117 inmates take over section of downtown St. Louis jail

Minyvonne Burke and Cristian Santana

Sat, February 6, 2021

More than 100 inmates took over a section of the City Justice Center in downtown St. Louis, injuring a corrections officer at the facility, officials said.

The incident began around 2:30 a.m. Saturday in a fourth-floor unit when a "defiant" inmate "who was very, very upset" got into a fight with the corrections officer, Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards said at a news conference.

The officer was then jumped by other inmates in the unit.

During the fight, several detainees were able to "jimmy" the locks on their cells, open them and get into the unit, according to Edwards.

As jail employees were trying to get the corrections officer to safety, the inmates accessed a lock panel system and “other detainees were released from their cells into the unit.”

Edwards said the unit was breached and inmates were able to get into a hallway. A second unit on the floor also "started to have defiant detainees," he said.

"Those detainees were also very aggressive, very violent. They too were able to be released from their cells because those locks were also jimmied. And they were also able to breach their unit," he told reporters.

The incident involved 117 inmates.

According to NBC affiliate KSDK, the inmates threw items out of broken windows and started small fires inside the jail.

Chairs and other items were scattered across the street and at least one car had a shattered windshield, the outlet reported. Several of the inmates were seen holding signs and chanting.

None of them were able to gain access to other floors, Edwards told reporters. By 10 a.m., the situation had been contained after sheriff's deputies and police assisted.

Officials have not identified the injured corrections officer but said he was in the hospital and expected to recover.

This is the third disturbance at the facility, which Edwards said houses inmates with "very serious offenses."

In late December and early January, the jail was disrupted by inmates expressing concerns over unsafe conditions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Edwards said the detainees involved in Saturday's incident did not make any demands. He said there are no cases of Covid-19 at the facility.

“This was a bunch of folks that were defiant," he said. "This was a bunch of people that decided that they were going to engage in criminal mayhem, and that’s exactly what they did and they should be held accountable for what they did."



Fifty-five prisoners were moved to the segregation unit at the jail. Another 65 of "some of the most violent offenders" were taken to the Medium Security Institution, which Edwards said is more secure than the City Justice Center.

The damage from Saturday's takeover left only one usable unit. Edwards said he hopes the others will be available in the next couple of weeks.

The public safety director also acknowledged the jail is understaffed and said the issue with the cell locks is something the facility has been trying to fix since December

Former CIA officer explains why Biden is right not to 'run the risk' of sending Trump intelligence briefings

Tim O'Donnell
Sat, February 6, 2021, 8:55 AM


President Biden told CBS News' Norah O'Donnell he doesn't think former President Donald Trump should receive classified intelligence briefings, questioning whether there's any upside to it and suggesting Trump's "erratic behavior" could lead to him eventually revealing sensitive information pertaining to national security. It's not clear if Biden will officially cut off Trump's access, but such a move would be unprecedented — traditionally, former presidents can request and receive briefings.

David Priess, who briefed former President George H.W. Bush for many years after he left office, told The Washington Post that ex-presidents continue to receive intelligence briefings because even though they're no longer in an official position of power, they are considered representatives of the United States, especially by foreign leaders, for the rest of their lives. He added that presidents also may turn to their predecessors for advice on international affairs. That said, Priess agrees with Biden that an exception could be made for Trump since "there's no chance of Biden reaching out to Trump ... So why would Biden run the risk of Trump's disclosure of sensitive information by agreeing to such briefings?"

Journalist Yashar Ali did note that former presidents can also interact with other governments privately, as former President Bill Clinton did when he traveled to North Korea in 2009 to secure the release of two journalists being held there. Clinton, Ali, notes was briefed even though it wasn't an official U.S. government trip.

  

Of course, Trump wasn't exactly known for devouring his daily briefings while in office, so it's not clear sending them now would offer the Biden administration much comfort, either way.

Human rights body calls on El Salvador to protect reporters

In this image taken from UNTV video, Nayib Armando Bukele, President of El Salvador, speaks in a pre-recorded video message during the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, at U.N. headquarters in New York.

