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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

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Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#241

Post by fapjacks »

wmccullough wrote: post #184
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.

It's especially exaggerated here -- almost comically so -- when the subject is JavaScript or when something isn't quite right with a project's website.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#242

Post by spdustin »

vkou wrote: post #212
spdustin wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need the permission and cooperation of every major world power and polluting industry to go to Mars. I'd go so far as to say it's vastly more attainable than fixing our atmosphere.

We don't need the permission and cooperation of every major world power to destroy the Earth's environment. In fact, it seems to be our default mode of operation.

It's those aforementioned world powers and industries doing it. I'm sorry if my argument made assumptions about the context.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#243

Post by freehunter »

winter_blue wrote: post #209
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.

> and is larger Mars is much smaller than Earth. From Wikipedia: "Mars is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earth's volume and 11% of Earth's mass, resulting in about 38% of Earth's surface gravity." See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars

Larger than the moon.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#244

Post by AndrewKemendo »

mikeash wrote: post #218
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like it, then you're free to go do whatever it is you do like. Right. And as what appears to be the loudest voice in this discussion, it's also my prerogative to advocate for what I believe to be a better allocation of resources. Lets not pretend there is not competition for attention, capital and enthusiasm for vision based projects. That I advocate for one over another - in competition - is exactly wha…

You're free to advocate for other things, but most of the critics aren't doing this, they're just shitting all over this idea and then making vague waves in the general direction of other ideas. Further, why so much focus on this particular billionaire, who at least is focusing pretty hard on driving progress even if you don't agree on the precise direction, and ignoring all the ones just wasting it, or being activel…

Further, why so much focus on this particular billionaire, who at least is focusing pretty hard on driving progress even if you don't agree on the precise direction, and ignoring all the ones just wasting it, or being actively counterproductive?

Because there is nowhere to engage with them or around their capital allocation specifically? Also because the problem set they are trying to solve is not as ambitious. Remember the problem set for this Mars project is basically "Saving Humanity from Extinction."

You see similar conversations come up when large scale renewable projects are invested in - wherein people shout about how people should be investing in fusion or Thorium etc...

Also, if someone comes out and says "We're investing in Docker" and the response is "You should be investing in AI instead!!" it just makes you look like a crank - largely because they are different value investments.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#245

Post by thaumaturgy »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #69
aerovistae wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but you seem to be saying "Let's not be excited about colonizing another planet-- life will be just as depressing there."

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…

Equating Mars to "an uninhabited island in the Pacific" is disingenuous at least. Mars is the largest unexplored area of land potentially available to humans since we left Africa.

Ditto for saying we haven't seen anything special out there, considering that we've barely even started looking (and every time someone proposes looking, a whole bunch of boring people show up to go, "why bother?").

A massive ELE asteroid is capable of doing enough traumatic damage to civilizations on Earth to entirely reset hundreds of years of technological development on this planet. Having another technologically-advanced civilization on another world just makes sense from a species survival perspective. And an ELE asteroid isn't even the most plausible traumatic human disaster we can imagine on Earth; war, politics, disease are all far more plausible.

It seems you also need a reminder that so much of the technological advancements we're enjoying now were developed, at least in some part, by a country that started out as an unexplored frontier (and, I'm sure there were people in 1450 that would have insisted Spain solve its own problems first before sending ships out to find a new route around the world). We have no way of predicting what kind of technology (environmental? energy?) or politics will be developed on a new world so isolated from Earth and populated by, presumably, many of the best and brightest from Earth.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#246

Post by goatlover »

fixermark wrote: post #239
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this is true. Going to Mars fixes none of these problems however and wastes a lot of energy in the process.

I'm talking about asteroid impact. It fixes asteroid impact.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to defend against an asteroid impact? We only need detect and deflect in time.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#247

Post by Diederich »

djsumdog wrote: post #77
bsdetector wrote: post #47

We won't really be an interplanetary species until we can get back from Mars. Imagine being colonists on Mars without the ability to be totally self-sustaining without technology and supplies from Earth and nuclear war breaks out. It's going to be a long time before any Mars colony can survive on its own.

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…

Yup, Re: the danger. Later on:

Q: Who should be the first humans on Mars? Q: Who should be the first humans on Mars?

A: The first journeys will be very dangerous, the risk of fatalities will be high. Likely no children - must be prepared to die. A: The first journeys will be very dangerous, the risk of fatalities will be high. Likely no children - must be prepared to die.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#248

Post by Zikes »

chriswarbo wrote: post #177
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.

> and is larger I see this as a disadvantage; the major difficulty of space exploration is getting out of the Earth's gravity well. I don't think it's wise to fall back into another one.

Once you've solved dealing with Earth's gravity, Mars will be a cakewalk by comparison.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#250

Post by logfromblammo »

mikeash wrote: post #170
logfromblammo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Hollywood, usually. They're really good at pretending, but not always so great on putting the science in science fiction.
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