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Elon Musk SpaceX AMA

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Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA

#21

Post by whatshisface »

ceejayoz wrote: post #16
icebraining wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the Mars One project talks about burying their habitat five meters underground to get the same protection as the Earth's atmosphere; glass domes seem downright reckless in comparison.

You'd still need places to grow plants. The easiest way to do that is still glass domes, as you don't really care as much if plants get cancer.

All of our cereal crops are planted and harvested every year. They won't have time to accumulate the damage that we need to shield humans from. Also, plants seem to handle radiation very well - see the growth around Chernobyl[1].

(Note: The danger of eating Chernobyl's foliage is not that it has been irradiated, but that it has ingested radioactive material. That shouldn't happen with cosmic rays.)

[1]https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2010/...

Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA

#22

Post by thelambentonion »

I'd encourage everyone reading the AMA to take a lot of what Musk is saying with a grain of salt. The Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) is a wildly ambitious project that is attempting to accomplish more things in a shorter period of time than the Apollo program (and on a substantially smaller budget to boot).

Check out Robert Zubrin's article, which presents a much more salient critique of SpaceX's current plans than I could [0].

[0] http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/colonizing-mars

Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA

#23

Post by annerajb »

thelambentonion wrote: post #12
0majors wrote: post #9

The leaders of the most powerful nations on Earth are barely starting to talk about some small human missions to Mars and then there is Elon, casually discussing glass domes and tunneling drones creating underground networks on Mars. Truly incredible.

I would say that the leaders of the most powerful nations on Earth are a little more grounded in reality than Musk in this regard. Glass domes and underground Martian tunnels make for some very interesting science fiction, but I'm concerned about the engineering challenges that he seems to be ignoring in favor of his grand statements of intent. To pick a specific example, he seems to have very little concern for radi…

I believe I recall talking about using water in the wall lining of the crewed area as shielding for radiation.

Also the radiation exposure during flight which would be the worse is equivalent to smoking for two years and dropping it. (I personally thought it was gonna be higher)

Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA

#24

Post by thelambentonion »

annerajb wrote: post #23
thelambentonion wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that the leaders of the most powerful nations on Earth are a little more grounded in reality than Musk in this regard. Glass domes and underground Martian tunnels make for some very interesting science fiction, but I'm concerned about the engineering challenges that he seems to be ignoring in favor of his grand statements of intent. To pick a specific example, he seems to have very little concern for radi…

I believe I recall talking about using water in the wall lining of the crewed area as shielding for radiation. Also the radiation exposure during flight which would be the worse is equivalent to smoking for two years and dropping it. (I personally thought it was gonna be higher)

> ...the radiation exposure during flight which would be the worse is equivalent to smoking for two years and dropping it...

Please provide a citation for this. As far as I'm aware, we simply have no idea the kinds of effects that radiation encountered during the flight would have on humans.

The sample size for human exposure to space-based radiation is incredibly small (limited to just the astronauts on the ISS, and even then that is protected by much of the Earth's magnetosphere).

Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA

#25

Post by M_Grey »

thelambentonion wrote: post #22

I'd encourage everyone reading the AMA to take a lot of what Musk is saying with a grain of salt. The Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) is a wildly ambitious project that is attempting to accomplish more things in a shorter period of time than the Apollo program (and on a substantially smaller budget to boot). Check out Robert Zubrin's article, which presents a much more salient critique of SpaceX's current plans…

It's good to see that the initial nearly religious fervor has worn off, and comments like yours can survive the voting process here. There are a number of issues with the "colony" concept, even beyond that excellent article, but until recently such a point was met with some version of fury. The general theme seems to have been that getting people excited, even with empty promises, was somehow virtuous and might lead to something good (for parties other than Musk's and SpaceX's bottom line).

Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA

#26

Post by [deleted] »

guelo wrote: post #10
0majors wrote: post #9

The leaders of the most powerful nations on Earth are barely starting to talk about some small human missions to Mars and then there is Elon, casually discussing glass domes and tunneling drones creating underground networks on Mars. Truly incredible.

Are you suggesting that the scientists and engineers at NASA have never drawn up detailed plans for these kind of ideas?

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA

#27

Post by jfoutz »

thelambentonion wrote: post #12
0majors wrote: post #9

The leaders of the most powerful nations on Earth are barely starting to talk about some small human missions to Mars and then there is Elon, casually discussing glass domes and tunneling drones creating underground networks on Mars. Truly incredible.

I would say that the leaders of the most powerful nations on Earth are a little more grounded in reality than Musk in this regard. Glass domes and underground Martian tunnels make for some very interesting science fiction, but I'm concerned about the engineering challenges that he seems to be ignoring in favor of his grand statements of intent. To pick a specific example, he seems to have very little concern for radi…

Well, glass dome, water, glass dome is a really old idea that would work, if water is readily accessible.

something like 50 feet of water would also work for the trip, but water is heavy and you need a lot of it. maybe they can catch a comet, or pull it from the moon. I think there are answers, they're all really expensive answers though.

Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA

#28

Post by overcast »

0majors wrote: post #9

The leaders of the most powerful nations on Earth are barely starting to talk about some small human missions to Mars and then there is Elon, casually discussing glass domes and tunneling drones creating underground networks on Mars. Truly incredible.

Science Fiction writers have been discussing it for decades. Elon I think is A BIT out of touch when it comes to realistically coming up with timescales for this stuff. Obviously some day it will happen, but in the next ten years I think is ridiculous. I hope I'm wrong.

Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA

#29

Post by 4ad »

I am sure Elon Musk won't get the chance to answer my reddit question, since apparently the reddit mob downvoted me to death, so I am asking here, perhaps anyone knows.

1) What RTOS does SpaceX use for the embedded hardware on board? I know they use a lot of Linux, but not for hard real time stuff. What are they running on their microcontrollers?

2) Is it programmed in C, or some other language?

3) Is the embedded equipment on board running on a switched network? If so, does it use TCP/IP or some other protocol?

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