[spaceheretostay]

Oh I agree, it won't be soon! But that's the real goal of today's launch: to learn more about the technology that will enable the technology to terraform Mars (and to bank money to fund it).

I think that is lost on most people. There's no point in today's launch for SpaceX if they don't get closer to colonizing and then terraforming Mars. They don't care otherwise - that is the goal.

Edit: Not sure what you mean by elitest, but okay. Every SpaceX launch, including today's, works towards this goal: this is what watching SpaceX launches is about for a lot of people, maybe most who watch.

[saagarjha]

Your comment sounds like you're calling "most people" stupid for failing to grasp the "true significance" of this launch (but you and your friends, obviously, were able to). I'd suggest tweaking it if that wasn't your intention.

[electriclove]

I think the comment is pretty spot on and I also think most people are stupid and they don't grasp the significance of what Musk is trying to do. I don't know the OP but wouldn't mind being his/her friend.

What can be done to get more people to grasp the significance here? Or is this pattern just human nature?

[greeneggs]

I'm a big SpaceX fan, and I don't think most people are stupid. For more people to care, SpaceX needs to launch more significant payloads. A communications satellite is humdrum. Shooting a car into space is about as cool as dumping a car into the ocean.

Space telescopes, Mars rovers, Moon missions, these are the cool parts. Exploration! If SpaceX lowers costs enough to give of us more of these missions, then people will care. They've only maybe just started to make an impact, with Beresheet.

[spaceheretostay]

Sure, not my intention - I think most people don't care. It's not a judgement about them. I just think they don't grasp it because they don't care and that's okay.

[foobarian]

There may be a large group that does care, does grasp it, but is skeptical because the claims are fantasy. Consider that terraforming Mars is way harder than terraforming Earth's deserts, and yet even that is not being done. Also consider the little bit of terraforming mankind managed to do since the start of the industrial revolution, and what kind of resources it took to do it. It doesn't really translate to Mars.