Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Don’t stage off Starship

caseyhandmer.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 136 posts

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#81

Post by fit2rule »

sp332 wrote: post #67
MayeulC wrote: post #6

> while storage tanks can be built from local materials Just use the starships themselves. Actually,to further reduce cost, I would design starship to be useable as a Mars habitat: even fuel tanks could conceivably be converted into living quarters,I guess. Further the efficiency by recycling other parts of the starship as building materials. Also, most of the reasoning in this article revolves around power plant mas…

The trouble is that the Starships need to refuel very quickly after landing to hit their return launch window. If you need to generate all the fuel right then, you need a much larger fuel plant. If you can store the fuel ahead of time,before the Starship has arrived, you can use a much smaller fuel plant, but you need storage space.

You build a version of Starship which produces fuel. You launch a fleet of them to Mars and have them operate for a year or so.

Then, you send the human-carrying version.

I think the way this is going to work, is when there are 1000 Starships on the surface, some of them with workshops, some with power plants, others with science labs, human quarters, and so on .. and they land in a big field.

Humans arrive, string them all together.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#82

Post by bavell »

ben_w wrote: post #51
Udik wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not "travelling" any more. This is sending spores hoping they will take root somewhere, but they will be forever disconnected from us, in space and, more importantly, in time . What's this mania you have of disseminating yourself? Even if you build ships that carry human genes sequences and send them on a million years trip, who is going to benefit? The sequences you sent?

> What's this mania you have of disseminating yourself? I’m told there was a book on this exact topic. I’ve never read it, because other people tell me it’s now wildly out of date. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene

I can confirm it's both wildly relevant and insightful :)

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#83

Post by moneytide1 »

mechhacker wrote: post #79
moneytide1 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The next hurdle for deep space, aside from shielding, Zinc Bromide for radiation protection?

Probably not. It looks like that's primarily for gamma. In space, cosmic rays are much much more powerful and catastrophic for cells. 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 secondar…

Can we combine both Zn Br 2 and water?

https://youtu.be/yB2v4_7UhLA?t=665

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#84

Post by api »

ekianjo wrote: post #36
GuB-42 wrote: post #7

When talking about big rockets, it is hard not to talk about Sea Dragon. It was a rocket where the entire design is based on the "bigger is better" philosophy. The design was simple. No need for lightweight, high-tech materials, because it is big. No need for highly efficient high pressure engines, just make one that is bigger. That thing would have dwarved the Saturn V. The name "Sea Dragon" comes from the fact it w…

The Orion interplanetary ship would also have been huge - it was planned to be able to reach Jupiter: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propu...

An early draft of 2001 A Space Odyssey had Discovery as an Orion, but apparently Kubrick having just done Dr. Strangelove didn't want to do another film with nukes.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#85

Post by Faark »

anoncake wrote: post #29
namaemuta wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a short-sighted attitude. Colonizing Mars opens the door to a lot of advances in many, many fields. At first it will be difficult and expensive as it has happened with every new advance in the past. Precisely because of it, people will think of ideas to improve all the process and related problems. And presenting those new problems that we aren't facing now can lead to solutions that could be used in other commo…

Can you give some examples please? I'd be particularly interested in ways colonizing Mars would help us solve the serious problems we already have like bigotry, inequality, the climate catastrophe...

For a start, people having a problem with our current society on earth can build a life away from it. Have you ever noticed racists yearning for "their own" homeland? With a self-sustaining colony on mars, the tech should be available for them to build one. I'd love reading about their attempt to govern something independent with no one else to blame.

Many people also like having bigger goals to strive for, and this one might cause less conflict than those wanting to reorganize society in whatever direction.

At the same time I also hardly see it hurting us. The cash is certainly better spend that way than putting another few billions into entertainment, cosmetics or the likes.

But yes, the direct impact on your own backyard will be limited, if that is all you care about.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#86

Post by samatman »

snowwrestler wrote: post #57
drenginian wrote: post #5

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…

> Well the number one threat to Earth is an impact event. If we can hypothesize a rapidly growing lift capacity, why not use that mass budget to develop a solar-system-wide system for detecting and if necessary altering the trajectory of potential impacting objects? It would be WAY better to protect the Earth than any other backup plan.

Detection is a solved problem.

Altering the trajectory of an asteroid requires a large amount of lifting capacity to be available on relatively short notice. That is, it has to already exist when the crisis is identified.

Congratulations. You've identified a positive externality of Starship.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#87

Post by moneytide1 »

mechhacker wrote: post #79
moneytide1 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The next hurdle for deep space, aside from shielding, Zinc Bromide for radiation protection?

Probably not. It looks like that's primarily for gamma. In space, cosmic rays are much much more powerful and catastrophic for cells. 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 secondar…

Does the iron core of Earth imply magnetic repellent of the sight of these Cosmic ray retina inducing sparkles?

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#88

Post by missosoup »

tsimionescu wrote: post #76
missosoup wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The Kardashev scale is essentially sci-fi. In a couple hundred years when we have an actual chance of having a functioning colony on a planet and not some playground for a handful of people, there will be a measurable advantage to humanity for this. 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…

> The Kardashev scale is essentially sci-fi.

Okay. And we're embarking on a mission that would achieve an 'essentially sci-fi' objective. With the funding of a billionaire that you chose to shit on over the rest, that instead embark on.... Sex crimes? Petty regional politics? Rent seeking? Expanding their empires? Setting their offspring up to follow in their steps?

I don't follow.

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#89

Post by setr »

ppaattrriicckk wrote: post #53

Personally I think it'd be interesting to compare the expected price/weight to how much it cost to cross the Atlantic back in the 1600s. Does anyone happen to have any good references for goods/people crossing back then? For instance, one person writes on Quora[0] that between 1600 and 1800 one could cross the Atlantic from Europe by becoming an indentured servant, working 4-7 years for someone. By looking at the ave…

I imagine indentured servitude path should be dramatically more expensive by the end of it than paying straight up -- it's like taking money from a loan shark; it's not actually a good deal -- but you don't have the resources to get anything better.

I imagine the actual cost of buying a ticket would probably be like 50÷ the cost of indentured servitude

Re: Don’t stage off Starship

#90

Post by mechhacker »

moneytide1 wrote: post #87
mechhacker wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not. It looks like that's primarily for gamma. In space, cosmic rays are much much more powerful and catastrophic for cells. 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 secondar…

Does the iron core of Earth imply magnetic repellent of the sight of these Cosmic ray retina inducing sparkles?

No, the atmosphere blocks almost all of it. If it weren't for that, we'd be hit constantly. Their influence on weather/cloud formation is an active area of research https://home.cern/news/news/experiments/cosmic-rays-clouds
Post reply on HN