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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

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Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#881

Post by [deleted] »

savagej wrote: post #433
ravenstine wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think I'm trolling? I like the idea of space travel as much as the next person; I just remain unconvinced that colonizing Mars or even deep space really solves any existential problems for humanity beyond... providing more space. There's nothing radical about not believing that space travel is an answer to anything in and of itself. Apparently there's something deeply wrong for not agreeing with Elon M…

No one cares what you think about space travel or world priorities. That's why you are a troll.

[deleted]

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#882

Post by Symmetry »

Rezo wrote: post #2

SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qo78R_yYFA

My reaction, after thinking about this for a bit, is more "This is going to be everything the Shuttle was supposed to be!" than anything to do with getting people to Mars. That's all, of course, predicated on getting the turnaround for this thing fast and cheap. With orbital refueling I wonder how much one of these could land on the Moon?

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#883

Post by saiya-jin »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #417
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…

> that burning man felt like mars with a lot of shit and no water It was one of the dumbest things I've heard in a while. Do these people not realise that these comments will go down in history. Also the "like, I was, like, thinking, like" valley girl talk was very odd (I'm from the UK) to hear as I didn't think people, like, talked like that in real life.

I've heard plenty of teenagers with strong american accent talk like that in Europe. It hurts your ears, amplifies the insecurity feeling radiating from them tremendously and is overall appalling to experience... and I'm like, you know, , quite a tolerant person

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#884

Post by Grishnakh »

cbhl wrote: post #421
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.

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.

The pilgrims didn't have to worry about being subjected to deadly cosmic radiation. They could also bring various tools with them and build habitats in their new home using readily-available materials, and grow food there from seeds (though they should have picked a more southerly landing spot...). They also didn't have to worry about having pressurized environmental suits just to walk around outside once they made landfall.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#885

Post by Diederich »

andrepd wrote: post #822
jernfrost wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, I wrote a medium article about exactly this phenomenon partly inspired by you: https://medium.com/@Jernfrost/the-crab-people-and-space-expl... I've been annoyed by this attitude for quite some time now. You see it all the time. Same deal with Tesla an Model S. Because not everybody can afford it, and because not all power is renewable an electric car like Tesla Model S seems like some sort of terrible crime. W…

Oh it's progress, no doubt. There's no question about that. What me and other skeptics argue against is these kinds of overly futuristic announcements that have no ground in reality, yet have people praising them like they are some kind of achievement by themselves. Elon Musk grandly announces: I'm going to make humans an interplanetary species. This is such a grand and far reaching goal that were it to be achieved i…

Re: hyperloop: I think he specifically said he didn't have the time/energy/money/focus necessary to work on an implementation.

Musk is a visionary, and I think we need people like that. He said of Tesla and SpaceX that he went in with a fatalistic view: that there was a 10% chance of success.

In his talk yesterday, he repeated a phrase he used before, about moving the ball forward as far as he can.

So I'm an Elon Musk fanboy because he has real vision, tempered by reality and pragmatism.

I think what a lot of vocal skeptics react to is less Elon Musk (or whoever), and more to the seemingly mindless fawning of some of his 'followers'. That also bugs me.

As an engineer, I'm always looking for the ways something can fail. At the same time, I try to add as much vision as I can to my professional work, so long as its tempered with real engineering skepticism.

And Elon Musk appears of the same mindset.

By the way, did I note correctly that at the price tag was 'only' ten billion dollars to get the first humans on Mars? If close to true, that's pretty awesome, in my opinion at least. I and he suspect that once that benchmark is reached, the additional billions necessary to get a real civilization going there will flow more easily.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#886

Post by peeters »

mentando wrote: post #841
peeters wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falcon Heavy will use 27 Merlin engines, not Raptors. The Merlin is already being flown in Falcon 9, and they're producing dozens per year. The Heavy is basically a Falcon 9 with two more Falcon 9 first stage cores strapped on the side as boosters. Though I think there is talk of moving all Falcon to the Raptors eventually.

With the ~3 times of thrust from the Raptor engines, do you think they will move to a "Falcon-3" design with 3 Raptor engines? Because that would decrease the redundancy, right? With Falcon-9 you would lose 2/9 of thrust if you turn off the mirrored engine in the best case. In a Falcon-3 scenario, you would lose at least 1/3 for middle engine failure or 2/3 for a side engine failure.

