Serious question

he'll be at the forefront of the sector for a while, don't forget several other companies are in the proverbial race here

>>8794605
True, but Musk is basically the poster child for the private sector space race.

in what way would he be the fall guy? spacex has been doing fine so far

There's not much market for space travel beyond satellites. Tourism won't ever take people to mars.

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>>8794594
>Can Elon Musk really make space travel great again?

Interestingly, I think so.

CAVEAT: I do not like him for reasons having nothing to do with his space efforts, per se.

That out of the way, I see two possibilities:

1) He accomplishes great things and Makes Space Great Again.

2) He doesn't accomplish great things, but the fear that he might spurs everybody else into trying harder and THAT Makes Space Great Again. Think the USSR faking up things like multi-passenger capsules and rendezvous in orbit, keeping the heat on the US effort to win the "race."

>No matter who wins, we win.

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>>8794630
"Ever" is a long time.

>>8794594

He's not the fall guy. ULA fucked up hard with the RD-180 scandal, remember that McCain scolded them on the Senate floor where he also stripped them of their monopoly. That doesn't normally happen.

Anyway, Musk himself is pushing things along faster than expected. He won't make it to Mars before NASA, but he will open up LEO and orbital ventures to the private sector. This is sufficient for the time being and we might even get space hotels out of it.

>>8794594
His venture will end the same as Branson's. Not falling for it again. NASA is in total control.

>>8794594
>wants to make stage 2 recoverable

MAD MAN
A
D

M
A
N

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>>8794594
>tfw we will be able to walk on the moon for the price of a first class international flight within the next 15 years

>>8795180
The US will fall into civil war due to white genocide before then

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Seriously what

>>8795345
Well its not like it would be hard for them to slap their PICA-X on it
The issue is how do they design it to reenter, in what orientation, what sort of mass this will cost, how does it land, etc

>>8794605
Unless the incumbents can pull a stark course correction quickly, the only other company with a shadow of a hope at this point is Blue Origin. The rest are off in the corner convincing themselves that rocket reuse isn't worth pursuit despite ever-increasing evidence otherwise.

>>8794594
I once went to a talk by Phil Plait (yeah, meme scientist but whatever, he gave an interesting talk and I respect him) and during the question period I asked him his opinion on Musk's ambition to go to Mars; i.e., whether Musk was reaching too far too fast and we should focus on going back to the moon first or whether Musk was justified in his optimism.
Plait responded with, essentially, "I can't say for sure, since I don't know what secrets Space X has, but my gut reaction is to say yes, they're being too ambitious and we should re-prove our effectiveness at the closest range we have, which is the moon."
Essentially, I share the opinion of Plait. I like that Musk is making it popular to be interested in space and space travel again, but I don't like his pace, and I certainly don't like his agenda.

>>8795644
>I certainly don't like his agenda.
His agenda is to advance tech and die on Mars. How could you be against this?

>>8795644
Nothing stops someone from paying Musk to do launches to the moon

>>8795360
heatshield on the top, it comes in engine to the back. lands with parachutes on a bouncy castle, or caught by a drone.

>Space travel great again
This aint /x/, we will never leave this solar system

>>8794594
nobody knows how he will be remembered but at least he is putting his brain money and effort on make space travel great again.

>>8795659
Agreed, regardless of whether he succeeds in mass colonization of Mars or not, he (along with Bezos) will shake up the industry and free it from its malaise. There's absolutely no harm in aiming higher.

>>8795705
And in fact, SpaceX will likely be doing frequent moon trips before they're doing frequent Mars trips. The difference is that they'll be doing it for paying customers instead of for themselves, and I'm sure Musk is fully aware of this fact. It saves more funds for Mars in the long run because it means that every launch for the Moon will be fully funded by a third party.

>>8794594
every day elon musk lives brings us that much closer to a future full of cool scifi shit

i hope he doesn't die from doing too much cocaine until he at least gets a man on mars

I hope he gets a profitable business out of it, but I doubt it. If it is more like a hobby and he wants to blow his money on something cool, then it is a great choice. I wonder how much the insurance cost for a space flight. What if the damn thing blows up in space and the debris takes out a couple dozen satellites?

>>8797430
Typically, the points at which the rocket is under the highest level of stress and is most likely to explode is at a far lower altitude than anything in orbit. Once you're in LEO you're pretty much safe. All the risk is tied up getting there

He likely will make great strides in space exploration tech, but since he clearly is doing it for financial gain and not the benefit of humanity, he will fail.

>>8794594

>ywn hug this man

>>8798617
If financial gain was his endgame he could've stopped pouring money back into the company and started raking in profits as soon as the F9 was a viable disposable launch vehicle. That's not been the case, though, and there's no sign of making profitability the prime point of SpaceX's rocketry business for quite some time. Quite the opposite; the entire purpose of their upcoming LEO internet satellite constellation is to have a conveyor belt of cash to dump directly into development of the ITS/BFR and martian colonization initiatives so the company isn't hopelessly hogtied to the sluggish, critter-ridden government.

If SpaceX finally becomes profitable when there's tens or hundreds of launches for Mars during the bi-yearly windows, I'd argue that by that point they'd have earned every last bit of the cash they receive. Paving roads where there was previously only an immense void that was previously incredibly difficult to traverse deserves serious credit regardless of motive.

