71–80 of 136 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Externalities such as?
One externality I have seen mentioned goes as follows: fewer childhood malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa mean more unemployed or under-employed young men being tempted to cross the Mediterranean, exacerbating political tensions in North Africa and Europe. But obviously, if you are a philanthropist and saving every human life is your chief concern, then such thinking can seem repugnant.
Im no less a science fiction fan than the next person but the whole “colonize Mars” thing is stupid and wasteful and arrogant and really pounds the message that billionaires are deeply deeply out of touch with the rest of society. Not only will colonizing Mars never work, there’s no reason at all to want to. What a dead, barren place. And in the meantime back down to earth people are really starting to care about ine…
I have a few interesting questions ... to be fair, I've done no science or math to make a conclusion but there would certainly be a sense of irony involved. 1. Could the green-house gases produced to launch a civilization to Mars be the final straw that breaks our eco-system's back? 2. What are the moral implications of terra-forming Mars and moving a small population there, knowing that the population remaining on E…
Each launch puts a few hundred tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, not counting emissions during construction. So each one is not a disaster, but if they're doing a ton of launches per year that adds up quickly.
If each launch moves 100 american-person-years of CO2 production off of the planet, that's... 1600 tons of CO2 that isn't being released.
100 person years per launch seems like a vast under-estimate too.
(Number sourced from the first paper that appeared when I searched "CO2 footprint of the average american" - https://externalassets.cooleffect.org/lib/content/wp-content...)
In the grand scheme of things I doubt enough people will go to mars to make a significant positive difference, but that's nearly synonymous with saying I doubt there will be enough rocket launches to make a difference.
Im no less a science fiction fan than the next person but the whole “colonize Mars” thing is stupid and wasteful and arrogant and really pounds the message that billionaires are deeply deeply out of touch with the rest of society. Not only will colonizing Mars never work, there’s no reason at all to want to. What a dead, barren place. And in the meantime back down to earth people are really starting to care about ine…
I think you’ll get downvoted but I largely agree with you about the futility of the exercise. The complexity of the Earth’s system for sustaining life still far exceeds our understanding, and I think going to Mars will at best turn out to be a powerful way to learn that we cannot replicate it. The typical moral justification is that the Earth may be threatened and so it would be prudent to have some humans somewhere…
Im no less a science fiction fan than the next person but the whole “colonize Mars” thing is stupid and wasteful and arrogant and really pounds the message that billionaires are deeply deeply out of touch with the rest of society. Not only will colonizing Mars never work, there’s no reason at all to want to. What a dead, barren place. And in the meantime back down to earth people are really starting to care about ine…
Yes, we aren't colonizing the Gobi Desert and we're supposed to colonize Mars? What a silly idea.
> The Gobi had a long history of human habitation, mostly by nomadic peoples. By the early 20th century, the region was under the nominal control of Manchu-China, and inhabited mostly by Mongols, Uyghurs, and Kazakhs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole point of the parent comment was that there is no benefit for 'our species' if a handful of us get to visit Mars, or even if there were a small colony there. What would benefit our species is drastically reworking the economy to stop the massive waste and production of greenhouse gasses (which Musk may have slightly improved with Tesla, credit where credit is due). Also, putting more economic and political p…
> The whole point of the parent comment was that there is no benefit for 'our species' Spreading across n>1 planets would literally move our species up on the Kardashev scale. Achieving that is one of the very few things anyone is doing on this planet, which is fundamentally beneficial to our species. > Also, putting more economic and political power in the hands of the many instead of concentrating it all in afew hu…
And democracy, even as limited as it is today, has been the only system which has brought any amount of peace around here.
And I'm not attacking Musk specifically, he is just very visible, and happens to be the subject of this article. But I do not believe anyone is worth a billion dollars in their own merits, even if Musk is perhaps not the worst one.
Im no less a science fiction fan than the next person but the whole “colonize Mars” thing is stupid and wasteful and arrogant and really pounds the message that billionaires are deeply deeply out of touch with the rest of society. Not only will colonizing Mars never work, there’s no reason at all to want to. What a dead, barren place. And in the meantime back down to earth people are really starting to care about ine…
“A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure.” Add it to the long list of things Blade Runner got so right about the future. I stopped reading this article because in all the rocket talk, nowhere did it acknowledge just how completely inhospitable Mars will be once you finally get it there. Every single aspect of the planet is not conducive…
Here's his article about radiation on Mars:
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/20/omg-space-is-f...
And here, on terraforming Mars:
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/atmospheres-an...
And on the immense infrastructure we'd need for a sustainable colony:
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/01/20/what-would-it-...
This is by far the most interesting aviation/rocketry development I've ever seen. After watching the two Falcon 9 lower stages come back simultaneously from the first Falcon Heavy launch, I realized how different things were going to be. Starship, even if Musk is off by quite a large factor on the cost to launch, is still going to be extremely cheap to fly compared to everything else out there. Other people copycatti…
Zinc Bromide for radiation protection?
This is by far the most interesting aviation/rocketry development I've ever seen. After watching the two Falcon 9 lower stages come back simultaneously from the first Falcon Heavy launch, I realized how different things were going to be. Starship, even if Musk is off by quite a large factor on the cost to launch, is still going to be extremely cheap to fly compared to everything else out there. Other people copycatti…
> The next hurdle for deep space, aside from shielding, Zinc Bromide for radiation protection?
Water is actually probably the best shield, because you'll need it to support humans along the way. Gamma still is a risk but I think the concern has mainly been higher speed subatomic particles.
Anything with heavy nuclei actually produces significant and also highly damaging secondary radiation when hit by fast moving, heavy nuclei, cosmic rays.
Another interesting thing: Apollo astronauts could see sparkles in their eyes from the radiation effects of getting hit by cosmic rays travelling through their skulls.
Given those power and mass requirements, would it make sense to deploy the PV in earth orbit and use it to power an ion drive? Those things need a lot of electricity to be useful, but 1 MW is a lot of electricity — not the 200 MW for the VASIMR 39-days-to Mars proposal, I’m still thinking of a standard “slow” journey, but this could also mean only one LEO refuel (for powered landing) required.