir Smugly ... can stand on any streetcorner in London (Islington's nice; you can visit a quaint street market, buy tiny clams in a paper cone, and eat them raw with salt), breathe the pollution, and appreciate all of the scenic hundreds of DON'T DO THIS signs.

[squishua]

"If we're not, well, that's not a very bright future," Musk continued. "We'll simply be hanging out on Earth until some eventual calamity claims us."...

But what about the big crunch, or heat death of the universe? Why waste time on mars when extradimensional transport is the only thing that will save us!?

But as long as he only uses his own money (or that of willing private investors), he should be free to burn it up however he pleases.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Expanding our population capacity (by colonizing other worlds) will allow more minds to work on problems of astrophysics and entropy, so that a solution will come along quicker.

I mean, with 1/3 the population, you could only allot 1/3 (or less) to scientific research, most likely. This would mean only probably 1/3 as many scientific discoveries.

In other news, humanity has been at it, what, 5000 years now. Sol System alone is estimated to have another 2,000,000,000 before things get too hot for life to survive on this planet (Mars, Europa, Titan will all have warm-enough spells). We're talking 100 trillion years before stars stop forming. I think that colonizing Mars should be higher on the priority list.

Disclaimer: none of these statements should be viewed as supporting government action. I mean all actions here to be voluntarily undertaken by groups of individuals.

[Res Publica Americana]

""""Disclaimer: none of these statements should be viewed as supporting government action. I mean all actions here to be voluntarily undertaken by groups of individuals.""""

So how many working-class Latinos have you lynched this week, huh, anarchist????

[Tulpa]

We can't even colonize Antarctica or the Gobi Desert without constant supplies being brought in from other parts of the world. Mars is going to be a hundred times less hospitable than either of those places...you don't have oxygen for one, and the temperature at the South Pole in the middle of winter is about as good as it's going to get on Mars.

There's a lot more than rocket technology that we have to perfect before we can even joke about being a multiplanetary spicies.

[squishua]

There's also no magnetosphere on mars, so avoiding radiation fried astronauts is something of a challenge. Hell, even the ISS is within the earth's magnetosphere and its occupants got dosed pretty good.

[Skr]

Yeah but the station has serious weight limits and you can always dig down on mars.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Lava Tubes.

[Skr]

It's going to need some sort of natural resource for trade.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

It has plenty.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Read How to Live on Mars, by Robert Zubrin. Great explanations. Really, once you can ship there efficiently, it wouldn't take too long to set up a mostly autonomous colony.

[White Indian]

If humans keep expanding at their current rate, we will expand into the whole universe and consume every atom within 5400 years, fewer years than civilization has been around so far. Do the math yourself.

So what's the point of going to Mars?

Shall we become like the species that Will Smith defeated in ID4, an all consuming and a exponential growth suicide?

I suppose if every atom in the universe were human flesh, we would be the "Ultimate Resource."

[MammalsAreEvil]

Holy bat, Shitman!

[Juice]

SpaceX founder and rockstar guy Elon Musk wants to get humanity to Mars ASAP

WHY?

[Nike Dunk Shoes]

thanks

[jackie cox]

obamas replacement for NASA, this guy needs a head transplant, we need a real american president

[jackie cox]

holy batman, shit