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Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

arstechnica.com

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Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#151

Post by 0xffff2 »

krapp wrote: post #105
ceejayoz wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The timeline for that process is millennia, so if we come up with a continual process for replenishment that works on shorter timeframes, it's maintainable. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-spee... > MAVEN measurements indicate that the solar wind strips away gas at a rate of about 100 grams (equivalent to roughly 1/4 pound) every second. "Like the theft of a few coins from a cash register ever…

Fair enough, but that still results in an inherently unstable biosphere.

The entire solar system is an inherently unstable construct. Luckily for us the instability is on a scale of billions of years. Terraforming mars would be similar. It would be a herculean effort that would take several lifetimes to complete, but the result could be stable on the scale of millions of years without further input. With a bit of maintenance it could well be stable for the life of the solar system.

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#152

Post by [deleted] »

ash wrote: post #113
ceejayoz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not biologically adapted for surviving in Siberia, but we manage it. Hell, you'll get hypothermia on the French Riviera in winter without clothes. Technology has always been our way of expanding into spaces we're not otherwise evolved to cope with.

In Siberia you can have: breathable air, drinkable water, edible food, safe radiation levels.

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#154

Post by kitsunesoba »

_carl_jung wrote: post #85
kaycebasques wrote: post #81

I respect the clarity of the vision and the drivenness to make the vision a reality. I disagree with the vision. The best analogy I can think of right now is high school kids renting a hotel for a party and trashing it and then doing the same thing next week. That’s humanity right now. There is no Planet B until we build a mutualistic relationship with the one that created us. And yes when I say “there is no Planet B…

The pursuit of sustainable living and the pursuit of a multi-planetary existence are parallel endeavours, not serial ones. Perhaps the view from Mars will instil a renewed perspective on our dependence on Earth, and teach us lessons on ecological management via terraforming.

I would argue that achieving self-sustainability on Mars forces the issue, even. The problem we’ve had on Earth is that because the costs of being wasteful, polluting, etc are externalized, which makes such behavior “cheap” in the short term — on Earth, the environment is constantly handing out loans that we rarely if ever repay.

That’s not an option on settlements beyond Earth’s surface. There, you’re forced to live with every decision you make almost immediately, so if you’re wasteful or stupid it’s promptly going to bite you in the ass and potentially threaten the lives of everybody involved. You’re not given the option of fixing things later, you have to do the correct thing now, and I think that’s the type of environment it’s going to take for humanity to change its ways.

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#155

Post by olex »

schaefer wrote: post #121

A Linguistic Beef: The word "Starship" means specifically that the ship is capable of traveling between stars. At a minimum, it should travel from it's home star to the nearest neighboring star. What we're talking about here are "Spaceships". -- The only way I can lighten up and enjoy the name Starship in this context is to assume it's being used ironically... like someone who's named their cat "Dog".

There are other vehicles called "Starship" that aren't actual starships either - the Beechcraft Starship (a twin-engined turboprop pusher aircraft) or "The Starship" (a Boeing 720 used by Led Zeppelin and other bands). It's a proper noun chosen as a name or model designation for the vehicle, as opposed to a common noun describing the vehicle itself (a spacecraft).

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#156

Post by _Microft »

PedroBatista wrote: post #149
widowlark wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious what your complaint will be when they are actually building a starship a week

And why would they do that? Please, I beg you to explain it to me.

The total mass launched to orbit is currently in the order of 500 tons per year. To start a colony on Mars, millions of tons of material would need to be shipped there from Earth. This massive launch capacity is why they want to build so many ships and creating an assembly line is how they want to do it.

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#157

Post by addisonl »

Miraste wrote: post #138
addisonl wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mars probe that crashed because of a unit conversion error comes So a trial and subsequent error.

You're not differentiating between an iterative design process, during which failures are expected, and a monolithic one where the end product is final. When Starships blow up, Musk can build new ones and try again. When the probe crashed, that was the end of the mission and there was no more Mars Climate Orbiter. It was a one-off. This is a common problem in spaceflight. The Webb Space Telescope is another example.…

They are not that different from other space startups.

> "We succeeded in launching the rocket," Zhang told the media. "The experience we gained from evaluating the rocket's flight conditions will help us remodel the rocket as well as advance new rocket research and development."

http://www.bjreview.com/Business/201811/t20181126_800149381....

Plenty of trials and errors here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_artificial_satelli...

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#158

Post by StaticRedux »

jimbokun wrote: post #150
StaticRedux wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they have to? I have that drive, but my wife is perfectly happy with a calm, comfortable, stress-free life. And in fact it helps to bring me back down to Earth sometimes also. There's nothing wrong with wanting a life that free. In fact it's oftentimes admirable. Especially at times when I'm wound so tight I feel like I could pop. If you're choosing a partner based solely on whether they want to be the next El…

Why are you dictating what other people should look for in a partner?

I'm not. I'm just judging him for doing so. Which is wrong. I shouldn't have phrased it like that. I guess that stigma in society around people who are perfectly happy being happy and don't feel the need to "be great" is sensitive to me because my wife constantly receives a lot of crap for it.

So you be you, previous poster. Just don't look down on others who don't want to change the world.

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#159

Post by anthonypasq »

nixpulvis wrote: post #145
throwaway13337 wrote: post #23

It's quite inspiring to see a real goal and drive towards it. Purpose is so hard to come by now because we all don't know what we want. When we do know, we're constantly unsure about it. Such a clear goal makes it easy to have greater purpose that you don't second guess. This isn't a scheme to get rich, a zero sum political movement, or a narcissistic artistic endeavor. It's pretty unique there. There's that whole da…

> It's quite inspiring to see a real goal and drive towards it. I'm throughly uninspired... As a friend of mine once said: "progress when you're going the wrong direction, is turning around". The idea that we'll settle Mars while the Earth burns in borderline sinister. It reminds me of the elite outpost from Kingsman (the movie). We have a planet that is in dire need of this kind of motivated action, and yet Elon wou…

sigh...

there are plenty of reasons humanity should be multi-planetary other than escaping climate change.

Re: Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

#160

Post by onychomys »

brlewis wrote: post #96
virgilp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK they work in shifts, non-stop; crazy hours & weekend is irrelevant in this context.

This part of the article is about shifts for assembly workers: So Musk is making the machine to make the machine. Musk has brought lessons learned from Tesla’s assembly line so workers do not burn out. They will work three 12-hour days and then have a four-day weekend. Then they’ll work four 12-hour shifts with a three-day weekend. Thus, with four shifts, the Boca Chica site can operate at full capacity 24 hours a da…

I think that schedule actually sounds pretty great. I mean, it wouldn't work in my life now because I have kids and a dog and whatnot, but in my 20s? I'd have done 36-72-72-36 in a heartbeat. Imagine always looking forward to a three or four day weekend!
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