Elon Musk?

[Gepard]

It pulled me out of the episode for a moment, but the lasting impression was the realization that "Elon Musk" sounds like a silly made-up Star Trek name.

 

[Michael]

I'm just glad they didn't mention Steve Jobs. The Elon Musk namedrop took me out for a second as well, but they could have mentioned something more stupid.

 

[GeekUSACarl]

I think Musk's achievements in private (non-government) spaceflight with SpaceX Corporation is more relevant to the question at hand than PayPal or Tesla Motors.

SpaceX has already provided a spacecraft that resupplies the space station, and it is on track to soon provide human ferry service to the space station for NASA (supplanting NASA's current need to use the Russians for this purpose).

If (big if) SpaceX gets to Mars in the time frame he proposes, that will be a really huge leap for spaceflight.

Yeah but it isn't like he figured out how to define gravity and invented flight, or broke what we know about physics to invent a new kind of space flight.

He is refining designs and engineering ( hopefully ) to make what we already do more efficient. I won't demean what the guy is doing but in the same conversation as wright bros or Cochran?

I dunno, kind of a stretch.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

^
^^ Yeah, but I suppose I'm just saying that his name was dropped due to his work with private sector spaceflight (i.e., SpaceX), not because of PayPal.

 

[GeekUSACarl]

^
^^ Yeah, but I suppose I'm just saying that his name was dropped due to his work with private sector spaceflight (i.e., SpaceX), not because of PayPal.

Oh I feel ya.

I'll be honest I didn't know he co-founded paypal so I was avoiding that one cause I felt like an idiot.



isn't he also working on shooting automobiles through a large underground magnetic rifle from one end of the nation to the other?

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

The replicators and transporters, Star Trek’s (and humanity’s !) biggest inventions (along with the warp drive) and their inventors don’t get a name check...

But Elon "Zip2" Musk does...

 

[Kor]

That was one of my responses in the "Five things needed to make DSC 'Star Trek'" thread (or whatever that thread was called).

I said that they needed to make a list of historical figures or events, with that list necessarily containing (1) a past figure or event, (2) a contemporary (to us) figure or event, and (3) a fictional future figure or event.

My example, in hypothetical dialogue, on that thread was a character who says:
"Some of the greatest scientific minds in history often grappled with that very same question, such as Archimedes, Stephen Hawking, and Donarias Tolg of Antares IV".

I think they should leave off the "of [planet]" part, which makes it so obvious that it's a fictional sci-fi person, and let audiences get confused trying to figure out who it is.

Kor

 

[Tuskin38]

In the After Trek show one of the showrunners said they added this to the script hoping to get a free Tesla.

It was Jason Issacs that said it, and he was making a joke.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Musk clearly ended up building and funding ares iv, and after that failed he single handedly continued driving Martian colinisation, even while the world was doing one shot failures like Charybdis and suffering with issues in sanctuary districts. It was Musk's efforts in populating the moon and mars, that meant mankind could survive ww3.

 

[rhllot]

if he manages to send humans to Mars will be one of the most important people in our history at the height of Dr. von Braun

 

[Paradise City]

Musk is a young guy isn't he? He still has a few decades to break barriers.

I find namedropping a little cringeworthy full stop tbh.

 

[uniderth]

I suppose he (fictionally) succeeded in colonizing Mars. That would certainly be a milestone in human exploration of space worthy of mentioning in the same sentence as the Wrights and Cochrane.

Well, Mars was colonized in 2103, so that couldn't be it.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Well, Mars was colonized in 2103, so that couldn't be it.

There were outposts before then

 

[Greg Cox]

The only time it dated itself was when it referred to Khan and the war in the 90's.

And the time Chekov mentioned Leningrad.

 

[donners22]

Each series is dated visually - special effects aside, the hairstyles, costumes, music and even names make it quite clear when the show is being made.

I don't see this as any worse; indeed, it provoked a chuckle.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Well, Mars was colonized in 2103, so that couldn't be it.

Damn this Temporal Cold War!

 

[Sir Stewart Wallace]

Damn this Temporal Cold War!

A MASH unit on the front lines of the Temporal Cold War? COMEDY GOLD!

 

[Phily B]

Kind of lame considering Elon Musk hasn't done anything of note, he has a lot of ideas but not many of them are new or original - he is essentially just a businessman. He certainly doesn't seem to have anything in the pipeline that would put him on level with Zefram Cochrane!

 

[Charles Phipps]

Kind of lame considering Elon Musk hasn't done anything of note, he has a lot of ideas but not many of them are new or original - he is essentially just a businessman. He certainly doesn't seem to have anything in the pipeline that would put him on level with Zefram Cochrane!

To be fair, in 2024 we'll be shoving people into Sanctuary Cities so the Musk of this timeline may be a bit more imporessive.

 

[XCV330]

SpaceX launched the first commercial resupply craft (and first American non-Shuttle resupply craft) to the space station. His company's launch record is tremendous. They are the first to demonstrate return vertical recovery of a first state. They are the first to demonstrate reuse of such a stage. They are bringing launch costs down, which, since we are deprived of a real magic warp drive or impule drive, is the only way to really get this species to start moving off this rock. They are having to build an extra space port in Texas just to handle the extra traffic needed for these launch manifests.

The BFR has the ability to not only develop the first space colonies, but also introduce hypersonic point to point travel on Earth. Meanwhile Hyperloop can very well be revolutionary to travel.

I think he deserves a mention. Hell, even if he becomes some megalomaniac Bond villain later in life, he earns his mention. I think Heinlein said that if you reached low earth orbit you were "halfway to anywhere". So yeah. I think the name drop was deserved. We're living in interesting times right now.