Mars One is Dead (engadget.com) 263
The company that aimed to put humanity on the red planet has met an unfortunate, but wholly-expected end. Engadget reports: Mars One Ventures, the for-profit arm of the Mars One mission was declared bankrupt back in January, but wasn't reported until a keen-eyed Redditor found the listing. It was the brainchild of Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, previously the founder of green energy company Ampyx Power. Lansdorp's aim was to start a company that could colonize one of our nearest neighbors. Mars One was split into two ventures, the non-profit Mars One Foundation and the for-profit Mars One Ventures. The Swiss-based Ventures AG was declared bankrupt by a Basel court on January 15th and was, at the time, valued at almost $100 million. Mars One Ventures PLC, the UK-registered branch, is listed as a dormant company with less than $25,000 in its accounts. There is no data available on the non-profit Mars One Foundation, which funded itself by charging its commercial partner licensing fees. Speaking to Engadget, Bas Lansdorp said that the Foundation is still operating, but won't be able to act without further investment. Lansdorp declined to give further comment beyond saying that he was working with other parties "to find a solution."
Mars One Ventures declared bankruptcy (Score:4, Funny)
Their invent-new-month-names department blew up their budget.
Re:Mars One Ventures declared bankruptcy (Score:5, Funny)
Their invent-new-month-names department blew up their budget.
The needed a lot of names. On Mars, there is a new month every seven hours and 40 minutes [wikipedia.org].
Good - Forget Mars (Score:2)
This is a good thing. We need to stop obsessing about Mars. Once humanity moves off-earth, the dumbest thing we could do is settle onto another planetary surface. We would just be moving from one gravity well to another. The asteroids should be our colonial target.
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No, the dumbest thing is to move off-earth.
Re:Good - Forget Mars (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the dumbest thing is to move off-earth.
I'm sitting here wondering what your logic is behind this. It really defies common sense to have this mind set. Sooner or later there will be a extinction level event that we will not be able to prevent. Logically, it doesn't make any sense to remain planet bound once we develop the technology to move off planet.
I agree that Mars isn't best place to spread too. Personally, I think we should focus our efforts on Venus. But staying planet bound is a death sentence for our civilization, if not our species, at some point.
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But staying planet bound is a death sentence for our civilization, if not our species, at some point.
Is this necessarily a bad thing? Just like most folks learn to accept that they won't live forever, maybe we just need to accept that our civilization and our species won't live forever?
Sure, it would great if we eventually move off Earth. But we shouldn't do it out of fear.
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Is this necessarily a bad thing? Just like most folks learn to accept that they won't live forever, maybe we just need to accept that our civilization and our species won't live forever?
I don't understand the logic behind this. Sure our species will cease to exist. It will do so in one of two ways. We will evolve into a more advanced species or we will go extinct. You act like you want to us to go extinct. What is the logic behind your thinking?
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I agree that Mars isn't best place to spread too. Personally, I think we should focus our efforts on Venus. But staying planet bound is a death sentence for our civilization, if not our species, at some point.
Why Venus? Surface temperature of 800 degrees, acidic atmosphere. People have speculated building floating outposts, but is that really easier than colonizing Mars?
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Why Venus?
Mars will never be a living breathing planet like Earth. It will always be a artificial world. Sure, we may terraform it but given time it will revert to how it is now. It may take a few million years but Mars will eventually die, again. Terra forming Mars will always be a never ending project.
Venus has the mass, and the gravity that is pretty close to Earth. It could be another Earth, eventually. The things you brought up, 800 degree, acid atmosphere, are actually the easiest to correct. Not th
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The only place where humans are adapted to live in the entire solar system is Earth. Even then we can only thrive on less than a quarter of the surface. The rest of the planet and solar system require significant amounts of resources to survive let alone thrive. The least hospitable places on Earth require orders of magnitude fewer resources to survive than anywhere off-planet and we don't bother trying to live there.
The odds of a civilization ending event off Earth are far higher than on Earth. It would ta
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Next question, is what the hell are you talking about? Nobody has talked about floating cities on Venus in 50 years. Since we found out its a living hell and not a water world as was though.
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No they don't. I've not seen where any one is talking about floating cities in the sky on Venus. There has been some talk of letting lose some floating balloons to study the planet. Which would actually work pretty well. JPL has proposed this to NASA. So that is pretty some sound science.
