Elon Musk: "I would like to die on Mars"

http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/71446-elon-musk-the-21st-century-industrialist

by kposehn • 14 years ago

283 138 14 years ago

businessweek.com

johnnyg• 14 years ago

Yeah, you and me both Mr. Musk.

juiceandjuice3• 14 years ago

It's statements like this that have made me seriously consider applying for a job at SpaceX.

uptown• 14 years ago

So do it. (I'm sort of hoping a reply like this is enough to bump you forward)

juiceandjuice3• 14 years ago

I started looking at jobs two weeks ago after Neil Armstrong died out of curiosity. I have a job at a place I love doing astrophysics, and I can't complain much about that, but I need to update my resume anyway.

gnarbarian• 14 years ago

That can be done for far less than establishing a long term colony there.

enraged_camel2• 14 years ago

Well, he did qualify the statement by adding, "and not during landing."

27182818284• 14 years ago

This is exactly what I tell people and they're surprised. If I was offered the chance to homestead Mars with the caveat that LEO and landing must be reasonable safe so I don't die in the boring parts, I'd sign up right away!

Bud• 14 years ago

Now that Jobs is gone, Elon is probably the coolest guy in the world. Can't wait to see what he comes up with in the next 10-20 years.

marcoamorales2• 14 years ago

Jobs was never a cool guy in my book. For me, Steve Jobs was an egocentric and self-centered. Elon is a visionary, just read this quote:

“I came to the conclusion that we should aspire to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.”

Steve isn't even near to the impact of what Elon will have on humanity.

pork2• 14 years ago

What you can surmise from that is that they've both probably taken some acid in their lifetimes. If Jobs were alive and younger, he too would probably have been at Burning Man, place of many a revelation to the technologically inclined.

loceng• 14 years ago

I believe that quote was his conclusion to the question of what is the purpose of life.

sampo• 14 years ago

I think Steve Jobs' "bicycle for our minds" metaphor for computers, was quite nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob_GX50Za6c#t=0m25s

luriel• 14 years ago

And unlike Jobs, Elon is behind much of the engineering and research his companies work on.

And also unlike Jobs, you can sense a certain humility in how Elon talks both about himself and about others.

When Neil Armstrong spoke against private space companies, Elon didn't come out and demonize him, I remember watching him cry on camera when asked about it, and said he wished he'd come to Space X to see the work they were doing.

You don't see Elon going "thermonuclear" on his competition and trying to bury them, even when they are huge mega-corporations like Boeing that used all their government connections and lobbying to try to bury him.

richcollins2• 14 years ago

I respect Elon's ambition and the perspective he shares in that quote but both Space X and Tesla only continue to exist by feeding at the government trough.

Personal and mobile computing have lead to massive productivity increases that affect almost everything that we do on this planet.

I'd also argue that the desire to improve space and ground transportation aren't the result of an enlightened human consciousness that discovered the right questions to ask. Using less energy to move around isn't going to improve the persistent suffering humanity experiences.

Jobs appears to have understood this fact but was unfortunately resigned to it rather than determined to fight it:

What's the biggest surprise this technology will deliver?

The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't.

That's going to break people's hearts.

I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much - if at all.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs_pr.html

iag• 14 years ago

Can't agree with you more Bud. Elon is my new hero and role model now.

photorized2• 14 years ago

What I personally like about Elon - he has demonstrated that he gambles with his own money. This makes him fairly unique among serial entrepreneurs who love to raise massive rounds for their next projects even after a prior successful "exit", using lame excuses about discipline, supervision, reality checks, second opinion, etc.

kmfrk4• 14 years ago

I don't know if "gambles" is he right word - he's not a complete idiot after all. He puts his money where his mouth is, because he really think his projects are that important. He's taken every chance to prove that he believes in his visions, which is truly inspiring.

dumbluck• 14 years ago

I appreciate this sentiment, but it makes me think of "The queen is dead. Long live the queen."

"Visionaries" and "cool people" are in many ways good and bad, flawed and gifted, like you and me. It does not serve any good purpose to hold either Jobs or Elon up to the spotlight as if they are any sort of savior.

If anything good comes in the next 10-20 years, it will be because of not only Elon, but people like the rest of us that choose to do something, not wait on others to do something great for us. That said, there is nothing wrong (to say the least) with someone who can drum up the troops.

