Certainly some were paying attention and saw that one engine off center was able to bring that heavy prototype mass up, levitate it and then bring it back down very gracefully. And apparently the next landing strut system will be able to land the ship on uneven ground. Think of the PR impact of just launching the Roadster into space. But this is way, way, way beyond just disrupting the telecom industry that can't even handle neutrality or the Airline industry that pollutes the sky. There is a sense in which this step with Starship, with the first one that goes into orbit seems to guarantee Mars. Not minimizing at all the challenges but that is how it really seems. The former atmosphere of Mars isn't gone just displaced and not actually displaced by that much time, space or energy. Micho Kaku a decade ago said: why aren't we already teraforming Mars? We apparently need only to nudge some comets and rocks into precise slowly degrading Martian orbit where they will slowly heat and dissolve their content to the surface as they interact with the remaining Martian atmosphere while warming it. No way around this nudging method that lets the pent up energies in astronomical trajectories do the work. Its not like we've found a dinosaur ICE vehicle and we're going to restore it by making it someone how run correctly with 1% of the ancient fluids still left in it. No, we're going to put the fluids back in. Our tech and governmental cooperation will be used to make sure that this revived relic doesn't pollute again. Restoring the Martian magnetosphere also seems to have the same type of aspects in our favor, incredibly, per some of the writing either at L1 or on the planet's surface it doesn't seem to take much material (at L1 it may be 3 rocket loads worth of material) nor a huge amount of energy nor tech that we don't already have a lot of experience with and can already build now- again it turns out in the L1 case to be nudging or deflection operation where gravity keeps your splitter in place and a comparatively not that powerful strategically place field umbrella does the splitting or deflection. It also doesn't seem to be a one shot problem because it doesn't seem to preclude redundant, resilient, segmented, fail-safe systems by cost or unique placement or time scale. Finally it seems possible the percolate in the soil problem may be mitigated or solved by the effects of nudging the material atmosphere back into place (total conjecture on my part) or through microbes.
The point of all this is that it will be obvious to us on an unconscious level just by the appearance of the Starship that in a sense all of this is already done. Its seeing a 74 that we see fly from LA to Sacramento but also know can fly around the world. Moreover unmanned missions will help build out the critical infrastructure of Mars. Unmanned missions have been the whole history of mars exploration. All sorts of stuff will pop- maybe mid point stops that are more regularly stocked up and make flights safer and easier.
Lets make a point about autopilot. There is a sense in which being able to slow down and avoid pot holes is crossing a threshold. City streets yes of course. But people miss I think that the tech so far was deaf, dumb and blind and reading tea leaves weaving disconnected signs or pictures together and still doing 10x better than humans because it had 1000 years per second of human time to chess master each move out. But adding the time 4th d or the time dimension to weave those images into more concrete patterns or streams and adding an exaflop is giving Master Po sight. The Dragon capsules if I am not mistake auto-piloted up and down. Some of this might be part of why Musk said the impact of AI (general or not) is less than 5 years away and by implication reality will start to be come more pliable more dream like. What it also means is the build out of Mars will be highly automated. To me that means at a speed we will find unimaginable. Things like MAD made sense but we're going to move beyond bipolarity and the tech moratorium to survive, its like a weening process.
