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From PayPal to Planetary Travel 97

Posted by CowboyNeal from the adventure-capitalists dept.
A user writes "PayPal founder Elon Musk muses about his plans to send rockets to space and his eventual hopes for making life 'multi-planetary.' 'I said I wanted to take a large fortune and make it a small one, so I started a rocket business,' Musk said. SpaceX is not new, but in a speech at Virginia Tech, Musk talked about the company's troubles and its lawsuit against Boeing and Lockheed as he tries to get a slice of the valuable Air Force contracts."
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From PayPal to Planetary Travel More

From PayPal to Planetary Travel

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  • Oh boy (Score:3, Funny)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @12:52AM (#14790691)
    I can't wait to start getting helpful unsolicited emails informing me that someone's attempted to use my SpaceX account that I don't even have to purchase tickets to Mars.

    Damn phishers.
    • Are the numerous launch announcements followed shortly by the "why it didn't launch this time" emails shortly thereafter :)

    • Dear Mr DrMrLordX,

      Your contact information was referred to me by one of my trusted contacts, whose name I am not at liberty to compromize. I would like to approach you with reguards to a profitable Business Proposal, reguarding the transfer of 10 Space flight tickets (Value $10,000,000 U.S. Dollars) into your custodianship. For reasons I am sure you will appreciate, I ask that you keep this commucation confidential, and avoid it falling into the hands of any agents of the Nigerian Secret Police that may be
    • We are contacting you to remind you that: on 18 Feb 2006 our Account Review Team identified some unusual activity in your account, one or more attempts to log in to your SpaceX account from a foreign IP address. In accordance with SpaseX's User Agreement and to ensure that your account has not been compromised, access to your account was limited. Your account access will remain limited until this issue has been resolved. To secure your account and quickly restore full access, we may require some additional
  • The former CEO of paypal just dropped a $100k matching challenge to the singularity challenge. Transcend humanity first, then the stars are nothing in comparison. Why terraform for oxygen when you can run on antimatter?
    • Why? You can't survive off of antimatter. O2 is rather helpful in that sense.
      • Why? You can't survive off of antimatter. O2 is rather helpful in that sense.

        The typical Singularitarian answer would probably involve you uploading your consciousness via a Moravec transfer [everything2.com] into a robot, which would then be able to survive off the antimatter without any need for oxygen. Or something.

    • Re:Peter Thiel is the one who matters. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @01:37AM (#14790841) Journal
      The former CEO of paypal just dropped a $100k matching challenge to the singularity challenge. Transcend humanity first, then the stars are nothing in comparison. Why terraform for oxygen when you can run on antimatter?

      Don't get me wrong -- I kind of like the Singularity Institute. However, could you point me towards some of the technological advancements they've been responsible for recently, or some of their research publications? As far as I can tell, there's zero.
    • ...antimatter gives me the runs something terrible.

      While I appreciate their audacity, I don't think they have a serious appreciation of just how complex, heavily multiplexed and interdependent our brains and supporting systems are.
  • Last I checked (astronautix.com, spacex.com), you will still get more kg in orbit per dollar spent with RKK Energia than SpaceX.

    • Re:Price? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @01:20AM (#14790782) Homepage
      Huh? Lets start from the beginning.

      Small payload rockets are much more expensive per kilogram than large rockets - $15-30k/kg typically. Falcon 1 is $9k. Very, very cheap for this market.

      For midsized and large rockets, costs typically range from $7k-15k/kg. Energia was $8.6k/kg. Falcon V is predicted to be $2.9k/kg. Falcon 9 is predicted to be $2.9k/kg. Falcon 9-S5 is predicted to be $3k/kg. Falcon 9-S9 is predicted to be $3.1k/kg. Again, very, very cheap. And the size of a Falcon 9-S9, if they make it that far, is monstrous. A regular Falcon 9 would compete with an Ariane 5, but a 9-S9 would be a shuttle competitor. Real heavy lift.

