You're exactly right which is why you're exactly wrong too. The majority of fuel is used getting into earth orbit. Once in earth orbit it takes basically the same amount of delta v to land on the moon as it does on Mars. This is due to the atmosphere of Mars being capable of slowing you down whereas no atmosphere on the moon. So a fuel stop on the moon is quite useless for going to mars.

As for a fuel stop in orbit around the moon then it becomes more likely. However, it would be easier to have one in earth orbit rather than lunar orbit. So it would be a long time before any fuel depot would be needed around the moon. Definitely not needed for any initial Mars missions.

Yeah how dare we spend several billion on space exploration to advance our knowledge. All that money could have gone to feeding starving children. Good thing we don't spend 100s of billions on video games every year. Could have used that to feed hungry children. If people would just not buy new electronics and instead spend that on feeding hungry children that would be great. Less research on renewables and instead funneling that towards hungry children would be nice. We shouldn't be worried about long term issues like that when children are dying today. Fix people not having food before worrying about those other issues that will cause problems later.

They quite literally aren't. There's a reason nasa constantly talks about sending astronauts to mars. The amount of science and the speed at which a scientist could do work on Mars is far greater than sending a rover. Rovers are only better if it isn't possible to send a human. Mars isn't impossible to send humans to though.

They have a vehicle that costs the average price of a new car. That was their goal with the model 3 when it released for 35k. Now the average new car price is 48k and a model 3 is 47.5k. The model 3 also sells hundreds of thousands per year and keeps increasing. They achieved their goal of an affordable mass produced car. So they followed through.

By tractor I assume you mean semi truck? Pepsi is taking deliveries in a few weeks. No one said anything about affordable since these are commercial products. So they followed through.

Solar is probably one of teslas least great offerings. But they have been providing solar roofs to people so again they achieved their goal. So they followed through.

Neuralink hasn't promised anything other than to continue to do research so there's nothing to have not followed through with.

Mars mission? Back in 2010 musk said it would take 10 to 20 years before they could send cargo to mars. We still have 7 years to see how that goes. As for spacex, since then here's a list of things they followed through on: reusable rockets, resupply missions to the ISS, carrying humans to the ISS, launch weekly, building falcon heavy (which nasa administrator Bolden called a paper rocket vs their real sls. Yet falcon heavy has been launching for 4 years and sls not once despite starting development first), private customer spaceflight, and they're currently working on that Mars rocket. So yeah I'd say that's a follow through.

Commercialized robotics is a relatively new thing they've started so can't say they haven't followed through yet. It'll take time. Could go like falcon 9 or could be like full self driving (which tesla has not followed through on).

Most of teslas mini projects have been followed through on. Solar? Yep. Battery storage? Yep. Supercharger network? Yep. Full self driving is really the only thing they haven't followed through on and has had enough time to say they haven't done so.

You say tesla would generate 20x to shareholders if they split all these projects yet neuralink and Mars missions aren't part of tesla. The rest of the things make sense to stay under tesla and not be separate entities.

Well according to the epa, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation accounts for 27% of the total US greenhouse gas emissions. And over the last 30 years that sector has had the biggest increase in absolute terms. So yeah I'd say electric vehicles are a pretty important part of cutting that. Sure, public transport is important as well. But if you think that you can redesign thousands of cities across America, change American attitudes on how they like to travel, and raise enough tax money to fund the redesign faster than evs could saturate the market then I'd say you're wrong. Evs are a much more realistic step that has a large effect. And realistic steps are what matter. Not some idealistic but unrealistic expectations of how things should be.

That's literally not true at all. They already launch internet satellites for other companies and there are plans for oneweb, another leo service, to be launched on spacex rockets. The significant financial incentive is a rival paying for the rocket. Rivals are the ones who don't want to use spacex because then they're funding their competitor. Launching a satellite isn't funding a competitor nor does choosing not to launch it stop your competitor. It would only lose you money.

Are you illiterate? I literally wrote out exactly what they would use. MAV. Mars ascent vehicle. It's a beefed up sounding rocket. They literally have started on these "vehicles". I work with people who currently are doing trajectory analysis for MAV. Of course I mentioned two spacex vehicles. They would be great for sending the orbiter and even the lander/MAV. Maybe learn what you're talking about before just saying shit? Especially since NASA is currently operating more vehicles on Mars than anyone else and has extensive knowledge on landing and orbiting it.

As for the astronomy jab, I repeat they have more vehicles operating on Mars than anyone else. They have satellites around Jupiter. They're about to send a flying laboratory to Titan. They operate the international space station. They do a bit more than astronomy you dolt.

You clearly don't understand what the mars sample return mission is. You don't need sls. I don't think they have a launch vehicle chosen yet but I believe falcon9/heavy would work as would Vulcan.

The sample return mission isn't some huge vehicle carrying humans to grab samples and come back. So they don't need a big rocket like that. Perseverance is gathering the samples and leaving them on the surface. A future mission will include a small rover and two helicopters I believe (like ingenuity) to collect the samples. These samples will be delivered to MAV (mars ascent vehicle) which is basically a beefed up sounding rocket. This will then drop the samples off in an orbiter that will then make its way back to earth.

The MAV and the rovers and the copters and the orbiter are all in development right now as well. We should see the next launch for this mission in the 2027 time frame, wherever that launch window is. And then I believe there will be another in 2030 or so. Then the samples come back by 2031 or something like that. Hard to remember off the top of my head.

While this is a complex mission it isn't too herculean of a task to keep within a few years of the plan considering sample caching is already started and ingenuity specs barely need to be modified.

While I honestly have no doubt that nasa will be using spacex for carry astronauts to mars one day, I don't think that day will be before 2032. SpaceX is already behind on starship. Not by a whole lot but they are behind their ambitious goals. We probably won't see a first test flight until the start of next year. They'll have to refine their earth operations and their lunar operations over the next few years. I doubt they even make the 2025 human landing on the moon at their current rate of progress (although faster than anyone else could do).

Starship could make the sample return moot though. It's much more plausible that by 2030 starship can do an unmanned mars round trip. The scale of samples that could be brought back would dwarf MAV. But we shall see.