 (UNTV via AP)More

MARCOS ALEMAN
Fri, February 5, 2021

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — An investigative news outlet in El Salvador said Friday that a decision by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights confirming it has been the victim of harassment sets an important precedent defending press freedoms in the region.

The regional body called on El Salvador’s government to take steps to protect 34 journalists at the online outlet El Faro who have faced threats and harassment.

“The commission is saying that in El Salvador there is an alarming, worrisome situation and that really the press or the reporters who do the investigative work and who have a critical function for the citizens are at risk,” said El Faro’s Deputy Editor Sergio Arauz. “What the commission also does is sound an alarm and a spotlight for the international community.”

“It is a grand precedent in legal terms on the freedom of expression and also sends a message to all those bureaucrats accustomed to bullying and intimidating journalists,” he said.

El Faro has argued that since President Nayib Bukele took office in June 2019, its journalists have been blocked from government news conferences, threatened by government institutions, the news outlet has faced a government audit and anonymous articles appearing in government-connected outlets have waged a campaign against its work.

The commission on Thursday issued a statement calling on El Salvador’s government to adopt measures that would allow El Faro to go about its work without interference and harassment. The petition to the commission was made by the Foundation for Due Process and the Center for Justice and International Law.

Bukele’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As an outside candidate, Bukele rode a wave of popular discontent with El Salvador’s traditional parties into the presidency. His brash style includes savvy use of social media to communicate directly with his supporters. He has been criticized for sharp attacks on the press, as well as other government institutions, including the Supreme Court and congress.

Biden administration suspends Trump asylum deals with El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras

Honduran migrants, sent back to Guatemala from the U.S., sit at the table after arriving at Casa del Migrante shelter in Guatemala City

Sat, February 6, 2021,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Biden administration said on Saturday it was immediately suspending Trump-era asylum agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, part of a bid to undo his Republican predecessor's hardline immigration policies.

In a statement, State Department Secretary Antony Blinken said the United States had "suspended and initiated the process to terminate the Asylum Cooperative Agreements with the Governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as the first concrete steps on the path to greater partnership and collaboration in the region laid out by President Biden."

The so-called "safe third country" agreements, inked in 2019 by the Trump administration and the Central American nations, force asylum seekers from the region to first seek refuge in those countries before applying in the United States.


Part of a controversial bid by Trump to crack down on illegal immigrants from Central America who make up a large part of migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, the policies were never implemented with El Salvador and Honduras, the State Department said on Saturday.

Transfers under the U.S.-Guatemala agreement have been paused since mid-March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the statement added.

The moves announced Saturday came after Biden unveiled a host of measures last week aimed at revamping the U.S. immigration system, including a task force to reunite families separated at the United States-Mexico border and another to increase an annual cap on refugees.

One of the orders called for Blinken to "promptly consider" whether to notify the governments of the three countries that the United States intended to suspend and terminate the safe third country deals. It also called on the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General to determine whether to rescind a rule implementing the agreements.

(Reporting by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Kim Coghill)

TOO NUTTY FOR TRUMP AND NEWSMAX & OAN

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's election conspiracy documentary starts with an epic disclaimer from OAN

Kathryn Krawczyk
Fri, February 5, 2021


Mike Lindell's election fraud conspiracies are too wild even for OANN.

The MyPillow CEO and big fan of former President Donald Trump has been spouting unproven and unhinged conspiracy theories alleging Trump actually won re-election for months now. And on Friday, he bought out a three-hour spot on the far-right One America News Network to host a so-called documentary outlining his very false claims.

OANN is no stranger to airing falsities about the 2020 election; the lies it promoted often even ended up in Trump's tweets until his Twitter suspension last month. But Lindell's documentary apparently went too far, leading the network to put a massive disclaimer ahead of the presentation that both disavows Lindell's claims and encourages viewers to "hear from all sides," even Lindell's patently false one.

OANN is the latest right-wing network to display a bit of hesitation when dealing with Lindell. NewsMax had Lindell on as a guest the other day to discuss his ban from Twitter, but when he immediately turned to the election, one of the hosts stormed off the set. The NewsMax host has since apologized to Lindell.

