SpaceX will begin building the first ships that will make the human voyage to Mars possible in nine months from now. Elon Musk announced Friday at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, that his company will be able to send unmanned cargo ships to the red planet in 2022 and 100 explorers will make it to Mars by 2024.
Mars is sometimes located 54 million kilometers from Earth and other times at 401 million kilometers apart from us due to the planets’ constant motion as they rotate on their own and around the sun simultaneously.
The first unmanned cargo ships will be sent to deposit the components needed to build the first off-world colony and look for resources. Along with the crewed spaceship, another pair of cargo ships will be sent to establish the settlement.
Musk said at the world’s largest space conference that the upstart company has plans to use the Interplanetary Transport System to return to the Moon and also to settle rapid point-to-point passenger transportation on the astronomical body.
Travel on Earth could drastically change
Musk also announced that the spaceship designed for deep-space travel could drastically change the transport industry on Earth. He said the new reusable rocket ship, which would travel at up to 27,000 kilometers per hour, could also be used to take passengers to any earthly destination in less than an hour.
“If you build a ship that’s capable of going to Mars, what if you take that same ship and go from one place to another on Earth?” Musk said, as quoted by Space.com. “So we looked at that, and the results are quite interesting.”
He added in a follow-up Instagram post that the cost of a ticket on that ship would cost “about the same as a full fare economy in an aircraft”.
Musk released an astonishing video animation of a flight from New York to Shanghai that showed passengers boarding a ferry to reach a floating launch platform. They then entered the revolutionary spaceship and “blasted off for Shanghai”, as Space.com described the experience. While a conventional flight from New York to Shanghai takes about 15 hours, SpaceX claims it can reduce it to 39 minutes at a speed of 27,000 kilometers per hour.
The audiovisual presentation features the rocket’s first-stage booster separating in orbit and returning to land at its launch site. The spaceship continues its flight to Shanghai and lands on a platform. For the return trip, it is then loaded onto another booster.
Those amazing flights will help build the mass excitement Musk is pursuing around the Mars colonization topic. However, SpaceX will have to face many regulations and local concerns as opposed to his launches to space.
Investment and support will be needed
SpaceX has increased its launch frequency from eight in 2016 to 13 this year, which suggests that business is apparently good. However, the development of the new spaceship will cost $10 billion and it is unclear whether the revenue SpaceX currently obtains from launching satellites to the International Space Station is enough to fund the project.
SpaceX’s ambitious plans will require a lot of support and investment. The human voyage to Mars and off-world colonization will be actually possible if people and companies worldwide focus on the same goal, which could benefit everyone who believes life on Earth is full of threats such as Jihadism, nuclear weapons, global warming and North Korea.
Although space exploration is happening with the Hubble Space Telescope and deep space missions conducted from Pasadena by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the discoveries made through the use of these technologies haven’t had a collective impact compared with the first time humans reaching the Moon.
Mass excitement is what Elon Musk wants to produce when he says people not only will be able to reach a distant planet in the near future, but they can also build a whole colony on that full-scale world.
Dubbed BFR for Big F****** Rocket, the spaceship will carry astronauts to the Moon, which makes it a direct competition of NASA’s own Space Launch System (SLS). The space agency has plans to establish a station near the celestial body as part of its deep-space exploration project and it is unlikely that it will provide funding for the SpaceX’s spaceship.
NASA claims its vehicle will be giant and it already has many supporters in Congress, which controls the agency’s funding. Nevertheless, the SLS is an extremely expensive vehicle that won’t fly to the moon before 2023. It is unlikely that NASA will ignore the BFR if it starts lunar operations before the national space agency.
Source: Huffington Post
We cant get above low earth orbit, go to the moon, venus or uranus
All these worlds are ours except Europa. Attempt no landings there.
Rocket one guy beyond low earth orbit and bring him back (that would include verifiable video without the NASA CGI crap.)
