Human mission to Mars by 2024 ?

[Swank]

I'm also not a fan of Musk, but I think that for whoever is/was in charge, there will be much failure (and money spent) before success is achieved. Forget millions and billions, it's could be trillions - or more.

Of course the real cost will be in lives lost. With the first mission that ends in death - and that's when and not if - the question will be asked 'Is it really worth it?" For the answer, we only have to consider all those who have lost their lives in pursuit of space exploration and say, 'They thought so'.

Despite the SpaceX habit of blowing stuff up to learn how to make rockets, I completely disagree that engineering a space vessel should require any trial and error. Space is not an unpredictable environment. You should be able to model everything and build vessels that work the first time, like they managed before computers.

 

[Elckerlyc]

Despite the SpaceX habit of blowing stuff up to learn how to make rockets, I completely disagree that engineering a space vessel should require any trial and error.

Well no, it isn't required. Nor needed, because we already know how to build a space vessel. NASA is still doing it that way; it takes ages and the costs are prohibitive to the extreme. All for a one way trip.
But it is the approach SpaceX chose to figure out what the minimal requirements are to build a space vessel, as cheap, simple and fast, as possible and still be space-worthy and reusable. Without it there is no future for space-faring.
All the blowing-up stuff is just a bonus (for the watchers amongst us.)

 

[paranoid marvin]

I agree that theroetically you could build a spaceship that worked perfectly first time, but would anyone really want to be on board for that first flight?

Pretty much everything that was ever invented was only perfected by trial and error. It's just that in the case of rockets, the errors are far more costly and spectacular.

I would disagree though about space being a predictable environment. We know so little about it, and the effects of prolonged travel on the human body and mind. Who knows what else is out there ready to wreak havoc on our fragile constitutions?

I still feel that the way forward is by the use of spacestations. Firstly we need to have a large one orbiting the Earth. Large enough to allow people to walk around freely, and go about their business as though they were living in a large underground bunker on Earth.

Then build one around the Moon, then construct further stations like a daisy chain, stretching further and further out.

Space is probably less hostile and easier to build and work in than most of the surfaces of planets in our solar system.

 

[Toby Frost]

I don't think it's cynical to point out that technological progress and the betterment of the human race (or morality in general) are not linked. The V2 rocket was designed to mass-murder Londoners in the service of fascism - and yet that tech assisted the Americans in putting a man on the moon, which was hardly an evil deed. It depends on who is wielding the tech.

And I also don't think it's cynical to point out that many plutocrats and dictators just do not think like "normal people", and are psychologically unable to give a damn about anyone except themselves.

But, to quote Tom Lehrer, "If ze rockets go up, who cares vhere zey come down?"

 

[Mon0Zer0]

Mmm...The tech his company (not Musk) has utilised came from other sources, so in my mind no biggy. This was stuff that could have been with us in the late 1990s if things had gone the right way.

But, if I am being fair, the big positives that came from Musk are from the economic side (starting to get repetitive, I know...). They took risks to develop - pushing research cycles much faster than any government agency. They also pushed ways to make rockets out of cheaper materials etc.. And they've really developed a great engineering culture for success there. I've only mentioned a few at the top of my mind; lots of different angles that made it a success.

The point about Nasa / Musk and innovation, and the economy too, is that innovation needs incentives. To digress a little, at the moment in the tech sector we're seeing quite remarkable and contradictory forces at play. On one hand we have the enshittification of the internet where large tech monopolies have become so entrenched that they have no incentives to improve their services, on the contrary they have incentives to make them worse.

On the other hand we have incredible innovation in large language models, robotics and so on. These are in spaces that are new where strategic or market dominance is believed to bring profit. These kinds of technology developed arise from the opportunities initially created by academic research (which is partly non-economic in nature*) that are now only just being commercialised into commodities.

With NASA, why I think it's right to say that the space programme created these technologies because the cold war incentivised the need for military supremacy over competing countries and the space programme was an essential domain of warfare. With space travel comes all kinds of requirements to produce highly efficient goods, standards and materials that are durable, light weight, low power and with (for the time) significant processing power.

