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Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

newscientist.com

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Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#141

Post by tim333 »

hagbard_c wrote: post #114
mekdoonggi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm as big of an Elon-hater as you'll find, but I kind of have to disagree. Working on the habitat before the rocket is cart before horse. The rocket is a prerequisite to even an experimental trip to Mars. If we ever do actually colonize Mars, the progression would look something like: 1. Experimental missions 2. Small but permanent settlement made out of Starships cobbled together 3. New construction with increasing…

> I'm as big of an Elon-hater as you'll find The new "I'm not a racist, but...". Why did you feel the need to add this statement before saying something which might be taken as agreeing with something the man said? Why does it always have to come down to who said something instead of what that person said? Just say you agree with the statement, don't mention who said it. If the knee-jerk-downvote brigade comes to pun…

There are a lot of Elon fanboys who just agree with his ideas without thinking.

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#142

Post by tim333 »

triceratops wrote: post #23

Between the realism about terraforming Mars and the strong likelihood that faster-than-light travel may never happen, is anyone else feeling a bit melancholic? It feels like a possible future has been taken away from us.

The singularity is cracking along though. Just merge and travel the universe.

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#143

Post by glenstein »

wongarsu wrote: post #105
inaros wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you are going to explain why instead of just stating an opinion...since an opinion is not an argument...right?

For starters "Terraforming Mars" is not a prominent feature of Musk's Mars plans. He's repeatedly stated that it's possible to do so, but the things he's consistently said he wants to do are to establish a Mars colony and turn it self-sufficient. Then maybe terraforming as a long-term goal, but the success of his mars colony does not depend on terraforming at all. On his whole "if you can terraforming Mars, you can t…

This is probably a good time to tie it back to the article. Because however good or bad a critic Neil DeGrasse Tyson is, Kim Stanley Robinson is an order of magnitude better. And KSR calls bullshit in large part because the entire surface of Mars contains perchlorate at levels at least 30,000x above levels deemed safe on Earth.

Mars is almost perfectly optimized to make perchlorate as lethal as possible because Mars has extremely fine electrostatically charged dust that is suspended in the air everywhere even on clear days, covers the surface of the planet and gets into everything. Dust on Mars is 1 to 3 microns in size while sand on a typical beach is at least 500 microns. That plus global dust storms, it's a perfectly complementary pairing of lethally small and efficiently distributed. Life extectancy shrinks to 5, 10, 15ish years, maybe 20.

What's the fix? Some kind of human genetic engineering, or centuries of bacteria repairing the soil? Those aren't happening in our lifetimes.

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#144

Post by functional_dev »

UncleMeat wrote: post #139
inaros wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those robots were designed 20 years ago... You can send now a whole swarm of humanoid robots, that would recharge 24x7 out of a KRUSTY Reactor [1], you did not even had LLMs then. [1] - https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20205009350/downloads/03...

why would a humanoid robot be preferable to one designed for the specific tasks at hand?

maybe humanoids because tools already designed for human likes? if you send specialised robot it cannot use wrench or climb a ladder... you have to redesign everything

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#145

Post by lokar »

inaros wrote: post #115
lokar wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nation that borrows in its own currency can’t be forced to default.

Technically true, and completely meaningless. Can't default just means the government can print worthless paper instead. Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe, and Argentina all borrowed in their own currencies...

All three of them had major factors going on other than increasing the money supply.

And it's the circulating money supply vs the size of the economy that matters, not money creation. For example, you can create a lot of money with no inflation, if you also remove a lot of money, eg via taxation.

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#146

Post by UncleMeat »

functional_dev wrote: post #144
UncleMeat wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would a humanoid robot be preferable to one designed for the specific tasks at hand?

maybe humanoids because tools already designed for human likes? if you send specialised robot it cannot use wrench or climb a ladder... you have to redesign everything

There are currently no wrenches or ladders on mars.

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#147

Post by hagbard_c »

tim333 wrote: post #141
hagbard_c wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm as big of an Elon-hater as you'll find The new "I'm not a racist, but...". Why did you feel the need to add this statement before saying something which might be taken as agreeing with something the man said? Why does it always have to come down to who said something instead of what that person said? Just say you agree with the statement, don't mention who said it. If the knee-jerk-downvote brigade comes to pun…

There are a lot of Elon fanboys who just agree with his ideas without thinking.

Maybe there are but I see far more sufferers from MDS who just have to let everyone know they really, really don't like the man. I don't know him so I don't know whether I'd like him or not. I do know he's achieved a number of remarkable things but he also seems to have a tendency to overestimate what can be achieved within a given time frame and budget which seems to make him promise more than he can deliver. There's plenty of business people who promise more than they can deliver though while there aren't that many who have managed to initiate large-scale pie-in-the-sky projects which more or less turned fantasy into reality like he's done. When it comes to things like space exploration I think it is a good thing that someone with some vision of what can be and the means to make it work is set on achieving his goal of going to ... well, whether it be Mars in the end or a permanent lunar base we'll see. Out into space at least. I think we need new frontiers to explore, something to look forward to instead of the nihilistic doom and gloom 'humans bad, they destroy the planet' narrative which has been pushed for far too long.

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#148

Post by b112 »

inaros wrote: post #99
b112 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no scientific or economic case to even go to Mars Nonsense. Just going to Mars with humans creates economic activity, and the R&D to do so, adds to scientific knowledge. If you want to argue against going into further debt to do so, well, that's a different argument. One I agree with.

