We are a small step closer inhabiting Mars.
When we will, it will be the most important event in the five billion years history of our solar system. In other words, we are witnessing some pretty cool stuff.
When we will, it will be the most important event in the five billion years history of our solar system. In other words, we are witnessing some pretty cool stuff.
The legacy he leaves will be greater than that of Ghengis Kahn, Ceasar, or Alexander the Great.
Of course, it’s a different vehicle than what they hope to one day take to Mars, but that’s still a huge step for any spacefaring organization to have made, especially when the stated overarching goal is to move huge numbers of people to a new planet.
Successful human spaceflight on reusable hardware > lower cost to orbit of personnel > increased economic activity in orbit > construction of manufacturing facilities > scale up of materials, capability, endurance and knowledge > ability to construct and launch Mars ships and supply a colony
Or something like that.
I’m in my forties and I don’t expect to see us on Mars in my lifetime, except on some poetic suicide mission (nice sidestep of euthanasia laws: “I’m not dying, I’m going to Mars!”). We might make something a bit more useful out of the Moon, though, if we don’t screw up too much.
Foreign colonists in the Americas (ignoring any political aspect of this) faced disease, starvation and attacks from natives but still colonised America because of a dream they had.
Seems like colonising Mars is the other way around, we stand more chance of fulfilment on Earth and failure going to Mars?
Some of us have an explorational spirit, a desire to be pioneers at all costs - isn't that why we want to go? Maybe it's toxoplasmosis.
One critical junction will be how much the Mars colony can avoid the smuggling in of bad ideas and ideologies. If done well, this could result in a radical divergence between the cultures, and wealth, of the two planets.
It's not like we haven't sent people to the ISS before. And it's not like SpaceX hasn't managed to reuse hardware before. It's basically just a mix of those two things.
Really the most significant things about this were that astronauts were launched to space from the US and it was a private company. And out of those, the first thing is really more symbolic than anything else.
The ISS is about 400 km from the surface of the Earth. Mars is like what, 225 000 000 km?
Lower cost to orbit translates pretty directly to increased economic activity in orbit, since said economic activity is less expensive to do (and therefore more accessible to more people).
But agreed. This ain't a huge achievement... yet. It's essential groundwork for that achievement, though.