To take another example, during the 1950's, soviet manufacturers were tasked with producing refrigerators, cars and so on. Unlike their western counterparts who produced with an eye on planned obsolescence (eg the Great Lightbulb conspiracy), soviet manufacturers were tasked with producing long-lasting goods(+).

The technology to produce these goods existed at the time, but the space race, and the cold war that started it, provided the incentives that otherwise did not exist in the market.

To put it another way, I think I'm agreeing with you about the economy's role in production, but differing in that you appear to think the economic incentives of NASA were not necessary in giving rise to these products (in other words researching, utilising and further developing the applications of potential technologies). I suspect without the incentives of NASA then they might not have been developed at that point in time as quickly, or at the scale they did.

The same thing could be said about Mars. I agree we DO have the technology, but the incentives are low. Wrt Musk, maybe it takes someone with so much money that they can undertake this Herculean task to merely fulfil their own colossal ego?

* by which I mean the academic domain which, while funding motivated, isn't profit motivated by the person undertaking the research. Obviously there's an element of capital interest in the shape of having to justify research to funding patrons etc, but it is not research conducted for the specific purpose of creating a specific product or range of products but because the researcher is pursuing an academic rather than commercial interest. Academic interest is great at discovering breakthroughs, but not so good at turning these into consumer goods.

+ whether or not they managed to produce genuinely longer lasting goods is up for debate, but failures were likely due to obsolete older technology (in part due to little incentive to innovate) or poor incentives within the soviet production pipeline to actually do a good job. In practice, simple soviet goods (like cars) were built to last but complex ones were at best, average quality.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

I don't think it's cynical to point out that technological progress and the betterment of the human race (or morality in general) are not linked.

You'd said: "life on a planet run by billionaires and tyrants, millions of miles from any jurisdiction, sounds suspiciously like slave labour." Which doesn't sound like the more nuanced point below...

The V2 rocket was designed to mass-murder Londoners in the service of fascism - and yet that tech assisted the Americans in putting a man on the moon, which was hardly an evil deed. It depends on who is wielding the tech.

That isn't too far from what I was trying to say, tbh.

How we utilise technology does depend on who is wielding the tech. But the person, in turn, depends on the other conditions, people and culture around them. People aren't all bad, to stress only the worse aspects of humanity is missing out on half the story.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

No time to individually address all the nonsense above. Suffice to say; anyone who thinks we are going to Mars is living in cloud cuckoo land. And anyone putting their faith in a fool and charlatan like Musk is doubly insane.

 

[Venusian Broon]

No time to individually address all the nonsense above. Suffice to say; anyone who thinks we are going to Mars is living in cloud cuckoo land. And anyone putting their faith in a fool and charlatan like Musk is doubly insane.

Nice to hear a short answer. I like the cut of your jib young lady.

Time to move on to other pastures I think...

 

[Swank]

No time to individually address all the nonsense above. Suffice to say; anyone who thinks we are going to Mars is living in cloud cuckoo land. And anyone putting their faith in a fool and charlatan like Musk is doubly insane.

We are going to Mars at some point. But using chemical rockets to get there and back seems like the height of foolishness - and doesn't provide much repeatability or scalability.

 

[paranoid marvin]

We are going to Mars at some point. But using chemical rockets to get there and back seems like the height of foolishness - and doesn't provide much repeatability or scalability.

Yes we are going to Mars at some point, or we will at least make an attempt.

There will be great prestige for those who first do so. Everyone remembers the first nation to send a satellite into space, the first human. Everyone remembers the nation who went to the Moon, and the first person to set foot there.

It's a thing that can only ever happen once, and sometimes fame and glory get in the way of common sense and money. No-one remembers the name of the leader who gave his country financial stability.

Chemical rockets are definitely not the way forward, which is why it is so important to build space stations from which to launch them.

 

[Swank]

Yes we are going to Mars at some point, or we will at least make an attempt.

There will be great prestige for those who first do so. Everyone remembers the first nation to send a satellite into space, the first human. Everyone remembers the nation who went to the Moon, and the first person to set foot there.

