That Time Elon Musk Talked To Trump About Colonizing Mars
Elon Musk pitched Trump on SpaceX’s mission to colonize other planets, Business Insider
“SpaceX founder Elon Musk tried to get a newly elected Donald Trump on board with his company’s mission to reach Mars, according to an excerpt from a new book on the Trump administration that has dominated headlines this week. Among the many claims made in Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” one passage described a scene at Trump Tower where then-president-elect Trump was taking meetings with tech titans like the Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “Elon Musk, in Trump Tower, pitched Trump on the new administration’s joining him in his race to Mars, which Trump jumped at,” Wolff wrote in his tell-all book. Musk’s effort was ostensibly an attempt to keep his company front-of-mind in the broad scope of national space exploration.”
Not surprising the author of the book would see colonizing Mars as a giggle factor to use against President Trump given how successfully the press used Rep. Gingrich statements on colonizing the Moon against him.
The good thing is that when you laugh at someone like Elon Musk it just makes them all the more determined to make you eat your words 🙂
I would have giggled too, if it weren’t for Musk having a pretty good track record of achieving what he sets out to do.
I wish I understood why space exploration- Mars, especially- is giggle-worthy.
Because until very recently only the US government had the deep pockets necessary to design and build launch vehicles big enough to carry people into orbit. NASA has had us all convinced that “space is hard” to the point that hardly anyone even wanted to invest in space start-ups.
This is why we need people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. They’re putting their money on the line to take the “giggle factor” out of space travel.
Also, today I’ve seen pictures of both a Chinese and a European proposal for reusable first stages. And, you guessed it, the recovery gear on both looks a heck of a lot like the landing gear and forward fins on a Falcon 9 first stage. Without the likes of SpaceX to lead the way, even other governments would still be “giggling” at reusing first stages. Because if NASA can’t even do it (X-33 failure anyone?), how can anyone else?
In part, because it is associated with science fiction, and most people know science fiction isn’t real. I think there is a blurry line in many people’s minds, about what isn’t real but could be, what could be real in a decade or so, and what just isn’t physically possible. Talking about something like astronauts on Mars can come across as believing things in a science fiction movie are real, and that can get equated with believing in UFOs or warp drives.
As a side note, JPL is the “Jet Propulsion Laboratory” for a similar reason. One of the founders didn’t want “rocket” in the name; he though it would some like something out of Buck Rogers, and they would seem less credible and serious.
Speaking of Elon Musk, he has made reusable rockets so boring no one is noticing he had yet around successful launch last night. I guess it’s getting to be like watching B747’s taking off. But the video of the booster landing last night was spectacular!
I never get bored watching the booster landings or any launches, but I realize I might be in the minority.
I agree! Because of the brightness the landing looked like something out of those old B&W 50’s science fiction movies with the flames shooting out, but it was for real!
And now with Zuma out of the way, the next Space X launch later this month will be Falcon Heavy. It will be spectacular no matter what happens! Even if it fails, it is a big step forward and Space X will learn and adopt.
Assuming, of course, that the Zuma mess isn’t SX related.
Actually grounding a launch vehicle for months while accident investigations are done is an industry practice that needs to change if you are moving to a more commercial approach to space. You don’t ground aircraft the same way unless preliminary evidence reveals first it’s a systematic problem as with the DC-10 crash in 1979.