Jason Campbell

@JasonSCampbell

Newsmax invites Mike Lindell, who advocated for a coup and spews dangerous conspiracy theories, on air. It didn't go well.

2:43 PM · Feb 2, 2021

87.9K

29K

Share this Tweet

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is releasing a 3-hour movie he made over the past 5 days pushing a baseless election claim involving China

UNEDITED DIRECTORS CUT

Julie Gerstein
Fri., February 5, 2021, 

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell outside the White House on January 15. 

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has announced a three-hour film pushing baseless election-fraud claims.

He said on a Christian YouTube channel that it'd "mean the end times" if the film didn't catch on.

Early this week, Lindell was cut off by a Newsmax anchor for spouting election conspiracy theories.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell appeared on the Christian YouTube channel The Revival Channel to announce that he's releasing a three-hour film Friday in support of his baseless claims of issues in the 2020 election.

"Absolute Proof" was made, he said, over a five-day period "holed up with people guarding me."

Speaking in front of a drab wall with a fake screen of trees, in a location he refused to disclose, Lindell, a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, said the documentary proved "100%, the theft by China and these different international locations, this cyberattack on our nation right here, that took, that flipped votes."

Elections officials and even Trump officials such as Attorney General Bill Barr and acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said there was no evidence of widespread election fraud.

"There are no indications that a foreign actor has succeeded in compromising or affecting the actual votes cast in this election," Wolf said in a November 3 press conference.

Lindell said his film would prove there was "a communist coup."

"We prayed over every word that was in this piece," he told The Revival Channel's host. "The last four days, 12 people, three hours of sleep a night, A lot of stuff was done in one take because the Holy Spirit was just speaking it out."

This is not Lindell's first foray into film. He's served as a producer on several conservative films, including 2019's "Unplanned," and in 2016 was the subject of the documentary "The Mike Lindell Story: An American Dream."

Lindell is among several Trump surrogates and supporters who were threatened with litigation by Dominion Voting Systems after repeatedly making baseless claims about election fraud involving its machines.

Lindell appeared on the conservative cable channel Newsmax early this week, ostensibly to talk about "cancel culture" but instead reviving his claims of election interference. The anchor Bob Sellers grew visibly irritated when Lindell instead began rattling off his Dominion Voting Systems election-fraud claims and cut in to remind viewers that Lindell's claims were unsubstantiated. Sellers then appeared to walk off set in frustration.

Last month, Lindell was permanently barred from Twitter for repeatedly making baseless election-fraud claims that Twitter said violated its user policy.

News of the documentary came as the gun-control activist David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, announced he would be launching a rival pillow company "to put MyPillow out of business."

Read the original article on Business Insider

Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg plans to take down MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell with a new progressive pillow company

Sophia Ankel
Sat., February 6, 2021

Parkland shooting survivor and activist David Hogg (L) in Los Angeles on July 20, 2018 and MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell (R) at the White House on January 15, 2021.

Emma McIntyre/Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg Hogg is teaming up with William LeGate, a progressive tech entrepreneur.

The gun-control advocate tweeting the news on Thursday said the company is still in its "early stages."


MyPillow CEO and ardent Trump supporter Mike Lindell responded: "Good for them."

David Hogg, a Parkland school shooting survivor who has become a leading advocate of gun control, announced plans to launch his own pillow company to put MyPillow CEO, Mike Lindell, out of business.

Hogg said he is teaming up with William LeGate, a progressive tech entrepreneur, to compete with Lindell, who is a fervent Trump supporter and has spent the last few weeks repeatedly promoting baseless claims of election fraud.

Taking to Twitter on Thursday, the 20-year-old said the company is still in the "early stages."

It aimed to "run a better business and make a better product all with more happy staff than Mike the pillow guy while creating US-based Union jobs and helping people."

Read more: The MyPillow guy says God helped him beat a crack addiction to build a multimillion-dollar empire. Now his religious devotion to Trump threatens to bring it all crashing down.

In another tweet, Hogg said the company would "put an emphasis on supporting the progressive cause and "not attempt a white supremacist overthrow of the United States government."

"This pillow fight just got very real," Hogg added.

The 20-year-old said that he and LeGate are hoping to "sell $1 million of product within our first year," Axios reported.

