Robert Zubrin quite literally wrote the book on why humanity should go to Mars—so why has the renowned aerospace engineer soured on Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur leading the charge?

In an interview, the 73-year-old founder of the Mars Society delivered a blistering critique, accusing the world’s richest person of undermining the mission through divisive politics and a bleak vision of the Red Planet as an escape from Earth rather than a journey of hope.

“On one level, he’s absolutely instrumental in opening up this opportunity to get humans to Mars, both through the development of Starship and also the inspiration that has caused,” Zubrin told AFP, referring to Musk’s prototype rocket.

The space agency relies on Elon Musk’s rockets for crucial missions to the International Space Station. Who will replace them when competitors are still playing catch up?

SpaceX is advancing its ambitious Mars plans, aiming to launch five Starships in 2026 and establish a self-sustaining city by 2033, despite facing challenges with vehicle performance and heat shield durability ## ## Questions to inspire discussion.

Production and Design.

Q: How is SpaceX aiming to increase Starship production? A: SpaceX plans to scale up from producing a Starship every 1–3 weeks to 3 ships per day or 1,000 ships annually using the Gigabay facility, requiring stable designs and efficient production processes.

Q: What changes are coming with the Block 3 Starship? A: Block 3 Starship will retain 6 engines, have 1,550 tons propellant capacity, 15.7 megatonnes thrust, 52.1 m height, and the entire stack will carry 5,200 tons of propellant.

Q: How will the Raptor 3 engine improve Starship? A: Raptor 3 will save 39 tons of vehicle mass by self-shielding, eliminating basic heat shielding on the booster bottom, making hot gas and plasma leaks easier to manage. Testing and Development.

Q: What’s the status of Raptor engine testing? A: SpaceX has conducted over 300 Raptor tests with 16,000 seconds runtime at McGregor, with actual numbers likely 500 tests and 30,000 seconds firing time.

SpaceX is making significant advancements in its Starship program, with plans for increased production, upcoming Mars missions, and ongoing developments in technology and infrastructure, despite facing some challenges ## ## Questions to inspire discussion.

Q: What is SpaceX’s target for Starship launches to Mars in 2026? A: SpaceX aims to launch 5 Starships to Mars in 2026, with Elon Musk estimating a 50/50 chance of meeting the 2026 Mars window.

Q: Which region on Mars is the primary landing target? A: The Arcadia region is the top candidate for landing locations due to its large ice deposits. Mission Objectives.

Q: What is the main goal of the first Starship flight to Mars? A: The first flight aims to prove the ability to reach Mars by sending minimum viable vehicles to maximize learning and demonstrate key technologies.

Q: What are the objectives for the second Starship flight to Mars? A: The second flight will focus on landing initial infrastructure, confirming resource availability, preparing landing areas, and delivering equipment for future human missions. Resource Utilization.

Q: What are the key goals for the third Starship flight to Mars? A: The third flight will prioritize resource mining, propellant generation, road and pad construction, habitat building, and increasing power generation and storage.

Neuralink did not immediately return requests for comment outside regular business hours.

Semafor’s report corroborates earlier reporting from Bloomberg, which noted in April that the startup was looking to raise $500 million at an $8.5 billion pre-money valuation.

Neuralink last year received “breakthrough device” clearance from the U.S. FDA. Three people have so far received implants made by Neuralink. Earlier this month, a nonverbal patient posted a video about how he uses a Neuralink implant to edit and narrate YouTube videos with just his brain signals.

SpaceX’s prototype Starship exploded over the Indian Ocean on Tuesday, capping another bumpy test flight for the rocket central to billionaire Elon Musk’s dream of colonizing Mars.

The biggest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built lifted off around 6:36 pm (2336 GMT) from the company’s Starbase facility, near a southern Texas village that earlier this month voted to become a city — also named Starbase.

Excitement ran high among SpaceX engineers and spectators alike, after the last two outings ended with the upper stage disintegrating in fiery cascades over the Caribbean.

Whenever I used to think about brain-computer interfaces (BCI), I typically imagined a world where the Internet was served up directly to my mind through cyborg-style neural implants—or basically how it’s portrayed in Ghost in the Shell. In that world, you can read, write, and speak to others without needing to lift a finger or open your mouth. It sounds fantastical, but the more I learn about BCI, the more I’ve come to realize that this wish list of functions is really only the tip of the iceberg. And when AR and VR converge with the consumer-ready BCI of the future, the world will be much stranger than fiction.

Be it Elon Musk’s latest company Neuralink —which is creating “minimally invasive” neural implants to suit a wide range of potential future applications, or Facebook directly funding research on decoding speech from the human brain—BCI seems to be taking an important step forward in its maturity. And while these well-funded companies can only push the technology forward for its use as a medical devices today thanks to regulatory hoops governing implants and their relative safety, eventually the technology will get to a point when it’s both safe and cheap enough to land into the brainpan’s of neurotypical consumers.

Although there’s really no telling when you or I will be able to pop into an office for an outpatient implant procedure (much like how corrective laser eye surgery is done today), we know at least that this particular future will undoubtedly come alongside significant advances in augmented and virtual reality. But before we consider where that future might lead us, let’s take a look at where things are today.

The first test of Tesla’s long-promised robotaxi service in Austin, Texas next month will initially be limited to specific areas the company deems “the safest,” CEO Elon Musk told CNBC in an interview Tuesday.

Tesla’s cars are “not going to take intersections unless we are highly confident [they’re] going to do well with that intersection, or it’ll just take a route around that intersection,” Musk said. “We’re going to be extremely paranoid about the deployment, as we should be. It would be foolish not to be.”

Using a geofence represents a major strategy shift for Musk, who spent years claiming his company would be able to create a general-purpose self-driving solution that could be dropped in to any location and work without human supervision. (Geofence is a jargon term used in the autonomous vehicle industry that means a vehicle is restricted to a certain area.) Musk has claimed Tesla will attempt to launch similar trials for its robotaxi service in California and possibly other states later this year.

Farzad

Musk said a Tesla robotaxi service will start with about 10 vehicles in Austin and rapidly expand to thousands of vehicles should the launch go well with no incidents.