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James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

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Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#301

Post by njarboe »

leto_ii wrote: post #217
enraged_camel wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Just try to think about this: how bad do the conditions on Earth have to get before it makes sense to try to move to a planet that is essentially uninhabitable? Your question is premature because you're comparing the Earth of today to the Mars of today. The short-term goal (short in the grand scheme of things, that is) is to build a colony on Mars that can satisfy the first level of Maslow's hierarchy: air, food, w…

> The short-term goal (short in the grand scheme of things, that is) What is the timescale you have in mind? Hundreds, thousands of years? If this is the case, it makes more sense focusing on keeping Earth livable. I think Kim Stanley Robinson had a nice take on this in "Aurora" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(novel) ). Without giving too much away, one of the core ideas of the novel is that there really is n…

It is just a novel. His ideas on ecosystems are as much science fiction as traveling to other solar systems. Not scientific truth. We really will have to try living on other planets before we know how it works.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#302

Post by russdill »

srajabi wrote: post #205
russdill wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty simplistic explanation. If you look at the details, the magnetosphere is protecting the atmosphere. Take each kind of radiation in turn. X-Rays: The magnetosphere has no effect UV: The magnetosphere has no effect Cosmic rays: While both the Earth's magnetic field and the sun's magnetic deflect some cosmic rays, the Earth's atmosphere is mostly opaque to cosmic rays. Solar wind/coronal mass ejections:…

But if we had the artificial magnetosphere and then populated the atmosphere we would get similar effects to Earth's protection?

You're never going to get the same atmosphere on Mars vs Earth. Not only are you going to need to make a lot of tradeoffs with respect to gas content (eg, that much nitrogen is going to be very difficult to find/relocate) but the same amount of atmospheric pressure is going to take a larger mass of atmosphere since there is less gravity.

So it really is a hard question to answer since to answer it you'd need to know what kind of atmosphere Mars would have.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#303

Post by manicdee »

leto_ii wrote: post #204
Robotbeat wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk's skill is not pure genius. He's relatively smart, but nothing Earth-shattering. And he's also not particularly good at marketing... What he's good at is executing on ideas that people think are absolutely crazy. And he leans into the craziness a bit beforehand by choosing to describe stuff in a way that sounds a bit unbelievable ("hoverslam onto a droneship" = land under constant deceleration on a barge with st…

> So the more nonsensical he makes it sound, the greater the return when it actually happens. I agree, but this is true only when things actually happen. How about his idea of using rockets instead of planes for long haul flight ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LENvGRsr7Q )? Or how about the hyperloop - any real progress on that? Or his idea of a submersible to save those kids trapped in a cave - was it good that h…

Hyperloop was an idea he came up with at an interview and immediately pointed out that it wasn’t his intention to pursue it any further.

As fo the Earth-to-Earth Rocket plan, that’s based on Starship which is in development, and you can follow along live in the SpaceX subreddit.

As for calling people pedophiles, I am sure you have said equally terrible things about people who have insulted you or dismissed your work as useless.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#304

Post by KiwiJohnno »

leto_ii wrote: post #250
vsareto wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nonsensical ideas can sometimes be iterated on until they are sensical. Not every idea has to be perfect upon conception. I agree Elon is backed by incredibly smart and possibly overworked people and that contributes to his own reputation undeservedly, but he’s driven a company that has made more space progress than most of humanity. Let’s give him some credit on that front and let him spill his own cash on the c…

> he’s driven a company that has made more space progress than most of humanity Benefiting from open-sourced research that was publicly funded ( https://www.inverse.com/article/15272-nasa-releases-rocket-a... ) probably also helped a little :)) Also don't forget that the US federal government is an important SpaceX client.

I read the article, the patent release was 2016. Yes, its probably going to be helpful to Musk going forward but the company wasn't built on these patents by any stretch of the imagination. By 2016 SpaceX were already landing boosters.

And yes, Nasa (and the DOD) are probably the most important customers of SpaceX... So? Its not like SpaceX are getting free money there. They are providing a service to the government, and getting paid for it - And providing that service at a lower cost than the government would bear if they did it themselves, and a lower cost than their competitors (I'm looking at Boeing - They are getting paid 60% more than SpaceX per seat for commercial crew flights to the ISS)

Also look into the Raptor engine SpaceX have developed. Its a key plank for their future mars ambitions. Its the most advanced rocket engine ever developed and SpaceX funded its development themselves.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#305

Post by freeopinion »

leoh wrote: post #275
freeopinion wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how bad do the conditions on Earth have to get before it makes sense to try to move to a planet that is essentially uninhabitable? Fort Bridger, Wyoming has a population of 345[0]. California has a population of nearly 40 million[1]. Should those crazy people of the 19th century never have bothered with Fort Bridger? Inhabiting a habitable planet outside our solar system is so far beyond our current capabilities th…

You can breathe and find sustenance in Fort Bridger if you have human skills that have existed for dozens of millenia.

