https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/1fbs7it/elon_musk_the_first_starships_to_mars_will_launch/
!spacechads !ifrickinglovescience this is all the infamous "Elon time" but SpaceX will attempt uncrewed Starship flights to Mars in the next launch window (2026), to test landing capabilities. Late 2030s would be a more realistic estimate for crewed missions but it would still be cool 
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Oh Jesus Christ he's gotten into the research chemicals again.
Look at the Apollo program. The rocket was the hardest part but creating the spacecraft was also an incredibly complex, difficult task that required years of Gemini missions to incrementally build up the knowledge to know wtf we were even doing let alone design the thing. This isn't something you can just rush.
Let's assume developing a manned interplanetary spacecraft is somewhere around the difficulty of developing an airliner that's profitable today. I think that's pretty charitable. Let's see how long those take:
Airbus A380 - 1988-2007 (and this wasn't even profitable
)
Boeing 777 - 1990-2004
Boeing 787 - 2003-2011
R-slurred attempts to intimidate and humiliate your workers, like chimping out when the project falls behind schedule and forcing your programmers to take rudimentary tests to prove that they're really qualified, don't really speed things up in the real world. There isn't actually a "rush" button in the real world, no matter what civic Elon thinks he has selected.
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Musk is famous for his overly optimistic timelines. Landing an uncrewed Starship on Mars in 2026 MIGHT be doable if everything with testing and refueling goes right in two years, and also because Starship is an empty shell on its current state. Life support systems for a crewed mission are a whole different beast, I still think that will delay their Artemis Lunar Lander into the 2030s.
Extremely charitable indeed lol. They need life-support systems for 2 years with enough redundancy and radiation shielding (cosmic and solar radiation alike). NASA won't risk their astronauts on missions to Mars without certifying every single system so regardless of Musk's insane takes I wouldn't be concerned about SpaceX doing something as reckless.
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Musk doesn't need NASA astronauts. He could easily find thousands of people who would be willing to take a ride on his rocket even if there is only a slight chance that they will ever return to Earth afterward.
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NASA and the FAA will never allow unqualified randos being send to Mars.
They won't allow Musk to fly it with a private mildly qualified team either, the first human mission to Mars will definitely have NASA astronauts on board and honestly I think Musk prefers it that way too.
If something goes wrong on board the crew must be an experienced one able to perform spacewalks and repairs.
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They wouldn't be unqualified randos though, Musk could easily find thousands of qualified people who would be willing to fly to Mars on one of his rockets even if the chance of them ever coming back to Earth is slim.
Would NASA and the FAA really forbid Musk to fly non-NASA people to Mars if Musk just came out and was like, "yeah, we're going to do this thing and it's going to be a lot of fun"? I guess they could, but that would make them look really bad cause let's face it, NASA hasn't done anything that really grabs people's attention in a long time. For space geeks like me, all the robot missions are really fricking cool, but the general public wants to send humans out there, not just robots.
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Doesn't even matter. If democracy breaks down to the extent that we can't stop Musk from privately colonizing Mars because he's so rich, then things will have gotten so fricked up that money isn't worth anything anymore. Ivanka will demand that astronauts from House Trump are the first to go or else she will use the ballistic missiles submarines under her control.
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I just don't think Musk would take the risk, or maybe he will, he became so unpredictable the past few years, maybe Jared Isaacman will command the mission. But NASA has longterm space presence experience and you'll need astronauts who've been to space.
NASA has actually landed on Mars which is notoriously hard, even if only rovers, there's a lot SpaceX needs from them on order to be successful, a joint mission means shared responsibility and a bigger chance of success.
Assuming the FAA authorizes and things go wrong SpaceX will get their reputations shattered. A legacy of the Challenger and the Columbia is that NASA became very risk averse so I can see them stepping-in in some sort of way.
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Pretty sure he's said in the past that there will be no return trips for the foreseeable future. You'll either die in space or on Mars.
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They won't and imo it's govt overreach.
