111–120 of 330 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget that interviews are usually edited ("for brevity"), and especially in Der Spiegel of 2020 (as opposed to, say, 1980), I wouldn't be suprised if they heavily edited it.
It's not like they put words in his mouth...
Musk sees the future, the future where we destroy Earth. Lovelock has an incorrect understanding of the future.
To me the whole Mars thing looks like an attempt to find unclaimed territory. The earth has been claimed, there are no vast riches on a mysterious far away continent anymore. The digital, as the extension of the world, has been claimed. Where to expand now? Mars.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
JFK sold us on space because "we choose to do these things because they are hard." It was an aspirational exploratory message. The reality is that we are in space because it is required for great power contests. I'm mired in space as a DoD executive, so I promise you space - at least inside the GEO orbits - is extremely practical. Starlink is honestly amazing. Mars though? I've steel-manned that one and I don't see i…
There could be strategic military advantages to having people on Mars. Nuclear mutual assured destruction doesn't work if one side has a base on mars, where it would take 6+ months for any fired nuke to arrive. Having people in spacecraft could be a good place for high-importance leaders - nearly no bunker is nuke-proof, but a spacecraft far away is far harder to hit.
The way I see it, the Mars base could be ignored for MAD purposes unless it's self sufficient and large enough to be considered civilizational survival. By the point it can no longer be ignored, the other side will just aim a couple nukes at it - what will the colonists do, move the base in months?
(Also, tangentially, I don't think the whole transit time would apply to something expected to blow up on arrival. It doesn't need to slow down enough to land, just enough to survive plowing trough Mars' thin atmosphere before slamming extra hard on the ground. Heh, for a small enough base the attacker might skip the actual nuclear warhead altogether.)
This topic comes up a lot and I know it excites investors, but I have yet to see a viable plan for kick-starting the magnetic field on Mars. No magnetic field means no way to have an atmosphere, water or life and everyone has to stay in caves or incredibly durable modules indefinitely. The only O2 and H2O is what you bring with you or produce in the modules. The only reason I could see doing this is if we knew of imp…
If you could somehow restore the atmosphere today, it would remain just fine over any reasonable human timescales. Giving Mars at atmosphere is of course very difficult.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
JFK sold us on space because "we choose to do these things because they are hard." It was an aspirational exploratory message. The reality is that we are in space because it is required for great power contests. I'm mired in space as a DoD executive, so I promise you space - at least inside the GEO orbits - is extremely practical. Starlink is honestly amazing. Mars though? I've steel-manned that one and I don't see i…
There could be strategic military advantages to having people on Mars. Nuclear mutual assured destruction doesn't work if one side has a base on mars, where it would take 6+ months for any fired nuke to arrive. Having people in spacecraft could be a good place for high-importance leaders - nearly no bunker is nuke-proof, but a spacecraft far away is far harder to hit.
Perhaps it might have been possible in some long distant past to underestimate Elon Musk and write him off as a crazy person. That time is gone. If Musk appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it. > It’s crazy, completely crazy. Elon Musk has read too much science fiction. He got carried away with it. If I were in his position, I would not waste my fortune on colonizing Mars. And all they would lear…
No, that time is not over. I still underestimate him and think that he often says stupid stuff (for example some of his claims about Hyperloop, self-driving, world as a simulation theory). Musk is someone who's obsessed about being admired and considered smart.
> Hyperloop
He's spreading FUD and trying to undermine any kind of mass transport which could negatively impact Tesla's car.
> self-driving
Not sure what the stupid part is here (maybe I've fallen for it!). His cars have some driving assists which he oversells as auto-pilot (it isn't). Straight up marketing.
> world as a simulation theory
Consolidates his image as a great genius ahead of the curve with a certain segment of the population.
Perhaps it might have been possible in some long distant past to underestimate Elon Musk and write him off as a crazy person. That time is gone. If Musk appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it. > It’s crazy, completely crazy. Elon Musk has read too much science fiction. He got carried away with it. If I were in his position, I would not waste my fortune on colonizing Mars. And all they would lear…
On the other hand, Elon presenting some rendering across Jupiter's radiation belts doesn't strike me as an example of understanding anything, to be honest.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There could be strategic military advantages to having people on Mars. Nuclear mutual assured destruction doesn't work if one side has a base on mars, where it would take 6+ months for any fired nuke to arrive. Having people in spacecraft could be a good place for high-importance leaders - nearly no bunker is nuke-proof, but a spacecraft far away is far harder to hit.
Could you please spell out how would nuclear MAD stop working? The way I see it, the Mars base could be ignored for MAD purposes unless it's self sufficient and large enough to be considered civilizational survival. By the point it can no longer be ignored, the other side will just aim a couple nukes at it - what will the colonists do, move the base in months? (Also, tangentially, I don't think the whole transit time…
Yes. If you knew that your city would be destroyed in 6 months, you'd build a new one elsewhere.
People on earth don't have that privilege due to not having 6 months notice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
JFK sold us on space because "we choose to do these things because they are hard." It was an aspirational exploratory message. The reality is that we are in space because it is required for great power contests. I'm mired in space as a DoD executive, so I promise you space - at least inside the GEO orbits - is extremely practical. Starlink is honestly amazing. Mars though? I've steel-manned that one and I don't see i…
The US federal government owns roughly a quarter of the US territory and most of it can't really be utilized for something. Technology to terraform it into arable land would unlock tremendous value.
Perhaps it might have been possible in some long distant past to underestimate Elon Musk and write him off as a crazy person. That time is gone. If Musk appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it. > It’s crazy, completely crazy. Elon Musk has read too much science fiction. He got carried away with it. If I were in his position, I would not waste my fortune on colonizing Mars. And all they would lear…