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Yeah, I've determined you are not educated enough on this subject to continue this conversation. Come back when you have studied up.
An it would be on the surface after we terraformed it. No, I'm not going to tell you how to do it. We have crossed over into teaching a pig to sing. It only waste my time, with you being the pig.
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No, your not. The wiki page was just a start. There is volumes of ideal out there with workable plans. You're ether uneducated on the subject or just a trolling now.
Re:Good - Forget Mars (Score:4, Interesting)
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See why you are clueless? You think Star Trek has anything to do with this. You think people are thinking of leaving it as it is? Your problem is you are to narrow minded to really understand. One of the benefits of being a space based society is we can move the problems that pollute Earth off planet. Part of the fall out from space based technology would also help to elevate the issues that cause climate change.
You really should spend time reading up on this subject instead of just bashing it.
Don't feed the troll (Score:2)
No, your not. The wiki page was just a start. There is volumes of ideal out there with workable plans. You're ether uneducated on the subject or just a trolling now.
Yes he is trolling. Or he's a dick about the topic to such a degree that it is indistinguishable from trolling. Either way don't waste your time.
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See this shows why you are not educated enough to really understand the subject. Dyson sphere will not work. There is no way to make one stable.
emDrives have been proven not to work the way people thought they would. It is not a magic thruster less engine.
We already have a basic working space factory. Some manufacturing has been done on the ISS.
O'Neill stations are far in the future. We must walk before we can run.
An actually we do terraform patches of desert. Its call irrigation and the eff
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Yes he is trolling. Or he's a dick about the topic to such a degree that it is indistinguishable from trolling. Either way don't waste your time.
I'm going to have to agree. I keep saying he is uneducated, other than just an idiot, because he keeps bring up old disproven theories. He also seems to have issues distinguishing between space fantasy and science fiction subject that have strong science behind them. Such as O'Neill colonies and planet terraforming. All these things are possible. Doesn't mean they will happen, just that they are possible.
Anyway, I keep hoping someone else would come in that would be interested in having an intelli
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The problem that humanity has is it's inability to act in accordance with Nature, and Nature's left-hook as a result. Solve that first before spreading it throughout the universe.
What makes you think that spreading through out the universe is against nature? One thing that life does is expand into all areas that it is compatible with. We could call that phase one life, adapting to fit the environment.
Humanity could be phase two life. Adapting the environment to fit life. Seems to me that humanity isn't the problem but the solution. Does that mean we have a lot of shit to figure out? Yes it does. Are we going to make mistakes along the way. Yes we will.
But that is the be
Re:Don't feed the troll (Score:4, Informative)
I think I agree. Plausible is probably a much better word. There is lot of unknowns and lots of things can go wrong with things we don't expect.
Like a year ago I did some experiments with Universal Sandbox on moving Venus to different orbit for terraforming. I thought that I could just add energy to the motion of the planet and it would move to a higher orbit. Nope. It did something I didn't expect. I dropped it in to the sun.
It took me several days to get the simulation right. What I learned is you have to change the orbital motion slightly at certain points in the planets orbit to achieve the desired outcome. Other wise you drop it into the sun or eject it from the solar system. After I got it right I was able to put venus in a stable orbit between mars and earth, in the goldielock zone while keeping all 3 planets in a stable orbit.
Something else happened in that experiment just by sheer luck. In one of the experiments I sent the orbit of venus out beyond mars. The orbit turned out to be stable, so I left it there and left the simulation running. When I came back, according to the simulation, the surface temperature had dropped from 300C to 62C.
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Yeah. I can see your point. I like to think as we advance we will eventually understand ourselves better and maybe correct the issues as we do.
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I've not seen where any one is talking about floating cities in the sky on Venus.
Then you aren't hanging out in the right forums. Floating Venusian cities are a perfectly plausible idea. The atmosphere there is much denser than earth's. Our atmosphere composition of 80/20 N2/O2 would provide plenty of buoyancy without any pressurization, and at a level where the temperature is right at a comfortable level. The external surface would need to be designed to withstand sulfuric acid gas, but plenty of cheap substances, including many polymers, can do that. Tethered shuttles down to the
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There are no floating cities on Earth, which is far easier to accomplish. Why do you think Venus would be different?