Buzaga• 14 years ago

`Blankenship, who used to work a few doors down from Jobs, credits Musk with hiring experts and letting them work without too much oversight. “This is the first place I’ve worked that’s going to change the world,” he says.`

I liked this quote where the dude who worked for apple say he's finally working somewhere that's going to change the world... I like Elon better than Jobs(I've never really liked Jobs tbh, except for some genius quotes)

it• 14 years ago

Saying it that way makes it sound like a new retirement community. Why not say he would like to live on Mars? Maybe because it's a dead planet and not very livable.

artmageddon• 14 years ago

I think the point is that he knows while he still has many years of his life ahead of him, eventually he'll be faced with mortality, and when that time comes, he would like to have pushed humankind's ability to reach Mars to the point where he could step foot there, live for awhile, and eventually be buried there.

stcredzero5• 14 years ago

> Why not say he would like to live on Mars? Maybe because it's a dead planet and not very livable.

One could grow plants on Mars. It has close to a 24 hour day-night cycle, and enough sunlight. Growing plants on continental agricultural scales is infeasible with artificial light, but on Earth and Mars, you don't need that. All you need are pressurized greenhouses, and you could have full-blown agriculture on Mars. The industrial processes for creating polymer films from Martian resources on Mars to enable this have already been worked out.

With some genetic engineering, we might not even need the greenhouses.

codex3• 14 years ago

Given Mars' weak gravitational field, extremely low atmospheric pressure, lack of breathable oxygen, deathly cold temperatures, and weak magnetic field (leading to high levels of radiation), he may well get his wish. Many others will likely get this wish against their will.

If he would like to get a taste of realistic Martian colonization here on Earth, may I suggest living underground in a windowless tank, surrounded by a partial vacuum, next to a nuclear reactor.

fghh45sdfhr3• 14 years ago

Well you're just mister sunshine, aren't you.

dredmorbius4• 14 years ago

Well, on Mars, he's Mr. 50% Earth-intensity sunshine. We call him "50-cent" for short.

waterlesscloud4• 14 years ago

If only humans had demonstrated some ability to construct defenses against hostile environments.

You know, like they've done since the invention of fire and the construction of lean-tos.

dredmorbius4• 14 years ago

You snuggle up in your Martian lean-to while tending to your zero-oxygen, 1% atmosphere fire.

I'll take Mr. Sunshine's pressurized, nuclear-powered, underground bunker.

jfoutz• 14 years ago

The self sustaining communities in the middle of the sahara give me enormous hope for these types of projects. The self contained undersea habitats as well.

mc32• 14 years ago

Where's the sense of adventure and romance in that?

Lots of explorers of yore could have met with the similar arguments. Some people can stay behind and man/woman? the home front, others can go off to explore and expand our existence. Not that there's no cost to it, but let's hope, that overall, it's a net plus.

As a species we have wanderlust built-in, perhaps.

codex3• 14 years ago

When I was young and was reading a lot of pulp science fiction books, I was in love with Mars. But those books are fiction. The reality of Mars is not a great cosmic adventure. Mars is a shithole.

Don't get me wrong--Mars should be explored, and we will find some truly breathtaking things. And if we find life on Mars, the scientific paydirt will be huge.

However, the great finds and exploration of Mars will be done by robots. Sending humans to Mars (or colonizing Mars) is a lot like sending humans to the Sahara desert. Colonize the Sahara? But it's so... dull. And not fun. That's not very romantic. Ultimately that is the reality of 99.9% of Mars.

If people are going to die on Mars, they should know that they are not doing it in the name of science and exploration--that task is best left to the robots--but rather in the name of vanity and human tourism. Until Mars can be terraformed to the point where it has 100% of Earth's gravity (I don't even want to contemplate the effects of 1/3 of Earth's gravity on a developing fetus, for example), and a breathable atmosphere, it will be visited only by tourists and robots.

ktizo3• 14 years ago

Many others will likely get this wish against their will.

Really? I suspect that if you offered a million one way tickets to mars and advertised it as almost certain death, they would sell out in less than an hour.

justincormack• 14 years ago

"Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."

anamax• 14 years ago

> Given Mars' weak gravitational field, extremely low atmospheric pressure, lack of breathable oxygen, deathly cold temperatures, and weak magnetic field (leading to high levels of radiation), he may well get his wish. Many others will likely get this wish against their will.

Who is sending folks to Mars against their will? More to the point, how do I provoke someone to do it to me?

melvinmt• 14 years ago

It's the new Australia for convicted felons.

stcredzero5• 14 years ago

> Given Mars' weak gravitational field...

