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Elon Musk on humans in Mars before he dies, urges faster pace of progress

Artist rendition of a base on Mars. Credit: SpaceX

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Elon Musk has a major goal: to get humanity to Mars before he dies. A lofty goal that he reiterated before a crowd on Monday at the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington D.C.

“If we don’t improve our pace of progress, I’m definitely going to be dead before we go to Mars,” Musk said to the journalists and industry leaders in attendance.

SpaceX, founded by Musk in 2002, nabbed the first of many lucrative deals for the burgeoning rocket company in 2008 when the company was named one of two corporations that would ferry cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). (Orbital Sciences, now Northrop Grumman is the other.) 

To date, SpaceX has flown 20 cargo resupply missions to the space station, and very soon will send an upgraded version of the Dragon to ferry astronauts to the orbital outpost as well. But this is just the beginning for Musk and SpaceX.

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Musk has his sights set on the moon and Mars. But he’s worried that our current technology isn’t progressing as quickly as it should in order to make Mars happen. That’s evident if you look at the commercial crew program.

In 2011, NASA’s storied fleet of space shuttles retired, and space agencies around the world were forced to rely solely on the Russian Soyuz to transport astronauts to and from space. That agreement would only be temporary as NASA tapped SpaceX and Boeing with the task of building its next-generation astronaut taxis.

Innovation takes time, and after years of delays due to various reasons, SpaceX is on the cusp of launching its first set of astronauts.  Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will board the Crew Dragon spacecraft and fly to the ISS as early as this May. NASA is still trying to iron out the details (like how long they will stay) as SpaceX completes the last two parachute tests prior to launch.

Crew Dragon completes one of its last tests before its astronaut launch debut. (SpaceX)

Simultaneously, Musk and SpaceX are working on a massive rocket that will ferry people and cargo to Mars. Called Starship, the heavy-lifter is approximately 400-feet of stainless steel that could transport the first people to the red planet. That is if all goes as planned.

Eagle-eyed onlookers first spotted the towering silver craft in Jan. 2019 at SpaceX’s work site in Boca Chica, TX. That initial prototype was the first step towards reaching Mars and Musk’s goal of building a city on Mars with up to one million people in it, preferably sometime within the next 50 years.

To do so, SpaceX will need a fleet of massive, silvery spaceships. The company is on its third test article, but Musk hopes to ramp up production to one Starship a week by year’s end.

“Unless we improve our rate of innovation dramatically, then there is no chance of a base on the moon or Mars,” Musk said during the conference. “This is my biggest concern.”

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Starship will launch atop a Super Heavy launcher. In true SpaceX fashion, both vehicles will be reusable, which lowers the cost significantly. Musk has said that eventually, each Starship mission could cost a mere $2 million.

Starship could launch as early as this year, especially if production rates ramp up the level that Musk hopes. So far, the craft is already booked for one trip around the moon sometime in 2023. That Starship will carry Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa.

Musk also squashed the notion that his Starlink internet service would go public. According to Musk, that endeavor could net his company as much as $30 billion, if it doesn’t go bankrupt. “Guess how many LEO constellations didn’t go bankrupt? Zero,” he said. “We just want to be in the non-bankrupt category.”

So for now, Musk says SpaceX is focused on getting the project off the ground and not spinning it into a publicly-traded company. SpaceX officials have said that the service could roll out later this year in a limited capacity until more satellites come online. To date, the company has launched 300 Starlink satellites, with another batch of 60 set to launch on Saturday (Mar. 14).

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I write about space, science, and future tech.

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SpaceX hid behind another name in the Arizona desert, and now it’s going big

SpaceX puts a $50 billion price on its Arizona supercompute campus ahead of December’s hearing.

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SpaceX has put a price tag on the supercomputer campus it wants to build in the southern Arizona desert. In a statement Thursday, the company said it is pursuing a roughly $50 billion supercompute campus in Cochise County, about 80 miles east of Tucson. Together with a separate facility planned at Starbase, Texas, the two projects add up to more than $74 billion in planned investment.