It's a thing that can only ever happen once, and sometimes fame and glory get in the way of common sense and money. No-one remembers the name of the leader who gave his country financial stability.

Chemical rockets are definitely not the way forward, which is why it is so important to build space stations from which to launch them.

I don't know what the value of prestige is. Will it help sell more ugly cars?

What do space stations do? They have the same material bottleneck that the ships do. If you can lift all the stuff necessary for a space station and a ship, you could have just lifted a modular ship and stick it together like ISS once the parts are in orbit.

The moon has caves, oxygen, iron and aluminum. Oxygen and aluminum is rocket fuel, aluminum and iron are structural materials. Iron is magnetic. The moon has low gravity, no atmosphere, extreme cold and direct sunlight. It is the perfect deep space construction and magnetic launch facility. You only need to send the trace elements and the factory components.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

Suffice to say; anyone who thinks we are going to Mars is living in cloud cuckoo land. And anyone putting their faith in a fool and charlatan like Musk is doubly insane.

Maybe we won't go to Mars, but I like that someone is trying. Musk might be the devil himself but he's rich enough to pay extremely smart people to do the work for him. I'd rather his energies and wealth were directed towards getting to Mars than his political interests.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

People are definitely going to the Moon. Its like a destination that is going to happen because it is very close to Earth. It falls under the heading, because it's there. For the time being, Mars on the other hand is like picking a choice for a vacation, there are a lot of wishes as to what is done, but the practicalities of the situation decides the ultimate destination.

 

[paranoid marvin]

People are definitely going to the Moon. Its like a destination that is going to happen because it is very close to Earth. It falls under the heading, because it's there. For the time being, Mars on the other hand is like picking a choice for a vacation, there are a lot of wishes as to what is done, but the practicalities of the situation decides the ultimate destination.

We are certainly going back to the Moon, and sooner rather than later there will be man-made habitable structures there. And that is how territory will be 'claimed'.

There likely will be negotiations and a 'divvying up' of who gets what, but likely the only ones in the discussions will be those that can geylt there and land.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

"....but he's rich enough to pay extremely smart people to do the work for him."

He isn't using his own wealth to do this. Space X has been obtaining multi-billion dollar payments from the US government and repeatedly underperforming. He is supposed to have delivered a platform for a manned mission to the moon (price around $3B). The money is largely gone and the platform does not exist. Do you think he saves his own money in a piggy bank and generously spends it for the benefit of mankind? Does his wealth come from profits on selling Tesla cars, or from hyped stock values, elevated by his ability to convince the public that he has all sorts of wonderful technologies and products that he, in fact, does not have.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Maybe we won't go to Mars, but I like that someone is trying. Musk might be the devil himself but he's rich enough to pay extremely smart people to do the work for him. I'd rather his energies and wealth were directed towards getting to Mars than his political interests.

There are plenty of things Musk could be spending his (or other people's) money on, and space exploration is definately one of the better ones.

Even if he doesn't succeed, his failures will still be a progression to eventually getting it right.

There was a time when it was unimaginable that most people would own their own motor car. But now most people own at least one. Many own boats, and (for those who want to) the cost of owning (or at least having access to) a private plane is not prohibative.

One day space travel will not be the preserve of millionaires and government officials.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

He isn't using his own wealth to do this. Space X has been obtaining multi-billion dollar payments from the US government and repeatedly underperforming. He is supposed to have delivered a platform for a manned mission to the moon (price around $3B). The money is largely gone and the platform does not exist. Do you think he saves his own money in a piggy bank and generously spends it for the benefit of mankind? Does his wealth come from profits on selling Tesla cars, or from hyped stock values, elevated by his ability to convince the public that he has all sorts of wonderful technologies and products that he, in fact, does not have.

First up, apologies if the "nonsense" that follows is long, but I don't see how it's possible to really talk about that in a way without getting into the detail. I hope you appreciate that the time I put into writing this is a mark of respect to you, others here and my interest in the subject, even though I'm disagreeing with you. If the style is a bit brusque, it's not intended to be, that's partly how the role I once worked in (financial / technical / actuarial) writes and maybe a slightly neurodivergent tendency. In this, I'm aiming for clarity, not condescension or pomposity, even if the latter comes across that way. Apologies if it does comes across that way, it's not intended.

