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

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

#101

Post by philwelch »

ericd wrote: post #100
philwelch wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't trying to derive anything's "true worth"--I was just saying that football is self-sustaining. And actually, movies and professional sports have advanced our understanding and technology a great deal, be it by advancing camera and computer imaging technologies or by advancing our medical knowledge by giving us more experience dealing with certain types of injuries. The competitive nature of professional sport…

OK, you just seemed to be saying that those things were better because they could support themselves financially. I don't think they're on the same order of magnitude in terms of knowledge gained - those are mature industries, space travel isn't anywhere near, so the gains should be much more dramatic and broadly applicable.

No, the main thing is that self-sustaining enterprises aren't up for public debate, so there's no reason anyone would criticize them as frivolous. Whereas anything that needs public funding, like space travel historically has, is automatically subject to a debate about its worthiness.

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

#102

Post by justncase80 »

samstave wrote: post #37
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…

We need to develop remotely operated building machines first. Test them on the moon and succeed in building a sound, sealed, safe environ for humans to enter before we try to get to mars. If I were Elon, I would focus on the building of the delivery system to get materials and equipment to the moon - then have an X-prize for people to develop the robots to build stuff. Get a heavy payload like that to the moon, assem…

If you can make a 'makerbot' that can make a makerbot I think you're 95% of the way there :)

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

#103

Post by justncase80 »

In the book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein, which is a fantastic science fiction book about colonizing Luna and the politics of an anarchistic government, he mentions the creation of a Rocket Sled (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_sled_launch) which seems to never get mentioned when people talk about earth side technology for improving our ability to leave earth.

Does anyone know if there is some reason why this technology seems to get ignored? According to wikipedia it seems like a big win. Why aren't we doing this right now?

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

#104

Post by philwelch »

Gormo wrote: post #98
philwelch wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition, if you cannot live sustainably, you cannot sustainably live. Though sustainability, more or less, is about sustaining current populations and quality of life; most failures of sustainability won't extinct the human race, they'll just kill a lot of people off and deprive us of the massive amounts of energy needed to maintain our present quality of life.

So "sustainability" is just a tautology?

No more than the concept of tautology is a tautology if you use it to remark that tautologies are tautological.

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

#105

Post by ericd »

philwelch wrote: post #101
ericd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, you just seemed to be saying that those things were better because they could support themselves financially. I don't think they're on the same order of magnitude in terms of knowledge gained - those are mature industries, space travel isn't anywhere near, so the gains should be much more dramatic and broadly applicable.

No, the main thing is that self-sustaining enterprises aren't up for public debate, so there's no reason anyone would criticize them as frivolous. Whereas anything that needs public funding, like space travel historically has, is automatically subject to a debate about its worthiness.

Sure there is - I know people who would call those things frivolous. Football consumes a serious outlay of energy for comparatively little lasting benefit. It's not scrutinized as often as things that are funded with taxes, but that doesn't save it from frivolity. Anyway, we're probably arguing past each other. I see taxpayer funded science of all sorts as being more worthy than most things, because I view scientific discovery as the foundation of the country's economic competitiveness. Most things seem frivolous by comparison.

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

#106

Post by philwelch »

ericd wrote: post #105
philwelch wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the main thing is that self-sustaining enterprises aren't up for public debate, so there's no reason anyone would criticize them as frivolous. Whereas anything that needs public funding, like space travel historically has, is automatically subject to a debate about its worthiness.

Sure there is - I know people who would call those things frivolous. Football consumes a serious outlay of energy for comparatively little lasting benefit. It's not scrutinized as often as things that are funded with taxes, but that doesn't save it from frivolity. Anyway, we're probably arguing past each other. I see taxpayer funded science of all sorts as being more worthy than most things, because I view scientific…

But doesn't most economic production and most scientific discovery ultimately serve frivolous ends anyway?

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

#107

Post by meric »

philwelch wrote: post #91
meric wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting the economy and number of technological achievements grows exponentially. At 4% per annum growth the world economy will be triple the current size in 30 years. (assuming no technological singularity event). An economy triple the current size doesn't seem like it can easily afford a colony on Mars either but I think Elon Musk thinks my assumption is wrong.

The economy is irrelevant. Technology just takes time to develop sometimes; nine women can't have a baby in one month.

It's not irrelevant. If our economy one thousandth the current size, even a trip to the moon would be difficult. It just wouldn't be producing enough fuel, metal, ceramics and quality human capital necessary for a trip to the moon. It is a lot easier to takes these things from a much larger economy than a small one.

Larger economy can speed up technological advancements too, but I guess that is irrelevant here.

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

#108

Post by philwelch »

meric wrote: post #107
philwelch wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economy is irrelevant. Technology just takes time to develop sometimes; nine women can't have a baby in one month.

It's not irrelevant. If our economy one thousandth the current size, even a trip to the moon would be difficult. It just wouldn't be producing enough fuel, metal, ceramics and quality human capital necessary for a trip to the moon. It is a lot easier to takes these things from a much larger economy than a small one. Larger economy can speed up technological advancements too, but I guess that is irrelevant here.

The economy already isn't the limiting factor on establishing a Mars colony; technology is. So it's irrelevant.

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

#109

Post by meric »

philwelch wrote: post #108
meric wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not irrelevant. If our economy one thousandth the current size, even a trip to the moon would be difficult. It just wouldn't be producing enough fuel, metal, ceramics and quality human capital necessary for a trip to the moon. It is a lot easier to takes these things from a much larger economy than a small one. Larger economy can speed up technological advancements too, but I guess that is irrelevant here.

The economy already isn't the limiting factor on establishing a Mars colony; technology is. So it's irrelevant.

It'll be much more difficult to convince citizens to set up a Mars colony at a cost of $1,000,000 per citizen as opposed to only $1,000 per citizen. Therefore, I'd argue it is relevant. If you were talking about setting up a privately owned colony - a larger economy means there is more chance of a company large enough to take on this task. (In large economies capital is more concentrated, at least that's what I'm observing from history. It would be difficult to have a company the size of Apple in an impoverished country whose GDP per year is less than Apple's quarterly income, for example.)

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

#110

Post by ericd »

philwelch wrote: post #106
ericd wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure there is - I know people who would call those things frivolous. Football consumes a serious outlay of energy for comparatively little lasting benefit. It's not scrutinized as often as things that are funded with taxes, but that doesn't save it from frivolity. Anyway, we're probably arguing past each other. I see taxpayer funded science of all sorts as being more worthy than most things, because I view scientific…

But doesn't most economic production and most scientific discovery ultimately serve frivolous ends anyway?

Maybe, but some of it helps ensure the continued survival of the species, which is about the least frivolous thing possible.
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