"[W]e would like to do it sooner but we have strict guidelines on sustainability and [U.S.] based Union producers," Hogg said.

The company is expected to launch in about six months. Hogg said he would only have an advisory role for now to concentrate on finishing college. He currently attends Harvard University.

Responding to the news of his possible competitors, Lindell told Axios: "Good for them...nothing wrong with the competition that does not infringe on someone's patent."

Hogg recently found himself back in the spotlight after a video emerged showing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene harassing him on Capitol Hill as he walked toward the Capitol in March 2018 to advocate for gun control.

The video shows Greene calling Hogg, who was 17 at the time, a "coward" just weeks after he survived the deadly February 14 shooting.

Hogg responded to the video going viral on Twitter, saying it's an example of the kind of intimidation fellow gun-violence survivors face while trying to prevent other mass shootings.

"As we fight for peace, we also face massive amounts of death threats and armed intimidation simply for not wanting our friends to die anymore," Hogg wrote. "This is not the country we should be and it's not the country we have to be."

Read the original article on Business Insider

The Active Volcano in Japan; Sakurajima

  

Volcanoes: Global Perspectives - SILO.PUB

The Down Side to Life in a Supertall Tower: 

Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

Stefanos Chen
Sat, February 6, 2021

Several floors of the tower at 432 Park Avenue are surrounded

 by clouds in New York on May 13, 2019.

(Karsten Moran/The New York Times)

NEW YORK — The nearly 1,400-foot tower at 432 Park Ave., briefly the tallest residential building in the world, was the pinnacle of New York’s luxury condo boom half a decade ago, fueled largely by foreign buyers seeking discretion and big returns.

Six years later, residents of the exclusive tower are now at odds with the developers, and each other, making clear that even multimillion-dollar price tags do not guarantee problem-free living. The claims include millions of dollars of water damage from plumbing and mechanical issues; frequent elevator malfunctions; and walls that creak like the galley of a ship — all of which may be connected to the building’s main selling point: its immense height, according to homeowners, engineers and documents obtained by The New York Times.

Less than a decade after a spate of record-breaking condo towers reached new heights in New York, the first reports of defects and complaints are beginning to emerge, raising concerns that some of the construction methods and materials used have not lived up to the engineering breakthroughs that only recently enabled 1,000-foot-high trophy apartments. Engineers privy to some of the disputes say many of the same issues are occurring quietly in other new towers.

The disputes at 432 Park also highlight a rarely seen view of New York’s so-called Billionaire’s Row, a stretch of supertall towers near Central Park that redefined the city skyline, and where the identities of virtually all the buyers were concealed by shell companies.

The building, a slender tower that critics have likened to a middle finger because of its contentious height, is mostly sold out, with a projected value of $3.1 billion. The 96th floor penthouse at the top of the building sold in 2016 for nearly $88 million to a company representing Saudi retail magnate Fawaz Alhokair. Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez bought a 4,000-square-foot apartment there for $15.3 million in 2018, and sold about a year later.

Now, correspondence between residents, some of the richest and most influential people in the world, reveal thorny arguments over how to remedy the problems without tanking property values.

“I was convinced it would be the best building in New York,” said Sarina Abramovich, one of the earliest residents of 432 Park. “They’re still billing it as God’s gift to the world, and it’s not.”

CIM Group, one of the developers, said in a statement that the building “is a successfully designed, constructed and virtually sold-out project,” and that they are “working collaboratively” with the condo board, which was run by the developers until January when residents were elected and took control. (Developers typically control condo boards in the first few years of operation.)

“Like all new construction, there were maintenance and close-out items during that period,” they said. Macklowe Properties, the other developer, declined to comment.

The construction manager, Lendlease, said in a statement that they “have been in contact” with the developers, “regarding some comments from tenants, which we are currently evaluating.”

Abramovich and her husband, Mikhail, retired business owners who worked in the oil and gas business, bought a high-floor, 3,500-square-foot apartment at the tower for nearly $17 million in 2016, to have a secondary home near their adult children.

She was disappointed with her purchase on day one, she said, when she left her home in London in early 2016 to move into what she expected to be a completed apartment, and found that both her unit and the building were still under construction.

