Have we colonized Mars yet? Asking for a friend.
I share all the disillusionment and cynicism about Musk, shared here by others.
But he has also done amazing things. When someone declares they are going to create a Martian colony, something literally "out of this world", and against all odds makes unbelievable progress for years, including re-usable rockets that return and land vertically, more efficient powerful engines, and fast operational turnarounds, while making orbital travel mundane, hanging a criticism of schedules on the weak hook of "yet" is myopic.
For starters it's too cold, too dry, atmosphere is too thin, and there's no reasonably sustainable power source.
But all of that is irrelevant because there's no magnetic field. So radiation. So unlivable.
There's also no point in a colony there. If life ends on earth it ends on Mars. There are no materials there we want. It offers exactly nothing we can't do better here, for much less money.
Will we land on Mars? Sure. There's always the goal of being first. But live there? No. Unsupported by earth? Very much no.
Robots have landed on Mars. Maybe they will even figure out how to use minerals on Mars to build more of themselves. It is plausible to me that as far as space exploration is concerned that it will be autonomous within a few hundred years.
The rush to the Moon and then Mars is going to push robotics along the learning curve toward an explosion in off-world activity.
Asteroids will be where resource extraction goes off the charts.
That's an archive of the article it's originally from, from the NYTimes - "Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly", October 1903. The Wright Bros first successful flight would come in December 1903. The NYTimes also similarly published about the impossibility of spaceflight relatively shortly before it happened.
I anxiously await the day for the NYTimes to dismiss colonizing Mars as impossible, as it means we are most certainly on the cusp of achieving exactly that.
Contrast to the moon. The prestige was great, the investment enormous. The return was more-or-less zero. There was a reason Apollo 18 was canceled, and we stopped going.
(Current efforts are in no rush, and are mostly about prestige.)
The value of a colony on Mars is precisely zero. We might visit a couple times. But colonize? Nope.
Assigning zero long term value however to another entire planet worth of resources just seems like a failure of imagination.
You can't get to the 777 without the Wright Flyer.
And I think once we start iterating on these concepts, the timelines might not be as long as might otherwise be expected. Forget the 777 - it's completely stupefying that we went from the Wright Flier to the SR-71 Blackbird [1] in 61 years. That beast is another product of the magic of the 60s - long-term sustained flight at Mach 3.2 - 2450+mph. London to New York in less than 2 hours. There really was something in the water in the US in the 60s.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird
So I think the comparison with flight is perfect. Imagine after the Wright Bros. flight, which countless people had died in the process of seeking to achieve, we had one uninvolved entity able to say 'yeah, I'm responsible for all this' and then canceled everything in a simple self-motivated political calculation to try to 'go out on top' so to speak.
The Moon was never the goal, anymore than the Wright Flyer was the goal. It was one small step on a very lengthy journey - a major milestone for sure, but nowhere near the end of the road. And that's where we remain in space, but thanks to the fact that so much expertise was lost in the ~60 year do-nothing era, we're now having to essentially start over. On the bright side, this time the driver's going to be private industry, just like with airplanes - and there will be no myopic politician to cancel it.
How are robotaxis coming along, versus the promises?
How are Optimus robots coming along, versus the promises?
How is the 2nd edition Roadster coming along, versus the promises?
You need to stop thinking of Musk in terms of a person who has "done amazing things" and letting that lead you to a belief that he has some kind of special ability in this space.
He's the money guy. He's occasionally managed to acquire talent that has done amazing things. This does not give him an innate "make amazing things happen" ability. He can throw money at bad ideas and ineffectual people. He can make something happen given the size of his wealth, but whether that actually achieves any of the stated goals is largely independent of his own actions.
On the one hand, we have major advance, after major advance. But on the other hand, we have crossed out dates on a calendar! Cool things that were mentioned but haven't happen yet! Sad calendar! It's a real toss up!
Puzzle question: is aspirational calendar-target overoptimism good or bad if you get things done late, but sooner than you would have, or at least, more things than you would have, than if you had set more "realistic" targets. Like decades. And then been late for that.
I suggest instead complaining, you your time and Elon's tardiness to beat him to the punch! Lemonade punch.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are late at things, but without the contrast of famous wins, nobody complains. It is so unfair!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...
If you think objectively Elon is not a psychopath.
It's sad that this is believed when it's most often the opposite. Especially in this case we have a literal historical example. You'll never guess what Henry Kaiser built before creating Kaiser, the largest set of hospitals in CA.
The money spent on the ships* could not be double-spent on hospitals. The workers whose manual labour was dedicated to those later ships could not be simultaneously dedicated to more hospitals. The crew of a battleship cannot be simultaneously working in a hospital, the maintenance teams repairing it cannot be simultaneously repairing a hospital.
Every resource-management game demonstrates this principle, even if they're all gross simplifications.
* Wikipedia says Kaiser's ships were cargo and transport, not battleships, which means they had the potential to be a net positive on the economy. This is better than a battleship, because domestic military gear can't be a net positive: the point is to keep matériel and personnel around to deter enemies, and only use them for training and when enemies aren't deterred.
It almost never is.