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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

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Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#481

Post by jdietrich »

benevol wrote: post #392
kolinko wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meditation can go hand in hand with space exploration. Besides that, Musk is doing two things at the same time. He tries both to protect the earth (Tesla, solar power), and initiate a base in case something happened to our home. Spirituality alone won't help you survive winter, regardless of how developed your mind is.

> Spirituality alone won't help you survive winter, regardless of how developed your mind is. It's funny that you would say that - you may want to take a quick look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6XKcsm3dKs (The main site is: http://www.icemanwimhof.com/ )

There is no good scientific evidence that Hof's breathing techniques account for his ability to withstand cold temperatures, rather than some kind of genetic difference. Four people have died while attempting to follow his 'technique'.

http://www.parool.nl/binnenland/-iceman-oefening-eist-opnieu...

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#482

Post by elliotec »

jpm_sd wrote: post #158

I'd like to see humans establish self-sustaining colonies in the Gobi Desert, the Laurentian Plateau, and the equatorial Pacific first. All much easier environments.

Thats simply not the point.

We went to the moon. That was not an easy thing to do. We developed nuclear weapons, which was certainly more difficult than establishing a colony in the Gobi desert.

See the excerpt of the JFK moon speech from above. "we choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#483

Post by Grishnakh »

goatlover wrote: post #465
mikeash wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, do you have something against goats?!

I know, right? Maybe we can engineer a hardy Martian goat that can eat the algae that puts oxygen into the air. Martian goats produce C02 and fertilize the soil. Now you have a source of dairy and meat for our future colonists. Imagine kids in the future, growing up dreaming of being goat herders on Mars.

And then after many generations, those goat herders, having long since lost their spacefaring technology, will create a few different and competing religions. A couple thousand years later, when Martians develop more advanced technology and even manage to send Martian people to their moons Phobos and Deimos in primitive spacecraft, they'll still be arguing about which of those religions is correct.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#484

Post by sfeng »

wott wrote: post #280
sfeng wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1,258 people currently live at the McMurdo research station on the South Pole. The record high temperature there is still well below freezing. Humans would not be able to survive there _except_ we have invented ways of keeping them alive using housing and clothing technology.

That's not even remotely comparable. McMurdo is not self-sufficient by any measure. People do not live their life there either. (Oh, and they can breath outside. A minor detail.)

What is the part you think is impossible? The part where they live in big atmosphere-filled domes? The part where they grow crops in a similar situation? What part of creating a way for people to live on Mars is outside the capability of our technology and imagination?

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#485

Post by sfeng »

astazangasta wrote: post #132
sfeng wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to live in space because having all human life on one planet is intrinsically unreliable. However lucky we get, every year there is a tiny chance that we are all killed by anything from an asteroid impact to global climate change. No matter how small that chance is, what it means is given enough time, eventually this planet will no longer be host to humans. We need to branch out to other planets before that h…

> It required a lot of effort to build the first airplanes This is a false equivalence. Birds fly; they do not live on Mars. >the Earth was an inhospitable wasteland. The Earth did not become hospitable through human effort, as is required if we are supposed to live on Mars.

Birds also don't launch satellites in space, but every time I fire up my GPS our effort on that front is appreciated. Your argument is that we can only do things other living things do?

There is no doubt we would be doing something novel here, I don't think anyone is saying any different. The question is if it's A. possible and B. worth the effort.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#486

Post by TeMPOraL »

Grishnakh wrote: post #476
TeMPOraL wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which immediately suggests a way to help with the Mars plan - in the time SpaceX and (hopefully) others are building the transportation architecture, someone should go out there and try to set up a self-sustaining colony on the pole or in the middle of a desert. Data and experience collected will be invaluable and directly useful for the Mars mission.

>someone should go out there and try to set up a self-sustaining colony on the pole or in the middle of a desert. That's already been done. It was called "Biosphere II", set up in the Arizona desert. It failed.

That only says it needs to be tried again. And again. Until it works.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#487

Post by tomrod »

eevilspock wrote: post #474
tomrod wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedantic point: not everything is Gaussian. Income, for example, doesn't go below zero. It may not even be log-normal, but rather a power distribution. Pedantic point aside, you bring up an important point. Can behavioral incentives be aligned to avoid the bottom side of participation?

And who or what algorithm decides which end is bottom?

Trolling, generally.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#490

Post by extrapickles »

TheShadowRunner wrote: post #38

Someone more knowledgeable then me can probably answer this, but under ITAR, can SpaceX contract a Mars launch with another nation on friendly terms with the USA?

SpaceX can buy an off the self launch from someone. They are prohibited from giving them any rocket tech or anything else that falls under ITAR (quite a few things).

As far as ITAR is concerned there are no friendly nations (there are a few that have reduced paperwork needs, but still fall under ITAR).

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