SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Predicts People On Mars In 9 Years (cnn.com)

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says his company should be able to land humans on Mars in nine years from now. "If things go according to plan, we should be able to -- we should be able to -- launch people in 2024, with arrival in 2025," Musk said. "That's the game plan," he added. CNN Money reports: Musk said he's planning to share an architectural plan for the colonization of Mars at a conference in September. The tech conference audience was enthralled by Musk's comments. He told interviewers Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg that plotting travel throughout the Solar System, and "ultimately other star systems," provides the kind of inspiration that makes life worth living.

Comments

I predict....

[CastrTroy]

If this is true, I predict we'll have dead bodies on Mars in 9 years and 6 months. I don't for a second doubt we could get people there in a decade, but getting them back is a whole different story. As is keeping them supplied with needed items if they plan to stay there. the ISS currently gets a resupply mission about once every 3 months. The longest it's ever gone has been 128 days without a resupply. To do the return flight, you basically have to wait three months for the planets to line up properly. So the people will have to be up there (in orbit or on the surface) for a significant period of time.

Also, there's no bail out plan. Once you are half way there, if something goes wrong, too bad. You basically have to carry out the mission. With a moon mission you can always skip the landing and return right away like they did with Apollo 13. But with Mars, you have to wait for the planets to be in the right spot so you that you can actually take a short path home. If the planets are in the wrong position, the trip could take a whole lot longer.

Re:I predict....

[Robotbeat]

Nothing in what you just said suggests why you think the mission will certainly end in death. That's a bold prediction, and not one anyone can make.

For some stupid reason, many people seems to conflate "some risk of a bad thing happening" to "it's a certainty that the bad thing WILL happen and will happen to everyone every single time." It's how NASA's 3% cancer risk from space radiation from a Mars mission becomes "your organs will be boiled! and it's impossible because you'll die during the mission from space radiation." This is just dumb. Space radiation isn't even as bad as smoking, and except for well-characterized and easily mitigated problems with acute doses (the biggest risk is if you have electronics which can't withstand the radiation and so fail, but that's easily engineered away), you're not going to die during the mission at all.

The first Shuttle flight, for instance, had a, I don't know, 10% chance of failure. It worked, because if you have a 10% chance of something happening, that means that you also have a 90% chance of it not happening.

I predict that getting to the surface of Mars in 9 years is much more realistic technologically today than getting to the Moon in 1969 (just 7 years after JFK's 1962 Rice University moon speech) was.

And the first flight probably won't kill anyone.

Re:I predict....

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Preferably ALL of them.

Re:I predict....

[werepants]

The ISS hasn't gone an extended period without resupply because it wasn't designed to and there's no reason to. So that's an invalid datapoint with respect to what mission duration modern technology can achieve.

Admittedly, the astronauts will be more cut off from support or bailout options than on previous missions, but that can be remedied with a conservative mission profile. For instance, have a fully-fueled and checked out return vehicle (or better yet, multiple) and contingency supplies ready to go at Mars before the astronauts even leave Earth. This mission is far less dangerous than sailing voyages that were commonplace in the 1800's. We will never have a 100% guarantee of success, but if humans should never do anything risky, we should never do anything at all that involves leaving the house.

A reasonable estimate will show that the risk of death associated with a trip to Mars is about the same as or less than the risk from being a smoker. If we have no problem allowing people to make that choice with their lives, why can't we tolerate that same risk for a far more worthwhile cause?

Re:And this is news how?

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

And who cares what religious idiots say in 2016?

One way ticket?

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

That's what I foresee with the current technology.

Jokes aside, do we have to send human beings to Mars? What about sending robots first to build at least partially self-sustaining habitats? What about finding ways to protect people from the cosmic radiation during at least three years (x2) long journey to and from the planet? What about ways of bringing them back? What about the storage of supplies, more importantly food, for six years and the mass of a rocket? What about the loss of muscles and bones mass? Last time I checked currently we have no means of creating artificial gravity in space.

Dozens of very hard to resolve question and somehow Elon claims we'll have them resolved by 2024. Unbelievable.

Re:One way ticket?

[turbidostato]

"We aren't ever going to live anywhere else but the Earth. We evolved on Earth."

We aren't ever going to live anywhere else but East Africa. We evolved on East Africa.

Re:One way ticket?

[110010001000]

I knew some fool would post this. Here is a hint: East Africa is a LOT like West Africa. Antartica is also a LOT LIKE East Africa compared to Mars.

Re:One way ticket?

[Lab Rat Jason]

Then your point is lacking... because when something isn't routine, it's only a matter of time until it is, and the only way to make going to mars routine is to do it first in a non-routine condition, and do it so often that it becomes routine. People flying in airplanes used to not exist... then it was novel... then it was routine. Antarctica is a piece of cake compared to space, you realize that, right? And people have been successfully living in space for a while now.

Are there dangers on mars? Yes. Are people willing to face those dangers to achieve something important to them? Yes. There has always been two kinds of people in this world: Those who value discovery above human life, and those who value human life above discovery. You are obviously in the latter group. I'm also in the latter group... but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate someone who has the vision and huevos to try.

Re:Stupid predictions

[AmiMoJo]

We are no closer to AI than we were 40 years ago

I don't recall computers 40 years ago being able to beat grand masters at chess or dominate gameshows by answering natural language questions. Practical, useful AIs are available on demand to anyone with a phone these days. Sure, they aren't pure artificial brain types, but they are capable of viewing and understanding the world.

no closer to putting people on Mars than we were 40 years ago either

Except perhaps for all the practice we have had at living in space for long periods of time, developing lighter and more agile space suits, getting many more countries on-board, that sort of thing. Oh, and the small fact that we have explored Mars in much greater detail, from satellites and from rovers, which is a precursor to landing there just as exploring the moon was.