7 thoughts on “Elon Musk”

  1. “I would like to die on Mars,” he says. “Just not on impact.”

    Mars is self selecting for people like Musk and Zubrin. Next century will not be the American century… it will be the martian.

    Compare his life to Obama… whom we get to keep right here on earth.

    1. Would Musk be doing as well with McCain in the White House? Without Obama I don’t think Tesla would have a factory building the Model S. Commercial resupply might have been cancelled to keep Constellation alive, and commercial crew probably wouldn’t have happened at all.

      1. So what Jim? Every business has to deal with the environment it exists in. A case could be made that being involved with the government has actually caused delays in Musk’s objectives.

        If you’d actually read the article (and now I have to go back and find the statement) it says an important inflection point was when “Dell acquired Everdream, of which Musk was the major shareholder, for $120 million.”

        So, yes, in some alternate history, things might be different. One thing we know is Elon is a businessman that seems to know how to swim the waters. Trying to tie his many successes to Obama is ridiculous even for you.

      2. Another thing. Crony capitalism is wrong… period. But if you are in an environment where it exists, it would be foolish not to take advantage of it if you can. I’d much rather see ten SpaceX like companies competing against each other but that would require a considerably larger market. The handful that exist right now are enough to move forward. I’m not just hoping SpaceX is successful. I’m hoping others, competing with SpaceX, are successful as well. You’d have Obama decide that only companies with unions were allowed to succeed.

  2. What do you think of this idea Rand(and others)?
    http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3383&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
    From the link: Elon Musk said elsewhere that he thinks that 500K a ticket is the price for being able to send people to Mars privately at a profit. He said that he thinks that there are at least 8000 and probably very many more willing/able to pay. Let assume he is right. How would the colony make money? How about: The Cayman Islands in space?. Mars has one big thing to trade upon, its location beyond all claims of any government as to sovereignty. Meaning it does not have to follow any earth laws. The colony bank of mars (probably a bunch of server/routers/cpu’s in a room) could offer clients tax free interest on deposits (say 5% more for big investors) and total confidentiality. Records not available to any gov agency wanting to know anything about, no legal obligation to do so.

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