Re: OT?: Musk: We are going straight to Mars

On a sunny day (Sun, 5 Jan 2025 01:16:14 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vlbfre$g439$1@dont-email.me>:

On 4/01/2025 10:46 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Sat, 4 Jan 2025 11:24:13 +0000) it happened Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in <vlb5ou$efa1$1@dont-email.me>:
 

On 04/01/2025 08:06, Jan Panteltje wrote:

Elon Musk: “We’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction.”
What to make of Musk's comments that are critical of NASA's lunar plans?
   https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/elon-musk-were-going-straight-to-mars-the-moon-is-a-distraction/

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He's already on a different planet!
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By all means send him to Mars (one way ticket) and good riddance!

 
Na. I like it
A Mars landing will improve the standing of the US too.
And it may confirm life there (sample return possible too).

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It might, but probably won't.
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and confirm the Viking positive experiment:
  http://www.gillevin.com/

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It wasn't exactly positive.
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Else...
China will land on Mars and claim all of it and find life there.
:-)

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Why would they bother?

Moon has always been part of China ;-)

So many money sucking NahSah projects, driving around the block doing acrobatics
going nowhere.
If Columbus had been that way the Aztecs would still rule :-)

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Columbus didn't expect to discover America - he though the earth was
smaller than Eratosthenes had worked it out to around 300BC and that
he'd get to China. Most people at time correctly though that he was nuts.
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I remember those Moon landings, was at the National TV network control room
relaying it to the country here.
It united much of humanity, very inspiring.
 
Now US cannot even go there it seems.

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It was an expensive stunt, very attention-getting at the time - I
watched it while I was doing the final tidying up on my Ph.D. thesis.
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The US is working on going back there, but with rather more emphasis on
finding out useful information.
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Hope Musk makes it while I am still around.

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He's too busy cultivating Donald Trump to bother.

He may wel use his politcal position to get more suport for a Mars mission
That Super Heavy spacecraft could do it.
'When' depends a lot on the date:
 https://www.cnbctv18.com/india/science/what-is-the-earth-mars-transfer-window-know-the-best-time-to-travel-to-red-planet-19478425.htm
  2026?