>>8798987
Of course, it's all a big "if", but SpaceX is doing well at proving their chops and at the very least has just as good of a chance as anybody else at succeeding.

>>8794669
Elon's company has actually developed and built several orbital-class rockets and has performed many launches both for NASA contracts and the private sector.

Branson's ''''company'''' still hasn't had a single flight with paying customers, and they've actually managed to kill a test pilot.

>>8795644
>I don't like his pace

Would you prefer we continued down the SLS path of essentially having fuck-all Mars hardware actually in development?

>>8795635
Blue Origin hasn't even put a payload into orbit with an expendable rocket.

>>8797430
>I hope he gets a profitable business out of it

SpaceX currently makes more money through launch contracts than they are spending on R&D and operations costs. Elon has a lot of money but he doesn't have enough (and never had enough) to fund SpaceX to this degree out of pocket. The days of SpaceX being 100% reliant on Elon ended just after their first successful Falcon 1 launch.

>>8799036
SpaceX manned flight costs are already going to be cheaper than Virgin Galactic.

>>8799059
Exactly, VG is at this point all but dead in the water. Their retarded design hasn't helped them either.

>>8794630
>There's not much market for space travel beyond satellites.
Asteroid capture and mining my nigga

>>8799078
I'm pretty sure there's also several shiploads of folks who would trade everything for the ability to become a legit space explorer or a member of an offworld colony, even with all the challenges that brings. Only problem is that such a thing isn't even possible right now.

If you make it both possible *AND* reasonably affordable, you've got a new wild west situation on your hands, where demand isn't ever an issue.

>>8799089
>If you make it both possible *AND* reasonably affordable, you've got a new wild west situation on your hands
That's the key, people always moan that "Oh space is too expensive, wht bother" when they don't realise the ridiculous abundance of raw materials out there in our own solar system that we consider "Rare" are ripe for the taking.

Yes it starts off expensive because you have to buy in expensive materials, but when you haul back a rock of tungsten the size of a town it changes things.

>>8797407
>And in fact, SpaceX will likely be doing frequent moon trips before they're doing frequent Mars trips.

They'll take like 3-4 months to travel to mars, then immediate return.
So the ITS will have like 50% downtime where it can be used to ship to the Moon or launch payloads to deep space.

>>8799135
Theres a ridiculous abundance of resources in the Earth that we don't even mine

>>8799223
Largely due to geopolitical issues. There's so much shit in space that no one body could claim and defend it all even if they tried. It's simply a matter of being able to access it. That changes things.

>>8799232
Not even that
It's due to economic issues, if tungsten sitting in the ground isn't worth mining, why do you think any of it sitting in space is worth mining

There won't be any large pure rocks to be found

>>8794594
At this point even if he fails he has succeeded in a way because he changed the paradigm.

He made normies think about space again, brought it back into the public conversation as something other than Cold War dick swinging, or silly Star Wars shit. But as a real future for humanity within grasp of this generation or the next.

>>8795296
hi Barron

>>8799197
>then immediate return

This might not be an option - you'll need to wait for a launch window (or you'll need 5 times as much fuel). Unless you're not going to orbit Mars - then you might be able to use this rock as a slingshot back home.

>>8794594
Someone tell him not to do quantum physics without technical engineers

>>8794594
yes he can. He is making the aerospace industry great again. He did the hard stuff mostly on his own, all the government money was contracts for services. As opposed to ULA which gets $1 BILLION a year in subsidies simply for "launch readiness". And we won't even mention the Senate Launch System jobs program.

>>8799068
He basically was left with a rotten golden egg when the golden goose retired. (Burt Rutan)

>>8794594
Elron Musk runs a cult though, SpaceXtology the whole plan is to set up a Mars colony with him as it's benevolent leader because Earth is doomed. In that sense he has a singular goal and to achieve this is milking government money to pay for his inevitable coronation of Cesar of Mars.

>>8800221
Nono, thats their whole strategy, is to immediately refill then launch for home
Yes it'll be suboptimal on trajectory, but they need the vehicle back so they can be ready to launch again for mars in the next synod

>>8795644

agree with this post, truth is that we aint going anywhere near Mars until we develop and prove all the required deep space technology on the Moon first.

Elons obsession with Mars thus may be counterproductive in the long term, like trying to run before learning to walk

Honestly I doubt Mars will be very important in the future. We aint going to Mars unless we learn to survive in space long term, but after we do learn to survive in space, then the reason to go specifically to Mars (similarity to Earth) becomes much less important.

>>8800784
sounds good to me

>>8800853
Refill from what?

>>8800887
But that's just your uneducated opinion. I can easily imagine how future will prove you wrong and you'll be happy about it.

>>8800887
The moon is closer but is in no way easier to colonize. It's more hostile than Mars in every way, and any bases built there will face far greater challenges becoming self-sufficient. The most we'll ever see on the moon are science outposts, resorts, and other short-stay settlements. It's not even easier to shoot for with a rocket; you need just as much power and fuel to get to the moon as you do to get to Mars.

The most difficult part of colonizing Mars is getting there. The surface, though inhospitable by Earth standards is quite mild compared to the moon's surface and is generally much more favorable to long-term human habitation.

>>8799078
Lierally this.