“They put me in a freight elevator surrounded by steel plates and plywood, with a hard-hat operator,” she said. “That’s how I went up to my hoity-toity apartment before closing.”

Problems escalated from there, she said.

There have been a number of floods in the building, including two leaks in November 2018 that the general manager of the building, Len Czarnecki, acknowledged in emails to residents. The first leak, on Nov. 22, was caused by a “blown” flange, a ribbed collar that connects piping, around a high-pressure water feed on the 60th floor. Four days later, a “water line failure” on the 74th floor caused water to enter elevator shafts, removing two of the four residential elevators from service for weeks.

Both events occurred on mechanical floors that have been criticized for being excessively tall — a design feature that allowed the developers to build higher than would otherwise have been permitted, because mechanical floors do not count against the building’s allowable size.

Reached by phone, Czarnecki said he was “not at liberty to comment.”

After the first incident, water seeped into Abramovich’s apartment several floors below the leak, causing an estimated $500,000 in damage, she said.

Others have made similar claims. The anonymous buyer of unit 84B cited a “catastrophic water flood” that caused major damage to the 83rd to 86th floors in 2016 as grounds to back out of the deal. The would-be buyer, who was in contract for a $46.25 million apartment, was a member of the Beckmann family, the owners of the Jose Cuervo tequila brand, according to sources familiar with the suit. The case was settled quietly the next year.

Many of the mechanical issues cited at 432 Park are occurring at other supertall residential towers, according to several engineers who have worked on the buildings.

All buildings sway in the wind, but at exceptional heights, those forces are stronger. A management email explained that “a high-wind condition” stopped an elevator and caused a resident to be “entrapped” on the evening of Oct. 31, 2019 for 1 hour and 25 minutes. Wind sway can cause the cables in the elevator shaft to slap around and lead to slowdowns or shutdowns, according to an engineer who asked not to be named, because he has worked on other towers in New York with similar issues.

One of the most common complaints in supertall buildings is noise, said Luke Leung, a director at the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. He has heard metal partitions between walls groan as buildings sway, and the ghostly whistle of rushing air in doorways and elevator shafts.

Residents at 432 Park complained of creaking, banging and clicking noises in their apartments, and a trash chute “that sounds like a bomb” when garbage is tossed, according to notes from a 2019 owners’ meeting.

Problems at the building were coupled with significant new expenses. Annual common charges jumped nearly 40% in 2019, according to management emails that cited rising insurance premiums and repairs, among other costs.

Eduard Slinin, a resident who was elected to the condo board late last year, wrote a letter to neighbors in 2020 reporting that the building’s insurance costs had increased 300% in two years. The insurance hike was partly because of a sprinkler discharge and two “water-related incidents” in 2018 that cost the building about $9.7 million in covered losses, according to a letter from the residential board of managers.

Some residents also railed against surging fees at the building’s private restaurant, overseen by the Michelin-star chef, Shaun Hergatt. When the building opened in late 2015, homeowners were required to spend $1,200 a year on the service; in 2021, that requirement jumps to $15,000, despite limited hours of operation because of the pandemic. And breakfast is no longer free.

The residents, many of whom live elsewhere most of the year, have splintered into groups. In a letter to fellow residents, Slinin, the president of Corporate Transportation Group, said he was working with about 40 “concerned unit owners,” out of about 103 units, not including staff apartments, to rein in costs and address possibly dangerous conditions in the building.

The group commissioned SBI Consultants, an engineering firm, to study mechanical and structural issues. Initial findings showed that 73% of mechanical, electrical and plumbing components observed failed to conform with the developers’ drawings, and that almost a quarter “presented actual life safety issues,” Slinin wrote.

SBI did not respond to email or calls for comment. Slinin, in a phone call, subsequently downplayed the SBI findings, saying that the mechanical issues “were minor things.”

