Well played subby

/need a sandwich maker?

I shall begin stuffing my pockets with leaves

I will get started making the documentary

I'll work as a telephone sanitizer for free if I got to do it on Mars.

Yeah, sure, this SEEMS like a good idea, but we're gonna be up a creek when that phone-borne plague hits...

Not too long ago he was launching experimental rockets from a tiny island in the pacific.
Now he's planning to start a Mars colony?
This man is the best Bond villain ever!

How's a guy sign up to be a henchman on his crew?

/Qualifications: I love space, know how to use an assault rifle, and look good in spandex.
/"Good" in a hairless panda sort of way.

Snark it up all you want, but "I don't want to live on this planet anymore" is attainable.

Want! Wantwantwant!

HaveBeerWillTravel: Yeah, sure, this SEEMS like a good idea, but we're gonna be up a creek when that phone-borne plague hits...

No, since there are no public phones any more, that danger has passed.

/Not counting the iFanboies.

I want fire that can be fitted nasally.

"Radiation isn't a worry, as Mars' atmosphere was recently revealed by NASA to shield radiation to the point where humans can survive on the surface."

Cool, I always saw this listed as one of the big factors against building on Mars. Everything would have to be shielded or underground.

Wamphyr: I want fire that can be fitted nasally.

Yes, but what color should it be?

How about "bloggers"? There's nothing more useless than a nobody with an opinion.

I'd go.

Can we sponsor Quantum to go up?

legendary: Well played subby

/need a sandwich maker?

Try 'Sandwich Artist'. You might get an H2-b sponsorship.

Any Pie Left: Can we sponsor Quantum to go up?

Can we sponsor Quantum to be used as reaction mass on the way up?
/Either ground or whole, I'm not picky.

I got a crew of six, willing and ready.

I laughed my butt off subby, I should get out of my bath soon the waters getting cold.

This is pretty looney, but less so than I thought at first. Musk has thought a lot of this through. I hope he gets some momentum going on the cheaper, maybe even reusable boosters.

But ultimately, it's a farking frozen desert wasteland where the very thin air is toxic. If you just want to live in an exotic bubble, It would be much much easier to build "Everest city", "Underwater city", "South Pole city", or "Active Volcano city"* than this, and the tourist payoff would be huge for relatively tiny transport costs. So, when those become economically feasible, I'll start to believe in 80,000 going to Mars.

*AV City would not be IN the magma, just suspended above and protected from the toxic gases, with some rapid escape system in case of a violent eruption.

HA! I just raked my lawn... I'm going to have a fortune!

Bacontastesgood: But ultimately, it's a farking frozen desert wasteland where the very thin air is toxic. If you just want to live in an exotic bubble, It would be much much easier to build "Everest city", "Underwater city", "South Pole city", or "Active Volcano city"* than this, and the tourist payoff would be huge for relatively tiny transport costs. So, when those become economically feasible, I'll start to believe in 80,000 going to Mars.

Very true, but those cities you mentioned all have one fundamental problem: they're still on Earth. As long as we remain an Earthbound species, we are vulnerable to mass extinction. It may be an asteroid strike, nuclear accident, plague; whatever. The Earth is a single point of failure.

Building a city on Mars will be very, very hard; but we used to do thing just because they were hard. Sending colonists also solves one of the big problems of going to Mars: how to get them back. When the answer is "you don't" then the task of getting one's ass to Mars becomes much easier.

way south: How's a guy sign up to be a henchman on his crew?

I'd start here...

flaminio: Bacontastesgood: But ultimately, it's a farking frozen desert wasteland where the very thin air is toxic. If you just want to live in an exotic bubble, It would be much much easier to build "Everest city", "Underwater city", "South Pole city", or "Active Volcano city"* than this, and the tourist payoff would be huge for relatively tiny transport costs. So, when those become economically feasible, I'll start to believe in 80,000 going to Mars.

Very true, but those cities you mentioned all have one fundamental problem: they're still on Earth. As long as we remain an Earthbound species, we are vulnerable to mass extinction. It may be an asteroid strike, nuclear accident, plague; whatever. The Earth is a single point of failure.

Building a city on Mars will be very, very hard; but we used to do thing just because they were hard. Sending colonists also solves one of the big problems of going to Mars: how to get them back. When the answer is "you don't" then the task of getting one's ass to Mars becomes much easier.