      If Musk can really pull this off, he deserves a medal. And a fat roster of contracts ;)
      • Soyuz and Proton are $2.38k/kg. I'm not willing to cheer for SpaceX until after they have a sucessful launch.
      • There's a lot more going on than just the size of the rocket. Launch frequency also matters and that's one of the key advantages of the Russian program is that it launches relatively frequently. A small rocket might for the same number of launches be more costly (per kg) than a large rocket. However, small rockets frequently launched might achieve better costs per kg than large rockets launched at a much lower frequency.
      • So far, their track record isn't too impressive. I think with the whole Kwajalin fiasco, he's starting to learn some of the hard lessons that the big boys learned back in the 1940's and 1950's, and why it really is so expensive to do this stuff.

        His answer? Sue the big boys. Because his personal libertarian ideology won't allow him to wrap his brain around the fact that you can't safely and reliably put satellites into orbit with just a bunch of guys in their garage and a dream.

        The French have learned, th
        • Quite true (wow, astute rocketry commentary on Slashdot? No way! :) ). Modern rocketry is not some hugely profitable industry just waiting for some brilliant person to sieze it. It's a nasty, tough, long hard slog to make a buck and reduce launch costs.

          The big redeeming factor for Musk is that his launch cost figures are so far out of the ballpark this late in the game that even if they increase by 50%, they're still reasonable. Heck, even if they double, it's still not a *bad* deal.
          • Don't get me wrong, I think he's done amazing things with the development of his engines (assuming they actually perform in real-life like they do on paper). The increases in power and efficiency - if real, will be a great advancement. The scalability just hasn't been proven yet.

        • I think with the whole Kwajalin fiasco, he's starting to learn some of the hard lessons that the big boys learned back in the 1940's and 1950's, and why it really is so expensive to do this stuff.

          Could you elaborate on what you mean by "Kwajalein fiasco"? If you're referring to the hitches he's had in getting to his first launch, could you elaborate on what makes them different from the hitches regularly experienced by other launch companies?
          • Yes, the failure to plan for adequate capacity and delivery schedule for LOX, coupled with a couple of unfortunate equipment failures; these kinds of problems happen when you've got an accountant making engineering decisions - trying to cut costs, and finding out that when you do that, and unexpected things happen (and with such complex systems, unexpected things DO happen), and you get things like collapsed fuel tanks, and then you have to take everything apart, and keep your crew on that island for many m
    • Personally I think the company that will make the most headway and profit in space is the one which devises a way to get us there for much less per kg. Even the lightest space station weighs in the tons and at $20k/kg it's quite difficult to make a profit. There was a German company a while back that had some great ideas (http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/otrag.htm [astronautix.com]) but we need to make serious inroads here before space will *really* become profitable.
      • the comapny which figures out how to build in space. why transport a space station in pieces using boosters which you're going to toss back in to the gravity well. Instead, weld the ends shut on the boosters, throw in some control and life support equipment, and you've got a low cost space station in orbit.

        • Re:Or better yet.... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @01:49AM (#14790882) Homepage
          Not *nearly* that easy.

          First off, boosters typically get jettisoned at unstable altitudes. If you wanted to take the space shuttle main tanks up to LEO, for example, you'd have to fly without payload. You'd need to bring up everything that goes in and on the tank in subsequent flughts.

          Secondly, space stations are far more than an airtight container. They're hundreds of thousands to millions of parts, each needing to be attached. Often this involves breaches of your structure, which you would need to make re-airtight at many points.

          The shapes are often odd. They often have complicating factors, such as residual chemicals or clouds of insulation or outgassing around them. They may not weld well. And in-space assembly itself is already incredibly difficult (not to mention that an astronaut in orbit is the highest labour cost you'll ever find).

          It's much easier just to build it on the ground and launch it. Even Skylab, which was just a modified upper stage, was modified on the ground (even then it had problems). It just makes more economic and structural sense to do your work here on Earth, even if it means more (or bigger) launches. And yes, this has been considered before - what would later become ISS had the possibility of being made of shuttle ETs considered several times.
          • ...in order to be able to take some payload, but your basic point remains sound. Shuttles are effing expensive beasts to run. Far better to use something much simpler, more robust and reliable which more importantly was designed to do exact what you want to achieve.
      • Personally I think the company that will make the most headway and profit in space is the one which devises a way to get us there for much less per kg.

