Elon Musk wants to send a thousand spacecraft to Mars and maybe the first reaction is 'pfft' but what if he really does it. (Phys.Org: SpaceX's Elon Musk elaborates on plan to colonize Mars)
He anticipates first sending all the components necessary to build a plant to make fuel for returning space vehicles and he will follow that with the colonists to build it. After that stage is complete, the colonial vehicles will operate as shuttles to be refueled on Mars to return to Earth for reuse.
Maybe you think it's rubbish but they said man wasn't meant to fly when the Wright Brothers took their shot. I'm not buying it that humans can't do it. Elon Musk IS doing it right now and it's only a question of how far he will go.
A previous article regarding the Boeing CST-100 Starliner shows their level of the commitment and gives a glimpse of the manufacturing necessary to do it. (Ithaka: Building the Boeing CST-100 Starliner)
You see in that the deep commitment to purpose and maybe you look beyond to a whole lot of jobs to do it and a fantastic number of jobs to build a thousand spacecraft.
Note: maybe you question Boeing participation since the company has been a long-time defense contractor. You may wish to consider that perspective in terms of which company built the B-17s for the war over Germany or the B-29s for the war over Japan. Even so, do you consider the Starliner as a military vehicle? If so, do you envisage half a dozen robo 'droids going to raise hell against ... something? If so, maybe you're thinking Marvel comics rather than sci fi. Maybe.
There is nothing in this which obviates previous articles about "The Robots Are Coming" or anything of that nature regarding large-scale job displacement but that's unlikely for some while yet to be a consideration at the high end in design and manufacture of spacecraft. There's also little chance this will significantly offset automobile manufacture as a thousand spacecraft relative to millions upon millions of automobiles couldn't possibly be in the same league.
Nevertheless, there's major manufacturing active now or impending in the relatively near future but only hotshots can play. That does include Die Kaninchen as we can't compute orbital mechanics in our heads, most likely, but Yevette has worked on some components for the original Space Shuttle so real people will be engaged with this and not only ultimate brainiacs.
In short, this won't likely create a magic paradise of jobs and America will fight hard to keep them. I'm sure it can do that absent any ulterior and insidious background corporate behavior. The competition is serious since there was some type of job of a manufacturing nature in China and they got eight thousand applications for it. China is even more desperate for jobs than America so you've got a workforce cage fight happening just now.
China is also hammering hard on their space program so call it a cage fight or a foot race, either way it's on.
There's no need to try to out-Heinlein on any sci fi since it's all happening right in front of us. The Kings of Sci Fi have always been at NASA as they don't just think it up, they do it; they have consistently done it better than anywhere else in the world. Everywhere else is drawing even now and even India got an orbiter to Mars so it's not even a tiny exaggeration about a workforce cage fight and it's global.
The kids are really going to need their best moves on skates for this roller derby and think Bay City Bombers with Ann Calvalo.
He anticipates first sending all the components necessary to build a plant to make fuel for returning space vehicles and he will follow that with the colonists to build it. After that stage is complete, the colonial vehicles will operate as shuttles to be refueled on Mars to return to Earth for reuse.
Maybe you think it's rubbish but they said man wasn't meant to fly when the Wright Brothers took their shot. I'm not buying it that humans can't do it. Elon Musk IS doing it right now and it's only a question of how far he will go.
A previous article regarding the Boeing CST-100 Starliner shows their level of the commitment and gives a glimpse of the manufacturing necessary to do it. (Ithaka: Building the Boeing CST-100 Starliner)
You see in that the deep commitment to purpose and maybe you look beyond to a whole lot of jobs to do it and a fantastic number of jobs to build a thousand spacecraft.
Note: maybe you question Boeing participation since the company has been a long-time defense contractor. You may wish to consider that perspective in terms of which company built the B-17s for the war over Germany or the B-29s for the war over Japan. Even so, do you consider the Starliner as a military vehicle? If so, do you envisage half a dozen robo 'droids going to raise hell against ... something? If so, maybe you're thinking Marvel comics rather than sci fi. Maybe.
There is nothing in this which obviates previous articles about "The Robots Are Coming" or anything of that nature regarding large-scale job displacement but that's unlikely for some while yet to be a consideration at the high end in design and manufacture of spacecraft. There's also little chance this will significantly offset automobile manufacture as a thousand spacecraft relative to millions upon millions of automobiles couldn't possibly be in the same league.
Nevertheless, there's major manufacturing active now or impending in the relatively near future but only hotshots can play. That does include Die Kaninchen as we can't compute orbital mechanics in our heads, most likely, but Yevette has worked on some components for the original Space Shuttle so real people will be engaged with this and not only ultimate brainiacs.
In short, this won't likely create a magic paradise of jobs and America will fight hard to keep them. I'm sure it can do that absent any ulterior and insidious background corporate behavior. The competition is serious since there was some type of job of a manufacturing nature in China and they got eight thousand applications for it. China is even more desperate for jobs than America so you've got a workforce cage fight happening just now.
China is also hammering hard on their space program so call it a cage fight or a foot race, either way it's on.
There's no need to try to out-Heinlein on any sci fi since it's all happening right in front of us. The Kings of Sci Fi have always been at NASA as they don't just think it up, they do it; they have consistently done it better than anywhere else in the world. Everywhere else is drawing even now and even India got an orbiter to Mars so it's not even a tiny exaggeration about a workforce cage fight and it's global.
The kids are really going to need their best moves on skates for this roller derby and think Bay City Bombers with Ann Calvalo.
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