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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

spacex.com

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Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#421

Post by cbhl »

BurningFrog wrote: post #187
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.

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.

When the pilgrims originally sailed to North America from England, it took on the order of two or three months. A six month trip to Mars seems reasonable in that context.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#422

Post by gfosco »

disantlor wrote: post #278
davidw wrote: post #6

This is so pleasant to see after being bombarded with US presidential politics. Science, hope and progress!

...and then you get to the Q/A section and start to understand how we ended with a self-aggrandizing anti-intellectual presidential candidate

and also Donald J Trump.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#423

Post by BurningFrog »

lallysingh wrote: post #292
BurningFrog wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Once you get there, what do you do? Just go back?

I assume different people do different things...

Tourism would be an obvious sustainable Moon industry. That does fit your description :)

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#424

Post by drzaiusapelord »

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 hate to say it but this is what SpaceX fandom often looks like. I don't think this invalidates Musk's approach, but even on these forums the SpaceX hype is unbelievable and the worst of the worst are usually low information fanboys who aren't really serious about space exploration or space science but like to jump on a bandwagon, as this video illustrates. I also imagine SpaceX marketing wants to surround Musk with young people to make him seem hip enough to constantly go viral in the largely millennial dominated social networks. It'll be millennials riding these rockets, not baby boomers or even gen-x'ers, who be in their 50's by then. Space exploration is a young person's game and SpaceX knows it. The party boy and academically mediocre fratboy won't get a cush job at Goldman Sachs, he'll be the guy mining rocks on Mars. Winning over this demographic is probably seen as important. The first group of colonists will not have cushy lives.

Thankfully, as SpaceX matures and become mainstream, the weirdo element gets diluted. The same way the early web was little more than tribute pages to baby boomer rockstars and endless pages and commentary about the illuminati and the new world order.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#425

Post by wyager »

kchoudhu wrote: post #210
justrossthings wrote: post #101

Required reading: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars-Trilogy-Stanley-Robinson/dp/...

I just finished reading these books for what seems like the millionth time, and Mr. Musk hasn't even begun to answer the questions they raise. What is the legal structure going to be on the 1MM person colony? Who gets to go? What are the transplants allowed to do there? Who rules? Who do the rulers answer to? Are we going to Terraform Mars? If yes, under whose auspices and with what restrictions? FTR: this is Elon Mu…

> Who gets to go?

According to Musk, whoever pays.

> Who rules?

Not to be flippant, but who cares? The worst case scenario is that we repeat British colonialism and the martians overthrow the despotic earth government in a few generations. Same as always, the colony is too far away for the motherland to effectively maintain control. The important thing is getting humans to Mars; all the short-term stuff is important, but it's just small beans in the long run.

> Are we going to Terraform Mars?

Musk clearly wants to. It is not clear how feasible this is with current tech.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#426

Post by kchoudhu »

elevensies wrote: post #407
kchoudhu wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just finished reading these books for what seems like the millionth time, and Mr. Musk hasn't even begun to answer the questions they raise. What is the legal structure going to be on the 1MM person colony? Who gets to go? What are the transplants allowed to do there? Who rules? Who do the rulers answer to? Are we going to Terraform Mars? If yes, under whose auspices and with what restrictions? FTR: this is Elon Mu…

Does Mars colonisation increase the chances of Earth becoming (more of) a corporate dystopia? If not, then if there is a chance of a Mars colony which supports your values what are you losing by the attempt? [edit: this is awkwardly phrased ... it is like a free roulette shot, it may or may not pay off, but if it's "free" the net value is positive.] And I also think if colonisation ever was big enough to absorb a sig…

The scenario in which the bet does not pay off results in 1 million people and their descendants being stuck in a terrible situation, with distance making aid or relief impossible at scale. This is something that could be mitigated by making sure that the first planet we colonize isn't some kind of unregulated fief belonging to the first person who threw enough cash at the problem of getting people to Mars.

Which is a long way of saying that I may not be one of them, but I sure as hell will feel sorry for them.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#428

Post by sillysaurus3 »

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.

It's a mistake to anthropomorphise HN. I've made it too. We're all in this together, and we're all individuals.

True, people here can be frustrating at times. But the mod team is one of the sharpest, and they cull abuse. And they do it well.

When the abuse is removed, what's left is substance. Sometimes that substance is disagreeable, and sometimes even hostile, but never personal.

It can be un-fun sometimes. But it's been rewarding to watch this place grow and see all of the new and old opinions intermix. Sometimes you end up learning about yourself more than other people, which are special moments. I haven't really felt that on other sites, so HN feels unique and worthwhile.

It's a journey. The community has ups and downs, but Dan (and now Scott) have always taken care of it.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#429

Post by x0x0 »

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…

Elon starts talking 22:05

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#430

Post by BOBOTWINSTON »

ythl wrote: post #411
weatherlight wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, this 1000x. if we are going to survive the next millennia, we need to get off this rock.

I still think it's many, many orders of magnitude easier to survive on a messed up earth than on a fresh Mars or Venus.

Yeah in a lot of circumstances that is true, but the degree to which it is messed up is important. Eventually it will be too messed up right? Eventually the Solar System will be too messed up as well, but we need to start somewhere.

Just comes down to how well prepared you want the human race to be for a planetary or solar system wide disaster.

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