I get a feeling when people criticise Musk that part of what they're railing against is Musk's personality and values, and beyond that Musk's undeserved image as a titan of industry -- that his praise and money is off the back of much smarter people than he. I don't disagree with that, but IMHO it minimises the achievements of those smart folks at SpaceX.

In many ways Musk and SpaceX, like Tesla, are indivisible, not because of his technological prowess but because he is the goal setter and motivating force for those businesses. It's unfortunate that the convention is we say Musk when we mean "the engineering team at SpaceX", but that's how it is.

I'm in an awkward position of seeming to have to defend Musk's business practices as a whole which is something I don't want to attempt. None of what follows means I think Musk is a good, ethical person or approve of his politics.

If I was to armchair psychoanalyse him, a terrible idea I know, but judging by his behaviour on X, he seems like sort of a techie nerd with nerdy dreams informed by cool looking concept art and sci-fi of the 60's to 80's. You can see that with the Cybertruck and his Syd Mead obsession. To me, he seems like someone in love with "the future". Some of his worst personality aspects, the constant need for attention, the trolling, his misogyny and awful attitudes probably also go along with that same nerdy 80s kid tendency as anyone who went to comic cons in the 80s probably would have seen.

Because of that, I believe Musk is someone with a genuine dream of getting to Mars and his efforts at SpaceX aren't just to embezzle money from public funds. There are probably much easier ways he could do that if that was his goal. So that's how I see Musk and where I'm coming from.

My question to you is: is the picture you paint above wholly accurate?

I wasn't saying that Musk was solely bankrolling SpaceX out of his savings like a hobby in his shed. It's a business. Businesses need investment.

When he was sued by the Thai diver guy, Musk's liquid assets were declared in court as 0. His wealth is entirely illiquid. Why doesn't he liquidate his assets to pay for his boondoggles? Partly for tax reasons, but mostly because they're currently in use in the businesses he has assets in. If he withdrew them it could materially harm those businesses.

When we say Musk has $450bn of wealth, we're really saying that his control over a portion of the economy is valued at $450bn. That value is generated (in Musk's case) because it's under his control. It's the markets fault.

When I say "rich enough" what I mean is he has the ability to direct investment because of his wealth, position, reputation and ability to secure capital. He could use that ability in any other sector if he chose, he could just focus on his existing enterprises, but I'm glad he's using it towards the dream of going to Mars. Even if it is just a dream.

re: funding etc.

The figures of govt investment I can find are accounted as follows:

• NASA: $14.4 billion for rocket launches and satellites
• Defence Department: $5.32 billion for rocket launches and satellites
• Classified contract: $1.8 billion in 2021
• Other contracts: At least $3.8 billion in 2024

Defence and classified contracts aside where it isn't public info, I can't see that he's failed to deliver on these contracts.

When you say "manned mission to the moon" do you mean Starship HLS - ($2.89 billion of the "other contracts" portion')?

I can find news that it's planned for a test launch in 2025 with a crewed test in 2027. Is that what you were referring to? Is it behind schedule? Or was there some other contract you were referring to?

What do you mean by "the money is largely gone"? Spacex has a valuation of over $360bn. Are you saying there's some fraud in accounting, that it's actually worthless? I don't understand your point here.

Is it fair to say SpaceX hasn't delivered anything since they've developed reusable rockets, engine designs etc? All this development seems like part of a roadmap to creating S/HLS rather than just empty flim/flam to attract more investment. It's not like he's taken the money and run off to the Bahamas. S/HLS is a long term project underway since at least 2010. I can't believe that they'd earmark just 3.8bn for a long term project.

I don't see what Musk is doing anything different from any other large astro / aero company. In 2023, Boeing were given $4.2 billion to develop Starliner by the govt, too and that's been dogged by delays and failures. Blue Origin had $3.4 billion in 2023 for Artemis. The US spent $72 billion on space projects in that year alone and that doesn't include DoD space programmes.

Are you opposed to govt investment in private companies? What am I missing here? I'm genuinely open to the idea that I'm wrong.

