Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk’s plans to colonize
space are even crazier than we thought
by
Reed Tucker
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
8/8/2020 12:38:08 PM
As a child, Elon Musk would read comic books and sci-fi novels and dream of fantastical worlds. Now the tech entrepreneur is on the verge of visiting one Musk’s focus narrowed some 20 years ago while poking around NASA’s website. He noticed that there was no timetable for a manned mission to Mars. He later called the lack of vision “shocking.”Musk, then already a millionaire from the sale of a software company, ditched Silicon Valley for Los Angeles, in order to be closer to the aerospace industry, and set his sights on the stars.Now the future of space is largely in his and the hands of other free-spending,
Reply 1 - Posted by:
FormerDem 8/8/2020 1:30:11 PM (No. 503617)
But sometimes big advances come via people who have a grand plan. Such as Tycho Brahe trying to prove epicycles and instead he makes the detailed obervations Kepler needed to devise the laws of planetary motion. So let these people try their ideas, I say, and don't try to stop them although do give faithful feedback on actual errors distinct from attitudes. Go Elon Musk! Go Jeff Bezos! Good luck to you.
12 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
GO3 8/8/2020 1:56:57 PM (No. 503630)
I agree; let them try. Step 1 - figure out a way to mitigate the effects of being outside of our protective magnetic field for months or years at a time.
7 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
red1066 8/8/2020 1:57:24 PM (No. 503631)
May I suggest that all seats for this out of this world adventure be given to anyone who believes BLM is about racism and black people.
5 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Quigley 8/8/2020 2:05:13 PM (No. 503640)
I don’t know what to think of them.
The colonization thing is so far beyond our capacities that even talking about it is ... idiotic? Pure fantasy? Nothing wrong with pure fantasy. 10000 nuclear bombs exploded on Mar to terraform it? Even the word terraform is idiotic.
I think they’re looking for government money. I guess the scifi stuff gets them a bigger fan base to support getting the money.
All that said, pure research Is a wonderful thing. And allegedly all the technology spun off off the space program was wonderful. So i guess egon mollusk and jeff beelzebub will get government funding to develop products to sell to us.
Might have to defund the police to get those two the kind of money they’re going to need. The black lives marxists can be in charge of R&D and marketing.
3 people like this.
A Science Fiction author worked with some scientists to develop a plan to make Mars habitable for humans in the 1980s. That plan was just barely beyond the capabilities available then. The only reason the plan is still beyond our capabilities today is because no one has been willing to spend the money to develop them. We have the technology, someone just needs to design the devices to execute the plan. It is possible that there is some obstacle which we have not yet learned, but based on the knowledge available to us today, colonizing Mars is difficult, but feasible.
3 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Highlander 8/8/2020 3:08:24 PM (No. 503670)
If it’s possible to construct revolving bio-tubes with a 4-mile diameter and a 16-mile circumference, and have it be self-sustainable, floating in space; why would you need to be colonizing Mars? Where does Mars fit in? Better to have that contraption in earth’s orbit where there is sunlight and a 24-hour cycle.
1 person likes this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
bad-hair 8/8/2020 3:50:59 PM (No. 503695)
Elon, Jeff, don't you know you are supposed to give all your extra money to the government and let them decide how to spend it ? How can we tax the rich bastids if they throw away their cash going to Mars ?
3 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
DVC 8/8/2020 4:40:10 PM (No. 503722)
Delos D. Harriman did it first.....in Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon, written in 1949.
I have absolutely no doubt that Musk has read the book, and that it inspired him.
2 people like this.
Shoot bezos into space and leave him there.
1 person likes this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 8/8/2020 5:16:46 PM (No. 503745)
Bezos, take a hike, please. We aren't ready for Amazon Prime on the moon yet. And Mars is a ways out, too.
1 person likes this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
dman 8/8/2020 5:43:13 PM (No. 503761)
No fan of their politics, but Musk and Bezos are correct on this one. "Where is no vision, the people perish." [Proverbs 29:18-27 KJV]
Our nation needs this goal, the technology needed to reach it, and the inspiration and creativity to develop it - just as with the race to the moon in the 60's. Time to catch up with the 30 lost years due to the shuttle / space station / low earth orbit diversion.
It's about the journey, not the destination.
3 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
HotRod 8/8/2020 6:30:16 PM (No. 503798)
I'm all for colonization of space. It will become necessary, for several reasons, in the future. Science Fiction sometimes makes some pretty good predictions about the possibilities.
When Marxists take over and make the Earth a slave planet, I'll volunteer to be a colonist! Also, when the giant comet that will destroy life on Earth is detected, I'll go!
1 person likes this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
DrOstrow 8/8/2020 7:27:22 PM (No. 503842)
Something that is consistently overlooked and should not be ......
The idea of 'terraforming' Mars so that it has an atmosphere that can support humans is simply not possible today !
Creating an atmosphere is one thing but the planet itself must have sufficient gravity to KEEP the atmosphere and
Mars doesn't !
Mars is only about half the size of Earth and has about 40% of earths gravity.
An atmosphere as thick as ours, able to support animal life 'out in the open' will simply not 'weigh' enough on Mars
to prevent its dispersal into space ! Hint - this could be one reason the atmosphere on Mars is currently FAR too
thin for us to breathe or survive in.
Unless you or Musk &/or Bezos can come up with a way to increase planetary gravitation - the idea of an afternoon walk
and a picnic on the plains of Mars is simply a fantasy - today or 200 years from today.
Simple physics.
2 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
DVC 8/8/2020 9:22:34 PM (No. 503900)
#13 is absolutely correct. Below a critical threshold of gravitational level, which is controlled by planetary mass, which is controlled by the average density of the planetary material, you cannot keep the gases from escaping into space.
Terraforming is a pipe dream for Mars, unless you can crash a couple of dozen large moons into the planet....and then wait 100,000 years or so for the temperatures to cool down and the atmosphere to stabilize. I can't wait that long.....neither can the human species.
1 person likes this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Strike3 8/9/2020 3:06:07 AM (No. 503972)
The scientific knowledge gained from these types of endeavors is priceless but I hope they never go about planetary development with any sort of financial gain as a goal through mining, tourist flights, etc. because that is not feasible with the technology of the foreseeable future, even if Mars is made of gold. Burroughs' John Carter series is fascinating but will probably remain within the realm of fantasy for centuries.
1 person likes this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Bazi 8/9/2020 8:29:00 AM (No. 504108)
Musk, at least, publicly expressed his approval of POTUS Trump's USA Space Force. RE Space Force: I'd say, Trump is very forward looking, too. Bezos, on the other hand, has never given Trump credit for anything in his Washington Commiepost. Our tax dollars wildly subsidize both Musk & Bezos.
1 person likes this.
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