A preview:
[Update a while later]
Here’s Nadia Drake’s story on the announcement. The Q and A ended up being sort of a goat rodeo.
[Update early evening, PDT]
Here’s the full presentation.
[Wednesday-morning update]
Here’s Eric Berger’s take, and Jeff Foust’s. And one from Casey Dreier at the Planetary Society.
[Update a couple minutes later]
And Chris Davenport’s.
[Update a couple more minutes later]
And Loren Grush says there’s still a lot to figure out. No kidding.
[Update another couple minutes later]
And Wayne McCandless is skeptical (with a plug of my book).
[Update a few minutes later]
Thoughts from Bob Zubrin.
[Update a while later]
Joel Achenbach says don’t pack your bags for Mars yet. And Ken Chang says Elon just needs to figure out how to pay for it. Well, I think there are other issues as well. Meanwhile, the National Space Society is gung ho (as they should be, it’s much more in line with the group’s stated objective than anything NASA is doing).
[Update a couple minutes later]
Miri Kramer’s five takeaways.
[Update late morning]
McCandless link was missing, but I fixed it.
In response to Dreier:
SpaceX's slate isn't as blank as he thinks. SpaceX has more recent experience developing operational rockets than NASA does. https://t.co/2tzy9tv8S1
— Deplorable-In-Chief (@Rand_Simberg) September 28, 2016
[Update early afternoon]
Here’s Alan Boyle’s take.
And Elon answered yesterday’s question about how they get down to the surface:
@BArtusio Three cable elevator on a crane. Wind force on Mars is low, so don't need to worry about being blown around.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 28, 2016
[Update a while later]
Bill Nye doesn’t buy it. But the Planetary Society doesn’t want “filthy meatbag bodies” on Mars, anyway.
Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure that this announcement will re-energize the SJWs.
[Update a while later]
An amusing take over at Wait But Why. And one of the first, but certainly not last takes on planetary protection and the Outer Space Treaty.