Much like an artist, he invests most his time and money bringing his ideas to life except his canvas is humanity, his paintbrush is physics, and his color palette is technology.
If such words were written about any of us! I love that description.
(via sagansense)
Source: elonenthusiast
The Planetary Society held a party last night in Pasadena to “Celebrate Curiosity”. Some highlight quotes from superstar attendees:
“This is the most excitement I’ve seen in my lifetime for a rover mission.” - Bill Nye
“We will not rest until you can all buy a ticket to Mars” - SpaceX founder Elon Musk
What are you doing to celebrate tonight?
(via Wired Science, photo of the party’s Martian DJ by CuriousJosh)
Source: Wired
Three cheers for private spaceflight!
SpaceX, the world’s leading private spaceflight firm, announced today that NASA picked their Dragon capsule to succeed the Space Shuttle as a ferry for our astronauts into orbit. This comes just weeks after an empty test capsule successfully docked with the ISS and returned safely to Earth.
This is fantastic news for the future of private spaceflight, and for NASA’s future in general. By allowing NASA to focus on developing equipment for missions beyond low-Earth orbit and leaving the “easy” stuff to companies like SpaceX, we can stretch a thin NASA budget and truly shoot for the stars.
As Neil deGrasse Tyson says, this is the kind of policy that will allow us to stop “going boldly where hundreds have been before.” Onward, upward and beyond, thanks to the entrepreneurs and dedicated scientists at SpaceX!
(images via SpaceX)
The thing that got me started with SpaceX was the feeling of dismay — I just did not want Apollo to be our high-water mark. We do not want a future where we tell our children that this was the best we ever did. Growing up, I kept expecting we’re going to have a base on the moon, and we’re going to have trips to Mars. Instead, we went backwards, and that’s a great tragedy.
From a great interview in the LA Times: The Goal Is Mars
Source: Los Angeles Times
We would be backing up the biosphere. We wouldn’t just be preserving humanity, we would be preserving much of life. It is certainly possible for some calamity to come along — as we see in the several major extinction events in the fossil record. Humanity has obviously developed the means of destroying itself, so I think we need planetary redundancy to protect against the unlikely possibility of natural or man-made Armageddon.
It is important that we take action now to make life multi-planetary, because this is really the first point in the 4-billion-year history of Earth that it has been possible. That window of possibility will hopefully be open for a long time, but it may only be open for a short time. That’s why I think urgent action is required on making life multi-planetary.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk, on why he founded his private spaceflight firm and where he thinks mankind should be exploring.
Source: nature.com
I'm Joe Hanson, Ph.D. biologist and host/writer of PBS Digital Studios' It's Okay To Be Smart. Check out my "Episode Extras" here. There's a lot of amazing science out there. Let's go discover it together.
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