With Elon Musk’s Tesla company on the verge of releasing affordable electric cars , and his new solar cell company , and battery factory , I am sure they will have the ability to pack light weight solar cells and batteries into his rockets AND the domestic sales of all the earthly products his company offers , he will be generating endless revenue for 2 or 3 decades ( His companies are THAT much more Advanced then others in the same fields ).
Colonizing the moon would be massively easier. And has many tangible economic benefits. I don’t understand why people are more excited about colonizing Mars.
What economic benefits do you perceive in a colony on the moon?
Available resources on the moon include abundant frozen water in the permanently shadowed craters which can be also used to make oxygen and rocket fuel. In the long term, examples include manufacture and launch of earth orbiting satellites, and mining and export of Helium 3 (rare on earth) for use in fusion power generation.
But in the short term (next few decades), economic viability will surely be driven by tourism and related activities such as broadcast of 1/6 gravity sports. Tourism will be the driver needed to jumpstart the moon economy.
The moon is also an ideal place for astronomy (no atmosphere), and there is talk of it being a valuable place for medical and industrial research.
Those enterprises strike me as highly speculative. Sure, people are willing to plunk down a thousand bucks to visit Hawaii, but asking them for a hundred times as much money to go to the moon is not likely to succeed. I’m sure that there’s some prospect of low-orbit tourism; that will probably be cheap enough in a few years to present a viable business model.
I suggest that we not get ahead of ourselves; let’s establish a low-orbit tourism market before committing to grander objectives. Sure, we can dream about it; it’s fun to dream. But let’s recognize that these are just dreams as yet.
Mars is a planet, it has water, it may have or may have had life, life may have come from Mars, we need to find out how life works, once we know we can manage life better also here on earth. The moon has nothing of that sort, except perhaps some minerals if you’re into mining.
EXPLORATION of Mars is a great idea for those reasons. In my opinion COLONIZATION of Mars is not economically viable. Neither a Mars nor a moon colony could survive without importing some resources from Earth. The moon’s proximity allows economically viable trade between Earth and the moon.
Humans built cities in the desert, just look at California, Nevada. Colonization will be viable eventually. We can figure out ways to filter, recycle water, to grow food on Mars, we can use nuclear power and we can even use nukes to terraform Mars eventually. The moon is great for tourism, sign seeing, and perhaps for mining, but Mars is way more important to discover all the secrets of life.
Mr. Charbax, you are offering speculation. I have no objection to speculation as such; my objection arises when people use speculation to justify specific plans. A plan cannot be built on hand-waving.
It’s called exploration, it’s what all species on earth have done for Billions of years to evolve, to improve themselves, to survive. What you’re offering is Humanity’s aimless meaningless self destruction through wars, Humanity’s implosion onto itself. Human exploration of space is a no brainer. There’s no hand-waving, just look the fuck up.
Mr. Charbax, I’m going to terminate this conversation, because, first, it’s obvious that you are getting emotional about this, and second, you are not being logical. Yes, humans improve themselves — but you assume that going to Mars will improve humanity. If we spent the same amount of money on education, don’t you think we’d get a bigger improvement in education? (The fact that you will deny this shows how far off into Cloud-Cuckoo Land you have flown).
And to blame ME for wars is beyond ridiculous.
Human exploration of space can be done much more cheaply with telescopes and unmanned vehicles. But I don’t think that you are motivated by any desire to explore, learn, or better humanity. I suspect that you are motivated by wildly unrealistic romanticism. You’ve watched too much Star Trek.
Someday we WILL put a research station on Mars. But doing it now would be horridly expensive. And wasting all that money will only serve to retard progress.
Good day, and vaya con dios.
The Mars Mission is in large part an educational project. You’ve never been involved with education if you cannot comprehend the basic affect such a Mission to Mars will have on the education sector. Kids don’t get inspired to do anything at school without such a large meaningful space exploration project. The Apollo Program inspired Billions of kids around the world which led to Trillions of dollars of creative economical development related to all aspects of society.
