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Comment by mahyarm | Hacker News Reader

Elon is awesome, but the founders of NASA contracting companies, intel, car companies, etc didn't reach bill gates levels of wealth.

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Gates's fortune is vast, but there where plenty of people that made far more when you adjust for inflation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_f...

John D. Rockefeller: US$392 billion to US$663.4 billion in adjusted dollars for the late 2000s, and it is estimated that his personal fortune was equal to 1.53% of the total U.S. annual GDP in his day. PS: He was worth a billion dollars in

Cornelius Vanderbilt: US$178.4 billion adjusted for the late 2000s; Henry Ford: $188.1 billion; Andrew Carnegie US$75 billion to US$297.8 billion; , Astor has a real wealth estimated at some US$116 billion when adjusted for the late 2000s; John D. Rockefeller

>Elon is awesome, but the founders of NASA contracting companies, intel, car companies, etc didn't reach bill gates levels of wealth

This might be true. But Elon stands to be the first private citizen with a chance to reach the moon or Mars. The chance is (admittedly) slim, but the expected value of being commercially successful at reaching the moon or Mars is exponentially greater than Microsoft.

I don't think the change is that slim. Elon is the type of person who knows his limits and pushes them. His goals tend to be grand, but, with effort, achievable.

I'd be more surprised if he didn't reach the moon or Mars

What is the expected value of a private party reaching Mars? What are they going to get from it?

The first individuals to reach North America didn't become ultra-rich. But North America did eventually produce unprecedented new wealth.

Zubrin has argued that the colonization of Mars is analogous to North America, and will produce unprecendented wealth.

http://www.nss.org/settlement/mars/zubrin-promise.html

Hate to be a pedant, but the first people who reached North America were massacred by the ones who followed.

> Hate to be a pedant, but the first people who reached North America were massacred by the ones who followed.

No, good point. That one doesn't count as pedantry on your part, but as a d'oh on my part!

Depends on whose logos are on the rocket.

Hard to say. I'm completely speculating but I'm imagining that between the natural resources present there and the possibility of colonizing the planet, there's economic potential. That being said, very difficult to calculate.

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