In fact, long term trips have been the basis of most of the more sane mars plans.

80,000 is pretty big thinking - something that has been a failing with nasa mission designs. Too big, too costly, every person on the staff cramming their department into the plans, and too many years down the road without visible progress. That can hurt a private enterprise as much as a public one.

The Modmin who approved this link should get a medal. THESE are the kind of headlines that you should be greenlighting!

If it would cost $36 billion, why is he trying to bring the cost *DOWN* to where 80,000 people could all pay $500,000 to get on? That's 40,000 million dollars, otherwise known as $40 billion.

Not that any of this is little more than a pipe dream.

Sure, in the short run shipping costs are going to be a beast, but it'll come down faster than you'd think. Plus, all the nice shallow mineral deposits will still be there. Better still, no EPA, no regulations, no nothing. We can laugh at the asteroid miners all we want, but the first corporation to industrialize space will rapidly become the most powerful economic entity in history. Want to eliminate an earth bound rival? Their products are on store shelves at increasing prices due to depletion of raw materials. Yours are literally falling out of the sky.

Of course, we could use outer space for good. Free energy delivered anywhere by microwave beam. Dirty industries moved off world. A wealth of mineral resources unimaginable to a civilization that's been mining since before recorded history.

But no poverty and no pollution is just one possible future.

I like how Elon's thinking, but there's no way that a mere $36 billion will cover the whole 80,000 people. $36 billion might not even cover the cost of the first manned flight to Mars.

Is there a giant space goat coming?

XMark: I like how Elon's thinking, but there's no way that a mere $36 billion will cover the whole 80,000 people. $36 billion might not even cover the cost of the first manned flight to Mars.

36b$ would cover the cost of ~18 shuttle flights. 6b$ would cover the cost of putting ~800 tons of something in a GTO, which is most of the way to Mars if you think about it(using the largest configuration of their new Falcon 9).

Now, it probably wouldnt cover the cost of setting up for and delivering 80,000 colonists, but even assuming off the shelf/in the production pipeline components, a mission to mars wont cost 36b$. Anyone that tells you otherwise probably thinks a toilet seat costs 3000$

XMark: I like how Elon's thinking, but there's no way that a mere $36 billion will cover the whole 80,000 people. $36 billion might not even cover the cost of the first manned flight to Mars.

Depends on how it's spent.
Much of the cost for Apollo was expended to build launch pads, facilities, and to pay/train hundreds of thousands of scientists.
The portion turned into smoke and fire was actually quite small... Which is why I believe the implosion of NASA lead to a tech boom when all those men had to renter the workforce.
All of that moon money was well spent, but poorly accounted for. So it made Apollo look frivolous when it was actually a down payment on the modern world.

Assuming we've got the rockets, the scientists, the equipment designs and the facilities, all we're buying are space suits and shovels. Maybe a few rovers.

/even if I'm wrong, It's not a lot of money at ten times the price.
/You could buy a few stealth planes or the future of mankind...

Coelacanth: During the Bush administration, I had some friends in banquets & catering here in Las Vegas who told me about national 'Shining City in the Sky' meetings where conservatives discussed a seven year plan colonizing Mars they called 'The Rapture'. My flies on the wall also told me about the potential colonists' plans to push the Martian moons Deimos and Phobos out of orbit and drop them on the Earth to start tribulations.

A struggling colony some how getting not one, but two moons to have enough Delta V to break Martian orbit and traverse all the way back to Earth. A clandestine meeting that occurs in, of all possible secure locations available to the government, Las Vegas. An evil, diabolical plan of almost impossible scale calling for the destruction of the Earth being planned by people who are intelligent enough to pull it off yet use random help with no security checks to make sure they can keep their mouth shut. Said people leaving said planning information in view of said help. And somehow it's Bush's fault.

I'll call Art Bell and let him know what's going on right now! But don't worry, they'll get us all with chemtrails and fluoride first!

\if the colony works, I'll be happy here knowing that the species is safe from an event at a single place extinguishing us. But I'm not going to volunteer to be there. Colonies have a history of bad stuff happening in them.
\\Now, if there's a FTL ship I can sign on to the crew of that's a different story.

So... Will fark get a mars tag then?

The first requirement is everyone has to believe in climate change, and not be against it.