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

On 5/01/2025 7:40 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:

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!

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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.
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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 well use his political position to get more support for a Mars mission
That Super Heavy spacecraft could do it.

It could perhaps take somebody to Mars, but keeping them alive there for any length of time would require a whole sequence of very expensive trips.

'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?

Traveling there is just half the story.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney