If Elon wants to make his dream a reality, he should start playing the political game. It wouldn't hurt to put a factory on the Alabama coast and setup engineers in Huntsville.SpaceX will assemble ITS at KSC, so he's got Florida covered.
Quote from: Fan Boi on 09/30/2016 07:01 pmSome thoughts/ideas:. Remember that this is an interplanetary transport. Maybe a bit too much focus on just Mars so far, more selling of the potential versatility.. SpaceX issued credit card? I would sign up and use it. PayPal experience might pay off with this one too.. Kickstarter is a great idea.. Pre-sell tickets like Virgin did, but make good on it!. Volunteer at SpaceX?. Hold a raffle? Tickets should be expensive, like $100 or more. Winner gets two free tickets to Mars!. Get sponsors to put their name and/or logo on the booster and/or the ship. (I keep seeing Viagra painted down the side of that monster and it makes me chuckle). At the supermarket checkout lanes we have those pull off scannable tags to donate $1, $3, or $5 to various things. How about a SpaceX one? I would put in $5 every time I purchase groceries.. Ask the new PayPal owners if they would straight up donate a penny per transaction to the cause, for old-time sake and possibly the future of humanity.The rest of the US would rather spend their money more wisely on other things.
Some thoughts/ideas:. Remember that this is an interplanetary transport. Maybe a bit too much focus on just Mars so far, more selling of the potential versatility.. SpaceX issued credit card? I would sign up and use it. PayPal experience might pay off with this one too.. Kickstarter is a great idea.. Pre-sell tickets like Virgin did, but make good on it!. Volunteer at SpaceX?. Hold a raffle? Tickets should be expensive, like $100 or more. Winner gets two free tickets to Mars!. Get sponsors to put their name and/or logo on the booster and/or the ship. (I keep seeing Viagra painted down the side of that monster and it makes me chuckle). At the supermarket checkout lanes we have those pull off scannable tags to donate $1, $3, or $5 to various things. How about a SpaceX one? I would put in $5 every time I purchase groceries.. Ask the new PayPal owners if they would straight up donate a penny per transaction to the cause, for old-time sake and possibly the future of humanity.
But "wisely" is subjective, and I for one have spent money on far more wasteful things...
Total annual income to the US cosmetics industry is six times what it would cost to do ITS.
Quote from: ThereIWas3 on 09/30/2016 08:05 pmTotal annual income to the US cosmetics industry is six times what it would cost to do ITS.How many billions a year do people spend on Cigarettes? Junk Food? Gambling? Credit card debt? Botox? The amount of money the US spends on objectively stupid/wasteful things is probably larger than the GDPs than all but the largest nations....
Quote from: ZachF on 09/30/2016 08:11 pmQuote from: ThereIWas3 on 09/30/2016 08:05 pmTotal annual income to the US cosmetics industry is six times what it would cost to do ITS.How many billions a year do people spend on Cigarettes? Junk Food? Gambling? Credit card debt? Botox? The amount of money the US spends on objectively stupid/wasteful things is probably larger than the GDPs than all but the largest nations....Women "need' cosmetics, they don't need ITS. I know that is a sexist statement but I wanted to keep it short and not add all the other qualifiers.and others "need" those things too. It is well within their rights. We don't need to dictate what is better for them. The nanny state is large enough. Like mined people on this forum are a small fraction of the population. That is one of the reasons I don't believe the US gov't should be involved in space colonization. It should be up to the market place and NGO's.