[QUOTE=LaurV;443798]A bit disappointing. It looked a lot like advertising, he didn't seem "prepared" for the talk...[/QUOTE]

LOL... I watched a recent interview with Musk a little while ago, a one-on-one interview, where he hadn't even shaved properly.

[QUOTE=Dubslow;443609]SpaceX Mars Announcement from IAC starts in 1.5 hours!

[url]https://spacex.com/mars[/url][/QUOTE]

So I guess the whole vacuum-tubes-will-revolutionize-mass-transport-worldwide thing fizzled ... onward and outward!

What this is really about is Musk feeding a steady diet of disruptive-innovation-foo to the legions of headline-scanning bots tied into HFT platforms worldwide. The bots only care about the big splashy initial announcement, not whether anything ever comes of it.

[QUOTE=chalsall;443832]LOL... I watched a recent interview with Musk a little while ago, a one-on-one interview, where he hadn't even shaved properly.[/QUOTE]

LOL... Found the video... [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnBQmEqBCY0[/url]

The man's worth billions of dollars, but can't afford (or, at least, doesn't know how to use) a good razor....

[QUOTE=chalsall;443868]The man's worth billions of dollars, but can't afford (or, at least, doesn't know how to use) a good razor....[/QUOTE]You is jealous of smth bro?

Let's examine the content, not the delivery method. Can?

[QUOTE=retina;443872]Let's examine the content, not the delivery method. Can?[/QUOTE]

Can. Should. Must.

Musk is only (one) human. There are many others involved in this project.

We will pat them on their bottoms for their good work once we take control.

[QUOTE=retina;443872]You is jealous of smth bro?
Let's examine the content, not the delivery method. Can?[/QUOTE]
That was nothing about the man himself. I was talking about the content. There are a lot of problems and issues with his design. That is not a "software guy with no idea about space traveling" (that is me) talking, but experts on web have similar concerns.[URL="http://jalopnik.com/heres-how-to-fix-the-big-problems-with-elon-musks-mars-1787163420"] Here is one[/URL] that puts it in layman terms.

[QUOTE=LaurV;443882]That was nothing about the man himself.[/QUOTE]My reply was for a different recipient. Your reply was cool bro.

[QUOTE=LaurV;443798]A bit disappointing. It looked a lot like advertising, he didn't seem "prepared" for the talk, a lot of "aaaaarrr" and "eeerrrrr", he didn't say anything about the cosmic radiation and all the dangers of the trip, etc. Looked like he only wanted to boast about his luxury design with restaurant on board, etc, and the 200k tickets (i think they are still expensive, the real cost could be cut to at least a third), and about how much money is he going to collect, to be spent on Mars* and nowhere else...[/QUOTE]
I swear to any god you want that I didn't read[URL="http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/28/13086980/spacex-elon-musk-mars-plan-problems-breathing-radiation-death"] this article[/URL] before posting the comment above. But i agree with every word the reporter there says, is like I thought it and wrote it by myself. He even uses my words! (but much better than I did or I could do). I am also an incurable optimist, and felt exactly the same as the reporter, hearing/watching Musk.


----
* I corrected the typo, it was written "March" in the initial post. In my language there is not as much difference as in English, they both come from the war's god Mars/Martius.

First, Musk is known to not be a good public speaker. Every interview/speech he's ever done, he has stutters and hesistations. That's just how he his, please don't knock the content for it.

As for the content itself, SpaceX has 14 years of history to prove that the skeptics on the outside, while right to be skeptical (in the scientific sense) were generally underestimating SpaceX. When they first suggested landing rockets on barges, much less boosting back to land, people thought that was crazy, and yet here we are 5 years down the road.

If anyone can pull off something that others don't think is possible, it would be SpaceX. So far they've generally followed up on what they said they could do (with the notable exception of generally being a lot slower about it then they state).

Edit: I just read the articles LaurV linked, and I agree with 2.5 of the 3 points made.

The first article mentions separating planetary habitats from vacuum habitats, and I think that's an excellent idea.

It also mentions changing the refueling paradigm, which I only partially agree with. The reason the tankers are launched after the main spaceship in Musk's original plan is because of propellant boil off issues. Essentially, cryogenic propellants (especially LOx and especially especially LH2, the latter of which isn't used for this among other reasons) are extremely difficult to store for any long term duration. This is why the [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_Flight_22#Launch_attempts"]SES-9 launch earlier this year was delayed multiple times[/URL], because SpaceX was still learning how to properly load the subcooled LOx in 30 minutes as opposed to the couple of hours previously used by SpaceX and just about every other provider. Two hours is simply too long for subcooled LOx to be out of active cooling. Now, the partial agreement with this proposal is that it would be possible to make an infrastructure investment to have an active cooling and storage system in the proposed garage, however it would be significantly more expensive and difficult than he seems to think.

The third point by the second article is also quite a problem IMO. I remember when Musk was asked about radiation for the trip and he kind of waved it away, that was one of the few moments when I thought to myself "Uh... okay then Mr Musk, but that's actually a serious problem".

All this being said though, SpaceX has definitely shown that they are capable of reacting to new problems as they are presented, and fixing them or working around them as necessary. I'm quite certain that the manner in which they land rockets now is quite different from the initial vision they had however many years ago, but they've still pulled it off all the same.

So although it may not necessarily look like the presentation Musk made (in physical look or in the architecture of the missions), I am still quite confident that SpaceX will achieve what they set out to do in one form or another.

Rosetta died today. lasts image sent are here
[url]http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2016/09/Comet_from_51_m_wide-angle_camera[/url]
this one from 51 meters above the surface of the comet, scale is 5 mm by pixel.
There is another picture taken 10 sec before impact and a gif but I have no direct link.

[url]http://acomik.com/post/151142093006/low-iq-a-patreon-twitter-instagram[/url]