Today people spend $10 Billion per month on iPhones, Apple makes $100 Billion per year on selling the iPhone, building a station on Mars would probably cost about the same as 1 year’s worth of iPhones, it’s a piece of cake to realize sending Humans to Mars for that same amount of money is way more valuable for the world than the iPhone.
Only by sending geologists, scientists onto the surface of Mars will we ever be able to search and find fossils and other proof of past life on Mars, no space robot can achieve that much. A human Astronaut on Mars can explore in 1 day as much as a Rover can explore in 1 year. This is a no brainer. You are the one who isn’t motivated to explore, learn or better humanity.
Not going to Mars can lead to wars here on earth. If we work together with the Chinese, the Russians, the Middle-east, Europe, Japan, etc that is one of the best ways we can preserve a peace here on earth. The Apollo program probably prevented the Nuclear apocalypse as Russians looked at this human achievement with pride. In fact the Russians and their space race had a lot to do with it even being possible so even though they lost the space race they took a lot of pride in being part of that journey. And since the Apollo program, NASA has worked a lot with the Russian space program and it has probably been one of the main reasons we haven’t decended into apocalyptic nuclear self destruction here on Earth.
I agree. We are told the moon is 250,000 miles from earth, while mars is reportedly 34 million. NASA and Disney make a great pair.
while i love the idea of space exploration, the thought of risking an unpleasent death to walk on a barren red planet doesn’t seem very apealing to me.
Then don’t go. They won’t lack volunteers.
I think somebody should start a movement where humans take sledgehammers and smash all machines – before things get too far!
Ever heard of Ned Ludd?
Not gonna happen.
At the suggestion of one of our correspondents, I did some literature search and dug through some of the material offered by SpaceX. I was appalled.
1. It makes wildly optimistic estimates of performance. Mr. Musk is assuming an overall performance improvement of 5 million percent, or 4.5 orders of magnitude. Here are some examples of what that performance improvement would look like in other technologies:
Speed: your car would be able to go 5 million mph.
Speed: your old Apple II computer would operate at 50 GHz
Cost: your present computer would cost only $0.01
Capacity: an airliner could carry 5 million people on one trip.
Medicine: your life expectancy would increase to several hundred thousand years.
Income: your annual salary would be about $2.5 billion
Do you see just how insane Mr. Musk’s assumptions are? He presents lots of arguments to support his argument, but they don’t add up to a factor of 50,000 in improvement. For example, he talks about getting 10% improvement in fuel density. That doesn’t get you very far towards 5 million %.
2. He makes misleading promises. For example, he says that he can reduce travel times to “as low as” 30 days. All the conventional estimates put the travel time at between 150 and 300 days.
3. He mentions that he thinks that he has figured out how to pay for it, but the only financing he talks about is passengers paying a few hundred thousand dollars. Multiply a few hundred thousand dollars by 100 passengers and you get a few tens of millions of dollars. Not even close to even $1 billion.
4. What most astounded me was his complete failure to address any of the requirements of a colony of 100 people on Mars. Nothing about heating, air, water, medicine, food — absolutely nothing! Does he think that living on Mars is like a picnic at the city park?
5. Why should we go to Mars? Because there will be an extinction event someday, and we need to have an alternative home. But we have had only about one extinction event every hundred million years. But hey, let’s be pessimistic — let’s say that earth will experience an extinction event once every million years. That means that we still have another million years before we need to worry.
I find all of this to be wild, crazy pie-in-the-sky nonsense. Yes, it sounds fun. It won’t be.
They design orbital boosters that land. A year ago that was crazy pie in the sky nonsense. I’m sure there’s somebody in there who has mastered basic math, is working on a packing list, who has a plan. And a bunch of real life rocket scientists poking holes in the plan.
Musk delivers. Not always on time, never the mundane. But here we are.
