Ask HN: Does SpaceX have a chance at making life multiplanetary? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Does SpaceX have a chance at making life multiplanetary?

#31

Post by mlindner » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 6:07 PM UTC

gregjor wrote: post #4

You can find reliable analysis of the SpaceX Mars plans. See the Common Sense Skeptic YouTube videos. Not a fan of Musk, but the skeptic gets into details about the physics, logistics, and physiology problems that Musk glosses over. Mars doesn't have a magnetosphere, for one thing, so radiation is a big problem Musk already dismissed. We already know human bodies lose muscle and bone after just a few weeks in space.…

Common Sense Sekptic is not reliable. He regularly makes up facts or distorts information to cause a complete misunderstanding of the subject. Many people have debunked his videos many times but some people continue to post his nonsense.

Re: Ask HN: Does SpaceX have a chance at making life multiplanetary?

#32

Post by mlindner » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

gregjor wrote: post #10

JoshCole wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be really great to hear someone who isn't trying to build a brand around Elon Musk hatred dig into the details. For myself, I've grown very tired of CSS. It is clear he does a lot of research - which makes his tendency to lie about facts and photoshop his sources to hide the contradiction disturbing to me. https://littlebluena.substack.com/p/common-sense-skeptic-deb...

It's hard to refute the logistics issues CSS raises. Or the radiation and lack of gravity problems. Musk frequently changes his promises so it's hard to keep up. Full self-driving? Tesla semi? Hyperloop? Solar roof tiles (since you brought up lying and faking)? Musk deserves the critics he gets.

There has never been long term studies on the effects of low gravity.

On the radiation aspect, the radiation is not significant and simply increases your long term risk of cancer. It's not a show stopper by any means. It's also mostly mitigated with minimal shielding.

Re: Ask HN: Does SpaceX have a chance at making life multiplanetary?

#33

Post by mlindner » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 6:12 PM UTC

Yes they do. But before that a transportation system needs to exist. Starship needs to be easily and quickly reusable and that's a necessary step to becoming multiplanetary or it will simply forever remain too expensive.

> Where does the money come from?

The goal of SpaceX is to make all of what you describe possible within or slightly above NASA's spaceflight budget as well as within the price range of a pioneer who wants to give up everything on Earth and move to Mars.

> How will we make the Martian surface habitable?

The surface will not be habitable by anyone within our lifetimes. People will live in structures that are either underground or partially buried.

> Even if getting launch costs down to 2 million as Musk stated once is possible (hard to believe, Falcon 9 is nowhere near that today)

Falcon 9 throws away carefully engineered and built hardware every single launch. It was never going to get down to those price levels. That's why you need a fully reusable vehicle.