Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Is it profitable?


The company’s CEO and chief engineer, Kasturi refers to his inter-plan ambitions as a scientific hero with a moral calling gender rather than an entrepreneur with a disrupted business plan.

The final space program that came close to Musk’s interplanetary ambitions was NASA’s Apollo program, which landed six spacecraft and 12 astronauts on the moon in the mid-20th century. Apollo is valued at more than 0 280 billion in today’s dollars, and in some years, NASA has been spending more than %% of the entire national budget. The space agency, which has received less than half a percent of the federal budget in recent years, is preparing its own plans for humans to return to the moon and eventually make their way to Mars.

But the agency has not indicated how much the latter will cost.

Kasturi’s personal fortune – at least on paper – has skyrocketed to nearly જ 100 billion, thanks in part to a series of stock bonuses from his electric car company Tesla. Musk also repeatedly says he hopes to make a profit from SpaceX’s other businesses, including the satellite-internet venture that is currently in beta testing, to help fuel the fuel for its Mars rocket. SpaceX has amassed nearly billion 1 billion from banks and venture capitalists, making it one of the most valuable private companies in the world, according to data firm Pitchbook. Probably., At least some investors will one day be in search of cash.

And that begs the question: Want to make money on Mars?

Underlying profit

SpaceX still has many, many years of development of all the technologies required for a Mars settlement. The company is in the early stages of developing its starship, a giant rocket and spaceship system that Musk hopes will carry a fleet of cargo and people at least 30 million miles apart between Earth and Mars. Musk estimates it will cost 10 billion to develop the starship, and Musk said on August 31 that SpaceX would launch “hundreds” of satellites on the starship before handing it over to human life.

If it proves capable of traveling to Mars, it will need tight housing from the air and lethal radiation that rains on its surface to protect migrants from toxic air.
A prototype of the SpaceX Starship is pictured at the company's Texas launch facility on September 28, 2019 in Boka Chika, near Browsewin, Texas.

“It’s not for the faint of heart,” Kasturi said. “There’s a good chance you’re going to die, and it’s going to be hard. If he worked, he’d be very proud.”

But for at least the first 100 years of human presence on Mars, the economic situation will be questionable, said Michael Meyer, a leading scientist on NASA’s Mars research program, who recently launched the Perseverance Rover to further study the planet robotically.
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Musk plans to make Mars an attractive destination for long-term life: teraforming, a fictional scenario in which humans make Mars more Earth-like by pumping gases into the atmosphere. The use of the same greenhouse gases will try to bring more atmosphere, warmth and more hospitality to life due to the atmospheric crisis on our planet. Kasturi has promoted the idea that kicking can be done through the process Dropping the atomic bomb On the planet.

The idea of ​​teraforming originated from scientists who were kicking around the idea, Meyer said, but not from someone who believed he could or could do something human.

The mayor said, “It was an intellectual exercise. But there is hardly any oxygen in the atmosphere of Mars. And there is a unique amount of water, which means that it will be extremely difficult to grow crops. There is very little to create a Mars-wide water cycle. Whether or not there are enough resources to make scattering possible.

Musk, in a photo posted on his Instagram, wears one of SpaceX "Eclipse Mars" T-shirt.

“I think ‘Total Recall’ is the right idea,” he joked. “You need to use a little alien technique.”

Kasturi also acknowledged that teraforming would be extremely resource-intensive. But the concept is embedded in the statue of SpaceX, so the company sells T-shirts with the words “Nuke Mars” and “Capture Mars”.

Musk is often seen wearing one.

Values ​​and evaluation

There are no known resources on Mars that would be valuable enough to mine and sell back to Earth businesses. “Part of the reason [scientists are] The interest of Mars is that – it is made of the same material as Earth, “he told CNN Business.

Musk has previously indicated that he agrees, noting that resources on Mars will only be valuable to immigrants hoping to set up businesses on the planet. He noted eight years ago that the only “economic exchange” between Mars and Earthlings would be “intellectual property.”
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has days as long as Earth's.  But it is a small planet, with an average temperature of -81 degrees Fahrenheit, and its atmosphere is very thin and contains a lot of carbon dioxide.

Putting aside the ambitions of making money, the idea that Mars could one day become the home of the metropolis and – probably. – Admitted by mainstream scientists such as NASA’s chief Mars expert Meyer.

The mayor said that, 20 years ago, he attended a presentation on Mars business and tourism. “I was very skeptical about this … and coming away I thought, ‘Well, [there are] “Some very reasonable ideas,” he said, adding that they now accept the idea that entrepreneurs can make space travel more accessible.

The mayor added that, in his mind, that is not the case If One day a trip to Mars will be a profitable adventure, but When.

Musk did not elaborate on his ideas for making money on Mars, but his allegations about intellectual property exports echoed a book written by Robert Zuberin, an influential but polarizing figure in the space community and longtime Musk colleague.

“Ideas for Mangalian immigrants could be another potential export,” Zubrin, head of the Mars Society, wrote in his 1996 book, The Case for Mars.

To keep an eye on the possible future of humanity, Zuberin looks to his past.

“As immigrant and labor shortages persist in America in the 19th century, as the inventions of the Yankee Ingenuity flooded, so extreme labor shortages … Martian ingenuity will carry over.”

In a recent interview with CNN Business, Zubrin was an American with those ideas, arguing that American colonization is working. Zubrin Harkan goes back to the colonization of North America as an example of how Mars settlers could fund their voyages, either by reducing their Earth’s wealth to fund voyages or by “indentured savvy”.

“If you say, well, you want to go to Mars, you want to offer something,” Zuber said. “If you look at Colonial America, a middle-class person can go to America by liquidating their farm. But, this amount will give them a one-way ticket. But if you’re working, you can sell your wages for what you can do.” Seven years. ”

Zubrin, who has worked with conservative think tanks but is not politically affiliated, also acknowledged that colonization could go hand in hand with exploitation: “If someone says, ‘But there will be no exploitation?’ Sure, people do this to each other at the same time. ”

(Kasturi did not elaborate on his views on colonialism, and he donates to both U.S. political parties.)

To be clear: The story of American colonialism also includes the slavery of the Chattels and the brutality and obliteration of many Native populations.

“There’s no original Martin.” Said Zubair.

But Damien Williams – a teacher and PhD student at Virginia Tech who studies advanced technologies, ethics and the intersection of societies – warns that the stories we can tell about America and explore outer space can leave the main context.

    An ideal form of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft is seen at the company's Texas launch facility on September 28, 2019 at Boca Chika, near Browseville, Texas.
It is still unclear, for example, what Musk imagined as the first Mars settlers. NASA astronauts? Ultra-rich thrill-seekers? SpaceX employees?
“This competitive trend of expansion and research, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” Williams said, adding that the advocacy group also works with the Just Space Alliance. But, when talking with the help of the resources of a private company that international treaties say it belongs to no one – “who is brought and how? Who is left and why? These things matter.”

The use of the term “colonization” has a long history of Americans and other Western nations using musk to enrich themselves by exploiting and enslaving others. And when it comes to the colonization of another planet, it’s not just microbial lifeforms that exist on Mars that should be concerned. Williams said the settlement of SpaceX without clearly defined objectives and agreements could create a “conflicting opposing field”.

He added, “The values ​​we carry with us for space exploration should be at the forefront and at the center.”

SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

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