Mr. Musk is obviously talented at building great teams. That does not mean that he can accomplish anything. When he publishes a thorough plan, we can then determine whether this is pie in the sky or not.
Welp, you can say one thing, this would be the coolest way to absolutely waste billions of dollars. No way using that money to turn earth’s wastelands into fertile oasis world be as sexy. Sex sells and y’all pro-mars dummies are buying it. This will be like Sewards Icebox for Elon only this time there’s definitely no value in it. Will be their undoing.
Here’s how Elon Musk needs to convince all the giant tech companies, NASA and other countries to contribute funding $100 Billion for this Mars Mission through this easy funding:
$10 Billion Tesla/SpaceX stock offer
$5 Billion Alphabet/Google purchase 10-year YouTube broadcasting rights
$5 Billion Apple brand iPhones/Macs for mission
$5 Billion Microsoft brand Windows11 for mission
$5 Billion Amazon exclusively sell merchandize etc
$10 Billion China
$10 Billion EU
$10 Billion Japan/SoftBank
$10 Billion Russia
$10 Billion Middle-east (Qatar, Emirates, Saudi-Arabia)
$20 Billion USA 10% of NASA Budget for Mars mission over next decade at $2B/year
$100 Billion = Total funding that should easily be available for Humans to Mars mission on SpaceX’s Big Fucking Rockets
Why in the world would ANY of these groups spend this kind of money? Their stock offering will not attract any rational investors, because the business plan does not include any basis for ANY income from the project. It’s money down the drain.
Apple and Microsoft could not possibly gain $10 billion in additional sales through such sponsorship. And why would all those countries give that much money to Mr. Musk? What’s in it for them? And do you really think that the average American taxpayer is willing to give ~$100 to make this happen?
$5 Billion doesn’t even cover the TV rights for the Soccer World Cup in 2018. You really believe that sending dozens of Humans to Mars will not be worth at least as much as 3 weeks of Soccer matches on TV? Do you have any concept of the value of money? Apple makes more money in a month than it would cost them to fund 10% of this Humans to Mars mission, you really think it’s more valuable to sell a few overpriced Smartphones than to send humans to another planet?
Microsoft makes $85 Billion in revenue per year. Doing pretty much nothing. Microsoft has a responsibility towards their own decency to at least fund $5 Billion into this project. And if you don’t believe that Microsoft branding hundreds of millions of Computers and Laptops with the Mars mission and proudly branding Microsoft logos on the side of all these rockets and on the background of all these years and years of live broadcasts that Billions of people around the world will watch passionately, you need to stop and think for a minute when you think you know that such mission has no value.
NASA’s yearly budget is a bit below $20 Billion per year. I am SIMPLY suggesting that NASA should dedicate just ONLY about 10% of its budget to this project. In fact logically this should be a much higher priority than 10% of the yearly NASA budget over a decade. Let NASA use 20% of their funds towards it and let the US Congress double that Mars contribution and NASA would thus be funding $40 Billion to the Humans to Mars project over the decade.
Put James Cameron down for a couple billion for the film rights.
“I’m going to shoot a Martian Epic – on location.”
Yea one of those James Cameron computer graphics movies generates more cash than the cost of sending actual humans to Mars, this alone should kill any argument against this project.
If Mr. Cameron can make billions using CGI, why does he need to film the real thing? CGI would be much cheaper.
Why only one space ship? They’ll probably be sending several BFRs at the same time. Makes no sense to rely only on one per Earth to Mars opportunity. I think the first BFRs shouldn’t travel at full capacity, there may only be 20 or so people per BFR on the first few that get sent. Just so they get extra comfort and extra space. The full capacity 100 people per spaceship could be later once they land quickly on Mars and that Mars already has a more significant station for the hundreds of Marstronauts to be comfortable on Mars all living there for at least a year and a half all at the same time before the next Mars to Earth opportunity.
They have to take a lot of equipment and supplies.