Does Musk overpromise and underdeliver at Tesla and his solar panels and so on? Sure. If you're saying that I have no arguments, but it seems a standard practice in these kinds of engineering businesses and the risk is accepted by the government precisely because of their experimental / skunkworks-like nature.

Apologies once again for the length. Respectfully, MZ.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Financing 'space stuff' is on a scale all of its own. £3bn can easily come and go, with little (or even nothing) more than a litany of failures.

Then the chopsticks come along, your jaw drops and you think, "My gosh". It's straight out of the future that we never thought we'd see.

There is a lot not to like about Musk, but this is (in part) because he is one of the few big business leaders to stick his head above the parparet and tell people how he thinks it is. Imagine if some of the other, more unpopular, mega rich tycoons owning some of the really unpopular franchises, was to do that.

I don't think he believes that he is a charlatan which (in my book ) means he isn't. Intent is key. He might make big promises, but I don't think he makes them knowing them to be false. If others want to invest big money in his ideas, then that is up to them to study his plans and decide for themselves.

 

[Swank]

What do you mean by "the money is largely gone"? Spacex has a valuation of over $360bn. Are you saying there's some fraud in accounting, that it's actually worthless? I don't understand your point here.

Christine referred to the purchase order made by the US government that is used up. That has nothing to do with the valuation of a company, but whether that company fulfilled the order at the budget set, or is close.

Partly for tax reasons, but mostly because they're currently in use in the businesses he has assets in. If he withdrew them it could materially harm those businesses.

That isn't how it works. Musk's wealth is in shares. If he sold some of those shares (as he does when he wants to buy a social media company, or an election), those shares don't go away, they just change ownership. The company's books don't change in anyway, just who gets invited to the shareholder meeting.

And your misunderstanding is part of why there is such a problem with wealth in the world - most of the wealthiest people own nothing more than a share of a company that now has a high market value due to speculation. You can have a company like Theranos that has no actual proprietary knowledge or manufacturing capacity, but a lot of market enthusiasm. Or you can have a company like Boeing which has enormous manufacturing capacity and world beating technologies, but whose stock is in the toilet. Or you can have Bitcoin, which is not anything at all, but has a very high speculated value.


Maybe there is value in having a bunch of people all reaching for a pointless goal, but the last time we played this game we didn't get the extensive orbital infrastructure that moonshot enthusiasm was supposed to pay for. We got one worn out ISS out of the Space Shuttle program. So let's not fool ourselves that going to Mars once (or not, if it kills the crew) is going to be the first triumphant step in our mastery of the solar system. It's just another man in a barrel going over Niagara Falls.

Pardon me, Christine, for speaking in your sted.


Elon Musk is something like the Bitcoin of people. Like Sam Bankman-Fried, Musk's sociopathy strikes other high-rollers as audacious and visionary - but maybe that's just because broken people fool our empathy because you can't actually flaunt the societal norms you neither have nor understand. Asperger's is a disability, no matter how sexy someone wants to package it.


I don't think Musk has vision. He just had enough seed money left over to make a splash with his little boy enthusiasm for stuff that the uninformed think of as future-duper. But Mars is a low value asset. All of the hardship, none of the benefits. The interesting places in the solar system don't have any 19th century novels written about them, so there we are.


People like Musk and Fried and Zuckerberg are a product of our time - a time where people that believe in reality and admit uncertainty have been demoted as authority figures. We don't believe scientists, economists, epidemiologists or scholars. Instead we believe in the people that act like all the other idiots on Facebook, but show that their insistence in promoting nonsense can make someone successful. If one knucklehead can become a billionaire on pure gumption, golly we all can!

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

My question to you is: is the picture you paint above wholly accurate?

I wasn't saying that Musk was solely bankrolling SpaceX out of his savings like a hobby in his shed. It's a business. Businesses need investment.

When he was sued by the Thai diver guy, Musk's liquid assets were declared in court as 0. His wealth is entirely illiquid. Why doesn't he liquidate his assets to pay for his boondoggles? Partly for tax reasons, but mostly because they're currently in use in the businesses he has assets in. If he withdrew them it could materially harm those businesses.