Residents have been divided on how to address the building’s problems. Jacqueline Finkelstein-Lebow, the principal of JSF Capital, a real estate investment firm, and a homeowner who recently won a seat on the board, called other residents’ attempts to “lawyer up” against the developers misguided, in a letter to residents. She also denied claims that she might have a conflict of interest in running for the board. She is married to Bennett Lebow, the chairman of Vector Group, a holding company that controls Douglas Elliman Real Estate — the brokerage that led sales at 432 Park. Howard Lorber, the executive chairman of Douglas Elliman, is also a resident.

Finkelstein-Lebow did not respond to requests for comment.

The tension in the building has been simmering for years, Abramovich said.

“Everybody hates each other here,” she said, but, for the most part, residents want to keep the squabbling out of the public eye.

But Abramovich, who, because of COVID-19 travel restrictions, has been living at 432 Park full time, said she wasn’t worried that resale value might suffer, because she didn’t buy the unit to flip for profit. For refusing to cover the recent increase in common charges, she said she faces $82,000 in late fees and interest — more than twice the median household income in the Bronx.

She’s aware that the plight of billionaires won’t garner much sympathy, but says she is speaking out on principle.

“Everything here was camouflage,” she said. “If I knew then what I know now, I would have never bought.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2021 The New York Times

  

SAG-AFTRA speaks on Trump's union resignation: 

'Members were just fine with his decision'

Alexandra Canal

·Producer

Sat, February 6, 2021

Former President Donald Trump announced his resignation from The Screen Actors Guild on Thursday, following a disciplinary probe over his role in January’s deadly attack on the Capitol.

“I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares!” Trump wrote in a fiery resignation letter to SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris.

His resignation means he can no longer enjoy SAG-AFTRA benefits, which include voting on employment and government structure of the union — in addition to other unique privileges such as movie screeners during award season and more.

“While I'm not familiar with your work, I'm very proud of my work on movies such as 'Home Alone 2,' 'Zoolander' and 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'; and television shows including 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,' 'Saturday Night Live,' and of course, one of the most successful shows in television history, 'The Apprentice' — to name just a few!” the letter continued.

In response, SAG-AGTRA had just two words for the former commander-in-chief: “Thank you.” National Executive Director David White told Yahoo Finance during a recent interview that the terse response “is all we really had to say.”

Former President Donald Trump announced his resignation from The Screen Actors Guild on Thursday following a disciplinary probe over his role in the deadly Capitol riot attacks on January 6th

“We actually expected him to show up [to the disciplinary hearing] but I think the members were just fine with his decision to no longer be a part of this family,” White said.

Tinseltown’s move to penalize the former president comes as the Senate is poised to deliberate on Trump’s impeachment beginning next week.

White added that SAG faced pressure to revoke Trump’s membership even prior to January 6th’s attacks — with current union members arguing that his actions did not reflect “the integrity and values of the membership. It had nothing to do with his politics,” White explained.

Hollywood is notoriously left-leaning, but White stressed that the union is a non-partisan organization that was once under the leadership of former Republican President Ronald Reagan. The 40th U.S. Commander in Chief served as SAG-president from 1947-1952, and then again from 1959-1960.

“We had a number of members call with lots of concern about Mr. Trump’s actions as a candidate when he was calling the media ‘fake news,’ calling upon people to take action against journalists,” White explained.

“And we know for a fact that, prior to his election as a president, then as president and even after being president, that his words incited actual violence and harm against members of this union, along with many others,” he continued.

Legally, Trump can still appear in movies and TV shows despite the resignation, yet White suggested that union representation in Hollywood is often paramount.

“This industry is one that respects labor relations and respects the collective activities of unions quite a bit, so most producers do look to see whether or not the person is a member of the union in their hiring decisions,” White explained.

HOLLYWOOD BEAT HIM THERE

Elon Musk says SpaceX will get humans to Mars in 2026 but some industry insiders are more optimistic than others. 

Here's what the experts say.

MUSK PRAYING NUMBER THREE

WILL NOT GO BOOM

SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, is building and launching 

Starship prototypes in Boca Chica, Texas. 

SpaceX; Mark Brake/Getty Images; Business Insider

Kate Duffy Sat., February 6, 2021

Elon Musk's timeline for SpaceX landing humans on Mars has wavered over the years.

On Sunday, he said 2026 will be the year to send a crewed mission to Mars. In 2017, he said 2024.

