So SpaceX had another "R.U.D" incident.
But it did at least get clear of the launch pad and manage a couple of minutes before the "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly".
Maybe next time ..... ?
9
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.A little bit of relief for those of us living in Hawaii near where it was chosen to splash down. If a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly can happen 3 minutes after launch, gotta wonder what could happen 3 minutes before splashdown too. I know things need to be tested, but maybe the next one could splash down near Florida or somewhere far away from me!
Julie808
Level 8
Apr 20, 2023
0
May I suggest Mar a Lago?
Space exploration, in the next couple of decades, will be about mining, especially the Moon. China has already said so and Russia is investigating the possibility. I've little doubt the US's return is, in some part, planning for that as well. As far as Musk wanting to colonize Mars, as mentioned by @Flyingsaucesir, I see that as little more than a pipe dream or misdirection. With no radiation shield, Mars is basically useless for living. It, too, however, could be mined; I'm not sure about the cost ratio to mine Mars versus the capture and mining of asteroids.
BTW: current 1967 Outer Space Treaty says nothing about mining, they only outlaw Weapons of Mass Destruction and no military installations. As far as the proposed Moon Treaty which would look at such things, no space faring nation has signed it.
Beowulfsfriend
Level 9
Apr 20, 2023
1
There is a possibility of gold in craters from meteor strikes. But what real use is that?
@Petter I was watching a video on the Moon. It has lots of materials worth mining, including Helium 3, which could also be used as a potential power source on the Moon.
I'm not a fan of Elon Musk, and I think the stated long term goal of SpaceX to colonize Mars is an unhelpful distraction which gives some people reason to think that we can fuck up this planet and move on to another. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This Earth is the only home we are ever going to have.
Flyingsaucesir
Level 8
Apr 20, 2023
3
The vast majority - yes. We're stuck here.
But like those ancient, ancient peoples a few will colonise, never to return in their lifetimes.
Think Australian Aborigines, etc.
Even the early American colonists went on a one-way journey.
@Petter It's true that Homo sapiens is an adventuring species. However, at the speed of current rocket technology, a trip to the nearest extra-solar star would take around 75,000 years. And that star (Alpha Centuri, approximately 4 light years away) does not have any Earth-like planets. Nor does the next star, or the next, or the next, or the next, or the next,...
Just a few months in zero gravity is very damaging to the body. Then there's the radiation...
@Flyingsaucesir Forget stars. Try the local moons and planets.
@Petter Nothing there for us. Earth is the only object in our solar system that can sustain us.
@Flyingsaucesir Only if you insist on an open-air, rural lifestyle. Mars could be "given" an atmosphere by crashing icy meteorites on to it and pumping in sulphur hexafluoride, a reasonably heavy gas.
Then have large "bubble canopies" beld up by the pressure of an oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide atmosphere. All high tech, but it could be done over the course of a couple of centuries of colonisation.
Then there's Jupiter's moon, Europa. Given the ability to create nuclear fusion, Man could colonise it quite well - eventually.
Imagine living in 1,000AE (1,000 years After Earth). The "years" of course being Martian revolutions around the sun.
@Petter You overlook one important fact: Mars' does not have a magnetosphere (as Earth does) to shield it from the solar wind. Without it, whatever atmosphere you put there will quickly be stripped away.
@Flyingsaucesir Ah well. Just have to set off a few hundred internal nuclear reactions to melt the core and set it spinning. 
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