Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

spacex.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 1001 posts

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#181

Post by nitrogen »

chillingeffect wrote: post #100
tcoppi wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throughout human history, there has always been a new/unexplored land to emigrate to for new opportunities or to escape political persecution. Nowdays there is nowhere left for someone in the West to emigrate to that is not substantially the same or worse. Mars and the stars could potentially offer that opportunity, which might be why some people are excited.

IIUC you're saying someone would have a better chance escaping to Mars to enjoy their political freedom rather than, say, a mountain community in the U.S. I don't think that follows. The forces that exert a stranglehold on terrestrial freedom-seekers will exert 10x the grip on territories where the resources required to contain dissidence are greater than terrestrially. If they won't let people run around in the Ozar…

One of the things that makes frontier colonies interesting is they can be selective in who they bring along. This can make control moot, since everyone in the colony agrees on most things anyway. But it can also, conceivably, be problematic.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#182

Post by Gravityloss »

dogma1138 wrote: post #146
Gravityloss wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of power is a few orders of magnitude too low to propel these kind of masses electrically. Basically you need at least 10 kW per Newton.

The other problem is that you need to slow down, with ION drives you'll have to start you slow down burn about mid way increasing the travel time considerably. With traditional rockets you can accelerate, get a gravity assist boost and save enough fuel to slow down quickly when you are at the orbital insertion point.

If you do a direct re-entry you don't need to slow down with propulsion at either end. :)

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#183

Post by cscurmudgeon »

mikeash wrote: post #148

Some of the comments here make me think of crabs in a pot pulling down the ones who try to climb out. Nobody's making you participate in this venture. If you don't like it, then you're free to go do whatever it is you do like. You might think Musk could better direct his efforts and resources elsewhere, but most other billionaires don't do anything all that interesting, they just invest their money in mundane stuff,…

Simple. They are jealous they are on the sidelines.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#184

Post by wmccullough »

mikeash wrote: post #148

Some of the comments here make me think of crabs in a pot pulling down the ones who try to climb out. Nobody's making you participate in this venture. If you don't like it, then you're free to go do whatever it is you do like. You might think Musk could better direct his efforts and resources elsewhere, but most other billionaires don't do anything all that interesting, they just invest their money in mundane stuff,…

You're my hero! This attitude is why I quit regularly contributing to this site. Any time any single person does something positive, some armchair "expert" comes out the woodworks to tell you how it won't work or can't work.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#185

Post by randall »

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?

See Republicans, red pill people, etc.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#186

Post by skykooler »

dogma1138 wrote: post #169
cbau wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

Venus also has no magnetic field. It has much stronger gravity as well, requiring larger rockets to take off from it, and it is quite difficult to mine resources from due to the high temperatures and pressures at the surface, meaning all materials for a colony would need to be sent from Earth.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#187

Post by BurningFrog »

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.

To me, the 2 day vs 6 months commute outweigh that. Then again I haven't done the math.

In the long run, there should of course be settlements on both bodies.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#189

Post by BinaryIdiot »

40acres wrote: post #149

I'm surprised Elon has not improved his public speaking abilities.

Seems significantly better than his earlier works. His talks feel genuine since they don't appear to be rehearsed and he's not exactly a smooth talker. In my opinion anyway.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#190

Post by skykooler »

orky56 wrote: post #175
dev1n wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some possible reasons; Mars has a c02 atmosphere, water ice, it has a ~24 hour day as opposed to the moons 28 day-day, Earth and Mars have similar sizes.

Why does the Mars 24.5 hr day versus the Moons 28 day-day matter? What are the consequences of this big difference between Earth day and the moon/Mars day?

24.5 hours matches our circadian cycle. On the Moon extra power would be necessary for artificial lighting.
Post reply on HN