To be pedantic, evidence indicates that humans have not existed (on Earth) for dozens of millenia.

Human skills to breathe and find sustenance below the ocean surface have been common enough for 70+ years. Do you really require that we wait millenia before we try it on another planet?

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#306

Post by mr_toad »

Waterluvian wrote: post #103
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JFK sold us on space because "we choose to do these things because they are hard." It was an aspirational exploratory message. The reality is that we are in space because it is required for great power contests. I'm mired in space as a DoD executive, so I promise you space - at least inside the GEO orbits - is extremely practical. Starlink is honestly amazing. Mars though? I've steel-manned that one and I don't see i…

I feel that JFK could give such a rousing speech that touched our spirits because he already had the Soviet threat with which to touch our pocketbooks. I imagine the closest Musk has is the threat of climate disaster?

JFK had to justify huge public expenditure to the American public. Musk only needs to sell it to the board.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#307

Post by DarthGhandi »

ryandvm wrote: post #270
dfcowell wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The backup is not necessarily against a man-made catastrophe. A stray asteroid in the right place at the wrong time is perfectly capable of fucking up Earth without our assistance.

Surviving even a Cretaceous–Tertiary sized extinction event on Earth would be a hell of a lot easier than trying to terraform and permanently colonize a planet like Mars that is missing its magnetic shield.

In a Lagrange point it's actually quite trivial to create a man made magnetic field to protect the planet. Dr Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA worked on it and fleshed out the details, it's viable and would actually restore a lot of the atmosphere stripped away constantly. As far as colonisation problems go the magnetic field is far down the list. There's a lot of work being done in this field.

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmo...

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#308

Post by kamaal »

rtkwe wrote: post #228
Tepix wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life on Earth didn't leave the ocean and ventured onto land because the ocean became uninhabitable. It was still a good idea. Expanding beyond Earth is something we must do eventually. If we can do it now, why wait? We risk that we are unable to do it later.

Life expanded because there were resources and opportunities on land. Plants grew there because there were no predators and then some animals managed to go eat them and benefited because there was little competition, I don't see a real analog there for Mars. [0] I think an actual Mars colony is centuries out just due to the amount of things left to invent to make it viable. We still haven't really even retried a clos…

>>Life expanded because there were resources and opportunities on land.

You could make a similar case for Asteroid mining. There are plenty of resources up there.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#309

Post by njarboe »

Robotbeat wrote: post #249
leto_ii wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply :D If at least the hyperloop project manages to get off the ground (pun sort of intended) that would still be a nice contribution to human progress. I'm not at all sure about the long-haul rockets though. I think having rockets near population centers is extremely dangerous to begin with. Secondly, I'm not sure the cost-benefit ratio makes sense. Transport aboard a rocket must be ex…

Transport aboard rockets could be about the same price as a business class airline ticket over extremely long distances. But you're right about the safety issue. Rockets are just slightly better than Russian Roulette right now (about 98-99% reliable for the good ones). Part of the issue is the low margins, but also the munitions background of many rockets... and the EXTREMELY high costs of expendable rockets, which m…

I think point-to-point launches with people could be happening much quicker than 100,000 launches. He already has a billionaire paying for a moon flyby. Maybe launch 25?

People were signing up to pay $200,000k to go into space on spaceship two. People will pay even more to go on an orbital flight. You can keep up the demand by decreasing the price for quite awhile, I would imagine. Unless the FAA gets in the way and just bans people from flying. Hopefully they won't as it would be purely voluntary and probably way less risky than wing-suit flying.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#310

Post by kamaal »

jacquesm wrote: post #141
londons_explore wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There could be strategic military advantages to having people on Mars. Nuclear mutual assured destruction doesn't work if one side has a base on mars, where it would take 6+ months for any fired nuke to arrive. Having people in spacecraft could be a good place for high-importance leaders - nearly no bunker is nuke-proof, but a spacecraft far away is far harder to hit.

This is a completely surreal comment. "One side"? When we're on Mars you'd hope that there would be two sides: Earth and Mars, from the perspective of someone on Mars their buddies next door are a lot more important than any kind of allegiance to Earth based bits such as nations.

I wonder why this argument doesn't work on earth itself already.

Like when some one is sent from one country to another very far country to fight people. You'd wonder why don't use this logic, we are here, why fight for people thousands of miles away.

That's because throughout human existence, things like Identity, and an expectation of something in return eventually from the home country/society always exists.

The fact that Mars is far doesn't mean anything here, what matters relative time and periods of time people are willing to wait.

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