Go Musk!! … Given the health issues and other risks, there is probably a strong argument for sending people over 50 in the first several waves of new colonists. People with a vast set of life and technology experiences that have a lot to contribute to the mission, and at the same time have the least to loose should something go so badly wrong as to take their lives. Besides, they have been “in line” for their entire lives for this awesome adventure.
Mr. Musk is not being realistic about his plans to colonize Mars. The amount of material required to support 100 colonists is far more than can be shipped in three or four rocket loads. Consider:
A. The surface of Mars is much colder than that on Antarctica.
B. The atmosphere is inadequate to support life.
C. The sun is twice as far away as it is from Earth.
1. They will need huge amounts of energy to maintain living temperatures. This will have to come from solar cells, but they will need acres and acres of solar cells, weighing tens of tons, to supply enough energy to meet the colony’s needs.
2. They will need a huge stock of batteries to store electricity through the nights. More tens of tons.
3. Recycling water will not be 100% efficient; they will need large stocks of water to replace their losses. Add more tens of tons.
4. Since some air loss is unavoidable, they will need stocks of spare oxygen.
5. They will need adequate medical facilities; add more tons.
6. They will need a huge stock of tools and spare parts to deal with the inevitable problems that will arise.
7. If anything goes wrong, it will take two years for a ship bringing replacement materials to arrive.
8. One serious mistake, or many small mistakes, and they all die.
9. Worst of all, the whole boondoggle is a black hole for money. Billions of dollars pour in and nothing comes out. There is no way that this colony can produce anything of value to people on earth. Who will pay for all that? Not venture capitalists. Not banks. Not companies. Yes, they could run a Kickstarter program, but do you really think that they can come up with a few hundred billion bucks on Kickstarter?
Your comment(s) should be in the form of questions rather than statements of categorical paranoia. Musk says that he reasons from “first principles” and knows that all functions of science and engineering have always demanded the utmost in preparation. You simply need to be educated.
The problem, Mr. Rotating, is the Mr. Musk has not disclosed any of the details of his plans. He is simply declaring, “We’ll do it!” when the difficulties of doing it are immense. I believe that most people drastically underestimate the amount of “stuff” they use in their daily lives. They think, “All I need is food, clothing, and shelter.” But they also need air to breath, water to drink and wash with, a goodly variety of food, and endless other things. I suppose that you could pull it off if you kept each one of them caged in a small box like animals. But if you want them to be able to live decent lives, you’ll need much more.
Again, neither you nor Mr. Musk has explained how these problems will be solved. Is it not foolish to pursue a goal that we don’t know we can reach?
He has personally explained enough in his minutes upon the stage and what he has not explained is dealt with elsewhere in the considerable literature. Refine your specific questions and ask Siri…
Elon Musk is not the president, but he simply stated he’ll do it, just as JFK stated in 1960 that we’ll go to the Moon, we’re MUCH MUCH closer today to have all the technology necessary to reach Mars than we were in 1960 to reach the Moon, in 1960 the USA barely had any rocket that could reach space without exploding.
an ex-nazi put us on the moon, german engineering.
I disagree. There’s a gigantic difference between sending 3 men a quarter of a million miles for about a week and sending 100 people 100 million miles for several years. Mr. Musk himself says that he needs to make the technology 50,000 times better to achieve his goal. The difference between a V2 and a Saturn V is much less than 50,000.
Elon Musk’s BFR is pretty much same as Saturn 5 which we had 50 years ago in 1967. Both lift approximately 150 tons to low earth orbit. Sure Elon Musk’s BFR is much better, it can lift more people, but suggesting that it needs 50 thousand times better tech to realize compared with Saturn V is stupid.
Mr. Musk is the source of the 50,000 number. He began his talk by stating that, in order to make the plan work, he must improve the technology by a factor of 5 million %.
Go see for yourself.
