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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

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Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#161

Post by gallerdude »

3pt14159 wrote: post #109
djsumdog wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first colonists will most likely not come back. Make no mistake, people are going to die in the first several runs. This will be one of the most dangerous endeavors mankind can attempt. As far as war breaking out, we're not going to make it to Mars in our current state. I don't think Mars is viable until we enter a post scarcity world. I find it unlikely we can even attempt it if we're still in a money based econ…

Why can't we be money based and have relatively high redistribution and taxes?

Something something socialism /s.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#162

Post by AndrewKemendo »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #122
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually not a bad way to put it! Think about it this way. What if there was an uninhabited island out in the Pacific that was hard to get to. What makes it worth trying to get to? There isn't anything any more special there than here. In fact from all we've seen so far it's much less special. Same goes for Mars. What is the value in being "multi-planetary?" I mean the idea that this is a hedge against some ex…

Is your financial portfolio diversified? Owning one stock that has previously grown at 10% yoy is the same as owning ten stocks which have previously grown at 10% yoy right?

That's a nice analogy but doesn't really apply in this case.

The cost of buying a stock is generally same between assets (within one or two stdv). Using your example it's crazy expensive just to "buy the stock." So its not really an option.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#163

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

dsabanin wrote: post #103
sfeng wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given hundreds (or thousands) of years, yes.

Yeah, I don't argue it can't be done in thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of years. I'm just saying it's probably unwise to focus and spend time and money on this right now. We probably won't even make it to that day. It's better to learn to live on Earth responsibly and then maybe, once we've learned our lessons, start looking further.

But we're not going to be able to do that. The only way we survive is if we can fuel humanity with offworld resources. We can move polluting and dangerous industries offworld, and then the Earth can recover. Trying to change our propensity to consume resources as much as possible is a fool's errand.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#164

Post by andars »

astazangasta wrote: post #124
andars wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redundancy. A bad backup is better than none at all. In addition, because I believe it is worthwhile to attempt difficult things to see what we can achieve. Inspiration is a valid goal.

Inspiration is a tautological goal. "Why do we do X? Because it is inspiring!" only works if we find X worthy for some reason. How about: real goals that substantively improve life on Earth?

I'm okay with that. You don't have to be inspired by it. I am, and I think many other people are as well.

Human civilization has a lot of problems. I don't know how to solve them. I believe that demonstrations of human ingenuity, capability, and technological aptitude have the potential to cause people to aspire to achieve something, maybe to solve "real problems".

The best part is that they aren't mutually exclusive. I'm all in favor of improving life on Earth too, and I'm interested in hearing some of your ideas of ways to solve the problems we have here.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#165

Post by logfromblammo »

mikeash wrote: post #126
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about going to a different planet makes you think we won't just be taking those same problems with us? The earth isn't the problem - The problem is the human brain. We aren't genetically capable of processing the world we have built. Expect there to be Trump IV vs Clinton IV 2117 hosted live on Mars if we haven't made significant improvements in human engineering.

That's fine. The goal isn't to escape our problems, it's to explore new places, live there, and set up humanity so one big asteroid won't kill it.

Let's expand that from "humanity" to "a minimally viable Earth ecosystem" and not pretend that our species would be just fine without some of our favorite plants, animals, and microorganisms.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#166

Post by Gravityloss »

Gravityloss wrote: post #83
Rezo wrote: post #2

SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qo78R_yYFA

Unconventional design. The rocket looks very large and they mention 120 million newtons takeoff thrust so the weight is about 10 million kg, 3 times Saturn V size. The first stage lands back on launch stool, the tanker stage is put on top of it and it launches again. This implies a relatively fast turnaround. Both the second stage and the tanker seem to have complete heat shields and stub wings and ability to re-ente…

Ok, now it's starting to make a little bit more sense to me.

They massively oversize the second stage and launch it almost empty, so it can just do the 5 km/s or whatever is needed for orbit. Then they launch multiple tankers to refuel it.

They don't need lots of engines on the second stage because it's launched light.

So it's pure chemical propulsion.

But still with only 4 km/s exhaust velocity, no matter how you slice it, the mass ratios required from a single stage get impossible, ie even if the rocket tanks and engines didn't have any mass, payload sets an upper limit to the mass ratio.

EDIT: So looks like it has 10 km/s delta vee. Not 30.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#167

Post by ravenstine »

spdustin wrote: post #123
ravenstine wrote: post #107

I have a better idea: Let's focus all the money and effort we would spend on getting to Mars and living on its wasteland, and use it to understand the human mind and digitize it into a realm not individually constrained by physics? I actually think that may be a more realistic and practical goal, and our quality of lives could be much better. I mean, what do we really get from living somewhere like Mars? A storage co…

We get to experience the Brand New again. We get to learn things that are unlearnable right now. We get to leave behind a planet whose ecosystem has been screwed by its current population and try to make the right choices on a new one. But mostly? Because it's hard, and rising to the challenge can supersede politics and superstition and, we can only hope, recapture the sense of, "holy shit, we did it!" not experience…

> We get to experience the Brand New again.

So what? Does it improve the human experience more than addressing human biology & cognition?

> We get to leave behind a planet whose ecosystem has been screwed by its current population and try to make the right choices on a new one.

Unless you can substantiate that claim, I don't necessarily agree. You are also speculating that we would somehow make better choices with a different planet than this one. Not that it's impossible, but I find it hard to believe. Are you saying that it is more practical to terraform a planet that doesn't support life than to address existing environmental issues on Earth?

> Because it's hard[...]

That's not a very good reason to do anything. It might give people motivation to do things, but "because it's hard" speaks nothing to what we stand to benefit from doing said thing. There are plenty of things that are hard to do, like building a giant pogo stick that can bounce you into outer space, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's worth the time and money to do.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#169

Post by dogma1138 »

cbau wrote: post #110
maerF0x0 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This brings up a good point. Why mars first? Why not a moon colony first?

Musk just addressed this. Mars has an atmosphere of CO2 and Nitrogen, so we can grow plants, a day length similar to Earth's (24.5 hours), and is larger.

Mars has no magnetic field so you get cooked with radiation.

Mars' soil contains tons of perchlorate at levels which are very toxic to humans.

TBH Venus seems like a better candidate for long term terraforming.

You can build floating complexes in it's upper atmosphere, and it has enough oxygen and water locked in it's atmosphere and we might be able to fix the rotation and the density of the atmosphere in one go by using the atmosphere to speed up the rotation of Venus. While both of these are quite "far fetched" technically, as far as terraforming goes we aren't any closer to terraforming mars than Venus, and at least for Venus we don't need to figure out how to give it a magnetic field.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#170

Post by mikeash »

logfromblammo wrote: post #165
mikeash wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine. The goal isn't to escape our problems, it's to explore new places, live there, and set up humanity so one big asteroid won't kill it.

Let's expand that from "humanity" to "a minimally viable Earth ecosystem" and not pretend that our species would be just fine without some of our favorite plants, animals, and microorganisms.

Is anybody actually pretending that?
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