        That's pretty much SpaceX's business plan... reducing launch prices by at least an order of magnitude
      • Go Russian and you're looking at $2.38k/kg for a Soyuz or Proton. Perhaps even less for a Volna. That launch rates are way down (2004 was the lowest year since 1961) is rather troubling, though.
  • Is PayPal still evil? Was the ripping off of small-time eBayers part of the great good of getting Mankind into space?

  • I am sick of hearing about these 'Internet boys'.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zymano ( 581466 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @01:18AM (#14790771)
    What is it with them ? Like the Amazon owner who wants to get into rockets, now this guy and don't forget Richard British guy who tries to break every meaningless record.

    News. We have rockets already.

    Try and beat Pegasus for cost/lb.

    • Don't forget John Carmack, the creator of Doom. He's now applying his creativity and physics knowledge to his Armadillo Aerospace project.
      • In a couple years, he may even have finally settled on a propellant choice! Who knows, it may even have an ISP greater than 200! ;)

        Don't get me wrong. I like Carmack. I even idolized him a bit when I was younger. But Armadillo Aerospace is just amusing. It's hard to take seriously even as a "space" tourism concept, let alone a concept that could come close to bordering on nearing the possibility of theoretically, even with a few deus ex machinas thrown in for good measure, reaching orbit.
    • Falcon 1 trashes Pegasus in price per pound. Check it out on astronautix.

      Assuming Musk's numbers are legit, he's trashed the light payload launch market's numbers already, and is prepping to trash the medium and heavy payload market's numbers in the same way. If this is the case, we're talking about the first major rocketry cost reductions since the 1960s.

      Of course, that's a very big "If". Lets hope he actually pulls it off; this is a project that space enthusiasts really should really be cheering, not a
    • Although your post is flamebait, I somewhat agree. I am sick of hearing about guys like Musk and Levchin who became rich by creating a company that treated customers HORRIBLY and had questionable financial and legal activities, some of which PayPal was fined millions for and some which are still being examined.

      But none of that seems to matter, now that they're rich and making big toys? I disagree.
  • "I said I wanted to take a large fortune and make it a small one, so I started a rocket business"

    Mr. Musk, I believe that innovations are made by man trying to find an easier way to do something (A.K.A. the desire to be lazy). The rocket business sounds like a lot of work, so why don't you and I innovate, and we'll buy me a new house to help you achieve your goal of having a smaller fortune. I don't mind, really. I will do anything to help.

  • Well sure. (Score:4, Funny)

    by gold23 ( 44621 ) <org@slashdot@2.oolong@com> on Friday February 24, 2006 @01:28AM (#14790810) Homepage
    He'd get in trouble if he tried to send his rockets someplace on Earth.

  • Columbia explosion... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Eightyford ( 893696 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @01:34AM (#14790831) Homepage
    Charles Hill, professor of aerospace and ocean engineering, said the university had a $1 million spacecraft that was mothballed after the Columbia explosion.

    Whatever happened to the good ol' days where astronauts had balls and the administrators let them prove it? Spaceflight is a little dangerous, sure; but I'd volunteer if I was given a 50/50 chance of returning alive. I'm sure many other people would too.
    • Spaceflight is a little dangerous, sure; but I'd volunteer if I was given a 50/50 chance of returning alive. I'm sure many other people would too.

      Okie. I volunteer Eightyford for SpaceX, too.

      Soko

    • I think the problem is not having a hand in the launch at all. I believe many astronauts would, as you say, volunteer if only there was a way to personally check every detail of flight. The problem today is that getting on a rocket today is almost like playing Russian roulette with an automatic; all an astronaut does is sit back and enjoy the ride...

      Make going into space more like driving, and most NASCAR racers would probably sign up right away.
    • Spaceflight is a little dangerous, sure; but I'd volunteer if I was given a 50/50 chance of returning alive.

      But the real question is: If you did return unharmed, would you volunteer for a second flight?
    • America could have beat the Russians to put a man in orbit but launched up a chimp instead. Administrators shut down requests from astronauts to take the chimp's place just so we could beat the Russians to the moon. So America had to content itself with the first to put a primate into orbit.
    • I agree.

      And it's not just astronauts. All the explorers who discovered new lands and the new world were all folks who were willing to take the risks.

