Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

#21

Post by troymc » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 5:58 PM UTC

Cushman wrote: post #11

I'm with Carl Sagan. Visit? Yes. Settle? Not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to go to Mars as a hobby, as a tourist-- if that's how you want to spend your billions, fine. But I worry that too many impatient sci-fi lovers see space travel as some way to escape from the problems of Earth, which it will never be. If we can't figure ou…

I'm with Tsiolkovsky:

"A planet is the cradle of mind, but one cannot live in a cradle forever."

usually cited as "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever."

Re: Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

#22

Post by ramidarigaz » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 6:03 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #18

arethuza wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you compare it with 19th century polar expeditions, a trip to Mars doesn't look that bad. They sometimes took multiple years, with men trapped in iced up ships, usually with no chance of rescue or even communication - at least we know how to prevent scurvy now! Have a read of the book "Barrow's Boys: A Stirring Story of Daring, Fortitude, and Outright Lunacy": http://www.amazon.com/Barrows-Boys-Stirring-Fortitude-…

An expedition to Mars would cost a lot more, with a much smaller expected ROI. I too would love the idea of going to Mars, but, in order to build a sustainable colony, you'd need to put in place a whole lot of infrastructure to make interplanetary travel cheaper. And, right now, it's not even feasible.

Insurance for humanity against disaster is a small ROI? Not trying to offend, but how do you define ROI of a colony on Mars?

Re: Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

#23

Post by Dn_Ab » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 6:16 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #5

Mars is a very harsh environment - and it's very far from Earth (6 months best case with current propulsion technology). I'd suggest a permanent base on the Moon as a useful first step - it has some water, abundant energy, plenty of Aluminum, Magnesium, Titanium and a lack of atmosphere that makes metallurgy easy. Radiation is worse than Mars, but, in both cases, buried housing structures make sense and the Moon's lo…

I agree and as a kid I always wanted to visit both the Moon and Mars. But for any of this to happen we need a breakthrough that applies Moore's law to $/kg for space travel to become economical. We need cost effective nuclear fusion to increase our energy budget. Or material science has to advance to the point that space elevators or launch loops and similar become feasible. Does anyone know the timeline on those?

Re: Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

#24

Post by bdunbar » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 6:35 PM UTC

ramidarigaz wrote: post #22

rbanffy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An expedition to Mars would cost a lot more, with a much smaller expected ROI. I too would love the idea of going to Mars, but, in order to build a sustainable colony, you'd need to put in place a whole lot of infrastructure to make interplanetary travel cheaper. And, right now, it's not even feasible.

Insurance for humanity against disaster is a small ROI? Not trying to offend, but how do you define ROI of a colony on Mars?

...is a small ROI?

You, me, and the original poster agree: it's cheap compared to the potential downside.

Now, go try and tell guys with actual money about this, see if you walk away with the bucks for a Mars-based insurance policy.

Re: Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

#25

Post by maeon3 » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 6:42 PM UTC

The future of space travel is mining the asteroid belt and war preparation, anything else is just farting around, without the unobtanium or the fear of death to drive us, there is no reason to leave earth for more than a quick trip.

If Elon Musk wants a base on mars, have him start putting missile silos up there, there will be a McDonalds up there in 30 years instead of some decrepit shack with a few science projects going on.

Re: Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

#26

Post by greeneggs » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 6:44 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #18

arethuza wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you compare it with 19th century polar expeditions, a trip to Mars doesn't look that bad. They sometimes took multiple years, with men trapped in iced up ships, usually with no chance of rescue or even communication - at least we know how to prevent scurvy now! Have a read of the book "Barrow's Boys: A Stirring Story of Daring, Fortitude, and Outright Lunacy": http://www.amazon.com/Barrows-Boys-Stirring-Fortitude-…

An expedition to Mars would cost a lot more, with a much smaller expected ROI. I too would love the idea of going to Mars, but, in order to build a sustainable colony, you'd need to put in place a whole lot of infrastructure to make interplanetary travel cheaper. And, right now, it's not even feasible.

Furthermore, as technology and quality of life increases, risk tolerance decreases. I think this trend will continue. Historically, technology has increased fast and uniformly enough that we've still been able to do great things. But if health care technology improves much faster than space technology, then we may never leave orbit again.

(This trend holds at least at the societal level, and over long terms. For individuals over the short term, it can be weaker, e.g., you might buy a helmet or a safer car, and then ski or drive more dangerously.)

Re: Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

#27

Post by chc » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 6:45 PM UTC

ramidarigaz wrote: post #22

rbanffy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An expedition to Mars would cost a lot more, with a much smaller expected ROI. I too would love the idea of going to Mars, but, in order to build a sustainable colony, you'd need to put in place a whole lot of infrastructure to make interplanetary travel cheaper. And, right now, it's not even feasible.

Insurance for humanity against disaster is a small ROI? Not trying to offend, but how do you define ROI of a colony on Mars?

As far as I can see, there are very, very few disasters that would render Earth less inhabitable than Mars but not also destroy Mars in the process. Even if Earth were reduced to a cold, lifeless rock with almost no atmosphere or water, high radiation levels and almost all sources of energy gone (including geothermal and wind energy and things as simple as burning wood), that would just put it in the same ballpark as Mars.

Basically, if you have the technology to support human life on Mars, you have the technology to disaster-proof Earth.

Re: Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

#28

Post by greeneggs » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 6:55 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #15

Cushman wrote: post #11

I'm with Carl Sagan. Visit? Yes. Settle? Not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to go to Mars as a hobby, as a tourist-- if that's how you want to spend your billions, fine. But I worry that too many impatient sci-fi lovers see space travel as some way to escape from the problems of Earth, which it will never be. If we can't figure ou…

Right now, an asteroid could wipe out humanity with pretty minimal warning. There's something major to be said for at least a small self-sustaining colony somewhere else.

Except we can defend the earth from an asteroid for probably five orders of magnitude less money than establishing a self-sustaining colony somewhere else. And if self sustaining is all you need, setting up a self-sustaining colony a mile underground is also five or six orders of magnitude cheaper.

I can't think of any risk to humanity where going to the moon or Mars makes sense as insurance.

Re: Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

#29

Post by zerostar07 » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 7:04 PM UTC

This is remarkable, but is going to Mars really our most challenging goal, our raison d'etre as humanity? Given the choice between being either the First human on mars or the First machine-augmented-human what would you choose?

Re: Why Elon Musk Wants To Bring People to Mars—and Go There Himself

#30

Post by _gd3l » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 7:09 PM UTC

Why don't we focus on the shit here first?

I'm sorry, but I just get frustrate with all these wondrous predictions that always seem to be about 30-50 years in the future. Short enough away to be enticing, but long enough away where no one making these predictions will really he held accountable for their ridiculousness.

It just seems that every single generation a) has some "new threat" for "how the world will end" and b) has some technological vision that ends up being way overestimated.