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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

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Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#301

Post by dcposch »

grecy wrote: post #237
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,…

> 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. I can't agree more. I've seen HN degrade into that kind of discussion over the last 2 years and it really disappoints me. Part of me wishes HN had a really strong moderator that slapped down nay-sayers. If you're not contributing something valuable, comment deleted.

Just an idea: sentiment analysis has gotten pretty accurate.

What if HN included sentiment in the sort algorithm?

The post score you see would stay the same (upvotes minus downvotes). You'd just multiply the sort score by, for example, 1.25 for posts positive in tone and 0.8 for posts with negative tone.

So if two comments have about the same number of upvotes, the nicer one appears higher up.

Criticism or disapproval could still become top post with enough upvotes, but it wouldnt happen as often as it does now.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#302

Post by beloch »

This new launch vehicle has a realistic chance of getting people and materials to Mars in sufficient quantities to build an outpost. I'd like to hear more about how they plan to build a self-sustaining colony on Mars though. There are some pretty big challenges to overcome, such as the relative lack of Nitrogen. A colony is going to have to grow plants but, to do that on Mars, we're going to need a way of fixing Nitrogen for those plants from an Atmosphere where it's just not very plentiful.

Please note that this isn't an argument against going to Mars now. There's a lot we can learn by building an outpost on Mars that is supported heavily by Earth, including how to build a self-supporting Mars colony. I'm just asking what the current state-of-the-art opinion is on the challenges of building a self-supporting Mars colony.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#304

Post by goatlover »

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 also free to critique an idea that's been put out there in public. The so called free market of ideas where people get to express their opinions on said idea. Or do you only want to see cheerleading? Because not all ideas are good, or feasible, or appropriate for now. The might be ahead of their time, and so forth.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#305

Post by lazaroclapp »

breuleux wrote: post #155
fixermark wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems we take with us aren't the problem this project addresses---there is one problem we unequivocally leave behind if we successfully colonize Mars. For all our accomplishments, the human species is one unavoidable planet-scale disaster away from total extinction. We know this class of disaster has happened in Earth's past, and we know we lack the capability to stop it. Colonizing Mars gives the species that…

There is no disaster that has ever happened to Earth that could wipe out a species that can survive on Mars . A giant asteroid colliding with Earth would probably leave more humans here than the whole of Mars could even support.

Sure. But if the technology needed to survive ecological catastrophic failure on Earth and to live on Mars is similar, wouldn't you rather test a colony on Mars before being required to resort to similar measures on Earth?

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#306

Post by oldmanjay »

wmccullough wrote: post #285
elliotec wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't stop contributing if you're one of the good ones!

I want to, but it got to the point where the hivemind has pushed me away. I have noticed recently that HN is becoming self-aware. More than ever, I'm seeing comments by good users telling the bad ones to take their bad attitude elsewhere. The contrarianism going on really drove me away. I started to believe that there were people feeling the need to be contrarian just to appear more intelligent than the other users.

If you see a hive mind on HN that says more about your thought process than this site.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#307

Post by anexprogrammer »

david-given wrote: post #204
anexprogrammer wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the moon would be the obvious place to start, especially as the NASA plans I've seen for Mars have been based on using a space station at a Earth-Lunar Lagrange point, and associated moonbase, as ideal staging post. That and I might one day afford a ticket. I guess direct to Mars is sexier. :) (I'm behind live too.)

I agree --- Mars is a pit. It's a barren desert at the bottom of a great big hole. Its biggest, and perhaps only, advantage is that it has an atmosphere, and gas is so much easier to deal with for ISRU than anything else, as you don't need to mine it: just open a valve and suck it in. I notice Musk's ISRU plan is to mine ice; I do wonder how he's going to do that, as it won't be easy. But... you know what... if you c…

I've nothing against Mars, more surprise that it's not via lunar orbit staging as the last several explanations of how we'd get there that I've seen. Like it was a big obvious advantage.

Mars first has the enormous advantage that it's tangibly in progress, however early, rather than being a great NASA idea that isn't getting funded. So I don't actually care which if only one is having rockets built. I saw enough artist impressions in the 80s. ;)

My recollection of the NASA idea was a Mars voyage would reconfigure/refuel at the space station but never land on the moon. The moonbase is the warehouse, fuel and whatever else would be needed to keep space station fed, and gets developed into manufacturing.

Lower G meaning larger vehicles, lower launch cost and so forth. The station at L2 was supposed to be a good jumping off point for anywhere - Mars, asteroids, rest of solar system - supposedly the most fuel efficient way to all(?) of them from here.

It's a while since I last read about that, so I may be mistaken on details.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#308

Post by pearlsteinj »

dudus wrote: post #277

Watching live the announcement and presentation by Elon on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1YxNYiyALg Where the hell did they get this audience from? Is this hosted on a frat house with some academic invites? There's a dude jokingly saying that burning man felt like mars with a lot of shit and no water, there's a guy plugging his comic book, there's a guy making a joke on how we should send Michael Cera to Mars, a g…

He's doing a great job of only looking a little bit uncomfortable with the questions.

Seriously this Q&A is incredibly odd.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#309

Post by zaken »

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

And 97% of the land mass: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=mars+surface+area+%2F+e...

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#310

Post by giarc »

dudus wrote: post #277

Watching live the announcement and presentation by Elon on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1YxNYiyALg Where the hell did they get this audience from? Is this hosted on a frat house with some academic invites? There's a dude jokingly saying that burning man felt like mars with a lot of shit and no water, there's a guy plugging his comic book, there's a guy making a joke on how we should send Michael Cera to Mars, a g…

I have an electric bus in the parking lot.........
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