Properties of Venus = fun discussions (Score:2)
There are no floating cities on Earth, which is far easier to accomplish. Why do you think Venus would be different?
You do realize that Venus is a different planet with very different properties, right? The important one is that the atmosphere of Venus is FAR more massive and dense than Earth's atmosphere. If a floating city is possible then doing it on Venus would likely be far easier on Earth for the exact same reason we can more easily float boats on water than in the air.
No it's not a serious proposal. It's just a conceptual idea. Maybe in a few hundred or thousands of years we might seriously entertain the idea
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You do realise that floating cities on Earth would be located on the surface of the oceans?
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They are way too small for a city. More like floating villages.
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I can see where this would be possible but I'm just not seeing much benefit to it. Maybe some research stations but not whole cities.
I remember reading a paper on the same thing with cities in the atmosphere of gas giants. It would work on the same principles as you have outlined. I have my doubts that it would be feasible with the wind conditions on gas giants.
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I have my doubts that it would be feasible with the wind conditions on gas giants.
The wind is not much of an issue, because the city would float along with it. Go for a balloon ride: Once you are aloft, it is incredibly peaceful and quiet, with zero-delta wind.
The problems with a gas giant are the incredibly frigid temperatures, and that lack of other resources: There is no "surface" to mine. Solar energy is very weak.
These problems don't exist on Venus. The temperatures in the upper atmosphere are mild, the surface is in easy reach, and solar is twice as bright as on earth.
Piece of
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Actually, this does look interesting. I'm looking at some papers and some documenters on the subject right now. I'm still not convinced the feasibility of the subject but I'm willing to look into it.
You see, 01100110011101010110001101101011 01110100011000010111001001100100, that is the difference between you and the rest of us. When one of us hears of a concept we don't understand we research it. Where you just ridicule it.
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No you don't. You dont' have a clue. I'm not sure if you are just to lazy to do any real research or just not capable of understanding the research.
An also you don't know anything about people that work on space technology. Because this is exactly what a lot of them do. They speculate and make plans on things that we might be able to do and what benefits they would have. Yes there are people at nasa that discuss terraforming venus and mars. They design and build simulations on space colonies and
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You know. I thought you where just clueless and maybe ignorant. But you're actually a idiot. That is pretty said. In the past I've noticed that you have said a few things that where rather cleaver. Oh well, another one for the freak file.
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Admitting that you are clueless and ignorant on a subject doesn't make you an idiot. What makes you a idiot is choosing to remain ignorant and clueless on a subject. What makes you a jackass is choosing to remain ignorant and clueless on a subject while ridiculing people who are not.
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Ever built a spacecraft?
Actually now that you mention it, I have. Sort of. Some of my code was worked into some of the control systems on the early ISS. It was only a few lines, but it did make it into the final release. I'm sure it's been replaced by now but yeah, some of my code did go into a space craft.
An if you must know, most of my knowledge on the subject came from the original papers. You can find them on websites but when I was doing my research you couldn't.
I think we are done here. Go do some reading. Mayb
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Did they remove the freak setting from /.? I can only assign 0110100101100100011010010110111101110100 as a foe but I think freak is more appropriate.
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No ideal. I've not looked into the freak/foe system in years. Some times I miss usenet and a good killfile.
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Using a lifting gas to fly around stuff in the atmosphere. You mean a zeppelin? Congrats we did that 100 years ago.
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Zeppelins can carry tons of material. What is a "miniature levitating city" and why would that be a measure of success? I guess you could try a model train set and have it run around a few model sky scrapers with lego people. It's miniature and light/small enough to meet your arbitrary requirement. Maybe even smaller than lego city people!
I am going on a limb to say that the challenges to get a craft in Venus' atmosphere (call it a city, a probe, a station, w/e) isn't technological right now. It's more of a
Let it go (Score:3)
The best Space Nutters always talk about building floating cities on Venus.
Yeah we know you like to troll about space topics and you're seriously a dick about it. Your "space nutters" meme is quite tired. You aren't convincing anyone of anything. If you don't like talking about concepts in space exploration that's fine but other people do. Let it go. People are just talking about the idea. Nobody has seriously proposed actually doing a floating city because everyone knows we don't have that sort of technology and won't for a very long time if ever. Certainly not in either o
Um, they are (Score:2)
The best Space Nutters always talk about building floating cities on Venus. I'll tell you what: you show you can build a floating city here on Earth first.
