Huge Mars Colony Eyed by SpaceX Founder Elon Musk

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Chemical

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Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip.

In Musk's vision, the ambitious Mars settlement program would start with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who would journey to the Red Planet aboard a huge reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane.

"At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big," Musk told an audience at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Friday (Nov. 16). Musk was there to talk about his business plans, and to receive the Society’s gold medal for his contribution to the commercialization of space.
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http://www.space.com/18596-mars-colony-spacex-elon-musk.html

Dream Big :D
 
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Vegeta

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Okaaaaay has he gone coookoo from the stress of securing more investment for Tesla motors?

Dude push out long ranged electric cars on a proper affordable commercial scale THEN start the colony on mars geez priorities people!
 
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Vegeta said:
Okaaaaay has he gone coookoo from the stress of securing more investment for Tesla motors?

Dude push out long ranged electric cars on a proper affordable commercial scale THEN start the colony on mars geez priorities people!
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He is already doing commercial space flights for NASA with his Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule.
 
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Unhappy438 said:
Big difference between transporting cargo to the iss and transporting people to mars.
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Yes, I am aware of that. But he is working towards a goal. Who would have said 10 years ago, that a private company would be delivering cargo to space?
 
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Red Dragon is a modified SpaceX Dragon capsule for low-cost Mars lander missions using Falcon Heavy rockets. Plans call for a sample return rover to be delivered to the Martian surface while also testing techniques to enter the Martian atmosphere with equipment a human crew could eventually use.[1] The concept will be proposed for funding in 2012/2013 as a United States NASA Discovery mission, for launch in 2018
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Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dragon_(spacecraft)
 
grok

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As much as I like Musk and his ambitious plans, he's obviously not considered the only viable colonisation plan .. that any new population would have to be born on Mars.

So .. just send me and about 20 supermodels over and I'll get the process going for you :D
 
chrisc

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There us one HUGE problem about living on Mars, if you can overcome the lack of oxygen, the -80 deg daytime temperature, and that is the terrific radiation from the sun which strikes the surface of Mars unhindered by any Van Allen belt as we have on earth. Living underground, 20 metres deep in shielded bunkers would help, but why spend $500k to live in prison? Scientists have been mentioning this radiation hazard since 1984 but have largely been ignored in the hype and BS about going to Mars
 
DrJohnZoidberg

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chrisc4290 said:
There us one HUGE problem about living on Mars, if you can overcome the lack of oxygen, the -80 deg daytime temperature, and that is the terrific radiation from the sun which strikes the surface of Mars unhindered by any Van Allen belt as we have on earth. Living underground, 20 metres deep in shielded bunkers would help, but why spend $500k to live in prison? Scientists have been mentioning this radiation hazard since 1984 but have largely been ignored in the hype and BS about going to Mars
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Recent readings taken by Curiousity actually showed radiation levels similar to that experienced by Astronauts on the ISS.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/17/curiosity-rover-mars-radiation-levels-safe-for-humans/

Problem is that the radiation is going to get you pretty bad in transit from/to Mars.

EDIT: Still wouldn't the fsck want to live on Mars. Guess it's the only viable planet for humans to colonise at the moment, better than Venus I guess :D
 
KleinBoontjie

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evilstebunny said:
As much as I like Musk and his ambitious plans, he's obviously not considered the only viable colonisation plan .. that any new population would have to be born on Mars.

So .. just send me and about 20 supermodels over and I'll get the process going for you :D
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Sign me up too

chrisc4290 said:
There us one HUGE problem about living on Mars, if you can overcome the lack of oxygen, the -80 deg daytime temperature, and that is the terrific radiation from the sun which strikes the surface of Mars unhindered by any Van Allen belt as we have on earth. Living underground, 20 metres deep in shielded bunkers would help, but why spend $500k to live in prison? Scientists have been mentioning this radiation hazard since 1984 but have largely been ignored in the hype and BS about going to Mars
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You sound like an expert.
 
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be.plato

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Vegeta said:
Okaaaaay has he gone coookoo from the stress of securing more investment for Tesla motors?

Dude push out long ranged electric cars on a proper affordable commercial scale THEN start the colony on mars geez priorities people!
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But the technological spin off from establishing a colony on mars would be huge. :)
 
Unhappy438

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[video=youtube;N1aggLqdbd0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1aggLqdbd0&feature=g-all[/video]
 
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[video=youtube;wB3R5Xk2gTY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB3R5Xk2gTY[/video]
 
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Not the best public speaker. But he has more ambitious ideas than most governments.
 
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