      You're not going to get ahead if you are not willing to take chances, the safest path is often the most stagnant path.

      These days, people have lost the balls to do risky things. Are we so far gone that we're not willing to take an odd risk or two?
  • Since there's already been a few of the inevitable complaints/jokes about PayPal, let me be the first to remind people that Elon Musk sold PayPal to eBay several years ago, and no longer has any sort of affiliation with the company.
  • Perhaps he should invest in some cosmic shielding research. I was just reading an article eariler today in the current issue of Scientific American that you could end up reaching Mars with severe DNA and brain damage [sciam.com]. The obstacles do not lie in the innovation of rockets, but in protecting the traveler.

    • Re:Cosmic Radiation? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @02:01AM (#14790921) Homepage
      Almost everything comes down to launch costs. Is shielding a problem? Cut your launch costs in half, and you can double your craft's mass. Double the craft's mass, and you'll get several times thicker radiation shielding.

      Launch cost reduction should be our number one space research project. Sending people to the moon and mars when launch costs to LEO alone are 7-15k$/kg is just silly. It's unsustainable. It's asking to get yourself a new albatross around your neck as ISS has started to become.

      With the money put into these projects, we should fund a huge amount of launch cost reduction research. Fund development at big companies. At small companies like SpaceX. Fund materials and component research. Fund scramjets. Fund nuclear thermal. Fund ballistic launch. Fund it all. Find what works, toss the rest. It will take money. A lot of it. But once we have reduced launch costs, we get to keep them that way :)
      • In some regards this is true; there are certain material shields that can deflect cosmic radiation. Water and polyethylene are two examples. For water to be effective, it would have to be 5 meters deep (according to the SciAm article). This would make the payload of any prospective water-encapsulated spacecraft VERY massive.

        Keep in mind that this "shield" is not deflecting space rocks, we're talking about elementary particles traveling at immense speeds, which decompose into gamma radiation upon collision

        • So what happens to astronauts and cosmonauts during prolonged stays at the space station.
        • I'm familiar with all of this. Shielding is a very difficult issue to model, and saying that "X thickness of shielding" is needed isn't a very accurate case, because it all comes down to geometry and what you deem as acceptable levels.

          Shielding in space encompasses two contradictory principles: you want heavy nuclei to stop some particles, but against other particles, collisions with those nuclei will unleash a storm of other particles (bremsstrahlung), so you want to shield with as light of nuclei as poss
    • It's not that bad if you stay in orbit. Or underground on the moon. One step at a time...
  • I can't help thinking about all the explorers who set out from a tired conservative European world to find the 'new world'; multi-year trips, many lost ships, false starts, disasters and discoveries. In some ways we now live in a very conservative risk averse world that likes to try and keep the status quo rather than push the boundaries and explore new hosizons.

    How long will it be and how many 'lost ships' will we see before we get another Christopher Columus, Marco Polo or James Cook?

  • Quotes from Elon Musk (Score:5, Informative)

    by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @01:48AM (#14790874) Journal
    I'm a big fan of Elon Musk [wikipedia.org], who started SpaceX [slashdot.org] with the money he got from selling PayPal to eBay. He's a pretty good example of someone who grew up with dreams about space who's trying to make those dreams a reality. I think his efforts with towards dramatically decreasing the cost of space launch are quite important, and crucial for his (and my) long-term goal of making humanity a multi-planet species.

    A number of people have been complaining about Musk and his three launch scrubs in the past few months, where the countdown was terminated for various reasons before the rocket left the ground. It should be noted though that these sorts of delays are pretty much the norm for the launch business. For example, there were eleven separate attempts to launch the ARGOS satellite on a Boeing Delta II rocket.

    This set of notes by Michael Belfiore from their pre-launch press conference [collegiatetimes.com] for their launch attempt late last year is a pretty interesting read and gives great insight into what Musk wants to do with SpaceX. Some excerpts:

    SpaceX's second Gen rocket engine will be the biggest rocket engine in the world, though not the biggest in history. The F1 engine that sent people to the moon is no longer in production, so Musk doesn't count that. ...

