Curious, is reddit penalized by the hackernews algorithm (I don't see reddit links here often); this post is quite a bit lower on the main-page than older posts with fewer votes?
Elon Musk SpaceX AMA
51–60 of 98 posts
Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I think people getting excited about space and space travel again is a good thing. It's the first step to getting people involved again, even if only to remember what we're capable of as a species, despite all our flaws and all the other problems we've yet to solve. Whether you agree with Musk's methods or not, I enjoy living in a time where we dream about the possibilities of new worlds, rather than reminiscing abou…
I think that's a little sad, because it implicitly gives up on the notion of real progress in favor of PR and imagination. I'm excited about SpaceX, but not because of their "Mars Colony" PR. I don't think the situation is so dire that we need to suspend our skepticism and become mindless cheerleaders in the name of "dreams".
Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yes, but Elon Musk mentioned them as living spaces.
Everyone's going to appreciate the opportunity to wander a green garden in a t-shirt. Do it at night and you're getting a lot less radiation, and I'll wager it'll be a hell of a sky too.
Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people getting excited about space and space travel again is a good thing. It's the first step to getting people involved again, even if only to remember what we're capable of as a species, despite all our flaws and all the other problems we've yet to solve. Whether you agree with Musk's methods or not, I enjoy living in a time where we dream about the possibilities of new worlds, rather than reminiscing abou…
I think that's a little sad, because it implicitly gives up on the notion of real progress in favor of PR and imagination. I'm excited about SpaceX, but not because of their "Mars Colony" PR. I don't think the situation is so dire that we need to suspend our skepticism and become mindless cheerleaders in the name of "dreams".
It's definitely a good idea to keep expectations grounded, but at the same time there's no reason why the current mind-numbingly slow crawl that space travel has come to should be taken as some kind of rule or requirement or inevitability. Musk's timeframes are overwhelmingly optimistic at best, but the current pace of development is also unacceptably slow.
Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA
#55One serious danger I haven't heard anyone mention mention in regards to the Mars colonization project (though it was considered to some extent in Carl Sagan's "Contact" and probably some other science fiction) is the possibility of terrorism against either the fragile spacecraft or colony.
Musk has said there will be no screening of the Mars colonists, and that anyone could go. That means someone who's mentally unstable and/or wants to make a name for himself (ala Herostratus[1] or any number of modern publicity-seeking terrorists and murderers) could go and attempt to harm the spacecraft or colony, both of which would be incredibly vulnerable to such intentional attempts at destruction and are guaranteed to get massive publicity were they to be destroyed or even merely attacked.
This could become even more likely if living on Mars long-term actually becomes viable, and people wind up spending decades on there. Some people will likely go stir-crazy and attempt to harm themselves and/or others.
People who are allowed to go live in Antarctica or out in to space are currently screened very carefully to be compatible with each other and able to psychologically withstand the rigors of life there, and the relative isolation. But there will be no such screening for the Mars colonists, according to Musk, and the isolation and danger on Mars will be even worse than it is in Antarctica.
The isolation and danger will be hugely stressful and difficult to deal with over the decades people will live on Mars. I've read that even in Antarctica, people are rotated out within a year or so because of the psychological difficulties of living there, and no one's been in space for much more than a year.
Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA
#56One serious danger I haven't heard anyone mention mention in regards to the Mars colonization project (though it was considered to some extent in Carl Sagan's "Contact" and probably some other science fiction) is the possibility of terrorism against either the fragile spacecraft or colony. Musk has said there will be no screening of the Mars colonists, and that anyone could go. That means someone who's mentally unsta…
Any claim that there will be no screening of colonists is highly dubious at best. All you need to make some form of screening mandatory is to have more applicants than open positions.
Even if all you do is accept applicants as they apply, that immediately biases the selection process to better informed and connected individuals.
Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA
#57One serious danger I haven't heard anyone mention mention in regards to the Mars colonization project (though it was considered to some extent in Carl Sagan's "Contact" and probably some other science fiction) is the possibility of terrorism against either the fragile spacecraft or colony. Musk has said there will be no screening of the Mars colonists, and that anyone could go. That means someone who's mentally unsta…
Any claim that there will be no screening of colonists is highly dubious at best. All you need to make some form of screening mandatory is to have more applicants than open positions. Even if all you do is accept applicants as they apply, that immediately biases the selection process to better informed and connected individuals.
It's one thing to have a fist-come-first-served system, where the more informed, connected, wealthy, or eager individuals get to go first. It's quite another to psychological screening, background checks, and perhaps even rigorous training to make sure they can withstand the great psychological pressure that will be present on the trip and on Mars. There are no plans to use these latter measures, as far as I know.
Even if there was such screening or training, that alone won't be enough if despite it someone onboard the spacecraft or in the colony decides to act out anyway.
I really hope someone at SpaceX is seriuously thinking about these issues and coming up with practical solutions, as that's the only hope of preventing some unhinged or politically motivated individuals from turning a promising colonization effort in to a tragedy.
Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people getting excited about space and space travel again is a good thing. It's the first step to getting people involved again, even if only to remember what we're capable of as a species, despite all our flaws and all the other problems we've yet to solve. Whether you agree with Musk's methods or not, I enjoy living in a time where we dream about the possibilities of new worlds, rather than reminiscing abou…
I think that's a little sad, because it implicitly gives up on the notion of real progress in favor of PR and imagination. I'm excited about SpaceX, but not because of their "Mars Colony" PR. I don't think the situation is so dire that we need to suspend our skepticism and become mindless cheerleaders in the name of "dreams".
I think that's a bit of a false dichotomy. I don't think some portion of the public being swayed by PR is going to stop SpaceX (or other entities) from making real progress. Musk is definitely not giving up on that notion.
If you just mean that it's sad that people need this kind of hyperbole to get excited about space, well, different strokes for different folks. You don't need it, they do.
Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA
#59Are Elon's mining/tunneling droids discussed anywhere? He's said in the past the Earth cities need to "go 3D", putting cars in tunnels underground. Something needs to be done to cut the cost of tunneling, so I'm interested to learn more.
> Initially, glass panes with carbon fiber frames to build geodesic domes on the surface, plus a lot of miner/tunneling droids. With the latter, you can build out a huge amount of pressurized space for industrial operations and leave the glass domes for green living space
From: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/590wi9/i_am_elon_mu...
Re: Elon Musk SpaceX AMA
#60I 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 eq…
former SpaceX employee: There are a couple of YouTube videos around where they talk about the nature of the systems. I'm pretty sure I can't talk about it but I'll try to find the videos.
I think there's also some software engineer AMAs.