You’re completely misunderstanding Elon Musk’s point. He simply says that building a fully reusable space ship, refilling in orbit, propellant production on Mars, and choosing the right propellant makes things 5 million % more cost effective at ultimately $200 thousand per ticket than to send a Human to Mars on a $10 Billion per ticket. That’s what 5 million % means here. It’s just about being smart. It’s why people can fly on Cheap Airplanes for Thousands of miles for $25 tickets right now when the airplane costs $90 Million to buy for the airline. The airplanes are fully reusable and their only cost is the fuel and employees, pilots, airport taxes and other details like that. Sure the $200’000 Mars return ticket is not going to be from fucking day 1. The first few spaceships will cost Billions of dollars, for sure. But Elon Musk just suggests that by mass producing fully reusable spaceships and producing the Mars to Earth return propellant using Water and CO2 on Mars, that just fucking reduces the price significantly of that return trip. It’s a vision where a decade from now, SpaceX may be able to produce hundreds of spaceships that are fully re-usable constantly flying full capacity of 100+ passengers per spaceship to Mars then the ticket price comes down to something more affordable.
In Mr. Musk’s paper, he makes it quite clear that the 5 million percent improvement is a requirement for success. He then asks how that improvement can be achieved, and provides a long list of approaches that will help. However, he does not quantitatively show that he will achieve the required increase in efficiency. He simply says, “Look at all these cool ideas! Together, they’ll get us there!” I would prefer a more specific plan.
I have no objections to Mr. Musk’s speculations. I object to those who treat those speculations as established facts.
Humans can solve all these issues, it’s not a problem to simply send more and more spaceships in advance on 2022 and also send several in parallel on 2024, there’s no rule that says that they can only send 1 space ship at the time. In fact Elon Musk plans to mass produce the spaceship and have most of it be re-usable. He’s already proven that he can re-use space rockets, he’s proven a lot of stuff. And Humans have way enough money to finance this and all the R&D that comes out of it will be worth much more than the cost of the investment. For example the new materials, the new solar panel efficiency, etc all those things will be useful here on earth too. And there’s no need to send full 100-astronaut per spaceship capacity on the first few spaceships, he can send 20 or so and have them bring up more resources on the first few Earth to Mars opportunities starting in 2022.
Sure, we could send THOUSANDS of ships.
But who’s going to pay for them?
Give it a rest, Chris.
Not thousands, but a bunch. The patents that will come with building these will bring in more cash than the cost of investment into this project. I posted above how they can easily find $100 Billion to fund the project. Google/Apple/Amazon/Microsoft should each pay $5 Billion and countries USA/EU/China/Japan/Middle-East each pay $10 Billion and that would be plenty enough to fund. And there is a TON of things this will bring to earth, learning where life comes from thus learning how to build and preserve life brings immense value. Patents in better solar panels, better space rockets, all types of tech needed to sustain life on Mars will bring 100x more than the investment.
If you were selling this as an investment, I would consider it to be a con job. You make grand promises but offer absolutely nothing in the way of evidence to support any of those promises. This whole thing is pie in the sky.
Look around your house. 90% of it exists only thanks to the Humans to Moon missions of the 1960ies and 1970ies by NASA. We have proof that the investments made on Apollo missions were paid back 1000 times or more. People like you being so lame and not realizing that simple proof of the return on investment of space exploration demonstrates how the wrong people (mainly dumb politicians) with zero understanding of the value of space exploration are the reason Humans have gone nowhere since 1972.
“90% of it exists only thanks to the Humans to Moon missions of the 1960ies and 1970ies by NASA.”
WHAT?!?!?! What in the world are you talking about??? No, the Apollo program did not invent laundry detergent, oak furniture, leather shoes, corian, cardboard, fiberglas, concrete, roof tiles, 2×4 studs, glass, curtains, doors, carpets, toilets, pipes, plastic, refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, milk, water, meat, bread, Coca Cola, eyeglasses, dogs, or cats.