Actually, that's a big plus. Single Stage to Orbit and the simplified logistics would make access to the rest of the Solar System much, much easier. Heck, we could even build a Space Elevator on Mars with today's technology, if we really wanted to.

> If he would like to get a taste of realistic Martian colonization here on Earth, may I suggest living underground in a windowless tank, surrounded by a partial vacuum, next to a nuclear reactor.

Some people think living in extreme environments to be fun: http://amzn.com/1590786076

The problem with your scenario, is that you wouldn't get to put on a space suit, step out of an airlock and walk on Mars.

mej10• 14 years ago

How about... you know, not dying? At least in the foreseeable future.

You can do a lot more awesome engineering and science and exploration if you don't die after ~80 years.

dredmorbius4• 14 years ago

My first thought: how about reproducing on Mars?

Now to find a suitable Mr. & Mrs. Smith, if you grok me.

kmfrk4• 14 years ago

     if you grok me.

How appropriately Heinlein. :)

evoxed• 14 years ago

Mr. and soon-to-be-Mrs. Smith here. Where do we check our bags?

ktizo3• 14 years ago

I think it is hard to foresee removing from the foreseeable future one of the few bits of the future that is foreseeable.

MikeCapone2• 14 years ago

Not that hard to imagine and plan for:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8554766938711591377&...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0312367066

http://citywire.kuluvalley.com/view/E586AD51-418F-C8CE-442B-...

http://michaelgr.com/2011/10/24/aubrey-de-grey-on-the-diseas...

reasonattlm• 14 years ago

The estimated price tag for a good shot at implementing SENS and demonstrating robust reversal of aging in mice is $1B: $10M/year for ten years in each of seven research programs, plus some padding.

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2004/11/strategies-for-en...

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/aubrey-de-grey-on...

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2004/10/the-cost-of-sens....

MikeCapone2• 14 years ago

I'm not a billionaire (yet), but that's why 100% of my charitable donations go to the SENS foundation. Every marginal dollar has a much higher expected utility there than anywhere else that I've found.

usaar333• 14 years ago

Given that cancer research gets $5B/year in the US government funding alone and we still have cancer, I am skeptical of that price tag claim.

also see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1371037/

kilroy123• 14 years ago

I sure hope SpaceX ends up being a success. I also hope, if successful, they put a lot of money toward research on carbon nano tubes.

Hopefully, they or some other organization, could move towards building a space elevator sometime in the next 50-100 years.

waterlesscloud4• 14 years ago

I'd really like to hear more about Google's rumored work on space elevators.

shawnee_• 14 years ago

On the assumption that people will be living on earth for some time, Musk is cooking up plans for something he calls the Hyperloop. He won’t share specifics but says it’s some sort of tube capable of taking someone from downtown San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes. He calls it a “fifth mode of transportation”—the previous four being train, plane, automobile, and boat. “What you want is something that never crashes, that’s at least twice as fast as a plane, that’s solar powered and that leaves right when you arrive, so there is no waiting for a specific departure time,” Musk says. His friends claim he’s had a Hyperloop technological breakthrough over the summer. “I’d like to talk to the governor and president about it,” Musk continues. “Because the $60 billion bullet train they’re proposing in California would be the slowest bullet train in the world at the highest cost per mile. They’re going for records in all the wrong ways.” The cost of the SF-LA Hyperloop would be in the $6 billion range, he says.

The estimated cost projections for the bullet train project keep getting bigger. I've seen estimates as high as $68 billion: and that is for construction alone (not including maintenance, etc). If Elon Musk can come up with a better idea, I hope we can remove enough of the red tape (that incidentally makes endeavors like this so expensive) to at least let him try.

waterlesscloud4• 14 years ago

The California "high speed" rail project is depressing.

In theory, I'm a huge fan of high speed rail. But the California project is going to end up costing over $100 billion, and everyone knows it. It's going to take decades to complete. If, indeed, it's ever completed. It's routed to go places no one wants to go. And, as Mr. Musk says, it' not actually going to be very fast. It's pretty much a classic textbook boondoggle.

I wish they'd cancel it and start over again from scratch in 10 years. It could still be finished faster.

dredmorbius4• 14 years ago

Even magabooster Quentin Kopp is strongly recommending they scrap it.

stcredzero5• 14 years ago

> It's routed to go places no one wants to go.

Big. Red. Flag.

