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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

spacex.com

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Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#571

Post by abecedarius »

zaphar wrote: post #420
humanfromearth wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better yet, why not asteroids first? If we really want to be living in space, don't switch one gravity well for a much shittier one.

Well for one thing living in a gravity well is healthier for humans. We don't do very well long term in 0 gravity. Our systems work best when gravity is helping things along.

You spin up your station. You're not limited to whatever accidental value holds on the planetary surface. This was all studied back in the 1970s and 80s, and free-space development makes way more sense: http://www.nss.org/settlement/ColoniesInSpace/

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#572

Post by deftnerd »

Grishnakh wrote: post #498
elevensies wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is to maximize re-use in order to minimize cost, for a tanker to fuel a tanker in orbit you'd need two tankers. So 1 booster + 1 transporter + 1 tanker, vs. 1 booster + 1 transporter + 2 tankers. If the trip takes 100 days, adding 3 weeks is 20% longer, and you might get it 20% cheaper by saving one spacecraft ... I can see it going either way.

Why not just save a bunch of time and use new boosters? Then reuse those boosters for other missions? Reusing rockets is great for saving money, but that doesn't mean you need to reuse the same rocket for this one mission; if you have a business going with, say, 30 missions over the next year, you're probably going to need a lot more than one booster in stock anyway. Or, instead of new boosters, use a bunch of reused…

I personally think it makes sense for SpaceX to offer to take over Tiangong I, the Chinese space station that's going to be deorbited soon. It's older and not suitable for safe habitation anymore. If SpaceX could use their launch capacity to bring up fuel tanks and to boost the orbit, it could do well as an orbiting fueling station.

Just launch tankers and fill up tanks on Tiangong and then the space craft with passengers would just have one trip to the space station to fuel up and then go to Mars.

China is going to throw away the station anyway, so might as well give it (or lease it) to SpaceX for a good price in exchange for at-cost refueling for their own ambitions.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#573

Post by arcticfox »

moogly wrote: post #384
arcticfox wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb question: it can't be coincidence that our days are almost identical in length. Why are they?

I'm not sure the premise is correct. Why can't it be coincidence?

I suppose it could, but of all possible values, it seems exceedingly strange that they'd fall on essentially the same number. It seems much more likely that it has basic physics behind it, but I'm not sure what it is.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#574

Post by ryandrake »

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.

When a discussion forum discourages skepticism and criticism, you tend to end up in an uninteresting "That's awesome, bro!" echo chamber. There's a big difference between trolling / negativity and battle-hardened cynicism / constructive criticism. Good mods help sort it out.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#575

Post by ceejayoz »

kchoudhu wrote: post #426
elevensies wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

We accept that in Syria already, and the potential upside's a lot bigger for Mars (survival of the species if Earth gets clobbered).

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#576

Post by United857 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #329
whothunkdit wrote: post #193

Seems great for all the basic research it will require. But I'm unsure about the morality of it. I think the drive to expand and discover new things is perhaps a direct cause of the deeper problems we have on Earth. Would humanity be better off just becoming a sustainable population of monks? Or are we morally equivalent to a virus, reduced to survival of the fittest and always seeking out the next host to reap?

I think from a morality standpoint it is an excellent reality T.V. show at best. But we are in such a critical moment right now in terms of our ability to really destroy the ecology we depend on. It's like there a small fire started in the bathroom and some of us have chosen this moment to start planning a new vacation home. For Elon Musk personally, he's so involved in the shift away from carbon through his work at…

> He's a leader in fighting the fire and also spending half of his time on the new house.

Why not both? It's not too hard to see how in the long-term, Tesla and Solarcity's progress are relevant to the needs of living on Mars as well (ground vehicle propulsion, electric power generation and storage...)

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#577

Post by sabertoothed »

robertocarlos wrote: post #405

I created an account just to post this. The Q&A was the worst Q&A I have ever seen. Truly awful. I usually am a pretty calm person but watching that made my blood boil. This venture could well be one of the most important things to happen to humanity, and those were the questions that people asked. The questions were awful at all levels. Featured self promotion, ignorance and plain stupidity. I just needed to get thi…

"I was at burning man. Blah blah blah. And where do we put all the shit on Mars?"

Sorry, please? That is the best question you can come up with? I stopped watching after this.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#578

Post by user5994461 »

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #355
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 actually think this underscores the importance of doing what he is doing. If he were delivering some address about optimizing mobile websites for mobile, you wouldn't have had those questions. That market is incredibly saturated, with lots of expertise, a well-defined pecking order of companies and celebrities, and filling a packed house just with very competent and technical people would be a breeze. But how many…

> But how many people do you know ACTUALLY working in Aerospace tech?

A lot.

This is pretty standard work for many schools which offer a mix of Computer Science and Electronics. Alumni finish their degree and go into Aerospace.

If you ignore the Silicon Valley area which is dominated by trendy web startups, there is a lot of work in old school aircraft/aerospace/military/defence companies and contracts.

I could argue that there are actually more [decent and stable] jobs in Aerospace than in web startups.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#579

Post by mparlane »

Gravityloss wrote: post #134
sandis wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The video appears to show SpaceX's new rocket — the BFR, or "Big Fucking Rocket" — as well as the company's interplanetary spaceship — the BFS, or "Big Fucking Spaceship.""

I prefer the Big Friendly Rocket interpretation. :)

SpaceX refer to it as Big Falcon Rocket
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