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There’s no planet B

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Re: There’s no planet B

#211

Post by 6510 »

TomSwirly wrote: post #169
TeMPOraL wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't just "3D print" a clean room to build semiconductors or furnaces to smelt metal. The idea isn't that you'll >. But yes, the idea is to "3D print" furnaces to smelt metal (basic furnaces are prehistory-era tech) using heat provided from the solar, wind and/or nuclear power you arrived with. Then use that to mine more ore to smelt more metal to "3D print" more... and so on, and so on, adapting production pr…

> basic furnaces are prehistory-era tech) Which require water and air in huge quantities, and ore, none of which you have on Mars. > That's all part of the R&D work for off-world habitats and industrializing space. You might as well say "magic" - it would be more plausible.

One thing to remember is that our guessing how things would work out has always been laughable with [say] 5 insanely complex problems we didn't see coming for every 1 thing turning out much less complicated than anticipated.

How much of what we did just the last 100 years was accurately anticipated and how much of it is down right magical?

In hind sight, how complicated an idea was it really to heat water, get it to expand and do work? I think execution was hard but the idea was kinda obvious.

Most stuff we build is made of stone/rocks? It seems we can dig caves, just ship the front door an we can start our usual hoarding :)

Re: There’s no planet B

#212

Post by saurik »

roryisok wrote: post #41
mabbo wrote: post #32

Let's set aside the part that making a planet where we could live is hard. Just presume we did that, to start. Let's talk Logistics . Presume there are only 1 billion people left on Earth when we decide it's time to go. How do you get them there ? The gravity well holding us here (and holding the air down so we can breath it) is pretty darn strong. Today we're hoping to get cost-to-orbit down to around $100/kg. I wei…

The idea of finding another Earth is not so much about moving everyone from Earth to somewhere else, but rather about "backing up" our species and civilisation in additional places. If an asteroid is going to wipe out Earth, we can't evacuate 8 billion people, or even 8 million people. but if we had a few generations of colonists in domes on Mars, or floating in the clouds on Venus, or somewhere else, the species its…

Why do we care about our species having a "backup" if it isn't us? "It sounds hard and I am bored" is a reason I can at least understand, but arguing we would be "crazy to keep all of our existential eggs in a single basket" implies some objective inherent value to humanity existing in the abstract that we all must be willing to sacrifice for, and that requires a lot more explication.

Re: There’s no planet B

#213

Post by mikewarot »

Before you can live somewhere else permanently, you need a logistics supply chain to make everything you'll ever need in that new home.

We should make a backup supply chain here on Earth. Specifically, an open source library documenting every single product and the sources from which it came, and how it is produced. This could, in theory, then be used as a checklist to make sure we packed all the stuff we need in our metaphorical luggage before embarking on such a journey.

Perhaps we should have a contest to see how many of a list of things can be made with a toolkit and local resources. Here are your tools, all the knowledge you'll need and X amount of time... see how many of these things you can make the indicated amounts of.

I know from watching John Plant's channel Primitive Technology[1] that you can extract iron from red bacterial mud, and reduce it using tools and technology starting with a rock and working up from there.

In theory you can make a lathe with a lathe, a mill with a mill, etc. It would be interesting to see how small a toolkit it really takes.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA

Re: There’s no planet B

#214

Post by hooby »

ReptileMan wrote: post #71
hooby wrote: post #63

Even if we manage to terraform and colonize another planet - that's not going to save us, if we destroy that other planet as well. And whatever other planet we do terraform and colonize is going to be a lot more fragile and a lot easier to destroy than earth is. If we can't manage to not destroy earth, there's no way we can manage to keep another planet going. So, we really should do everything to train and master th…

If we have the technology to terraform a planet ... we can totally clean up the Earth too ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKIOSnKX96E&t=1s This piece by Konstantin Kisin rightfully pointed out that the only peaceful way out of the bind is with technology.

Well, then let's develop the technology to clean up is planet now - so we can use it to terraform other planets later!

Re: There’s no planet B

#215

Post by ben_w »

giantrobot wrote: post #208
ben_w wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where are you going to get that, or any other raw material? Bootstrap with whatever the initial mission payload is. It's not like anyone is proposing magically teleporting there without stuff , IIRC even Musk's optimistic idea is still several no-humans flights for each passenger flight. > Robot miners? We don't have those on Earth yet. Sure we do. TBMs. Not all of which are manned. A few of the missions on Mars ri…

> Sure we do. TBMs. Not all of which are manned. To ignore the massive difference in scope and scale between a space probe with a tiny rock drill and a tunnel boring machine , TBMs require literal tons of lubricants/coolant to operate. Even if you had a 100% electric TBM none of its parts are going to move without lubrication. Even "unmanned" TBMs aren't fully autonomous, they have a small army of squishy people in h…

> You need to first build the infrastructure to build infrastructure before you can lay the first 3D printed brick for a factory

While I disagree with the specific claim here (bricks are easy mode, sand sintered with a fresnel lens brought from Earth), for the general point you're otherwise making:

Yes, and?

