"Hold my Beer..." - Elon Musk

[DuckforcoveR]

Disclaimer - I'm a huge fanboy of Elon and the SpaceX team. I watch (just about) every single launch live, those that I miss the kiddos and I catch up on after homework. 

I also want to say that I am in no way advocating for "rushing" into anything, especially human space flight. Sure, there is risk involved no matter what, but I fear that a disastrous outcome on a manned flight to Mars will set us back big time. 

However, I'm not quite sure I agree with this assessment:

Mars 2033 Not Feasible 

NASA contracted with the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) to prepare the report, which Congress directed NASA to perform in the 2017 NASA authorization act. That bill called specifically for a technical and financial assessment of "a Mars human space flight mission to be launched in 2033."

 
Part of the reason is this stuff (2 years for a preliminary assessment...)
But there's more (and again, I'm not saying I take this lightly. They are scientists after all...)

STPI, at NASA's direction, used the strategy the agency had laid out in its "Exploration Campaign" report, which projects the continued use of the Space Launch System and Orion and development of the lunar Gateway in the 2020s. That would be followed by the Deep Space Transport (DST), a crewed spacecraft that would travel from cislunar space to Mars and back. NASA would also develop lunar landers are related system to support crewed missions to the lunar surface, while also working on systems for later missions to the surface of Mars.

That work, the STPI report concluded, will take too long to complete in time to support a 2033 mission. "We find that even without budget constraints, a Mars 2033 orbital mission cannot be realistically scheduled under NASA's current and notional plans," the report states. "Our analysis suggests that a Mars orbital mission could be carried out no earlier than the 2037 orbital window without accepting large technology development, schedule delay, cost overrun, and budget shortfall risks."

So my take? Here's the thing, if somebody told NASA that after the shuttle was retired a private company would grow from the ashes and land rocket boosters to reuse them, they would laugh them out of the building. And in fact, NASA (and others) pretty much did just that. When Musk had a dream, doubters were there to tell him it can't be done:

Noting that the cost of fuel, oxygen and other expendable liquids in the rocket amounts to just 0.3% of the cost of a Falcon 9 mission, SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk says there is potential to further lower the cost by a factor of more than 100, assuming a high launch rate and the ability to fully and rapidly reuse the entire rocket, including its first and second stages.

“This is a difficult thing to achieve,” he told an annual U.S. Export-Import Bank conference in Washington April 25. “A lot of people in the aerospace industry think it's not possible, and most in industry have given up on it. But we think it's possible.”

Among the doubters is NASA Deputy Associate Administrator Dan Dumbacher, a former Space Shuttle engineer who leads the agency's exploration systems development. Dumbacher says the agency learned a lot from its experience with the orbiter's reusable Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs).

“We tried to make the engines reusable for 55 flights,” he said in Paris last month. “Look how long and how much money it took for us to do that, and we still weren't successful for all parts.”

NASA warns SpaceX on their ridiculous idea...
A year and a half later?

My point to all of this, again, we shouldn't race to Mars simply to get to Mars. But I think I would be preaching to the choir here by saying sometimes Government should just step aside and let innovators & dreamers take their shot. 
Thoughts?