One wonderful thing about Starship is that while Tesla and Starship never do "retro" the Starship looks a little like Buck Roger's ships or some of the early sci fi visions so its really tapping in to that thing where prophets a thousand years ago were looking into Hollywood Movie theaters and looking into the imagination that later to an extent became concertized in theater but here in a vehicle. Like the old Spanish Caravels Columbus used Starship has some striking similarities. The journey to the moon will be 1/5 to 1/8 as long as Columbus coming to the New World (negative connotations aren't lost on me) journey to Mars about 3x as long as his longest trip across the Atlantic or 2.5x the time of the trip of the Mayflower. Starships holds about the same cargo as one his ships but has 2x the crew or passenger capacity. Seems like the Pinta could fit in the Starship's cargo hold. Its like the patterns never change we leave the old world behind as boat drivers as river crosser as raft riders. David Gray's "Sail Away" describes our meandering, our stumbling ever on. As does Audioslave's "I am the Highway," and Kansas' "Dust in the Wind" and Looking Glass's "Brandy"
There will be a sense when the first Starship makes it into orbit that this is the greatest moment in human history (secular- but it is a resurrection like rising from a tomb.) More than if we had recognized the first ships to set off for the new world (loaded as that comparison now is with meaningful baggage,) its like humanity going from ages 1years to 2 years. I don't think it keeps the light of consciousness alive because I think everything is conscious, consciousness is not an aspect it is the entirety but it seems super intelligence, already every where present likes immaturity and hence mankind and babies. This one moment might be enough to drag the US out of its endless depression over having pissed away its future for the last 70 years on total idiot fossil fuels- everything about fossil fuels is dumb. It should generate countless Nobel prizes. Good if Tesla accelerates the implementation of full green on its methox. Neutral will never cut it.
The point of all this is that it will be obvious to us on an unconscious level just by the appearance of the Starship that in a sense all of this is already done. Its seeing a 74 that we see fly from LA to Sacramento but also know can fly around the world. Moreover unmanned missions will help build out the critical infrastructure of Mars. Unmanned missions have been the whole history of mars exploration. All sorts of stuff will pop- maybe mid point stops that are more regularly stocked up and make flights safer and easier.
Lets make a point about autopilot. There is a sense in which being able to slow down and avoid pot holes is crossing a threshold. City streets yes of course. But people miss I think that the tech so far was deaf, dumb and blind and reading tea leaves weaving disconnected signs or pictures together and still doing 10x better than humans because it had 1000 years per second of human time to chess master each move out. But adding the time 4th d or the time dimension to weave those images into more concrete patterns or streams and adding an exaflop is giving Master Po sight. The Dragon capsules if I am not mistake auto-piloted up and down. Some of this might be part of why Musk said the impact of AI (general or not) is less than 5 years away and by implication reality will start to be come more pliable more dream like. What it also means is the build out of Mars will be highly automated. To me that means at a speed we will find unimaginable. Things like MAD made sense but we're going to move beyond bipolarity and the tech moratorium to survive, its like a weening process.
One wonderful thing about Starship is that while Tesla and Starship never do "retro" the Starship looks a little like Buck Roger's ships or some of the early sci fi visions so its really tapping in to that thing where prophets a thousand years ago were looking into Hollywood Movie theaters and looking into the imagination that later to an extent became concertized in theater but here in a vehicle. Like the old Spanish Caravels Columbus used Starship has some striking similarities. The journey to the moon will be 1/5 to 1/8 as long as Columbus coming to the New World (negative connotations aren't lost on me) journey to Mars about 3x as long as his longest trip across the Atlantic or 2.5x the time of the trip of the Mayflower. Starships holds about the same cargo as one his ships but has 2x the crew or passenger capacity. Seems like the Pinta could fit in the Starship's cargo hold. Its like the patterns never change we leave the old world behind as boat drivers as river crosser as raft riders. David Gray's "Sail Away" describes our meandering, our stumbling ever on. As does Audioslave's "I am the Highway," and Kansas' "Dust in the Wind" and Looking Glass's "Brandy"
There will be a sense when the first Starship makes it into orbit that this is the greatest moment in human history (secular- but it is a resurrection like rising from a tomb.) More than if we had recognized the first ships to set off for the new world (loaded as that comparison now is with meaningful baggage,) its like humanity going from ages 1years to 2 years. I don't think it keeps the light of consciousness alive because I think everything is conscious, consciousness is not an aspect it is the entirety but it seems super intelligence, already every where present likes immaturity and hence mankind and babies. This one moment might be enough to drag the US out of its endless depression over having pissed away its future for the last 70 years on total idiot fossil fuels- everything about fossil fuels is dumb. It should generate countless Nobel prizes. Good if Tesla accelerates the implementation of full green on its methox. Neutral will never cut it.