    Q: What customers will you put on Falcon 9?
    A: We haven't thought a lot about it because it's speculative, but big customers would be NASA, Bigelow Aerospace, which is launching its first subscale space station module next year, and potentially people who just want to go to orbit and just spend some time on orbit. Also we could do a loop around the moon, which actually wouldn't require a huge rocket. [Space Adventures recently cut a deal with the Russian Space Agency to do just that, so that may be what inspired Musk to say that.] ...

    Q: When will you go to space?
    A: I'm not doing this to go into space myself, per se. I want to help build a space faring civilization. It would have been very easy for me to pay to go to the International Space Station myself. I want to help other people get to space. ...

    Musk: The expansion of life on earth to other places is arguably the most important thing to happen to life on earth, if it happens. Life has the duty to expand. And we're the representatives of life with the ability to do so. ...

    Q: When will you fly cargo missions to the space station?
    A: I hope in the next 3 to 4 years. ...

    Another question from me: Are you developing a manned vehicle right now, or have you thought that far ahead yet?
    A: I can't comment on that right now. ...

    Q: What's next in the entreprenurial space field?
    A: Lots of people doing things--Paul Allen [who funded SpaceShipOne], Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin, John Carmack with Armadillo Aerospace...Musk thinks we're heading toward a Netscape moment, when someone turns a profit, and hopefully it'll be SpaceX, and then investment capital will start to flow in.

    • C'mon, Elon! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Thagg ( 9904 ) <thadbeier@gmail.com> on Friday February 24, 2006 @03:37AM (#14791157) Journal
      I'm a big fan of Musk, too, and of private space enterprise in general.

      My biggest problem with Musk is the lack of information at his website. If you want to generate a political movement (and that's what he's trying to do -- vying for Air Force contracts is the very definition of politics) you need to have much better publicity.

      And his website sucks. While it's kind of pretty, there's almost no content. The news [spacex.com], in particular, is weak --three sentences and movie that won't play on Linux about the most recent static firing.

      He has no excuse. He built PayPal! He knows the 'net! He has seen the kind of virtuous circle that can be built up through good communication. I cannot for the life of me understand why SpaceX fails so spectacularly in the communication mission.

      And don't say that they are trying to keep their proprietary details secret -- if he's really interested in promoting inexpensive space travel, he'd *want* those secrets out there!

      I contrast this with Carmack's spectacular Armadillo Aerospace [armadilloaerospace.com] site. All of his successes, failures, dead ends, oopses -- all presented in more detail than any sane person could ever want. With Carmack, you really feel like you can understand the process as much as you can without picking up a welding torch.

      Anyway, I really can't complain. I'm sitting around making movies instead of spaceships -- please treat this rant as constructive criticism.

      Thad Beier
      • I'd have to disagree. As far as space companies go, I'd say that SpaceX is almost absurdly informative. Can you point me to the pages for Boeing and Lockheed-Martin where they describe and analyze in detail why their launches were delayed or failed?

        And his website sucks. While it's kind of pretty, there's almost no content. The news, in particular, is weak --three sentences and movie that won't play on Linux about the most recent static firing.

        You're probably looking for the updates page [spacex.com]. There's a good bit
        • I've paid attention to Carmack's Armadillo site for years, and it's very entertaining stuff. But to characterise Armadillo Aerospace as a business seems to be a bit of a mischaracterisation; it seems more like a hobby to keep Carmack and his buddies amused on their days off rather than a serious business at this stage. If it was, he'd make progress a lot faster (because he wouldn't have to wait to the weekend to test, for instance). They have built some very cool stuff, and it's great that they're prepar
      • Well, for a business with 135 employees that doesn't appear to have a dedicated webmaster (that site screams "prepackaged"), it ain't bad. They aren't bothering much with publicity right now, they're trying to get a rocket in the air without spending too much money. They don't even hire interns presently, so it's little surprise they don't put much effort into beefing up their website. I'm still trying to decide if I should send them a resume as an entry-level propulsion engineer, a web administrator, or an
  • 'I said I wanted to take a large fortune and make it a small one, so I started a rocket business,' Musk said.

    Wasn't it co-space-pioneer Richard Branson (Virgin Atlantic Airways) who said: "If you want to become a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline..."

    Not very original a quote from Musk, then.