The Minneapolis light rail uses the same equipment as Houston's light rail. The big difference is that the Minneapolis light rail goes between the airport, downtown, and the Mall of America. People can immediately see its value. Houston's light rail doesn't go to either of Houston's airports, even though it's sorely needed.

Symmetry• 14 years ago

I still can't believe that they didn't jump on the French national rail operator's plan to build the thing.

http://marketurbanism.com/2012/07/10/what-i-learned-today-ab...

onetimeuse001• 14 years ago

The estimated cost projections for the bullet train project keep getting bigger. I've seen estimates as high as $68 billion

Wait until it starts, it will at least double the initial projections. It sure makes you wonder if it's just payback to certain groups or spending to create (very expensive) jobs for a while.

prima-facie• 14 years ago

At first I thought they were talking about Elop from Nokia and I thought to myself 'yap, we could send him to mars tomorrow'.

vannevar2• 14 years ago

I love what Musk is doing, but both of his current engineering successes---Space X and Tesla---involve building well-understood vehicles, just faster and at less cost than competitors. Doing entirely novel projects like a manned mission to Mars or some new kind of mass transportation system are orders of magnitude more difficult and uncertain, and I think he's grossly underestimating the time and cost for either of his more ambitious new goals. I'd like to see him make plain vanilla space transportation and electric cars into business successes comparable to PayPal before he moves on to Mars and Hyperloop.

eru• 14 years ago

I also hope he'll be making lots of money on Tesla and SpaceX. I don't know whether he'll be able to make going to Mars pay, but the money he'll spend will do the market some good.

robryan• 14 years ago

I would like to see him do both. Even if the Mars stuff doesn't work out perfectly on his ambitious timeline SpaceX devoting resources to pushing the boundaries as well as refining the well known processes is going to create more innovation in the long run.

vannevar2• 14 years ago

I would too, but in terms of immediate impact Tesla will have a greater social and economic significance for the planet than the Mars mission, and the company is really only getting started. I would hate to see Musk get bored with it and move on to a new toy while Tesla fails for lack of leadership.

rdl• 14 years ago

I'd prefer to not die, but dying on Mars would be ok if dying is necessary.

dhughes• 14 years ago

My guess is it would be hard to not die on Mars, just keeping alive would be a challenge.

dandrews• 14 years ago

Dying at Alcor seems preferable to dying on Mars.

sonnenkiste• 14 years ago

Old things should go away after some time and make space for new things. Dieing is the prefered way. As long as we have limited space and resources. ;o) Otherwise there will be no real development. We will more or less stuck in where we are.

damoncali5• 14 years ago

Enough of the hero worship. If Musk gets on one of his rockets in 15 years and launches it towards Mars, he will certainly die. Long before he reaches Mars.

Yes, he's a great, fascinating man. I enjoy observing this stuff as much as the next guy. But Good God - stop slobbering on yourselves. This is marketing fluff of the highest order.

dasil0032• 14 years ago

Is it "of the highest order" because it's marketing something substantive?

damoncali5• 14 years ago

Exactly the opposite. It's the grand marketing of an even grander vision - the ultimate vaporware.

Where people with can dream up supersonic aircraft that are massively more efficient than the highly refined subsonic craft that have been built by thousands of very smart people over decades.

Where magic tubes will transport people near the speed of sound whenever they want for a mere $6B.

Where the realities of space flight are to be ignored because, well, the leader of the venture is a really good business man and has a lot of charisma.

Is this not the same hacker news where people get bent out of shape when Apple bends the truth on their iPhone marketing copy?

Fuck Mars. I'm going to Jupiter. In 2015.

The emperor has no clothes.

jboggan• 14 years ago

I have always told myself that ending my days on another planet will be an absolute definition of success for myself no matter what else I don't manage to accomplish. It's a sufficient but not necessary condition. In ten years I hope to be working in a business related to space exploration.

badcrowd-JG-IW• 14 years ago

DJ Lee Kalt. Vergeet hulle bestaan.

greesil• 14 years ago

Or maybe die on the way there.

McCoy: Don't pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull, and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait till you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles. See if you're still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding! Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.

Substitute Andorian shingles with just going crazy being cooped up in a tiny ship.

autophil• 14 years ago

I would like to die on Mars. Oh brother.

How come "shut up and just do it" applies to everyone but Elon? Why does he only have to talk about doing something to be hailed a hero?

Start backing some of this stuff up with action Elon.

blhack• 14 years ago

>start backing this up with action

Not sure if sarcastic...

