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Musk revises Mars ambitions

arstechnica.com

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Re: Musk revises Mars ambitions

#151

Post by btilly »

Nokinside wrote: post #75
benjaminl wrote: post #22

I don't understand why people are so quick to dismiss SpaceX's ambitions as unrealistic. They were the first to achieve re-usability of the first stage of an orbital class rocket, the first to prove out supersonic retro-propulsion and the first private company to re-fly a spacecraft (the Dragon Capsule). Given that, it seems like they should be given the benefit of the doubt when they say they are going to do somethi…

It's the colonizing Mars part Getting into Mars is solvable technological problem. Colonizing Mars is more economical and sociological problem than technological problem. Everyday living in high-tech place where everything is safety critical (like in a nuclear submarine or ISS) is extremely expensive. Productivity would have to be beyond everything that has ever existed for that becoming possibility. If Elon Musk can…

Yes, it will be a money and resource sink. His estimates of the total costs to transport everything needed to create a self-sustaining colony is in the $200 billion range over a century.

However consider this. He's discussing replacing a good chunk of the airline industry. Per https://aviationbenefits.org/economic-growth/value-to-the-ec... the airline industry is worth around $600 billion per year. Suppose that he captures $100 billion of that. With about $10 billion profit per year.

He's just paid for the Mars colony 5 times over. And he WASN'T planning on colonizing Mars as a charity!

It only sounds crazy. The numbers actually can add up.

Re: Musk revises Mars ambitions

#152

Post by mwfunk »

Xeoncross wrote: post #66
ChuckMcM wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why people are so quick to dismiss SpaceX's ambitions as unrealistic. I expect that part may be an attempt to not get their hopes up. One of the things I learned as a child was that if someone told you something that you really wanted to be true, and you believed it, then when it turned out to not be true you felt really really horrible. So instead you disbelieve it, and when it turns out to not…

> Of the choices, disbelieving gives a better future emotional outcome. However, emotions aside, disbelief slows actions and hinders cooperation. I would rather my feelings be hurt then face the actual barriers disbelief provides.

I would say that having a healthy skepticism (which is not the same thing as pessimism or cynicism) helps make it more likely for things to work out in the long run.

It's the difference between saying, "Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars, wouldn't that be cool?" and "you're going to be living on Mars someday, better get ready". It's also the difference between saying, "self-driving cars would be great, let's try to make that happen" vs. "I'm not going to buy another car until I can get a self-driving one, that's how sure I am that this is imminent".

Really it's the difference between underpromising and overdelivering vs. overpromising and underdelivering. The people who are the most enthusiastic and vocally certain about the inevitability of these things in the near future are more of a threat to making those things happen than the people who are cautiously optimistic but skeptical about them.

IMO that's the reason to be skeptical- just to be realistic and to help the general population set their expectations appropriately. Nothing to do with bracing yourself for an emotional letdown. If overenthusiastic Mars/self-driving cars/AI people are vocal enough to convince the media and the general population about the near-term revolutionary inevitability of these things, then after a few years of those things not happening, the public will flip in the opposite direction. Then voila, no more tax breaks or research funding or other public support for those things, and they go from "might happen in my lifetime" to "will never happen in my lifetime" in reality, not just perception. Right now if you want to work on autonomous vehicles and know your stuff, then maybe there's a job or a grant for you someplace. If public opinion flips to "these people have been saying this stuff is just around the corner for 20 years, this has all been a waste of time and money", then boom, no more government assistance, no more venture capital, no more big companies spending lots of money on R&D for this stuff.

Re: Musk revises Mars ambitions

#153

Post by neaden »

reilly3000 wrote: post #128
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interplanetary space travel is going nowhere fast because there is no profit motive. This is so very true. We can do it for Science, and for fun, but not much else.

What happens when earth goes to actual shit and rich people want out?

Worst case scenario Earth still has 1g of gravity, a breathable atmosphere, a magnetic field keeping most radiation out, and a temperature that you can live in without dying in most places. It'll still be way more livable than Mars.

Re: Musk revises Mars ambitions

#154

Post by samlevine »

danblick wrote: post #8

Sending humans to Mars seems less attractive to me than sending robots to Ceres. Is there an argument for Mars that doesn't include the phrase "multi-planet species"?

People fight wars where millions die and billions of dollars are spent so that they aren't told what to do by another group of people.

Colonizing Mars is, by comparison, vastly cheaper in blood. Just not in treasure.

Re: Musk revises Mars ambitions

#155

Post by brians »

aerovistae wrote: post #129
benjaminl wrote: post #22

I don't understand why people are so quick to dismiss SpaceX's ambitions as unrealistic. They were the first to achieve re-usability of the first stage of an orbital class rocket, the first to prove out supersonic retro-propulsion and the first private company to re-fly a spacecraft (the Dragon Capsule). Given that, it seems like they should be given the benefit of the doubt when they say they are going to do somethi…

I think he'll accomplish everything he described Friday and fail to colonize Mars anyway. It really doesn't matter how brilliant he is or how successful he is with SpaceX's plans. No amount of human brilliance can circumvent the fact that mars has 38% of Earth's gravity. I fear that this will prove an insurmountable barrier. If living in that environment renders you unable to survive in Earth gravity due to the strai…

I'll take that deal personally. No, seriously: you solve the "live... for centuries" part and you see how many volunteers show up.