Depending on which bit you're pointing at, "a few" was just for the PV for everyone, or just per manned flight. For the "million colonists" (again, no idea if that's a well thought out number) that's thousands to tens of thousands of manned flights, and 3000 to 50000 unmanned flights each with about 100 tons of payload depending on which random early stage wild guess you use to calculate from.

5 million tons of stuff from Earth may or may not be enough to bootstrap, I wouldn't know. (Does anyone?)

But your specific criticisms… don't feel like they're aware of the scale Musk is aiming for.

On a separate point:

I have read of both liquid CO2 and graphite (which can obviously be made from that) being used as lubricants, but I'm emphatically not suggesting they're drop-in replacements. Obviously one would have to design mining equipment specially to use them, likewise for thermal issues.

Given who owns The Boring Company, this is probably already being researched.

Re: There’s no planet B

#216

Post by palata »

MrOwnPut wrote: post #207
palata wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very unlikely planet-killing asteroid. I can live with the odds. To those who can't, may I ask a question? When you walk in the street to go to work, do you wear bullet-proof gear in case someone shoots you? I mean it may happen, just like the asteroid. It just feels weird to not accept some risk. Let's face it: space exploration is cool, that's all. No need to find excuses :)

> A very unlikely planet-killing asteroid There's heavy evidence there's already been a mass extinction once from an asteroid. > I can live with the odds. You may be able to, but a lot of people don't want to gamble the existence of the human race if there's a chance we don't have to. You may also live with the odds of no backup to a database, but others here will attest to the importance... > Let's face it: space ex…

> There's heavy evidence there's already been a mass extinction once from an asteroid.

There's evidence that many more humans have died from pollution. Then we could question whether the solution to the asteroid threat is to try to send a few humans on Mars or to prepare autonomous missions that would reach the asteroid and prevent it from reaching the Earth (e.g. by changing its course).

> but a lot of people don't want to gamble the existence of the human race if there's a chance we don't have to.

Sure. If the asteroid was one of the higher risks on the list, it would make sense. But right now the biggest risk to humans, by a very wide margin, is human activity.

> Well, you asked "why do this and not focus on Earth", so I gave you one reason.

It was not me asking, but I think this is a bad reason. It is probably much easier to prevent the hypothetical asteroid from colliding with Earth than to go live in space.

Re: There’s no planet B

#217

Post by poulpy123 »

roryisok wrote: post #41
mabbo wrote: post #32

Let's set aside the part that making a planet where we could live is hard. Just presume we did that, to start. Let's talk Logistics . Presume there are only 1 billion people left on Earth when we decide it's time to go. How do you get them there ? The gravity well holding us here (and holding the air down so we can breath it) is pretty darn strong. Today we're hoping to get cost-to-orbit down to around $100/kg. I wei…

The idea of finding another Earth is not so much about moving everyone from Earth to somewhere else, but rather about "backing up" our species and civilisation in additional places. If an asteroid is going to wipe out Earth, we can't evacuate 8 billion people, or even 8 million people. but if we had a few generations of colonists in domes on Mars, or floating in the clouds on Venus, or somewhere else, the species its…

> If an asteroid is going to wipe out Earth, we can't evacuate 8 billion people, or even 8 million people. but if we had a few generations of colonists in domes on Mars, or floating in the clouds on Venus, or somewhere else, the species itself would hopefully survive.

The problem with this reasoning is that even in the case of a dinosaur-busting asteroid impact earth will be still much more liveable than mars.

the proof being that earth got a dinosaur-busting asteroid impact few millions years ago and that life continued there but didn't appear on mars

Re: There’s no planet B

#219

Post by poulpy123 »

roryisok wrote: post #182
paulryanrogers wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the real cost of the rockets is an uninhabitable Earth, and an uninhabitable Mars, then everyone is some combination of unhappy or dead.

> the real cost of the rockets is an uninhabitable Earth I've seen more than one person here express this opinion - what about rocket launches makes you think they will render the Earth uninhabitable? They certainly aren't very clean, but the emissions they produce are dwarfed by commercial aviation and ICEs. Why all the rocket hatred?

> the emissions they produce are dwarfed by commercial aviation and ICE

You're comparing the emission of something that carried few dozen people over 60 years to something that carried 40 millions people in 2019 alone

Re: There’s no planet B

#220

Post by poulpy123 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #46
mabbo wrote: post #32

Let's set aside the part that making a planet where we could live is hard. Just presume we did that, to start. Let's talk Logistics . Presume there are only 1 billion people left on Earth when we decide it's time to go. How do you get them there ? The gravity well holding us here (and holding the air down so we can breath it) is pretty darn strong. Today we're hoping to get cost-to-orbit down to around $100/kg. I wei…

> If we can make Mars habitable, we can make Earth habitable for far less cost. I think the main thing there is that Mars is a blank slate, unclaimed and fairly uniform. We can't terraform Earth because we can't get everyone aligned with the same goals. Moving away from fossil fuels means that a lot of individuals, corporations and countries have to make investments and sacrifices, or lose their grounds for existence…

We can't terraform earth because we don't know how to terraform, and foe the same reason we can't terraform mars
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