  • Branson is targeting 2008..With all these guys rushing out to space, may be we can see a 'traffic jam' in space soon. Well, I guess everyone is thinking of the unclaimed 'real estate' out there.
    • The traffic jams won't get so bad, they will just build new hyperspace bypasses every time it gets too conjested. And don't forget the cheap and nasty fast food at the top of all good exit ramps...

  • Elon Musk is NOT PayPal's founder (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24, 2006 @02:04AM (#14790937)
    Elon Musk is an idiot. Read below to find out why.

    PayPal was founded by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel. Elon Musk's competitor, X.com, merged with PayPal in 2000. Elon Musk became PayPal's CEO and Peter Thiel stepped down. Elon then ordered the PayPal system to be rewritten for Windows (it previously ran on Linux). This rewrite was strongly disliked by engineering, but Elon Musk persisted. The Windows rewrite was completed after six months of hard work, but was deemed too unstable to use. Elon Musk was fired by the board of directors of PayPal in late 2000 through a vote of no confidence. He would have destroyed PayPal.

    Peter Thiel stepped up to become CEO, again, and made PayPal into a gigantic success.
    • The parent is being rather glib with the facts to slag Musk. According to Wikipedia, in early 2000, X.com bought Confinity, which included the PayPal service. In early 2001, X.com changed its name to PayPal. Musk was a co-founder of X.com and therefore PayPal.

  • Boeing & Lockheed suit dismissed (Score:4, Informative)

    by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @02:06AM (#14790941) Journal
    SpaceX is not new, but in a speech at Virginia Tech, Musk talked about the company's troubles and its lawsuit against Boeing and Lockheed as he tries to get a slice of the valuable Air Force contracts."

    Unfortunately, it looks like the suit against the merger of Boeing & Lockheed's launch operations (effectively creating a launch monopoly) has been dismissed [nasaspaceflight.com]. Some comments from RLV News [hobbyspace.com] (a fantastic space news resource, btw):

    A judge has dismissed the lawsuit by SpaceX against the Boeing / Lockheed plan to form the United Launch Alliance to provide most all of the large payload launches for the Air Force for the next several years: SpaceX vs. Boeing and Lockheed Lawsuit Dismissed - NasaSpaceFlight.com - Feb.17.06 [nasaspaceflight.com].

    From the description of the decision, it sounds like a Catch-22 situation. The judge is saying that you can't sue to stop the formation of a monopoly until you have built your system and proved that it is capable of competing against the monopoly. However, in a monopoly situation, especially in such a capital intensive area as rockets, it can be extremely difficult to raise the money to build your system if potential investors see that you will be kept out of a primary market. Talk about a barrier to entry!

    In this case, Elon Musk has said he will build the Falcon 9 regardless, but it's a shame he has to enter a playing field tilted against him from the start.

    An additional comment from the Space Law Probe [blogspot.com]: The court did not address the merits of SpaceX claims. (Nor, by the way, did the judge make note of whether a successful Falcon launch might have made a difference in the analysis or ruling, as some will no doubt wonder.)
    • I have to say that I side with the judge on this one. Claiming you can send payloads into space for 25% the cost and actually doing it are two completely different things. He is welcome to bid on the Air Force contracts. One of the things the Air Force weighs into proposal evaluation is the contractors' history and chances of successful execution. SpaceX basically has zero there. Also, they have no experience in delivering the kind of reliability the Air Force demands. This reliability is one huge factor in

  • Launch costs smaunch costs... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @02:21AM (#14790991) Homepage
    Why would anyone become "multi-planetary" when there's no reason to do so? Other planets are harsh, inhospitable places. What's the incentive to spend the billions upon billions of dollars it'd take to develop the technology for a colony? "Coolness?" Not to mention the unknown health costs of living in a lower gravity for years.

    It's all about economics, and if the economics aren't their the lowest launch costs imaginable aren't going to matter. The closest economic benefit we've got is mining Helium-3 from the moon, and even that's a pipe dream. I'm sure there will be a manned mission to Mars someday, but that's not anything like being "multi-planetary"
    • "Why would anyone become "multi-planetary" when there's no reason to do so?"

      People are trying, so there must be a reason.

