Elon Musk?
- Thread starter zenophite
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It's a bit dangerous name dropping a living figure, who's life isn't over.
On the other hand I admire Elon Musk, and he may well be worth the reference.
- Actually launching usable launch vehicles and landing them vertically (one cannot overstate the importance).
- Actually attempting to get people to other planets on private initiative.
- Actually trying to reform our entire means of energy production and storage as a civilization.
On the other hand I admire Elon Musk, and he may well be worth the reference.
- Actually launching usable launch vehicles and landing them vertically (one cannot overstate the importance).
- Actually attempting to get people to other planets on private initiative.
- Actually trying to reform our entire means of energy production and storage as a civilization.
And the time Chekov mentioned Leningrad.
Maybe at this point we should officially retcon that Star Trek is like Blade Runner: a slightly different parallel universe starting around the 1990s, where the Soviet Union never fell, Atari are still in business, PanAm has been revived, Peugeot make flying cars, and Khan Noonien Singh ruled India around 1996.
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...
I'm actually surprised to be honest, that on a forum of Trekkies, we aren't all Elon Musk fanboys.
The guy has done a little more than just found Paypal. As an entrepreneur, he embodies a lot of the ideals that Star Trek strives for, and is the darling of a lot of futurists. He pioneered private space-flight; something nobody believed was possible. He has stated that the only reason he ever wanted to become rich was to get humanity into space. I can understand; if I was a billionaire it would be all I would do with my money 24/7; there is nothing more important. He believes, as many of us do, that is where humanity's ultimate destiny lies, and we cannot waste time getting there. On the basis of this initiative, he has sought to construct a private space business, which already has a more advanced launch capability than China or India. Despite Amazon's attempt to upstage him by vertically landing a small test rocket, Elon Musk's company achieved the holy grail of space-flight, which has been sought since the 1960s: vertical landing of an actual launch vehicle. Let me reiterate: NASA could not do this in 70 years of trying (partly politics), and SpaceX did.
As anyone will know, THE single biggest barrier to creating a space civilization is cost of "launch to orbit".
Escaping a gravity well is ridiculously difficult. Right now, rockets burn something like 90% of their weight in fuel just lifting the last 10% out of Earth's gravity well. Another major cost is the cost of a launch vehicle itself. Precision engineering a massive skyscraper sized rocket made out of tonnes of steel, costing hundreds of millions, only to have it burn up or sink in the Pacific. So re-usable rockets is already a massive massive watershed. I'm surprised looking at this thread that more people don't know that and thought his biggest achievement was founding PayPal, when his company conquered one of the biggest barriers in space-flight; equivalent to Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier.
Short of a space elevator, laser launch system, or giant railgun, this is the most efficient way to drive down launch costs.
I honestly believe that humanity needs to leave the planet ASAP just on the basis that once we are a two-planet civilization/species, our chances of dying out are far more finite. An asteroid might hit one planet, once in a blue moon, but civilization will survive on the other. You sometimes hear people being un-objective and mistakenly saying that curing poverty should come first. What they don't seem to get is that it wont matter if we are dead. There will be nobody alive to appreciate the effort if some biological weapon or nuclear holocaust, however unlikely happens; no retry. So getting all of our eggs out of one basket comes first. We don't even know if life exists elsewhere in the universe, so playing with the future of the only sentient species we know, all it's achievements, all its struggles over 200,000 years, all it's art and culture, by delaying Mars by decades due to lack of political will, is a dangerous game. We have a duty to spread life. They also don't understand that we spend pittance on space, China and India are not going to solve their hunger by cancelling a minor part of their national budget that returns the investment fivefold in research; look to the military, or corporate tax avoidance if you want to solve world poverty, not an industry that produces mountains of research that lift people out of poverty. But he hasn't been neglecting this side of humanity's problems either. Half of his technology, Tesla Motors, etc, is aimed at transitioning humanity to an electricity-oriented civilization, including a battery designed specifically to enable people to power their homes via solar, and cars that run off it. He built the world's largest battery factory in order to further this transition. He offered to step in when Puerto Rico's grid got destroyed and replace it with something truly new; a solar/battery grid based on the Tesla "Powerwall" battery. Talks are currently under way, and could transform Puetro Rico into the most advanced green economy on the planet.
I'm aware of the dangers of elevating a human to cult status, but there is no public figure I admire more right now.
The thing is, Star Trek has already preempted anything and everything Musk is credited for ITRW, including both his achievements and his wildest dreams - either they happened in the 1980s already, or then won't happen within his projected lifetime. So his reputation in the Trek universe must be utterly fictional, which is sort of uncool.
