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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

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Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#661

Post by nickik »

nixos wrote: post #628
mikeash wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was completely up front about how early they are in this project. He even acknowledged his overambitious timelines, saying that the one he presented was the most optimistic and probably wouldn't happen. I can't understand how this kind of openness gets labeled "a reality-distortion field."

I don't know, probably it's the blender videos pushing the wider internet audience into it (so it's not all his fault). While he's going good, and is launching rockets, but right now he's behind OldSpace in doing what he's actually doing - launching rockets.

Behind OldSpace? Im sorry that is an absurd claim.

OldSpace has not devloped a new rocket or rocket engine or rocket in a while. OldSpace has almost completely been pushed out of the international launch market. OldSpace launches cost at least 2x more, and for a number of missions more like 4x more. SpaceX is flying a young rocket that is seeing huge amounts of improvement still, while Old Space is flying Old Rockets that don't really improve all that much.

They are not just 'launching rockets'. SpaceX is flying an active Space ship, Dragon 1, and are working on another one. OldSpace company Boing is for 4.2 Billion for the Commercial Crew contract, SpaceX only 2.3 Billion. For that money SpaceX will have to perform extremely complex tests, that the Boing craft will not even be capable of. Plus, Boing has actually tried to get around even the more basic tests. Additionally to that Boing is already far behind on their schedule, even thought they were specifically picked over SNC Dreamchaser because 'they are the most likely to finish development in time'.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#662

Post by elcct »

kfrz wrote: post #631
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you prefer? Rolling applause for every idea anyone presents? One benefit of criticism is we might get to read an angle of attack we hadn't thought of and thereby improve our ideas and designs. Sure, when people blow off an idea by saying "pointless, let's save the baby dolphins first" I don't find those comments helpful, but HN almost always has far more in-depth critiques. Edit: fixed a word

Compared to reddit, you're 100% on the money. At least here, I'm looking at the news/writings I'd be looking at elsewhere, but the discussion is much closer to humane than some things I've seen elsewhere on this internet. We'll all in this game together, learning how to be a single mind. Be nice to your fellow human-cells no matter their goal, if their goal is for the greater good. The thing is - we can save the dolp…

You can't cure cancer because that would kill the whole "find cure" industry /s

Anyway success of people as species is through specialisation. Side effect is that we also have specialist naysayers

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#663

Post by snuxoll »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #516
ender7 wrote: post #504

I'm all for colonizing Mars, but is it possible to do large-scale terraforming of the surface without a magnetosphere to protect it?

I was thinking about this the other day, and the best solution that I came up with was to hit Mars with Ceres in hopes that the collision will be sufficient to restart geological activity on Mars. Sure we have to wait a while for things to cool down again and coalesce, but it seems a much more feasible solution than living in bubbles or trying to create an artificial magnetosphere.

Wonder if a nuclear bomb "The Core"-style would work? (Yes, I realize this is a shittt sci-fi movie, but if you are taking about smashing a dwarf planet into mars to generate a huge explosion it doesn't sound too out of the realm of workable.)

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#664

Post by j1vms »

Chathamization wrote: post #656
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,…

As of right now, the top comment is complaining about the negative comments, the next 75% of the comments or so are positive comments (even calling Musk a hero and saying that this is a historical moment), and there's about 25% or so that are skeptical (many of those offering valid criticisms and not simply complaining about it). Yes, excessive negativity can be a bad thing. But when a small minority of the comments…

If the comment split here goes 75% positive / 25% not, I think that's a healthy split. Even if it had been 50/50 I'd still consider that good.

A caveat: particularly in the case of someone like Musk who already has, conservatively speaking, some very decent stuff under his belt, if someone wants to post something against an idea they themselves have the responsibility, to make sure it is indeed well thought out, and not just knee-jerk negativity, pessimism or cynicism.

