Elon Musk’s quixotic journey to Mars is a huge waste of time, money and (likely) human lives, according to Douglas MacKinnon at TheHill.com. Does the pundit have it right? Should we ignore Mars and focus on an orb closer to home — like our own Moon?
Video above hosted at Rumble.
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22 replies on “Stupid Elon! Going to Mars is a Huge Waste of Time, Money and Human Lives”
Bill, my wife and I first of all want to say how glad we are that you and your wife are on the far side of a very tough couple weeks dealing with the China Virus. Also we’d like to add that you, Zo, Steve and Scott are pretty much considered part of our family. Carol and I check every day for new installations of Right Angle, MB2A and Virtue Signal and you all are always welcomed into our home. We are and will remain subscribed members as long as this platform (or we) continue to exist in this life. We watch on ROKU so there’s no provision for us to add to your number of ‘rumbles’ but we thoroughly enjoy our daily dose of truth and honesty from you!
We don’t have democrats like this anymore. And I say that fully realizing all the un admirable things about him. But at least he was American.
https://youtu.be/Ateh7hnEnik
If I were in charge of space exploration and humanity’s efforts to expand outward from planet Earth I would go for the Moon first. It’s right there hanging in our night sky where we can almost touch it. I’ve looked at Mars many, many times through a telescope and it’s just a red dot hanging out there in the universe. But …
I’m not in charge. I’m just a guy with a computer and a telescope (three telescopes actually) sitting here looking up at all of that.
If Elon Musk wants to go to Mars he’s welcome to it.
In the meanwhile Elon Musk is creating wealth and jobs at a furious pace. What he creates and discovers will be useful for Moon exploration too. I’ll get my way by letting Elon Musk have his way.
I don’t care what Elon Musk sets for his own goals. I don’t have his money and I can’t set the goals. Go for it, Elon, we’ll all benefit whatever you do because we are all benefitting from what you’re doing now. Have it your way and welcome to it.
I don’t know if he meant to do so or not but in his “making more pies” statements Scott touched on one of the basic and tragic ideological differences between the Right and the Left.
The Left views human wealth as a zero sum game. They say there is only so much wealth to go around and if you have more than someone else you are hogging more than your fair share.
For you who may not be up to speed on games theory, that means that there is a fixed quantity of assets that has to be split somehow between all players. This is how Chess works, there are a set number of pieces (assets) and the one who finishes the game by eliminating opposing assets wins. Most games you’re familiar with work along this same lines, more or less.
In a zero sum game you cannot just start moving “dead” pieces back onto the board.
This is not true of humanity and wealth. Human beings, as Scott says, always make more pie. Humans create wealth where there was none before. We do this at its most basic level by buying a sack of seeds, planting them, harvesting and selling the surplus and the process repeats. Doing this literally pulls wealth up out of the ground. That wealth is created by human endeavor and enterprise.
If you take a city like Los Angeles (and I shudder to use this as an example) and look at the city as a whole … The people, the infrastructure, the public works, the jobs, the businesses — All of it. That city represents MORE WEALTH THAN EXISTED ON PLANET EARTH 150 YEARS AGO.
Or take Tokyo as another example. That city was for all practical purposes destroyed by war a little over a half century ago. But today it’s a thriving, wealthy metropolis. Where did the wealth come from to build modern day Tokyo? Human beings created it. Tokyo did not siphon off the wealth of Los Angeles and cause Los Angeles to shrink to an atrophied remnant of itself.
Which brings us back to the basic, fundamental differences between Left and Right. The Left says the pie only has so many pieces and if you don’t get as much pie as someone else they’re profiting at your expense. The Right has a much more realistic and benevolent view. We’ll just make more pie and everyone will have enough.
It doesn’t matter a bit if someone else has lots and lots of pie. There’s still enough pie that everyone can live a life far, far richer than their own ancestors did.