If Musk wants to send randos to Mars, and Musk consents, and randos consent, and the rocket itself is sound (ie won't blow up on launch), they should be able to go.
I need that "was there someone you forgot to ask?" meme.
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Elon's timelines are r-slurred, but SpaceX has delivered. Reliable and ridiculously cheap and now they're responsible for like 90% of the global traffic to space. Reusable rockets were a meme and it turned out they just work. Starlink was a meme and now governments are sneeding at it. All the while Boeing can't undock from the ISS lmao
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It has but SpaceX was not really that that brilliant or daring. I know because I had already thought of it myself. And if I thought of it, then there must be a million people who actually know about business who thought of it too. When Boeing and Lockheed-Martin just went mask off and openly formed a cartel for all American rocket launches, it was only a matter of time before another company would enter the market and be like "hey, maybe this should be competitive again". What Elon had that me and those other million people didn't have was several billion dollars of venture capital funding. Also in my case the whole knowing anything about business thing.
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Did what everyone else thought was completely impossible after betting an entire fortune to make it happen. Totally r-slurred and cowardly tbh, real chads do nothing like you
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I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Are you talking about SpaceX? Let me refresh your memory from what I said before:
This was obvious to a layman with a basic understanding of politics and economics. Setting up ULA was too brazen for them to get away with. I don't think I'm a genius when I say that right now Boeing isn't in great shape. That's what level of insight this is.
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You've been really soying out these days, gramps. What happened?
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Excuse me, young one. Explain to me. Who was on the "soy" side and the "chad" side during the process of Boeing & LM forming ULA and SpaceX emerging to compete with them in the 2000s. I would be grateful for any of your insights on the politics of the situation.
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starlink is probably the coolest thing elon has done. i just got off a flight that had free starlink wifi.
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There kind of is a rush button. It's called "don't be afraid to risk the thing blowing up, just send it anyway". Musk isn't NASA, he operates on a completely different plane when it comes to PR. If Musk sends 20 manned ships to Mars and 19 of them blow up, but one of them lands successfully, he will be hailed as a hero of humanity. Well, not by Redditors, but who cares.
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Even with those odds I bet he'd have no trouble finding enough astronauts.
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Elon's timelines are off, his primary advantage is that he read enough classic sci fi to know which emerging technologies to invest in to own the future.
It is due to this reason that there is a possibility of him turning out to be the the world's first trillionaire, although honestly I put him as more likely to get as far as 300-400 billion USD and then get stuck there because I still trust somebody will out compete him in a decade or two.
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My guess is he's gonna keep get richer and richer until he's found drowned in 6 inches of water because he was taking drugs in some weird situation and passed out and didn't have anyone to help him.
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unlikely. Have you seen the Elon don lemon interview?
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No.
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You should. It's fun. He dunks on Lemon and Lemon tries to corner Elon.
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Wouldn't it share many design problems (and solutions) with existing spacecraft, though?
It would need to support people for a very long time, over a year. But haven't we done that on ISS? There's a whole slate of stuff to design like water recycling, food storage/preparation, etc., but we do that on ISS as well.
I guess I agree that it's a huge design process, I just don't think they're starting at square 0 like you're implying here. Probably more like 80% of the way there.
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Yeah I was meaning to say that. Humanity does have a lot of this technology that we've spent decades developing, but SpaceX doesn't have it. NASA does. Elon can't just go do a tech trade like in Civilization. NASA would need to be deeply involved in the project which will slow everything way down.
I view Elon like Von Braun. He's got the rocket, the most crucial piece of the puzzle, but I don't think he's the guy who's going to put the whole puzzle together.
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I think that probably the life support technology is relatively easy compared to the rocket technology, but I could be wrong.
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Life support systems are one of the reasons Dragon got delayed for 4 years.
They follow NASA standards and certification takes long. For Mars is a whole different beast because of radiation exposure and mission duration.
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I have no idea, but I know it would take a heck of a long time to develop it on your own. It's not something where Elon can just "disrupt" by hiring some employees from his competitors and make up his own. There's no amount of money that can get it done fast.
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