Musk's Grand Plans for Space

Musk unveiled the BFR architecture to get people to the Moon, Mars, etc.

Some criticism and skepticism is coming over the architecture.

Some are already calling the BFR the 'son of the shuttle.'

SpaceX Says NO Damage to Returned Falcon9 First Stage

The SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage that made a historic landing in Florida after a launch last month survived the flight with no damage, clearing the way for ground tests, the company’s chief executive said.

In a Dec. 31 tweet, Elon Musk published a photo of part of the Falcon 9 first stage. “Falcon 9 back in the hangar at Cape Canaveral. No damage found, ready to fire again,” he wrote. The image, a closeup of part of the first stage, showed only superficial effects from the flight, such as discoloration from soot deposited by the rocket’s engine plumes.

link.

Will the 1% Recapitulate the 1970s "White Flight" and Move to Mars?

The world sucks right now. Terrorism. Climate change. Political acrimony. Nonstop Justin Bieber songs.

It’s nice to know Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have a plan. They will help the richest people in the world go to Mars and start over, leaving the other 99 percent to suffer on a dying, warring planet. The only solace for those of us left here will be that the Biebs should be prosperous enough to go with them.

This is the unspoken flip side of Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’s Blue Origin. The space travel companies say they are creating a way for the human species to endure by populating other planets. But the bottom line is that only the wealthy will have the means to move to Mars. Musk’s target ticket price is $500,000 a person in 2015 dollars, and that’s just to get there. Imagine the new outfits you’ll have to buy to go with that space helmet.

So you can picture a scenario that’s something like the 1970s white flight from inner cities, when the wealthier classes moved to freshly built suburbs, leaving the declining neighborhoods to the lower classes. In fact, the fleeing upper classes sped up the decrepitude of that era’s older cities by relocating their money and clout with them. Today, we’re seeing a similar situation in Syria, as the wealthiest and most educated people escape to the West, which will make the country even harder to stabilize and rebuild.

Such a dynamic could apply to the whole world in about 40 years. Maybe historians and scientists, charting Earth’s degeneration will trace a direct link back to this month’s climate talks in Paris. Couldn’t make a deal stick, they’ll say. Environment spun out of control. Drought. Upheaval. Anarchy. And then Wall Street bankers, tech titans, CEOs and Jay Z’s entourage decided to get the hell out and build McMansions in Martian space bubbles.

All this might sound crazy—except it’s not.

link.

How Elon Musk Would Nuke Mars

Elon Musk has made no secret of his desire to colonize and, perhaps, travel to Mars.

Now, the possible discovery of liquid water on the red planet has reenergized his affection for it and now he's trying to clarify his idea for heating up the planet with nuclear bombs.

Musk's goal isn't to blow up Mars in the hopes of heating it up enough for livability. No, he wants to launch fusion bombs into the sky over Mars' two poles to create tiny pulse suns.

These suns would be similar to our own sun, but would only last for a short while.

Musk outlined his plan on Friday during the SolarCity solar panel launch event in Manhattan when I asked him if he was excited about the discovery of water on Mars. He said, "Yeah, that's good," and then launched into a relatively detailed explanation of his plan.

"What I was talking about," said Musk, "was having a series of very large, by our standards, but very small by calamity standards, essentially having two tiny pulsing suns over the poles. They’re really above the planet. Not on the planet."

link.

Nuking Mars Will Not Meet Planetary-Protection Standards

SpaceX founder Elon Musk raised some (more) eyebrows with his suggestion that in order to colonize Mars with humans, it may be necessary to start by nuking the planet’s polar icecaps. Musk made the remarks to late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert, a comedian, but he wasn’t joking. Later he tweeted that nuking Mars was merely an “option” for releasing carbon dioxide and triggering greenhouse-gas global warming as a prelude to terraforming the red planet.

link (paywall).