Elon Musk awarded Heinlein Prize

[bananas]

http://www.newspacejournal.com/2011/07/02/musk-wins-one-prize-eyes-a-bigger-one/

Musk wins one prize, eyes a bigger one

At a luncheon on Wednesday in Washington, the Heinlein Prize Trust awarded its second Heinlein Prize for accomplishments in commercial space activities to Elon Musk, the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX. At the luncheon, which attracted an audience from the public and private sectors, including NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver and FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation George Nield, Musk received the $250,000 prize and its accoutrements, a “Laureate’ Diploma” and a sword. Yes, a full-sized sword, the “Lady Vivamus Sword”, from the Heinlein novel Glory Road. “I love the sword in particular, it’s pretty awesome,” Musk said. (Musk, who attended the luncheon with his wife, Tallulah Riley, and two of his young sons, had to remind the boys that the sword, with a sharpened blade, was not a plaything.)

<snip>

That “super-long-term thinking” was a reference to comments he made in his speech about his goal of making humanity a multi-planet species, something that requires a major reduction in launch costs. “This is the first time in four billion years that it’s possible for life to become multiplanetary,” he said. “That window may be open for a long time, and I’m reasonably optimistic about life on Earth, but it may be open for only a short time. And if it is only open for a short time, we must take advantage of it and take action now to make like multiplanetary.” To do that, he said, requires “orders of magnitude” changes in cost and reliability, something that SpaceX hopes to achieve over time.

<snip>

While Musk might be interested in fostering a multiplanet species, not everyone in his family is necessarily onboard. In his opening remarks, prize trustree Art Dula, referring to Musk’s two sons in attendance, said that “these are the fellas that are going to ride these rockets when they go beyond Earth orbit,” at which point one of the boys cried a note of protest: “No I’m not!” (or something to that effect.) “Oh, my goodness,” Dula said to laughter from the audience. “Well, we hope anyways.”

July 2, 2011, at 12:53 pm | Category: People, Prizes, SpaceX

Via http://hobbyspace.com/nucleus/?itemid=30614

[Tommy_J]

1. He is a worthy recipient

[Cereal Kyller]

2. Heinlein was a hack

Clarke and Asimov were vastly better.

[TheMadMonk]

6. Hack's have a bad habit of getting the message across better.

IMHO C & A both saw informing their audience to be the primary task of their works, with entertaiment as the medium. I like them, but I have trouble revisiting their fictional works.

Heinlein simply entertained and a left it up to his audience whether or not they learnt anything in the process. I did and then I learnt that what I learnt was outdated, and some of the ideas in his stories are more outdated still, but his stories remain good stories and emminently re-readable.

[struggle4progress]

3. I really don't see any suitable planets, other than the one we're on now

:shrug:

[localroger]

4. Well we have to change them to make them better

We're certainly getting lots of practice changing the one we're on.

[sudopod]

5. That's OK.

I haven't been able to see for thousands of parsecs since I was 12.