Space X Aims to put a Man on Mars in 10 Years

[Wanderlust]

On Saturday, company founder Elon Musk announced that he wants to put a man on Mars within 20 years.

"We'll probably put a first man in space in about three years," Elon Musk told the Wall Street Journal Saturday. "We're going all the way to Mars, I think... best case 10 years, worst case 15 to 20 years."

You go Musk! You go!

Ive been saying, he plans to retire on Mars.


http://news.discovery.com/space/spacex-elon-musk-mars-astronauts-20-years-110423.html#mkcpgn=twnws1

 

[YellowSubmarine]

It's good to know that someone having the money and resources is actually determined to put a man on Mars, instead of doing something useless like making his company bigger and building himself an empire or something. I hope that he can arrange relaxed requirements, because I'd be lining up even for a one way trip to Mars.

 

[Starbreaker]

Cool. I doubt NASA is every going to be involved in any useful exploration again.

 

[SG-17]

Hopefully after the shuttles are retired our government will be paying them to take astronauts to the ISS instead of the Russians.

 

[arch101]

Cool. I doubt NASA is every going to be involved in any useful exploration again.

Certainly not any manned exploration. However, I think NASA will continue with their successful unmanned craft. In the west, manned space travel seems to be phasing into the purely commercial realm. I agree that we must hope that Government doesn't regulate it out of existence before it takes off (pun completely intended).

 

[Wanderlust]

Cool. I doubt NASA is every going to be involved in any useful exploration again.

NASA will be riding on Space X rockets. No more bureaucratically built rockets.

NASA will probably build manned landing craft and such.

 

[SG-17]

I just hope that the Dragon project is ready soon enough that we don't need to have our astronauts ride up on foreign rockets.

 

[Wanderlust]

We will still have an interim period of 3 years or so.

 

[FPAlpha]

I just hope that MI6 and their current Bond are up to the task to stop him once he starts putting killer satellites in orbit and has his evil base of doom (tm) on Mars.

 

[RobertVA]

Cool. I doubt NASA is every going to be involved in any useful exploration again.

NASA will be riding on Space X rockets. No more bureaucratically built rockets.

NASA will probably build manned landing craft and such.

None if the US manned spacecraft to date have been built by the hands of military civil service personnel. Employees of major aerospace companies have always been the ones wielding the wrenches, welding torches and rivet guns. Contractor employed engineers were doing the heavy lifting for the design work as well.

SpaceX has already been awarded government contracts for delivery of cargo to the International Space Station and development of a launch escape system for the manned version of the Dragon capsule.

I just hope that the Dragon project is ready soon enough that we don't need to have our astronauts ride up on foreign rockets.

After this summer, if they aren't riding a Russian Soyuz they aren't getting there. It's going to take a couple of years for the manned version of Dragon to complete its design and testing programs.

 

[Wanderlust]

Launch systems have been government designed, contractor built. Heavy bureaucratic influence on the whole operation. Space X is different due to the launch system being fully designed and built in house.

Space X will not do it alone, they will do it with NASA and other space agencies, as well as other firms like bigelow.

Mars will happen when the private firms bring the cost of going to mars within the current budget of the space agencies. Or a budget that would not take much approval, ie not half of the GDP. That can happen within the decade.

 

[KJbushway]

Man where is Sojourner, he loves this comany. He could probably tell anybody anything dealing with a plan to go to mars.

 

[publiusr]

Musk should have gotten more money in the recent competition. I still support heavy lift, Musks or Direct, etc.

Here is what I would like to see. Groom Lake is just Monster Garage for fighter jocks and UAV drivers. I think it is time to privatize that. Rutan's craft really have more in common with U-2s than anything else, so he just needs to go after Global Hawk. Branson needed to support Skylon, not suborbital programs in my opinion.

Shut down Groom Lake or open it up a bit and privatize that, and let Rutan run that. Keep MSFC heavy lift expertise by slashing black budget programs.

Force USAF to give X-37/X-40 data to Dream Chaser. This would actually be of more help than a few tens of millions of dollars. The rumor is that any TSTO hypersonic attempt flown have half melted and were covered up. The expertise with electronics and materials is what the alt.spacers need.

Heck, it was our tax money that funded all this. Time for the secrets to be shared with alt.spacers.

 

[SG-17]

Groom Lake? The only Groom Lake that I know of is Area 51.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

The fighters and UAVs in Groom Lake are only used to cover up the stolen 26th century Federation Starship, the two crashed Vulcan ships and the three detained Vulcans.

 

[sojourner]

Man where is Sojourner, he loves this comany. He could probably tell anybody anything dealing with a plan to go to mars.

Sorry, I was out of town for the weekend.

This doesn't seem to be much actual new news. Musk has said all along he plans to get a man on Mars.

Also, the one thing you can fault Musk for is being over enthusiastic with his time lines. In fact, the track record has shown to multiply his estimates by 2 to 3.5. So, make that 20 to 35 years to reach Mars. Hopefully his estimates are getting more accurate. I would hate to wait that long.

 

[John O.]

The rumor is that any TSTO hypersonic attempt flown have half melted and were covered up.

What do you mean by TSTO?

 

[Gaith]

Cool. I doubt NASA is every going to be involved in any useful exploration again.

When speaking of manned Mars missions, "useful exploration" is an oxymoron.

It's a big red rock, people, even more dangerous and even less cultured than Buffalo, NY. Not something to get all that excited about strolling around on.

 

[sojourner]

The rumor is that any TSTO hypersonic attempt flown have half melted and were covered up.

What do you mean by TSTO?

Two Stage To Orbit.

 

[John O.]

The rumor is that any TSTO hypersonic attempt flown have half melted and were covered up.

What do you mean by TSTO?

Two Stage To Orbit.

OP: are you talking about a hypersonic aircraft or a 2-stage launch vehicle? A launch vehicle doesn't have any problems burning up because there's no reason you can't just heat shield the craft for re-entry and take off is no issue if you roll.

So I assume you're talking about a launch vehicle, I could be mistaken but I honestly don't think any recent 2-stage-to-orbit have even flown, I mean assuming you're talking about rocket/scramjet. Obviously tons of 2-stage rockets have flown, but there's nothing special about that, they're suboptimal anyway. The X-37B is purely a rocket engine, the scramjet was abandoned years ago. Pretty sure that 2-stage scramjet/rockets are still our pie in the sky dream.