That's pretty awesome.
Is Richard Branson not a human?
A suborbital manned spacecraft, OTOH, is a spaceship in every sense. (It's neither an orbital spaceship nor, say, an interplanetary spaceship, but it's definitely a spaceship.)
Saying they aren't is like saying a riverboat isn't a boat because it's not ocean-going.
It can touch space, but a ship is not defined by its ability to touch the water.
I still think it's a pie-in-the-sky project though. Musk compares the Mars initiative to building the Union Pacific Railroad, but the UPRR was heading somewhere full of plunder and gold, where the natives didn't even wear clothes because the weather's so nice. This operation's headed for... Mars, where for miles around, it TOTALLY SUUUUUUCKS SOOO BAD, as Louis CK might say.
Are we really so naive that we're just parroting whatever Musk's PR team says? Musk isn't doing this to further the human race, he's doing it to make money.
1. I would much rather Musk become rich by furthering humanity than someone making the next cat picture app
2. The companies are tackling some of the hardest problems and I think purely to make money he would have picked other easier problems to solve.
3. It is shortsighted to not embrace anyone pushing and striving for the important goals for humanity. Energy, transportation, space travel.
Agreed.
> 2. The companies are tackling some of the hardest problems and I think purely to make money he would have picked other easier problems to solve.
That's not necessarily true. Remember that Musk started with $165 million from sale of shares of PayPal when it was bought by eBay, so he could afford to wait a while for his companies to take off. When you have a large amount of money to invest and you're young, it makes sense to invest in things with a high up-front cost and long wait before you get a payoff--most companies aren't willing to take a risk on that kind of investment, and once it pays off, you own something with little competition and a long head start on your competitors.
And, incidentally, it puts Musk in the position of Silicon Valley's golden boy--which has numerous business advantages.
> 3. It is shortsighted to not embrace anyone pushing and striving for the important goals for humanity. Energy, transportation, space travel.
I agree, but we shouldn't do that naively. If we see Musk as being inherently good instead of as who he is, someone trying to make money, we'll be more likely to compromise our ethics because we view him as good.
Imagine a future where SpaceX sets up mines on the moon. This creates a situation where SpaceX has unprecedented control over a subset of its employees--they literally will die without the company's resources, because there aren't other options on the moon. If we naively trust Musk's intentions, we might let this happen without regulation and only add regulation after abuses for profit are discovered--which may be decades too late for the victims of the abuse. But if we realize that Musk is not ethically different from any other CEO, we will have the wisdom to preempt these kinds of problems with oversight.
That's not necessarily true. Remember that Musk started with $165 million from sale of shares of PayPal when it was bought by eBay, so he could afford to wait a while for his companies to take off. When you have a large amount of money to invest and you're young, it makes sense to invest in things with a high up-front cost and long wait before you get a payoff--most companies aren't willing to take a risk on that kind of investment, and once it pays off, you own something with little competition and a long head start on your competitors.
And, incidentally, it puts Musk in the position of Silicon Valley's golden boy--which has numerous business advantages.
This is not Reddit.
Don't underestimate the power of competition. It's why we put a man on the moon.