Comment by Robotbeat
4 years ago
Reaching Mars in 4 years is the goal. He has always thought that was a stretch goal, as has been clear on every single presentation he has given on the topic. (BTW, NASA has a stretch goal of 2024 for landing people on the Moon; they acknowledge it is a stretch goal, and it probably also will be years later. Does that make NASA liars?)
But I'd say there's a greater than 50/50 chance of SpaceX landing people on Mars in Musk's lifetime. But that's not even THAT remarkable... Their actual goal (self-sustaining Mars civilization of at least a million people) is 5-6 orders of magnitude grander than that, and almost certainly won't occur in Musk's lifetime. Musk acknowledges that.
> Does that make NASA liars?
No. It makes them not-successful. Which also applies to SpaceX in that regard.
> Their actual goal (self-sustaining Mars civilization of at least a million people) is 5-6 orders of magnitude grander than that, and almost certainly won't occur in Musk's lifetime. Musk acknowledges that.
His stated goal is to do this by 2050. That’s within his lifetime (I hope).