Interesting question. I really don't know what their plan would be, but it's worth noting that even with the Merlins, they land with only one of nine Merlins at its lowest thrust. And even then, it delivers more thrust than its weight, meaning it can't hover. That's why landings are so difficult for them. They have to fire the engine at the exact right time, or else they'll just blast off again (or land too hard).

The numbers I could find said minimum thrust of Merlin is 360 kN. The stat sheet for Raptor showed minimum thrust of 20%, which works out to 610 kN. So with a single engine at minimum thrust, they'd need to either come in even harder than the Falcon 9 currently does, or find a new method of propulsive landing.

More relevant to your question, a 3 engine configuration doesn't allow firing a single engine because there'd be no middle engine like the Falcon 9 has. You'd need at least 4 to have symmetry and a centre engine.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#887

Post by Grishnakh »

jpindar wrote: post #692
Grishnakh wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

An experiment is only a failure if you don't learn anything from it.

>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.

>An experiment is only a failure if you don't learn anything from it.

It was a failure. Go back and look at what I replied to: the OP said someone should go set up a self-sustaining colony. That was attempted with Biosphere II. It failed. It was not self-sustaining.

It they learned stuff from it, that's all well and good, but it doesn't meet the requirement from the OP of being self-sustaining.

The OP says we should set up a self-sustaining colony on Earth as practice for something in space. We have not done that. We tried and we failed, and we didn't bother trying again. So the point here is: what makes us think we can set up a self-sustaining colony on Mars when we can't even set one up in Arizona? Cart before the horse.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#888

Post by Pinckney »

mikeash wrote: post #875
andrepd wrote: post #822

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh it's progress, no doubt. There's no question about that. What me and other skeptics argue against is these kinds of overly futuristic announcements that have no ground in reality, yet have people praising them like they are some kind of achievement by themselves. Elon Musk grandly announces: I'm going to make humans an interplanetary species. This is such a grand and far reaching goal that were it to be achieved i…

"No ground in reality"? Sure, the plan is extremely ambitious. But it relies on no fundamentally new technology and comes from someone with a proven track record in the field. They're talking at almost seven years before the first Mars launch with this system. I'll remind you that seven years before Apollo 11, this was the state of the art for American spaceflight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_LV-3B Further, M…

The technology to put people on Mars is not fundamentally new. The technology to make such a colony self sustaining is. We've never built any habitat which is entirely self sufficient even just in food, water, and air. Even the ISS needs resupply to generate breathable air. Even simple problems like "how do we replace failed bolts" will require resupply from earth for a long time.

I'm also dubious of the economics of this venture. I simply don't understand how living on Mars is advantageous for anybody. Mr. Musk is welcome to set his money on fire if he wants, of course, but I don't see a Mars colony ever being a rational investment for those of us on Earth, nor do I see paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to live a hard life and die in a frozen wasteland to be rational. I suspect after the initial enthusiasm dies down, very few people will choose this.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#889

Post by gravypod »

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,…

I'm going to go one step further. If there is any private space exploration company who ever needs a programmer/engineer for long-term in-space missions, I'll do it. I doubt that you would find any candidates but I'd like to volunteer anyway.

I don't think I can do anything as valuable to humanity here on earth as I can by even helping space missions. Even if there is a 50% chance some system fails and I'll die in space I still think its important to do so.

And on a side note I've also always wanted La Forge's cool visor so if you can throw that in too I'd be very happy.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#890

Post by nickik »

dredmorbius wrote: post #712
nickik wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Assuming one in five are crewed, with 100 crew per vehicle, that means 3000 deaths over the life of the program. A failure in the rocket does not mean everybody dies. There is a launch abort system for that. Musk has confirmed this after the presentation.

Launch abort should provide a safety margin on launch. It does less well in other segments of the mission, such as deep space, reentry, or landing. If you're looking at deep space missions, there've been issues at all of these. There are also the instances of missions (Japan fairly recently in a Venus probe) where issues affecting an unmanned flight but not causing failure of the mission, would result in failure of a…

I agree, I just wanted to say that during the actual launch, two major systems need to fail before you start losing lives.

That makes it different from the Shuttle for example.

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