User:N2e/sandbox/Mars Oasis

idea list and early draft copy for an article on Mars Oasis, sufficient sources now to meet general notabiltiy guideline --  VERY ROUGH DRAFT/OUTLINE

Mars Oasis was a circa 2000 ??? early-2000s? (preceding SpaceX by nnn years) project of Elon Musk to build an interplanetary spacecraft and Mars lander that would transport a greenhouse of ready-to-grow Earth-plants to Mars. The objective was to include showing the sprouting and greening of the plants in the greenhouse with a backdrop of the red Martian landscape in the background—beamed by television signal back to Earth—in order to inspire people with respect to space.

In the event, the project was terminated before the spacecraft was built, as a result of excessively high launch costs that made the mission unaffordable, even to Musk with his nnn-million dollar post-X.com or Zip2 capital assets.

[POSSIBLY: nn months (or years?) later, Elon Musk founded SpaceX to work on the problem of developing technology to achieve radically lower-priced space access. (Money)

History
year yyyy, Musk retains/hires a group of 20 experienced space engineers and executives. including ..., Rex Ridenoure (Sp), also with RR, the CEO of then newly founded Ecliptic Enterprises ________________, Mike Griffin (these three names are sourced in TSS with David Livingston, 6 0ct 2014. (recheck the source; believe it was Saturday morning, kitchen table sort of initial meetings)

Musk moved forward to the point of investigating launch options. Found US launches were way too expensive. Musk then investigated the much-cheaper Russian (post-Soviet devolution...) Dnepr (rocket) (former Russian ICBM missiles repurposed for commercial orbital launches) prices, even took 2 or 3 trips to Russia, etc. In the end, the Russians thought they had a rich American on the hook and (trippled?) the price on a later visit. (the TSS source has an outline of this). Musk pulled out.

Later, (same group, or many of the same 20 folks, were (later) asked by Musk if he should found/start a rocket company; 19 of the 20 said no. Griffin quote on making a small fortune in the space industry, etc.)