Musk says humans can be on Mars in four years. Many laugh, but some see purpose (theguardian.com)

Lead from the front Mr Musk!

We'll meet you there.

So, we will be on Mars before we get the long-promised “self-driving” Teslas ?

Musk says with a straight face that self-serving cars are 1 year away since the mid 2010s.

That’d be interesting. I can think of ten difficult big engineering problems that haven’t been solved yet, but there’s always hope.

I mean, there’s no ship yet. There’s a rocket and a plan, but the ship hasn’t been constructed.

The ship has to be refueled in earth orbit so there needs to be a gas station which hasn’t been constructed.

And it needs fuel. Which isn’t up there yet.

Also, there’s no mars habitat.

There’s no fuel plant for anyone who wants to go home.

There’s no plan, equipment or technology to account for the increased radiation.

There no plan for the soil of mars being toxic. There’s no greenhouse or other way to grow or raise food.

There’s no plant for oxygen and water generation.

There are no mars rovers for getting around while exploring and doing construction.

There is no heavy equipment for construction on mars.

I suppose if the plan is to just get them there and declare victory, maybe? If you want them to live… it might take a bit longer. And those are just the big engineering problems. There are probably a hundred little problems in each of the above.

That would mean, essentially, launching in a bit over two years. Absolutely not gonna happen, not even for a suicide mission.

So he thinks he'll be ready to go with a crewed mission either next month, or in Nov 2026?[1] He'll have a spacecraft, a crew and all the other logistics in place (including on Mars) before then?

Sure thing, buddy.

[1] https://trajbrowser.arc.nasa.gov/traj_browser.php?maxMag=25&...

No life projet, only dark vision of his proper hallucinations.