We are not in a meeting at SpaceX trying to please Elon. I dont think you realize what you are up against...Do you know what radiation does to humans? For example Suni Williams went to the ISS and got stuck for 9 months. Come back white haired, with bone loss, muscle wasting, and vision damage. She retired from NASA within months. And the ISS is inside Earth magnetosphere... FYI Mars has no magnetic field and almost…

We are not in a meeting at SpaceX trying to please Elon

What are you even talking about? I assure you, before Elon was known to anyone but his mother, Mars has been a dream for countless humans. I find it... repugnant, to have my dream presumed to be someone else's.

If we took the attitude you're taking here, we'd never leave home. Explore. Expand our sciences, our capabilities, our experience.

I find it astonishing that so many in the compute field, find technical issues, then immediately proclaim impossibility predicated upon the weird concept that there is no improvements or advancements possible.

This and other issues, are technical issues to be solved, not just to go to Mars, but to go to the rest of the solar system, to go to other solar systems. And yes, humans should do this. Yes, we should do this.

You may say "how?", with perhaps a smug look on your face, as if my specific knowledge predicates a conclusion on the solution. Nonsense. This is the part of 'economic activity' and 'scientific advancement' I spoke about. Every aspect of space flight has been accompanied with vast improvements in our knowledge to achieve the task at hand. This will be no different, we will solve it, whether by materials science, or generation of a magnetic field, or whatever is required. We'll find a solve, we'll do it, and that's that.

Again, rebuttles of "well describe precisely how" or "that makes no sense, magnetic field?!" are senseless here. You may as well go to 1634, and sound proud and decry how it is impossible to breath in space, how can someone possibly live without air! Of course our materials science improved, we can make viable space suits, our capacity to store compressed gases, filter CO2, and on and on all improved. And now, it seems as child's play.

So such grabbing at the impossible is absurd to me.

Instead, try grasping at the possible.

And know that humans, a great number of them want to make the journey. And yes, we should not stand in their way. Good grief, more humans die from car crashes a day in any major US city, than have every died in space.

More humans die being tangled in bedsheets, in a week, than have ever died in space.

Driving a car is a necessity for some, but to throw concern up about the death of humans, who are literally expanding our species capabilities and scientific knowledge, is extremely short sighted.

I urge you, recant this belief. These ways.

Join us on this side of the line. The side that sees challenges as opportunities, not as liabilities.

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#149

Post by b112 »

inaros wrote: post #119
dmix wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX already shifted to focus on a Moon base and away from Mars. The original plan was to send a few self-financed Starships to Mars as a first step which sounded reasonable as an experiment. Nothing wrong with dreaming about solving hard problems like radiation and how to manage logistics at such a distance. Even if a human base ends up not making sense most of that stuff would still support a robotic base doing m…

>> SpaceX already shifted to focus on a Moon base and away from Mars. Oh boy….beyond Falcon 9 that is just a great but conventional rocket...SpaceX so called revolutionary Starship program is nothing more than a parade of explosions. Just in 2025 they had three upper stages exploding mid flight, one blew up on the launchpad during a static fire test in June, and a V3 booster crumpled during pressure testing in Novemb…

More of this. Blathering on about Starship development phase, with its completely expected and normal failures. All concerned because there's "something that hasn't been done before" involved.

Falcon 9 did lots of things "never done before", but.. well, that's OK because with hindsight it's all sensible.

What I'm seeing here is, and now it appears to me in the prior post possibly, is that someone you don't like(Musk) is resulting in this negativity.

It is entirely possible to dislike someone's history, or personality, or politics, whilst at the same time not denigrating their successes. Or attempting to derail their technical work.

NASA has been losing delivery dates forever. Other private sector suppliers have as well. Making a big deal out of this specific instance, seems strange.

No, I'm not endorsing the current administration. But neither am I the prior. After all, everything was late with the prior admin too.

Sometimes? It's not about politics.

Re: Author of Red Mars calls 'bullshit' on emigrating to the planet

#150

Post by b112 »

Tadpole9181 wrote: post #75
glenstein wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. At a bare minimum it's a hedge against terrestrial existential risks. And if Mars itself sucks, then, well, rotating space stations with simulated G, same principle. One terrible thing wrought by billionaire Mars fantasies is a backlash that I think has become too sweeping. It's wrongheaded for a million reasons, but it's nevertheless true that hedging against terrestrial existential risks is something we sho…

Sorry, I'd love to hear exactly how a mars habitat with a half dozen people or a space station are "hedges against terrestrial existential risks"? Those are both "unfriendly" environments that lack the resources required to sustain themselves for any appreciable amount of time. And certainly don't have the number of people required to repopulate.

I be quite blunt, what you're saying here seems wildly unreasonable.

Why on earth would you presume someone talking about such hedges, is discussing 6 people? The very idea is absurd, and you're certainly not discussing this in a way that seems reasonable, or fair.

In terms of resources, Mars has plenty. The fact that you view Mars through a time-locked, current view is weird. Mars is a path. It's not just about now, but 2 centuries from now as well. You take a step on a road, and you're not there immediately.

Arguing that "Well, what's the big deal, you want to take a step down the sidewalk?! Where will you be then, no where!!" is a very, very strange way to discuss this.

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