(As for Fermat, Star Trek got that down pat: Fermat's proof for Fermat's theorem hasn't been found, and never will, because Fermat undoubtedly was wrong when he thought he had it. Separately, other people's proof for Fermat's theorem are justly mentioned in Trek. They just don't count as Fermat's proof, which is the thing Picard correctly described as eternally elusive.)
Timo Saloniemi
(As for Fermat, Star Trek got that down pat: Fermat's proof for Fermat's theorem hasn't been found, and never will, because Fermat undoubtedly was wrong when he thought he had it. Separately, other people's proof for Fermat's theorem are justly mentioned in Trek. They just don't count as Fermat's proof, which is the thing Picard correctly described as eternally elusive.)
Timo Saloniemi
I watched a ds9 episode a few nights ago - bashir was up for the carrinton award, along with
Dr Ward from the university of Nairobi
Healer Senva of the Vulcan Medical Institute
Doctor Henri Roget of the Central Hospital of Altair
Chirurgeon Ghee P'Trell of Andoria
There's just one medical institution on Vulcan? There's a central hospital on andor? I don't think London has a central hospital, let alone a whole planet.
Dr Ward from the university of Nairobi
Healer Senva of the Vulcan Medical Institute
Doctor Henri Roget of the Central Hospital of Altair
Chirurgeon Ghee P'Trell of Andoria
There's just one medical institution on Vulcan? There's a central hospital on andor? I don't think London has a central hospital, let alone a whole planet.
And the time Chekov mentioned Leningrad.
Little old ladies in Russia shall bring it back, comrade!
And the time Chekov mentioned Leningrad.
Also mentioned in STIV, and the USSR still existed in the 24th century when they built the Tsiolkovsky - seems quite clear that the USSR came back as a state, png with Leningrad as a name, between now and then.
The Russian oblast surrounding St. Petersburg is still named Leningrad, so we can fudge it to say that's what Chekov was referring too.And the time Chekov mentioned Leningrad.
Or the Neo-Trotskyist uprisings in France and the rest of Europe in the 2020s mentioned in DS9 - Past Tense were just the beginning of a resurgence in Marxist movements throughout Eurasia, causing St. Petersburg to switch back to being called Leningrad again.
It turns out that PayPal is the basis of Earth's entire economic system.
Surely Henry Archer would've been more deserving of a reference? No matter what SpaceX achieves it's Musks company that did it not him personally, I doubt the future (especially Treks future) will recognise the guy who ran the show rather than actually invented it.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky; Hermann Oberth; Robert Goddard; Robert Esnault-Pelterie; Wernher von Braun; Sergei Korolev; Valentin Glushko. Those I can understand.
But Elon Musk before them? I guess only if you want to appeal to the hip crowd.
But Elon Musk before them? I guess only if you want to appeal to the hip crowd.
It will all depend won't it, on whether he lives up to his plans. A million people colony on Mars by the end of the century. All on his own initiative. We can doubt him, but in 2004 nobody expected a private businessman would set up a company from scratch, that now has more launch capability than NASA does. If he succeeds, he makes Howard Hughes look like a garage-salesman.
But it's the danger of name-dropping a real life person; he could go bust or die next year.
But it's the danger of name-dropping a real life person; he could go bust or die next year.
It won't help if Musk goes to Mars next Tuesday, not in terms of this discussion. After all, Khan has already gone halfway to the next star by now!
Which is sort of sad, because nothing mankind actually achieves within the next fifty years will count, as we are already hopelessly lagging behind the Trek version of Earth.
Timo Saloniemi
Which is sort of sad, because nothing mankind actually achieves within the next fifty years will count, as we are already hopelessly lagging behind the Trek version of Earth.
Timo Saloniemi
In the 23rd century, Russians become obsessed uber-Beatles fans and rename St. Petersburg "Lennongrad".And the time Chekov mentioned Leningrad.
And all Russians get Beatles haircuts.
Musk is definitely on the same level as Cochrane. By that, I mean that Cochrane has been overblown. Just look at him from First Contact. He wasn't in it for any amount of "pushing the boundaries" or technological breakthrough. Cochrane was after a buck in a post-holocaust world. He was part of a tech team and probably wasn't even the brains behind the project. He was a monkey that could fly a rocket. All the warp pioneers died in the Borg attack.
Zephram Cochrane... bah, humbug!
Zephram Cochrane... bah, humbug!
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