Elon Musk, as in: the guy who's company just ran a private reapply mission to /the international space station/.

damoncali5• 14 years ago

I hate to break it to you, but everything NASA builds is built and operated by private companies. SpaceX is an incremental improvement on something that has been done for decades. That is a far cry from Musk's fantastic claims.

the_mitsuhiko• 14 years ago

I think dying on mars can be accomplished in a reasonable timely manner. Living on mars however might be hard.

knodi• 14 years ago

Don't worry Mr Musk, you won't have to die pretty soon.

AYBABTME2• 14 years ago

I recently discovered who Elon Musk was and I'm always astonished to read about him, and realize that he seems to have all the dreams that I have; plus the money, the wisdom and the experience to accomplish them.

I never had a model or a 'hero' in my life, but I find it hard to deny Elon this role. He's kind of imposing himself to me.

For some parts, he pisses me off. He doing it removes me the feeling that my dreams were mine. On the other sides, my pride motivates me to accept his theft as a challenge to try at surpassing him.

Now I'm only 25, so I guess I still have the time required to get on par, if I keep working hard enough.

xal2• 14 years ago

Instead, go work for him. Go help make it all come true.

jk49302• 14 years ago

Or do a complementary business. Something SpaceX et al. could need.

AYBABTME2• 14 years ago

Well, right now I'm still doing my undergrad and they (SpaceX) only take US citizens or permanent residents for internships and COOP terms (I assume because of the legal complications given the nature of their work).

But I know your company does take interns and you guys are at a 5 mins walk from my campus. So on a short term side, I'm focused on building my skill set for an internship in your shop! (Sorry for the cheap plug!)

benl• 14 years ago

"Hopefully not on impact"

photorized2• 14 years ago

Re: “Boeing just took $20 billion and 10 years to improve the efficiency of their planes by 10 percent. That’s pretty lame. I have a design in mind for a vertical liftoff supersonic jet that would be a really big improvement.”

I respect what the guy has done. But a vertical liftoff supersonic jet is going to be more difficult than anything he had encountered, including rockets.

jlgreco3• 14 years ago

His entire life seems to have been spent doing progressively harder things. I would be surprised if he decided what he is currently doing is as hard as it is going to get.

philhippus• 14 years ago

I wonder if the Hyperloop is a maglev propulsion system contained within a vacuum tube? That would essentially be space travel - on earth. It would also allow for efficient use of energy, as long as the vacuum could be easily maintained.

kmfrk4• 14 years ago

That's only until the TSA gets involved.

mherdeg• 14 years ago

It always astonishes me that not only did Heinlein invent the Segway ("The Road Must Roll"), he also invented the idea of people like Elon Musk (as D.D. Harriman in "Requiem").

stickhandle• 14 years ago

a man of my generation sees a little of the Larry Ellison swagger about Elon Musk. I hope he does more.

sfriedrich• 14 years ago

Go Elon! Big vision. Big execution. They ARE delivering. Get's my motor revving.

eckyptang• 14 years ago

Conincidentally, I actually had a rather lucid dream about this a few nights ago. I can see it is possible even with today's technology to get there and stay there. It's just a matter of cost and inclination.

We need to send lots and lots of larger seed probes out there first though - not the limited scope probes and landers we're using now, but general purpose, long life scouting probes with engineering, tooling and life support payloads.

Zenst• 14 years ago

For those who fiscaly are less likely to get to Mars and still wish to die on Mars can always read this and smile:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-fried_Mars_bar

on another less serious note I believe the chap in this news item will beat him too it:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/573673/mars-addict-lives-on...

    Most people want to die in peace, but when you have to go to another planet to get peace then you just know noise polution has got a little bit out of hand.

JVIDEL• 14 years ago

I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact.

Easy, remember a few years ago when some guys at NASA proposed that the first guys to Mars should be in their early 60s?

That's because getting there is not the problem, the problem are the copious amounts of radiation you would absorb on the way which means that even if you make it back you probably wont live much more.

So what those guys proposed was sending old astronauts on a one-way trip.

gtirloni• 14 years ago

"SolarCity, where Musk is chairman of the board, is a player in the residential and commercial solar markets, with more than 28,000 customers, and is expected to go public imminently at a value of about $1.5 billion."

We're valuing crap, err FB, at $50 billion these days. Why is a company with actually something to offer to society getting valued at only $1.5bn ?

Elon Musk: "I would like to die on Mars"

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