The Arizona figure had not been disclosed before. SpaceX’s involvement only became public on November 4, when company representatives hosted a packed town hall at Cochise Elementary School for an application filed under the name Tombstone Resources LLC. A SpaceX representative told residents the filing used another name because putting SpaceX on it “draws attention” from outside the county, local station KVOA reported.

The application describes a 747-acre site near the Willcox Playa with up to nine buildings of about 493,000 square feet each. SpaceX plans to bring the campus online in four phases of roughly 1.5 GW, reaching 6 GW at full build, backed by a 24 GWh battery system and about $3.6 billion in grid upgrades. At that size, it would draw about 2.5 times more power than every data center in Maricopa County combined, according to an Arizona Republic analysis.

SpaceX says the project will create about 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, and that it could cut electricity bills for members of the local cooperatives by up to 20 percent. The campus would use dry cooling with no industrial groundwater use. Its application estimates ongoing water needs of 7 to 10 acre-feet a year, roughly what 20 to 30 homes consume.

Power is the bigger question. The site sits next to the Apache Generating Station, a coal and natural gas plant with about 1 GW of capacity that had been slated to retire by 2028. SpaceX told residents its investment could expand the station to more than 6 GW.

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Local opposition is organized. A petition asking the county to deny the permit has gathered about 2,400 signatures, and the nearby playa is a landing spot for federally protected sandhill cranes, which SpaceX says its design accounts for. The Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on December 9 in Bisbee, with written comments due November 27. If approved, construction could start in March 2027.

The Texas project faces a vote the same day. The Starbase City Commission will consider a property tax abatement for SpaceX’s $24 billion gas plant and supercompute facility at its own December 9 hearing, as Teslarati reported. SpaceX said Thursday the Starbase site has already generated more than 3,000 construction jobs, and it committed $220 million to Brownsville’s water and wastewater systems, $40 million of which has been paid.

Both campuses would expand a footprint still centered on the Memphis area, where SpaceX’s Colossus data centers run largely on gas turbines and the company won a permit for a power plant in Southaven, Mississippi earlier this year. SpaceX ended the third quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute. The Arizona campus alone, at full build, would be more than three times that size.

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Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer

Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.

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Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.

On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.

Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.


Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.

Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.

The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.

The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.

Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.

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Starlink Mini 2 arrives with one feature for true off-grid connectivity

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX officially launched the Starlink Mini 2 on November 10, delivering the first portable Starlink terminal designed around independent power.

Invitation-only preorders for select U.S. customers are priced at $999 plus tax, a figure that includes a full year of Roam Unlimited service valued at roughly $2,100. A refundable $100 deposit reserves the kit, with the balance due at shipment, expected to begin in mid-December. Broader availability is listed as coming soon.

The headline feature is the quick-swap 71 Wh battery. Clipped to the rear of the dish without tools, it delivers up to 4.5 hours of connectivity on a single charge.

The 490-gram pack includes its own USB-C port and LED indicators, so users can charge a spare separately and swap it in seconds while staying online. Starlink notes that the terminal can continue operating while the battery charges or run directly from a 60 W USB-C source. The retail box includes one battery, a 60 W USB-C charger, and a 3-meter cable.

Beyond power, the Mini 2 is thinner at 23.1 mm (versus 38.5 mm on the original Mini) while measuring 263 × 314 mm. With the battery and kickstand attached it weighs 1.6 kg.

Built-in Wi-Fi 6 expands coverage to up to 1,800 square feet, an IP67 rating protects against dust and water, and a standard 1/4-20 tripod thread plus physical power button round out the design. Field of view remains 110 degrees, and the unit retains support for mobile use.

For travelers, campers, and remote workers, the swappable battery removes the longstanding requirement for an external power bank or vehicle outlet that defined the first Mini. Spare packs sold separately further extend runtime, turning the compact terminal into a more self-contained solution.

While the bundled $999 invitation price sits well above the original Mini’s current $149 starting point, the included year of service and genuine untethered operation mark a clear step forward in portable satellite internet.

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