MikeB4:

 

The press need to stop calling this clown the founder of Tesla

 

Or SpaceX, or PayPal, none of which he founded.

Re Paypal...
Apparently 
Elon's big break was when he was when his pal Peter Thiel fired him while Elon was on his honeymoon?

Peter Thiel and rest of management team then put Paypal on a more 'solid' path.
Batted away more modest offers based on some of the issues early Paypal had, managed to IPO and cashed in big time when acquired by Ebay.

Elon kinda got a free ride, fired, but due to his % of shares got a huge payday a bit later.
This then was steppingstone to larger things for him.

Like buying his way into founding a certain company or two.
It says a lot about him that he specifically chased recognition as 'founder'.
Being reinventor was just not good enough.

Then you have the solar venture and air hockey tables in vacuum tubes, and tiny tunnels.

Then there is occupying a planet with no magnetic field, open to solar wind that constantly erodes what is left.
Never mind what exposure to highly energized particles has done to the surface.
Plus the mammoth resources required to transport tons of equipment and constant support.
There are plenty of toxic landfills you could live on more comfortably on earth.

I can certainly see going to Mars for science and exploration, but a colony doesn't make much sense to me. The moon seems far more sensible for something like that. Mars is deceptive because it looks almost familiar and has a 24 hour day, but you still need a space suit just as thick and you can't stay outside your protective habitat for long. 

Rikkitic:

 

I can certainly see going to Mars for science and exploration, but a colony doesn't make much sense to me. The moon seems far more sensible for something like that. Mars is deceptive because it looks almost familiar and has a 24 hour day, but you still need a space suit just as thick and you can't stay outside your protective habitat for long. 

 

I agree. Absent nuclear power, I can't see a sustainable colony anywhere in our solar system.  With nuclear power (edit: or a hydrogen energy system with fuel skimmed from Jupiter) perhaps a spartan self-sustaining colony could be established on one of Jupiter's ice moons.

MikeAqua:

 

Rikkitic:

 

I can certainly see going to Mars for science and exploration, but a colony doesn't make much sense to me. The moon seems far more sensible for something like that. Mars is deceptive because it looks almost familiar and has a 24 hour day, but you still need a space suit just as thick and you can't stay outside your protective habitat for long. 

 

 

I agree. Absent nuclear power, I can't see a sustainable colony anywhere in our solar system.  With nuclear power (edit: or a hydrogen energy system with fuel skimmed from Jupiter) perhaps a spartan self-sustaining colony could be established on one of Jupiter's ice moons.

 

There is no Planet B in the near future or very distant future, logistic and the environment of space precludes that despite the dreams of the likes of Elon Musk. He knows that but the promise of more billions will keep the dream perpetuating.

CYaBro: Twitter added 1.6M daily active users in the last week, an all-time high.

So I guess he’s doing something right.

Batman: Wait, he didn't?

Didn't what? Found PayPal? Nope, he founded x.com (using money from his family's apartheid South African diamond mine), which merged with Confinity (the Peter Thiel side of the business), at which point Thiel fired Musk, and the story above played out.

He then bought into Tesla, which already had a car in production (which was ludicrously expensive, but cool) and sued the real founders to force them to recognise him as a founder, and grew the business off the back of ridiculous amounts of US government subsidies, and working his employees into the ground.

Then he used his control of Tesla to buy an overvalued and unprofitable solar business called SolarCity, which was coincidentally owned by a family member.

Then he bought into Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, called himself the founder and acted like it was all him instead of the engineering team led by Robert Mueller putting rockets in space.

He's an incredibly unethical businessman.

Rikkitic:

I can certainly see going to Mars for science and exploration, but a colony doesn't make much sense to me. The moon seems far more sensible for something like that. Mars is deceptive because it looks almost familiar and has a 24 hour day, but you still need a space suit just as thick and you can't stay outside your protective habitat for long. 

MikeAqua: With nuclear power (edit: or a hydrogen energy system with fuel skimmed from Jupiter) perhaps a spartan self-sustaining colony could be established on one of Jupiter's ice moons.

Geektastic: According to the NZ Productivity Commission, NZ has longer work hours and lower productivity than the USA.

Sideface:

i don't understand the title of the thread ... does someone here think he's a god? there are better gods to worship