Re: Musk revises Mars ambitions

#156

Post by neaden »

aerovistae wrote: post #129
benjaminl wrote: post #22

I don't understand why people are so quick to dismiss SpaceX's ambitions as unrealistic. They were the first to achieve re-usability of the first stage of an orbital class rocket, the first to prove out supersonic retro-propulsion and the first private company to re-fly a spacecraft (the Dragon Capsule). Given that, it seems like they should be given the benefit of the doubt when they say they are going to do somethi…

I think he'll accomplish everything he described Friday and fail to colonize Mars anyway. It really doesn't matter how brilliant he is or how successful he is with SpaceX's plans. No amount of human brilliance can circumvent the fact that mars has 38% of Earth's gravity. I fear that this will prove an insurmountable barrier. If living in that environment renders you unable to survive in Earth gravity due to the strai…

I think the lack of a magnetic field is an equally large problem. Anyone living on Mars is going to be getting pretty huge doses of radiation on a yearly basis.

Re: Musk revises Mars ambitions

#157

Post by mwfunk »

Xeoncross wrote: post #124
aaron-lebo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The skepticism of someone on the net is in no way going to hinder Musk from getting to Mars. It might, however, prevent them from wasting their time on another failed promise, and there are many of those. My default reaction is disbelief (I'd prefer skepticism) especially when someone is trying to sell something because that's their whole goal, they are selling you something. Not to mention, if you are a US citizen y…

> someone on the net is in no way going to hinder Musk Depends. Is that `someone` the future employee or investor that would otherwise have played a critical role in the company achieving this task? My point is that disbelief can stop the right person from taking the right action the company needs.

I really think the big steps forward come from people who have thought deeply about the challenges and are just as passionate about overcoming those challenges, not from people who weren't aware of the challenges going into it that didn't know how hard the thing they were trying to do was.

It's the difference between the George Hotzes of the world and the people who actually do the boring hard work to push through obstacles and make things happen. A George Hotz is a person who doesn't know what they don't know, and therefore gets their inspired, genius projects completely derailed by trivially avoidable, trivially predictable stumbling blocks, because of their overconfidence and lack of intellectual maturity. A not-George Hotz is someone who is probably a lot more boring to watch on YouTube, but is equally inspired and passionate. They obsess over potential obstacles far more than they talk about how awesome their project is going to be when it's done, and how confident they are in its success.

Re: Musk revises Mars ambitions

#158

Post by grey-area »

Nokinside wrote: post #75
benjaminl wrote: post #22

I don't understand why people are so quick to dismiss SpaceX's ambitions as unrealistic. They were the first to achieve re-usability of the first stage of an orbital class rocket, the first to prove out supersonic retro-propulsion and the first private company to re-fly a spacecraft (the Dragon Capsule). Given that, it seems like they should be given the benefit of the doubt when they say they are going to do somethi…

It's the colonizing Mars part Getting into Mars is solvable technological problem. Colonizing Mars is more economical and sociological problem than technological problem. Everyday living in high-tech place where everything is safety critical (like in a nuclear submarine or ISS) is extremely expensive. Productivity would have to be beyond everything that has ever existed for that becoming possibility. If Elon Musk can…

He’s not doing the mars bit to make money, though selling that dream to a generation probably will make him very rich because of owning all the spinoff enterprises (for example having a monopoly on sat launches).

Colonising mars will be a money sink in the way that colonising the new world was - many will die, some will get rich eventually, the original investors will lose everything.

Re: Musk revises Mars ambitions

#159

Post by canjobear »

kbenson wrote: post #7

Last year, it was the Interplanetary Transport System, but now Musk has regressed to using the original, cheeky "code name" BFR, in which the B stands for big, the R stands for rocket, and the F stands for fun. (Not really). I'm always astounded that apparently we still can't say fuck lest some bogeyman (real or imaginary) jump out and make you regret it. It's a fucking word. For fuck's sake. I mean, at the point whe…

Taboo words serve a function. They let you communicate something in a way would be costly if overheard in public, thus you can use them as expensive signals, so they make great emotional intensifiers: you only use them if you really mean it. If we were freer with these words, they would be less taboo, thus less costly, and thus less useful. Eventually a new set of taboo words would arise.

Re: Musk revises Mars ambitions

#160

Post by grey-area »

darkmighty wrote: post #149
Nokinside wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the colonizing Mars part Getting into Mars is solvable technological problem. Colonizing Mars is more economical and sociological problem than technological problem. Everyday living in high-tech place where everything is safety critical (like in a nuclear submarine or ISS) is extremely expensive. Productivity would have to be beyond everything that has ever existed for that becoming possibility. If Elon Musk can…

First of all, I believe that [the dream of] just making a colony on Mars, per se, is obviously pointless, and actually wasteful. Per se, a small research station would be much better, and could be productive from a global utilitarian perspective. However, things change when speaking of an economically self-sustaining base; and eventually a base theoretically capable of full-self sustenance (not dying in case there wa…

The question is, can we start an industry on Mars that is efficient enough today such that the cost of producing and maintain infrastructure (solar panels, mining equipment) is lower than the output from the products?

This is in my opinion the wrong question, and the answer is unequivocally no. People will not go to mars to make their fortune, at least initially, they will go for research, for glory and because they can. In centuries to come the answer will be yes, but not on any reasonable timescale. People will move there anyway.

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