Likewise, people need to realize that excessive fanboyism really needs to be tempered and can really turn others off from supporting some of the truly great innovators of our time whomever they might be. No matter how stunning a person might be, they still gotta take a shit like anyone else, and you bet that shit's gonna stink too.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#665

Post by politician »

Animats wrote: post #497
ythl wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in my case, I see trying to start a Mars colony as a death trap. It's the illusion of carrying on the human race, but it's really just dooming a bunch of pioneers to a grim fate in an extremely hostile environment. I think making a south pole colony would be hard enough, let alone a Mars one.

The most important part of a Mars colony program will be the team on Earth raising money for more supply runs.

Raising money? Just equip the colony with Go Pro's and stream the content back to Earth as a reality TV show.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#666

Post by phs318u »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #363
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,…

HN achieves excellent S/N, even with some negativity. It's run very, very well. I go back to USENET and pre-internet fora. In some cases it was impossible to have intelligent conversations because six users "owned" the list. Nah, this is really good. Negativity and all. I've run into moderators a few times and, in retrospect, it's always fair and justified.

This. I too go back to Usenet and Compuserve. I'm really close to giving up on Slashdot altogether. I've only recently come across HN and love it. Vast majority of discussions are polite, thoughtful, considered and interesting. There are almost zero personal attacks and very few content-free comments. It reminds me SO much of the early days of the net. My greatest fear is that HN too shall fall to the trolls and numbskulls.

Reading this whole thread I'm reminded of something from my childhood that greatly impressed me. My mother emigrated in the sixties from a country which had undergone a communist-fomented civil war in which her father, a policeman, was killed (when she was four). When she arrived here she know no one other than my father. One of her first and greatest friends here was a woman that along with her husband was a card carrying member of the communist party. When I was old enough to understand these things I was pretty stunned that two people who by rights should probably hate each other, could get along and be so friendly. That has stayed with me to this day. We can seek consensus and argue positions and come together or stay in our corners. But the ability to do it without being dicks is very special.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#667

Post by sathackr »

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…

Going to a body with atmosphere is easier than going to one without. You get free braking (~8500m/s of delta-v according to Elon, for Mars) thanks to the atmosphere.

Anything without an atmosphere you have to carry the fuel to stop after chasing it down, then land on it slow enough not to die. For robotic missions we can approach these objects in very favorable orbits with transit times measured in years, so the delta-v needed to slow down is manageable.

For human-based missions we have to get there fast. Going there fast means you have to dump alot of speed to stop once you get there. Without an atmosphere, that takes fuel. Not as much as it took you to reach that velocity, since you're lighter now, but still just about as much in terms of delta-v.

I learned this playing KSP. It will open your eyes to the real challenges of orbital mechanics. The hardest planet to land on in the entire game is the one with a mass/gravity approaching the game version of earth, except with no atmosphere. The in-game numbers aren't realistic, but the concepts are.

And hell yes, lets go to Mars. Where do I sign up?

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#668

Post by baq »

optforfon wrote: post #194
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.

It has an "atmosphere" It's 0.00628 atm according to Wikipedia. That's effectively a vacuum. You can't have liquid water on Mars. So you can grow plants in some kind of transparent pressurized place... Just like on the Moon.. or on a space station

this effective vacuum gives a 10m column of water equivalent of radiation protection. you'll really like it compared to the moon.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#669

Post by philippoi »

jdavis703 wrote: post #613
ekianjo wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. HN is not a fanboy driven community usually, so it's where rational and educated conversation can take place. On the contrary I find criticism helpful in this kind of context.

As engineers (or hackers, whatever) we are supposed to be naturally skeptical, in the words of someone wiser than me, "good programmers look both ways when crossing a one way street."

Biking in New York City taught me that. I know it wasn't the programming, because that came second. Funny how many pedestrians look the wrong way when crossing a two way street...maybe they're going with 50/50 chances?

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#670

Post by peeters »

rtpg wrote: post #646
wyager wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would have none of the advantages of a Mars colony.

what are the advantages of a Mars colony? It's not like we'll be shipping things back to Earth. I'm for exploration and all that but there's a pretty good point. Figuring out how to make the desert habitable on this planet is a pretty good test run for the Real Deal.

> what are the advantages of a Mars colony?

Survival of our species. Protection from an extinction event on Earth. Stepping stone to further expansion (interstellar).

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