      Think of it as a backup system for every living thing. If something goes horribly wrong on earth, life as we know it will still exist elswhere. Seeing as we are the only ones who are able to do this, I think we have a moral obligation to the rest of the life forms on this planet to do so. I, for one, think we have that obligation.

      So, what is the cost of life insurance for the entire pl
    • You are a very, very smart guy ;) you know that. When you have the billions you talk about, when you create something like PayPal, you will have the ABILITY to judge. And to have the different point of view. People who make billions, can make billions, and they know when they can lose money and when they can win. If you sit behind your stinky computer, or cubicle, or whatever, you will die with it. Judging others... is not a good thing. Just like I did to you. Take it as example. I know I'm not right judgin
    • So are you going to go to space for sheer "coolness"? Sure, we might. Why do you think fashion and beauty are so important in human societies? Besides, I'm sure other planets and the far reaches of space offers things that we can't even imagine right now. Additionally, our adventures into space have given birth to several things we use daily: digital-signal processing, cordless power-tools, cool suits, video stabilization, etc. Imagine all the cool stuff we'll get from the side effect of going to Mars;
    • Why would anyone become "multi-continental" when there's no reason to do so? Other continents are harsh, inhospitable places. What's the incentive to spend the huge quantity of gold it'd take to develop the technology for a colony? "Coolness?" Not to mention the unknown health costs of living in on the other side of the Atlantic for years.

      It's all about economics, and if the economics aren't their the lowest launch costs imaginable aren't going to matter. The closest economic benefit we've got is a short cu
      • You're comparing two completely different things. Other continents were perfectly ready for more human inhabitants (that is if you ignore the natives). Other planets are lifeless inhospitable wastelands. That's quite a big difference. Terraforming you say? Maybe some day, but for the foreseeable future, and certainly everyone that's alive today it's a pipedream. Even Antarctica is a more inhabitable place than Mars. It's useless to dream about something that might take place in another 500 years.

        We s

    • Strata (Score:1)

      by hman ( 141328 )
      You seem to think there isn't any reason to go multi-planetary.
      Try taking a look at Terry Pratchett's [lspace.org] Strata. [amazon.com]

      There one of the basic ideas was:
      1. There are/have been lots of civilisations out there.
      2. Sooner or later every civilisation hits a Big Problem(tm), possibly a terminally problem.
      3. If we try to differentiate maybe some part will survive.

      Later lifeforms had been smaller, brighter. Some, like the Wheelers, had been evolutionary dead ends. Some, notably the Great Spindle Kings and the s

  • Musk is funding sending rockets into space. Peter Thiel is funding self-improving Artificial Intelligence whose technological innovations will make rockets, as well as the rest of vanilla-human technology, obsolete. Which is more visionary?
    • By "visionary" do you mean "loony", or is this some sort of trick question?

      Me, I'm studying the writings of Uri Gellar to learn how to bend spacetime like a spoon to make Mars only 5 feet away so we can walk there. These rocketry guys are thinking way too small.

  • I said I wanted to take a large fortune and make it a small one, so I started a rocket business,'

    I know of a much much faster way to turn a large fortune into a small one. Get married and have kids!
  • ..a hacker uses fake info to pay for a trip and only gets caught after take-off?

    You have 2 basic options:

    a)Send him down alone in an economy class module that doesn't have parachutes.

    b)Call it quits and ruin the flight for everybody.

    I think I'll just settle for a spot on the beach.
  • Any word on when they're going to try again at launching the Falcon 1? At the company website, Musk writes on Feb. 10 that he'll post a long update "next week" regarding the static fire test and a new launch date. It's been two weeks now, and still no post....
     
  • There never was a rocket, no you can't have "your" rocket back because there is no rocket.
  • Musk's PayPal ripped me off for thousands of dollars. There are several class action lawsuits [google.com] pending against PayPal, several of which reflect the same scam they pulled on me, siphoning millions of dollars in interest on unfairly "frozen" accounts. His rockets will probably explode in space, out of reach of national liability laws.
  • When they got confiscated. Seriously. Someone once paid me for a coding gig through paypal, who seized the money as they deemed it "suspicious".
  • I completely agree with Musk. Keep it Simple is a great motto!

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