Your assertion is wildly off base.
“People like you being so lame and not realizing that simple proof of the return on investment of space exploration”
Yes, much of space exploration has proven quite cost-effective. But the greatest benefit of the space program is the satellites in orbit around the earth. They bring fabulous benefits. But the fact that SOME space programs have been beneficial does not mean that ALL space programs are necessarily beneficial.
I have asked repeatedly what benefits a colony on Mars would bring, and not one person has given a single solid answer. So again I ask, how would humanity benefit from having a colony on Mars?
Not only did the Apollo Moon missions bring immediate inventions that likely are important to your life today such as the CAT scanner used for cancer-detecting technology, the Computer microchip decendent of the Apollo Guidance Computer, cordless tools such as power drills, vacuum cleaners, the ear thermometer, freeze-dried food, insulation technologies in your house probably decend from Apollo R&D, transparent ceramics such as used in Invisible braces cause your teeth are probably all skewed, the joystick you use for gaming was first invented for use on the Apollo Lunar Rover, memory foam in your bed’s mattress and in your bicycle/motorcycle helmet was invented for aircraft seats to soften landing, satellite television, you mentioned that, scratch resistant lenses on your smartphone invented for astronaut helmet visor coating, shoe insoles probably in your shoes were invented to lessen impact by adding spring and ventilation, your smoke detector was invented by Nasa with sensitivity levels to prevent false alarms, you probably have a swimsuit which was developed by NASA using the same principles that reduce drag in space to help create the world’s fastest swimsuit for Speedo, rejected by some professionals for giving an unfair advantage, probably most of the bottled water you drink uses Apollo Mission technology where they perfected water filtering technology.
Those are just a FEW of the THOUSANDS of inventions that ONLY exist because of the Apollo mission to the Moon announced and put into motion thanks to JFK.
Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon probably would not exist today if not thanks to the Apollo mission, as those founders were only interested in science and technology because of that. Same for most of the technologies in your Smartphone, Laptop, Desktop computer and in your TV, all come from people that would only have done the work thanks to the Apollo Moon project. The Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities, all those spun off pretty much 90% of what you have in your house today.
The Humans to Mars mission will enable us to master and control Life on earth, it will create a basis for world peace, it will bring us crucial technologies in the areas of sustainable renewable energy, it will make us perfect technologies that will enable Humanity to survive managing water resources more effeciently. The Humans to Mars program will probably bring Medical technologies that will make us all live 2x longer. I’m just scratching the surface of what is possible. You have Billions of people all around the world, all the world’s children who will be focused on this Mars mission (instead of playing video-games and twittering/instagramming), this will bring immense 1000x returns on the investment.
Apparently this website doesn’t like citations; here is my post without its citation:
I
think that you vastly overstate the technological benefits of the Apollo
missions. For example, the integrated circuit was most definitely NOT
created for Apollo; research in that direction started in 1958, before
Apollo was even envisioned. And in fact, the Apollo missions did not use that much integrated circuitry because at the time it was not
considered totally reliable and the computer systems were designed well before much integrated circuitry had been developed.
The CAT scanner was most definitely NOT created for Apollo; it wasn’t invented until 1972, AFTER most of the moon landings. And on top of that, it was invented in Britain!
I don’t have time to chase down the other citations to disprove you otherclaims, but I think your credibility has been blown out of the water by these first two examples. I agree that there were indeed some technological benefits from the Apollo program, but they are nowhere near as great as you represent them to be.
The CAT scanner was first used to find imperfections in space components by NASA. I’m not suggesting everything was invented in the United States, I am suggesting that the Apollo Mission made all these things possible, NASA made the fucking orders for the first fucking units to be used for fucking space stuff!!! Jack Kilby’s 1958 integrated circuit had external wire connections, making mass production impossible, Robert Noyce’s 1959 microchip was not enough for mass production neither. The Apollo Guidance Computer needed to process, analyse and act in real-time in a Space Mission and thus in 1961, NASA tasked the MIT to develop the Apollo Guidance Computer. By 1963, the MIT, during the testing and development of the Apollo Guidance Computer was using 60% of the whole world’s available integrated circuits, it was this early NASA/MIT Apollo requirement that helped spur the computer industry into further development, production and marketing of integrated circuits. The first commercially available product for sale was a hearing aid amplifier in 1964.
Your statement is that these technologies would not have existed without the Apollo program. But you admit that they were invented outside of the Apollo program. Do you really claim that, absent the Apollo program, electronics companies would have shrugged their shoulders and said, “Who needs integrated circuits? We might as well just drop it.”?
Do we owe the entire computer industry to washing machines? They were the reason why Intel made the 4004.
Technological development is not linear; it follows a braidwork of paths, with different factors coming into play at different points. This point was made magnificently some 40 years ago with the television series “Connections”. I urge you to find and watch this series, unless you have already seen it.
Modern technology has many sources. Yes, NASA made many contributions, but they would have happened without NASA. The big computer companies like IBM and DEC sneered at the little microcomputers, so little guys like Jobs and Wozniak simply did it themselves.
Indeed, a case can be made that NASA actually slowed technological development. This arises from what is called in business “opportunity cost”. If all of that money had been dedicated to a combination of pure science and applied science, we would also have gained a huge pile of technological advances. It is likely that research dedicated to pursuits other than space would have produced more economic benefits.
Steve Wozniak’s father worked for NASA and the Apollo program, he was a Silicon Valley aerospace engineer which is the ONLY reason Apple exists today. Wozniak became enthusiastic about technology and computer engineering from an early age for example he did a sixth grade science fair project, when his father, WORKING FOR NASA AND THE APOLLO PROGRAM, taught him how transistors could be used to build a machine that plays tic-tac-toe.
To quote Jeff Bezos, there would have been NO AMAZON TODAY if not thanks to the Apollo program “Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.”
Sergey Brin’s mother worked as a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. There would have been no Google without Apollo.
I’m sure we can find proof that also Microsoft wouldn’t have been possible without the Apollo program.
Early ICs cost about $1000 each in 1960. By 1963, demand created by the Apollo program had driven the price down to about $25. This helped other industries find applications for ICs, and use of the technology spread. That’s the whole point of what the Apollo Program brought to the world. It focused millions of people on a same technological goal, this dramatically improved all aspects of society and to suggest that such space exploration projects don’t bring back way more value than the investment is just being dumb.
“which is the ONLY reason Apple exists today.”
“There would have been no Google without Apollo.”
Oh, c’mon! This is wildly hyperbolic and assumes that everything has just one cause. Suppose that Mary gets up in the morning and prepares to go to work. She always leaves at 7:30, but today her husband Tom asks her to do something for him, making her two minutes late. On the way to work, a drunk driver smashes into her car and kills her. You would blame Tom for her death.
Your reasoning is absurd.
Chris! We’re humans! Why are you expecting us to be logical?!
NASA has gone nowhere beyond low earth orbit. Tesla did not need a fake nasa program to invent things.
If you want to invest in sugar water, more power to you.
Some of the world’s shrewdest investors, with the deepest pockets, are lining up for a chance to put their money in.
Which investors?
For example when Humans went to the Moon, it brough us pretty much everything you have in your house. Your smartphones, the Internet, the Web, color TV, computers, and about a thousand other important things that we use everyday that we all take for granted, ALL came out of the Humans to the Moon mission, saying that space exploration is a waste of money is purely dumb.
all those would have been invented without the moon missions. bill gates and steve jobs didn’t need nasa to create their inventions. RCA invented the color tv without neil armstrong. you are a good salesman though.
It’s not a matter of R&D for SpaceX. They have everything they need on the shelf.
sounds like a moon landing only 250,000 mile away. Mars is 34 million