Is it "of the highest order" because it's marketing something substantive?
Where people with can dream up supersonic aircraft that are massively more efficient than the highly refined subsonic craft that have been built by thousands of very smart people over decades.
Where magic tubes will transport people near the speed of sound whenever they want for a mere $6B.
Where the realities of space flight are to be ignored because, well, the leader of the venture is a really good business man and has a lot of charisma.
Is this not the same hacker news where people get bent out of shape when Apple bends the truth on their iPhone marketing copy?
Fuck Mars. I'm going to Jupiter. In 2015.
The emperor has no clothes.
Er, no, it really isn't.
The implication here is that he is actually working on these things, having had a "breakthrough" over the summer. It could be absolute crap, yes. But he has a number of previous successes that indicate he is capable of delivering. The overall point is that he isn't just dreaming, he is clearly spending a lot of money on doing as well.
Furthermore, he is putting his money where his mouth is, by spending his own money.
He said he's going to send people to Mars in 15 years. Here is one question. How often do you get a chance to launch a rocket to Mars? (Hint: it's not often). How many opportunities to send test missions and support gear will there be in the next 15 years? How long will it take to build all that stuff? A year? Two years? More? You just lost another mission.
Have they figured out how to get food there? Have they figured out how to breathe there? Have they even designed the vehicle or even the thermal system (for one example out of many) required to keep a human at a survivable temperature for the trip? Have they done anything to solve the incredibly difficult problems that we face in this area? The results here are not 'fucking great', they're non-existant.
And the claim of a VTOL supersonic jet that is a breakthrough in efficiency over traditional jets? Where are the results? There are none. zero. It's fantasy.
The results have been great for Paypal, impressive for Tesla, and SpaceX has proven a great contribution to the existing aerospace industry. Great for Musk - he has accomplished much and history will remember him as an influential industrialist and visionary. But BS is BS, no matter who spews it.
EDIT: This thread has gotten lots of downvotes, but not one substantive comment on what Musk has done that would indicate that these stories are anything but puffery aimed at gaining publicity for his much more mundane (but still rather impressive) efforts. When is the first Mars launch again? What will be the payload? Tick tock - that deadline will be here before you know it. The time has past for vision - the timetable Musk has outlined requires action now. Action that is conspicuously absent.
As for launch windows, the energy required is at a minimum every 26 months, and there's a global min twice every ~17 years, the next two being in 12 and 14 years, so you'd have the easiest time then. [1] If they have a non-marginal plan, then maybe one of the relative minima would be sufficient.
What makes you say that action is absent? My impression is that SpaceX has actually been tackling a very aggressive timetable in general. I believe they're working on the Falcon Heavy and crew modules right now and they're proposing a launch for a Dragon capsule to Mars in 2018.
Just because Musk talks about early ideas that are extremely unlikely (like the VTOL jet) and may not pan out does not mean he's automatically a crackpot spewing marketing fluff. He's earned the right to espouse bold ideas.
Ps. You can launch to mars as often as you like, it's just going to cost more fuel. Even if it takes 30 years, that's still soon.
But he did. Why can't we do anything we put our minds to? And he has a brilliant mind and that industrial spirit that you see in all the great industrialists through history. Enough of the circle jerk.