Elon Musk: I'll Put a Human On Mars By 2026

An anonymous reader writes Elon Musk says that he'll put the first human boots on Mars well before the 2020s are over. "I'm hopeful that the first people could be taken to Mars in 10 to 12 years, I think it's certainly possible for that to occur," he said. "But the thing that matters long term is to have a self-sustaining city on Mars, to make life multiplanetary." He acknowledged that the company's plans were too long-term to attract many hedge fund managers, which makes it hard for SpaceX to go public anytime soon. "We need to get where things a steady and predictable," Musk said. "Maybe we're close to developing the Mars vehicle, or ideally we've flown it a few times, then I think going public would make more sense."

Comments

Bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Putting something like this in the hands of the 'shareholders' is a bad idea.

Re:Bad idea

[queazocotal]

My favourite tweet of all time is from Musk.
'No near term plans to IPO @SpaceX. Only possible in very long term when Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly.'

Re:Bad idea

[queazocotal]

Because unfortunately, an IPO for the general public means that unfortunate things happen.
You lose signifcant control of your company - possibly totally.
Musk developed Falcon Heavy - with essentially no market.
The Raptor engine currently in development has no market.
The requirement for reusability is reasonable from a long-term perspective.

You can't - as I understand it - legally IPO to only those sharing your vision. You are going
to get pension funds and hedge funds and ... purchasing slices of your company to diversify their
portfolios.
These may then not want you to go spending money on wild unprofitable in the next 10 years crap, but
to make next years dividend larger.

Re:Bad idea

[Applehu Akbar]

Doing anything useful in space requires long-term thinking. Wall Street doesn't do that, so keeping the operation private is not just the best way to go - it's the only way.

Re:NOT. GODDA. HAPPEN.

[Drethon]

Maybe but I'd rather have someone say let's shoot for the moon (or Mars) rather than just making a ton of profit using patents on old technology.

Re:NOT. GODDA. HAPPEN.

[NotDrWho]

Releasing the patents on his charging tech wasn't exactly done for altruistic reasons. He needs that to become the standard so Tesla doesn't have to build all of its own charging stations.

Rest assured that he makes plenty of money off all the other patents that Tesla keeps.

No He Won't, There Is No Money in Exploration

[Scot Seese]

I admire Elon Musk. But he's dead wrong. Neil Degrasse Tyson is right.

As others have pointed out, taking your company public means surrendering a significant amount of control over the long term. Board members and share holders like revenue. It's all about the next quarter. They don't like pet projects that are giant money sinks without the remote possibility of a return. Persist on that path post-IPO Elon, and watch yourself be fired from your own company, ala Steve Jobs.

NDGT is spot on the issue of exploration. It takes a government interested in (mostly) pure science without profit motivation.

You want to put people on Mars? I'll tell you what puts people on Mars - the U.S. government thumbing their nose in the face of Chinese ascendancy - Ala Cold War 2: Space Boogaloo.

Let the government, or team of governments blow tax dollars on building Mars mission tech. That tech will filter down to private enterprise years later, so the next generation of Elon Musks can farm minerals off asteroids, or some other future commercial endeavor.

Elon is overreaching with this.