Plans are in fact already under way> [mindbodygreen.com].
The build is somewhat comparable since the atmosphere of Venus is so much more dense, building on the water is a lot closer to building in the Earth's much less dense atmosphere... and you even have the benefit of salt water bing highly corrosive to test out what you are building, though Venus is probably a whole
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Well you can take your chances. I see no reason to take chances with the species. We haven't been around for 4 billion years. We have been around, the most, for 250K years. We where almost driven to extinction a few thousand years ago by a volcanic event. There where an estimated 6,000 humans left on the planet after that event. That is pretty close to extinction for us.
Not spreading out when we have the technology is a joke. Like I have pointed out look up O'Neill colonies if you want to know
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You really are clueless on this. Yes, it can be terraformed. Just not as easily as Mars but the benefits of doing so would be much greater.
I know you are not educated enough on the subject but yes, we have the basic technology to start the process now. But to really follow through we will need to be close to a Type 2 civilization. I'm sure you don't understand what Type 2 civilization means. Basically it means we are a space fairing civilization with most of our population off Earth.
If you are rea
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I tell you what. Why dont' you tell me what one is first and who proposed it.
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Incorrect. What is a dyson motor? An who proposed it? Complete with math to show that it would work?
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I suspect the idea is to move it to a different orbit, and/or change its day period. As far as I understand, either or both is possible with a Dyson motor.
An you would be right. My whole concept that Venus would be a better terraforming subject than Mars is based on the concept of a dyson motor. Right now the dyson motor is just a concept on paper but the logic and math are sound. Doesn't mean we are going to do it, just means its plausible. There would still be a lot of research to be done and not to mention the capacity is so far beyond our ability, all we can do is research on the subject.
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Yes, its a concept. Probably not one you can understand. An so was the integrated circuit 50 years ago and radio before that. Concepts that eventually got built. Everything starts as a concept. If we went by your logic then we would still be huddled in caves and poking dinner with sharp sticks.
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Take care
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Earth will never become inhospitable like Venus or Mars. The KISS solution is fix this planet.
An you can guarantee this how? You can promise 100% that there will never be another impact like the one that caused the Chicxulub crater, or bigger? There are bigger rocks out there floating around.
You are 100% sure there will never be another Permianâ"Triassic extinction event that killed off 96% of all life on the planet? You know this 100% how?
You personally assure us that in the next 100, 1000, or even the next 10,000 years none of these events will ever happen again?
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But the beauty of colonizing an asteroid is that we don't have to go to the asteroid. We can bring the asteroid to earth, or at least earth orbit.
Here is how we do it: Find a nice sized asteroid in a earth-crossing orbit, maybe a few cubic kilometers. Nudge it a bit with a fusion warhead, so that it veers closer to earth. Then adjust the orbit, so that it juuuust skims through the upper atmosphere. This will slow it enough to go into an eccentric elliptical orbit. A few more passes through the atmosph
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The "Mars One" people are just being unrealistic.
Enough said.
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50 billion tonnes of iron...
The earth's crust is made of 5% iron. It's cheaper to dig some up here than get it down safely from low earth orbit.
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The earth's crust is made of 5% iron. It's cheaper to dig some up here than get it down safely from low earth orbit.
You are completely missing the point: YOU DON'T BRING IT DOWN. You use it to build a new civilization in space.
So the proper comparison is not the cost to bring orbiting iron down, but the cost to bring terrestrial iron UP. Which is currently about $5000 per kg.
Re:Good - Forget Mars (Score:4)
I'm beginning to think that coming down out of the trees in the first place was a bad move.
I think we are both on that page right now.
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Mars is the best candidate for terraforming, but we may well need resources from asteroids to do it, so we should do both things. It does perhaps make sense to put more effort into asteroids, though, because we could use those resources here on Earth, too.
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It definitely makes more sense to mine for resources on asteroids in space rather than mine them on Earth.
I can't tell if you're being facetious or not, here... today we can't even do it, but could we have been doing it by now if we didn't just rest on our laurels after the space race? Yes or no, figuring it out has to be our next priority if we hope to continue capitalistic expansion without destroying our biosphere. It seems more likely at this point than humanity learning to live within its means here on Earth.