Space industry experts believe SpaceX will reach Mars, but not as soon as it hopes.

Elon Musk is still confident that 2026 will be the year that his space company SpaceX lands humans on Mars, where he hopes to build a human settlement.

In a wide-ranging interview with the audio-only Clubhouse app on Sunday, Musk said it will take "five and a half years" before a crewed mission of SpaceX's Starship rocket could land on the Red Planet.

"The important thing is that we establish Mars as a self-sustaining civilization," he said.

But Musk's timeline for reaching Mars has wavered over the past few years. The billionaire said in 2017 his "aspirational" timeline was for SpaceX to send cargo ships to Mars in 2022, followed by a crewed mission two years later.

In October, Musk said the space company has a "fighting chance" of sending an uncrewed Starship rocket to Mars in 2024 - two years later than he previously hoped. He echoed his ambition in December saying he is "highly confident" SpaceX will launch an uncrewed rocket to the planet in 2024, followed by a crewed mission in 2026.

With five and a half years to go, experts say SpaceX may be waiting a few more years to achieve its goal.

Greg Autry, a commercial space industry expert, told Insider he thinks Musk will get to Mars, on his own or with NASA in 2029 or 2031. The window is dependent on when the Earth lines up with Mars, which is every 26 months. But Autry warned that space projects are challenging and rarely on time - Musk's goal is no exception.

"It's a matter of finances and will. Elon has both," he said.

All of his projects, from Tesla to SpaceX to the Boring Company, include extremely ambitious time frames and usually take much longer than expected, according to Autry. "That should not minimize either power of setting an aggressive date, nor the magnificence of what he eventually achieves," he said.

Musk said in January 2020 he plans to send 1 million people to Mars by 2050. This involves building 1,000 Starship rockets over 10 years - that's 100 Starships every year - and launching an average of three Starships per day. "There will be a lot of jobs on Mars!" he added.

SpaceX launched a prototype of its Starship rocket 10km above Boca Chica, Texas, on Tuesday, but it exploded during a landing attempt. This is the second time a Starship rocket has launched and burst into flames. The first time was in December.

Read more: SpaceX is finalizing a massive new funding round. Here's why investors are clamoring for one of the world's most valuable startups.

Despite the Starship rocket being tried and tested, Autry pointed out that the booster, life support system, reentry system, and ability to refuel on Mars haven't been tested yet - and some haven't even been built. This means it's most likely going to take more time to build the tech beyond Starship to support a civilization on Mars.

"There is a lot of work there that is overshadowed by the dramatic tests of the landing system," Autry said.

Musk's ambitious targets stem from a mix of motivational charisma, planning fallacy and being "ubercapable of getting things done," Autry said.

"When he thinks about how long it will take to build a rocket he is perhaps guilty of imagining 5,000 Elon Musks on the job at SpaceX and more of them at his suppliers and in the governmental offices he needs to license or fund his project," said Autry, adding that this isn't realistic.

Kevin J DeBruin, a former NASA rocket scientist, told Insider Musk only has three launch opportunities left because of the planets' alignment to do tests and ensure everything goes perfectly. If the launches, new tech, system tests, and landings all go to plan and Musk has the cashflow to support it, DeBruin said it's possible SpaceX could get to Mars by 2026.

There are concerns, however, regarding the mass needed to land on Mars, DeBruin said.

Six times more mass than we already have is required, he said. "We need new landing technology to land more mass on the surface of Mars for humans to live, operate, and then leave the surface to come home."

Biological issues could also come into play. DeBruin said the longest a human has been continually in space is just under a year but the Mars trip will take much longer. "We will see more degradation of the human body," he said.

Steve Nutt, professor of materials science and aerospace engineering at the University of Southern California, told Insider that Musk intentionally makes bold predictions to "inspire his workforce to think big."

"One can argue that it's an effective strategy, and it is less important that the timeline be accurate than it is for it to be inspirational," said Nutt.

SpaceX's goal to reach Mars is "something NASA should have done long ago," said Nutt. Given that the space agency lost its vision after the big moon walk and is constrained by politics, SpaceX could fill the void, he said.

Read the original article on Business Insider