When we say Musk has $450bn of wealth, we're really saying that his control over a portion of the economy is valued at $450bn. That value is generated (in Musk's case) because it's under his control. It's the markets fault.

When I say "rich enough" what I mean is he has the ability to direct investment because of his wealth, position, reputation and ability to secure capital. He could use that ability in any other sector if he chose, he could just focus on his existing enterprises, but I'm glad he's using it towards the dream of going to Mars. Even if it is just a dream.

re: funding etc.

The figures of govt investment I can find are accounted as follows:

• NASA: $14.4 billion for rocket launches and satellites
• Defence Department: $5.32 billion for rocket launches and satellites
• Classified contract: $1.8 billion in 2021
• Other contracts: At least $3.8 billion in 2024

Defence and classified contracts aside where it isn't public info, I can't see that he's failed to deliver on these contracts.

When you say "manned mission to the moon" do you mean Starship HLS - ($2.89 billion of the "other contracts" portion')?

I can find news that it's planned for a test launch in 2025 with a crewed test in 2027. Is that what you were referring to? Is it behind schedule? Or was there some other contract you were referring to?

What do you mean by "the money is largely gone"? Spacex has a valuation of over $360bn. Are you saying there's some fraud in accounting, that it's actually worthless? I don't understand your point here.

Is it fair to say SpaceX hasn't delivered anything since they've developed reusable rockets, engine designs etc? All this development seems like part of a roadmap to creating S/HLS rather than just empty flim/flam to attract more investment. It's not like he's taken the money and run off to the Bahamas. S/HLS is a long term project underway since at least 2010. I can't believe that they'd earmark just 3.8bn for a long term project.

I don't see what Musk is doing anything different from any other large astro / aero company. In 2023, Boeing were given $4.2 billion to develop Starliner by the govt, too and that's been dogged by delays and failures. Blue Origin had $3.4 billion in 2023 for Artemis. The US spent $72 billion on space projects in that year alone and that doesn't include DoD space programmes.

Are you opposed to govt investment in private companies? What am I missing here? I'm genuinely open to the idea that I'm wrong.

Does Musk overpromise and underdeliver at Tesla and his solar panels and so on? Sure. If you're saying that I have no arguments, but it seems a standard practice in these kinds of engineering businesses and the risk is accepted by the government precisely because of their experimental / skunkworks-like nature.

Apologies once again for the length. Respectfully, MZ.

His wealth is based on stock holdings, yes. The typical method of generating income for someone in that position is as follows: Money is borrowed from a bank with the stock as collateral. Loans, of course, are not taxable (which explains how the super rich pay so little tax). He did actually sell quite a lot of Tesla stock in order to purchase Twitter, after promising his cult members that he would not do so. Just another lie (who even counts these days?).

I'm surprised that you can't see where he has failed to deliver on the government space contracts. Its quite clear that targets are not even close to being met. It is, of course, ironic that he will soon be in charge of a government function (childishly named DOGE) that will be looking at value in gov spending. I bet he doesn't discover any problems with his own consumption of public dollars.

When I say 'the money is largely gone' I'm not referring to Space X market cap. I'm referring to the money given to Space X by the taxpayer. BTW, did you know that the public servant who awarded the multi billion dollar contract to Space X was hired by, er, Space X immediately after.

The solar panel business that you mention was being run by Musk's brother. It was in a bad way. He purchased it using Tesla, which was good for his brother but bad for Tesla. This lack of fiduciary duty to shareholders became the basis of a court case.

Yes, it has become standard practice these days to lie about products and technology. To say, for example, that you are going to Mars in a few years when you are certainly not. To say (in 2016) that you have "self driving" technology (alread better than a human dont you know) when, in 2024, you certainly do not. To say you have Saudi money to take your company private at an inflated valuation when you certainly do not. These things are not victimless. I could go on and on and on and on but this is at huge risk of becoming boring. And, yes, Musk is certainly not the only one who has discovered the depth of public gullability and the means to milk it for all it is worth.

Elizabeth Holmes must be watching all this from her jail cell and shaking her head in disbelief.