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No, we couldn't have been "doing it by now". Because it isn't possible to do. What makes Space Nutters think that these things are possible? Too much scifi and not enough actual knowledge.
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What makes Space Nutters think that these things are possible? Too much scifi and not enough actual knowledge.
Yeah, nothing that was imagined in science fiction [technovelgy.com] ever became reality! Here's a nickel, kid, buy a better argument. Try getting a valid one, you'll be less boring.
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Re: Good - Forget Mars (Score:2)
I'm sure a lot of things mistify you. If only we had a handy website where you could go and look up the meaning of phrases which you don't understand ...
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Unless your name is Timmy.
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You know, you really have no clue what you are talking about do you? You call everyone else "anti-science" but seem to have no ideal that gravity can be simulated. I would suggest you spend some time reading up on subjects before commenting on them. Start with O'Neill Colonies and work out from there. Here is a link to get you started.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Come back when you are better informed.
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Good. Now that you are educated, you can have a meaningful and intelligent discussion on the subject.
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Marketing =/= Development (Score:2)
The numbers don't close for funding space like a reality TV show.
Not needed (Score:2)
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Musk also said that he was going to ride a unicorn to Saturn, too, Why hasn't Rei reported on that, too?
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with a hand down the pants, no doubt.
Dead, but did it achieve its orbital purpose? (Score:2)
How much money did it move from the orbit of investors to the orbit of the recipients?
mars one was dead before git-go (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, only 2 private ventures, Spacex and Blue Origin, are doing what is needed.
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Re:mars one was dead before git-go (Score:5, Interesting)
It's their money to spend... and I'd rather see them building rockets instead of wasting it on Louis XIV chairs and other useless crap.
Now, where's my Tesla electric bicycle, damnit?
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Anybody serious would be at Amundsen–Scott (Score:5, Informative)
As such, Amundsen–Scott offers the REAL extreme needed for testing (other than maybe putting a station on top of Everest or K2). Need real external power, so a SMALL 1MW nuclear power station really needs to be developed. In fact, that would be ideal for south pole so as to quit bringing diesel fuel for electricity.
Likewise, the ppl would have to explore in space suits and gear in 0-40 C. This would give a decent testing of the equipment.
Of course, doing similar in high planes desert would be smart as well, but that will only test a worn out dust.
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Temperature concerns on mars are not as bad as Antartica. The diffuse atmosphere results in less thermal loss on the red planet.
Valued at what? (Score:2)
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Are you talking about Mars One or Hollywood?
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Yes
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Bankruptcy doesn't mean you have no worth. It means you can't pay your debts. Companies go bankrupt all the time and still have assets that have worth.
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Yes, that valuation did not include debts. Duh.
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I can't live on the moon, you insensitive clod! I'm allergic to dairy!
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I got a 3D printer right here, buddy! I can 3D-print you a rocket ship if you like, but you're going to need a huge-ass slingshot to put it in orbit.
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Please provide proof of your 3D rocket printing prowess by making 100 Yoda heads
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You know, that's one thing I never printed, because Spock is better than Yoda.
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Take slashdot (or hackernews, or various subreddits) for example, entire communities of self-styled technology enthusiasts who went to university, maybe got a CS degree, then they get a job writing HTML and javascript, maybe install Linux on their PC's. Despite having meager tech skills, they consider themselves "experts", and they go online and start talking to others with similar levels of "skill", and eventually you get this concentrated collection of guys who's lack of actual real world knowledge is only matched by their over confidence. Eventually that overconfidence combined with general ignorance overwhelms their ability to reason and think critically about new ideas, and that makes them the perfect marks. They have an unwillingness to admit doubt and at the same time they protect themselves by moderating away dissenting comments so forums like this become feedback loops of bad ideas getting good coverage and voila: more suckers are born. Of course this isn't unique to tech, it just seems to have found a natural home in it.
Bingo. Just because you make six figures building websites doesn't mean you know anything about colonizing space (or anything really).
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Really probably depends on how the money was being handled once in the hands of the foundation. If it went to a sizable salary for the founder, yea pretty much sounds like the scam every sane person assumed this company to be anyway. If it went to something else that was in line with their mission statement (no matter how insane their mission statement may have been) then no not really.
If someone took a serious look at their financial records, wouldn't surprise me in the least to find a lot of scammy shit