Starship Update [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Starship Update [video]

#21

Post by labster » Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 2:53 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #13

sillysaurusx wrote: post #5

"It's gonna be cramped, dangerous, difficult, very hard work. You might die." -- Elon's sales pitch for Mars, in his own words. I wonder if any billionaire (or their children) will be doing the early work. It's an interesting game of "Who values their life the least?" knowing that their sacrifice will make for a better future. Of course, it's not a foregone conclusion that there will be a disaster. But over the cours…

Why do we need to fly 3 months to some inhospitable planet that is in worse condition than Earth would be (even after nuclear wars and global warming) to make progress? I suppose there's an idea we could apply everything done on Mars to Earth, but like... seriously, what we just took all the prep for mars and just put it in the middle of the Empty Quarter, the Saraha, Antarctica? People barely want to live in the arc…

Nobody wants to go to Earth these days. It’s too crowded.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#22

Post by ClumsyPilot » Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 2:54 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #13

sillysaurusx wrote: post #5

"It's gonna be cramped, dangerous, difficult, very hard work. You might die." -- Elon's sales pitch for Mars, in his own words. I wonder if any billionaire (or their children) will be doing the early work. It's an interesting game of "Who values their life the least?" knowing that their sacrifice will make for a better future. Of course, it's not a foregone conclusion that there will be a disaster. But over the cours…

Why do we need to fly 3 months to some inhospitable planet that is in worse condition than Earth would be (even after nuclear wars and global warming) to make progress? I suppose there's an idea we could apply everything done on Mars to Earth, but like... seriously, what we just took all the prep for mars and just put it in the middle of the Empty Quarter, the Saraha, Antarctica? People barely want to live in the arc…

There is loads of people who want to travel to mars for an expedition to look for life, study it's geology and see what it looks like at all - however you are right that living consitions would be crap.

I have always maintained that a settlement on the moon makes a lot more sence - fortly you have much better access to space for industry, secondly, help can reach you withing days at any time or you could be in earth hospital withing days if you need surgery.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#23

Post by barbacoa » Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 2:55 AM UTC

irrational wrote: post #6

This is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak. Is he always this awkward? Based off of the 5 minutes I watched, he clearly hasn’t gotten to where he is through charisma and public speaking skills. I’m just wondering if this is typical for him. Also, a million tons to Mars? If each starship lifts 100 tons, that is 10,000 launches. I think he said launch windows only come around every 2 years. He is either planning…

>This is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak. Is he always this awkward?

Elon Musk did a Joe Rogan podcast where they smoked a blunt and drank whiskey. Elon went on random mumbling stoner pontifications. It was cringe. It was so bad it made Tesla stock tank.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#24

Post by mrspeaker » Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 2:56 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #18

oh_sigh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he is always extremely awkward. Stumbling over his own words, telling jokes that only he has context for, going into unscripted mini-tangents without much of a point, "ums" 30x in a row, waiting for applause at inappropriate times. An all around zero when it comes to public speaking. Despite me saying all this, I like Elon when he isn't on twitter. I still own TSLA since the IPO and he has made me a lot of money…

I think it is good that we have a tech leader succeeding without a polished, coached, focus group approved self presentation. It’s good to have an entirely different brand of bullshit out there and a person demonstrating that a different type of brain can fit in any role.

I think it's a bit of a hack for people like me: everyone has been taught to sound super-confident, make everything super glossy and slick and over-produced. Almost always it's to cover the lack of original or substantial content underlying the delivery.

Now the more confident-sounding and charismatic someone is, the less I believe there will be anything interesting I can learn from them, and the less I trust them!

Re: Starship Update [video]

#25

Post by freddie_mercury » Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 2:58 AM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #5

"It's gonna be cramped, dangerous, difficult, very hard work. You might die." -- Elon's sales pitch for Mars, in his own words. I wonder if any billionaire (or their children) will be doing the early work. It's an interesting game of "Who values their life the least?" knowing that their sacrifice will make for a better future. Of course, it's not a foregone conclusion that there will be a disaster. But over the cours…

It's not just their sacrifice. They're also sacrificing their children, who had no say in the matter, to have a substantially worse life than they would have had had they stayed on Earth.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that is unprecedented in the history of immigration but it does seem pretty uncommon.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#26

Post by ClumsyPilot » Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 2:59 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #19

sillysaurusx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s helpful to remember it’s not a zero sum game. We can do all of that too. The tech for Mars would make it that much easier. No one wants to live in those places because currently they have a choice. But if our planet becomes irradiated, or hit by a meteor, or suffers a sun burst — all very realistic concerns — then those choices become more limited. And it’s good to have options.

