Elon's interview at ISS R&D conference

[sjoshuaj]

Elon talked about making the ITS vehicle "slightly smaller" so that it could also be used for unspecified "earth orbit activities". Okay, now I'm really intrigued! What could that be? A space tourist hotel in LEO? Something else?

It'll be this...

 

[Grendal]

Hi Grendal! So were you bitten by the Model 3 bug too? I'm still sad about what happened with Aptera... but the efforts at making the Model 3 an energy sipper certainly caught my eye And my Gen1 Insight has been hitting me with big maintenance bills every year, so it's getting easier and easier to justify the purchase....

Re. terraforming Venus, there's a whole chapter on it here:

Rethinking Our Sister Planet (prepress).pdf
(Lower res pdf here: Rethinking Our Sister Planet (ebook).pdf)

The short of it: terraforming is hard, no matter where you target. But there are options.

Wow. Very impressive. I love the details. Well done.

Off topic now. As Aptera was falling apart I looked for another EV to step up. I preferred something hyper efficient but chose instead to follow the company actually dedicated to bringing EVs into the mainstream. I still think Aptera could work and find a niche but someone would need to buy the idea out of oblivion. Personally, I almost bought a Model S but the size is ridiculous compared to my needs. The Model 3 will do just fine and will promote EVs to the general public.

 

[adiggs]

Wow. Very impressive. I love the details. Well done.

....

My kudos as well. I particularly like the early emphasis on Venus being complementary rather than in competition with Mars. Interestingly - I find myself having a more favorable visceral reaction to the idea of immigrating to Venus than to Mars.

I'll have to find some more time later to finish reading.

 

[KarenRei]

Thank you - it took many months to read through all of the referenced papers therein (there's something like 800 references), do all of the calculations and simulations, get image reuse permissions, and on and on. Feel free to share it when the topic comes up.

 

[ecarfan]

@KarenRei thanks for the link to your analysis of Venus. I am reading it now. I had not considered the idea of floating habitats. The technological challenges are obviously formidable. I remain convinced that Mars is the better choice for the first off-Earth human colony, but admire your outside-the-box thinking.