Ask any Black American of either party if they’d prefer to move back to Africa and live in a mud and thatch hut. Or any Native American if they’d prefer to live a nomadic life of near starvation roaming the Great Plains. Or even any white person of European descent like myself if I’d rather live on a tenant farm as a virtual Serf back in Denmark where my ancestors came from or where I live today. In any case if the person you ask is educated and honest they’ll take their newer model car and big screen TV and live in modern America because America is wealthy beyond reason.
The difference between us and our political opposition is that we’re making more pie and they want to take pie from everyone else. Ours is the more sustainable, egalitarian and better life. That’s really what the difference boils down to.
More than that, they often want to achieve ‘equity’ by destroying the other guy’s pie instead of ‘redistributing’ it – so instead of the same amount there is actually less.
Way to go Scott!
Elon is working on a different problem than Bezos is. On the moon, if you have an emergency, help is approx 3 days away (once the trip has been normalized). On Mars, help isn’t coming soon. So Bezos’s engineers can work on what can be done with a relatively quick turn around of manpower and equipment, while Musk’s engineers can work on the problem of building a long term sustainable habitat and atmospheric environment that cannot be resupplied. I’m not an engineer, and I probably won’t walk on either in my lifetime, but I can understand that the 2 goals have much different challenges. Like Steve (and Melissa) let’s embrace the power of AND!
I have an uncle who expressed a similar sentiment: “I don’t even know why we’re going” and “What’s the point” and “It all seems like a big waste”
I smiled and told him that we were never not going. We were never not going for the exact same reason that we were never not going to the moon and every other place we’ve been.
The human animal is a very curious creature. We just have to see what is over that next hill or around that next corner. We go because its there and we haven’t been there yet.
I think various folks have pointed out that humans are the only species on the planet that can be found in all climates and locations, from the arctic to the tropics. We can adapt and build tools or shelters so that we can survive, if not prosper, anywhere. That means we can also go anywhere.
While I believe that Bezos’ plan has the better application for humanity, I also like the planned habitat necessary for Musk to succeed. My problem with Musk is he seems to suffer greatly from the NIH fallacy (Not Invented Here). As if he is more concerned about building IP rather than building space stations.
He should be a client of Musk’s and use that lift capacity rather than engineer his own lift capacity. Focus on the station habitats and sell those to Musk.
There is synergy to be had but Bezos really seems to be the one pushing things slower.
Did you mean Bezos had a NIH fallacy rather than Musk? If I recall Bezos is the one suing.
Yes, I did. Thinking faster than I can type again. Thx.
We heard the same ludicrous arguments in the 70s about wasting money on the rocket ships to the moon. Glad Scott took the opportunity to interject making more pies. As Phil noted the technical advances that came from the moon program are literally in everyone’s pockets.
“I told Orville, and I told Wilbur, that thing will never fly. They have to stop wasting their time and money and spend it on what I want them to do!”
People don’t understand Elon. He is on a mission from God to save the human race from extinction. To do this he will spend his entire fortune. take any risk, and yes send many brave visionary’s to there death. wouldn’t YOU!
Yes, it is his money. But HE is spending it WRONG!
Only “WE” in the Govt./(Dem)Party know how to spend correctly….so…..
Funny how the people who sound off the loudest as to how others should spend their money are the ones are are the least responsible with the money they manage, namely Leftist politicians and members of teh profession formerly known as journalism
Lets go Brandon. A lie is always a lie and a lier is a lier. Since everyone identifies as a WOKE, Native American Indian, black, Jewish, muslim, Asian, female, lesbian, transgender, midget, cripple it is impossible for anyone to be offended or offend about anything.
living on Mars just like living on the moon is stupid because of the low gravity. However living on a rotating, space wheel, is a good idea and commuting to the surface is the best idea.
It’s really sad what’s happened to science in America. We used to have an attitude of doing great things because we could. Now great achievement is “stupid” while too many in society have twisted Scientism into creating 38 genders, the belief that taxing the poor gives well fed bureaucrats the ability to control the weather, and using it as an excuse to imprison and economically cripple entire societies.
Bezos wants to establish Amazon warehouses at LaGrange points.
A metric megaton of what we take for granted today came out of the space program.