The ISS is literally the most expensive physical structure we have ever built, and it's like 5 floating schoolbuses. Now I'm for walking and chewing bubblegum. But if you believe in opportunity costs and care about navigating that, it feels like the same problem. Our planet becoming irradiated is actually not a huge problem! It would still be easier to live on Earth than on Mars! An irradiated radioactive hellscape o…

"it would be very good if all those PhDs could focus on those hospitability problems"

We have like a million PHds telling us what to do about climate change for 50 years, and nobody is listening

"The ISS is literally the most expensive physical structure we have ever built"

And it's 100x cheaper than the Iraq war or 2008 crisis, both entirely preventable manmade disasters. Or to put it into different perspwctive: ISS costs as much as cleanup of 3 oil spills, and we've had quite a few.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#27

Post by pageandrew » Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 2:59 AM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #11

irrational wrote: post #6

This is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak. Is he always this awkward? Based off of the 5 minutes I watched, he clearly hasn’t gotten to where he is through charisma and public speaking skills. I’m just wondering if this is typical for him. Also, a million tons to Mars? If each starship lifts 100 tons, that is 10,000 launches. I think he said launch windows only come around every 2 years. He is either planning…

Yeah, he's always like this. See his Neuralink presentations. He got to where he is through a combination of hard work and luck (a large part of which was the birth lottery), like everyone. Imagine if Woz was intensely interested in building Apple, and had Jobs' judgement. As far as I know, he's planning on a time frame of 200 years to build a sustainable city. He's also intending on building thousands of Starships,…

> birth lottery

There are plenty of people born into more favorable conditions than Elon Musk, who haven’t had 1/10,000th of the success that he has had.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#28

Post by panick21_ » Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 2:59 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #13

sillysaurusx wrote: post #5

"It's gonna be cramped, dangerous, difficult, very hard work. You might die." -- Elon's sales pitch for Mars, in his own words. I wonder if any billionaire (or their children) will be doing the early work. It's an interesting game of "Who values their life the least?" knowing that their sacrifice will make for a better future. Of course, it's not a foregone conclusion that there will be a disaster. But over the cours…

Why do we need to fly 3 months to some inhospitable planet that is in worse condition than Earth would be (even after nuclear wars and global warming) to make progress? I suppose there's an idea we could apply everything done on Mars to Earth, but like... seriously, what we just took all the prep for mars and just put it in the middle of the Empty Quarter, the Saraha, Antarctica? People barely want to live in the arc…

We have enough land on earth already. Land is not actually the solution to any problem on earth. But Mars is the solution to a potentially big problem on earth.

And the technology to manufacture fuel from solar and nuclear energy, building advanced life support system, advancing the state of rocket technology, allowing much more use of sat technology, massively advancing science planetary/biology/(and more), controlled high efficiency farming, human health science, mobile hospitals and so on, will all be developed and have many applications. Even things like battery technology for this use case will have interesting question to ask and can have impact on batteries on earth.

So if it was literally just the backup to life, it wouldn't be worth it, but its not done in a vacuum.

And its inspiring. A whole generation of engineers all around the world were inspired. And the moon landing did bring humanity together to an extent, many people even in the Soviet Union talked about 'we' landed on the moon.

Seems to me to be worthwhile to push at the very least to a small settlement, and from there you can see if its makes sense to continue.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#29

Post by anonporridge » Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 3:04 AM UTC

pageandrew wrote: post #27

sillysaurusx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, he's always like this. See his Neuralink presentations. He got to where he is through a combination of hard work and luck (a large part of which was the birth lottery), like everyone. Imagine if Woz was intensely interested in building Apple, and had Jobs' judgement. As far as I know, he's planning on a time frame of 200 years to build a sustainable city. He's also intending on building thousands of Starships,…

> birth lottery There are plenty of people born into more favorable conditions than Elon Musk, who haven’t had 1/10,000th of the success that he has had.

Most people who achieve massive success are born into privilege. Being able to spend your time studying and getting exposed to cutting edge developments rather than struggling to just survive is a massive advantage.

It's largely a necessary, but not sufficient condition for major success.

People that rise from nothing to achieve massive success are the exception that prove the rule.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#30

Post by djokkataja » Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 3:05 AM UTC

mrspeaker wrote: post #24

colechristensen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is good that we have a tech leader succeeding without a polished, coached, focus group approved self presentation. It’s good to have an entirely different brand of bullshit out there and a person demonstrating that a different type of brain can fit in any role.

I think it's a bit of a hack for people like me: everyone has been taught to sound super-confident, make everything super glossy and slick and over-produced. Almost always it's to cover the lack of original or substantial content underlying the delivery. Now the more confident-sounding and charismatic someone is, the less I believe there will be anything interesting I can learn from them, and the less I trust them!

> These days, the more confident-sounding and charismatic someone is, the less I believe there is anything interesting I can learn from them, and the less I trust them!

Probably a good metric anyway; if someone puts all their points into charisma, they have opportunity costs in other dimensions (excluding any "natural" charisma that some people may arbitrarily have, to the degree that's actually a thing or not).