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Starship Update [video]

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Re: Starship Update [video]

#171

Post by elkos »

terafo wrote: post #87
garbagetime wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're presenting a false dichotomy. Our options aren't only (a) live only on Earth, and (b) live on Earth and Mars and potentially other planets. There is, for example, (c) live in man-made structures orbiting the sun at a distance of 1AU, which is debatedly much more sensible than trying to live on Mars.

It is much easier to get protected from radiation on mars, than in the outer space. Nobody knows for certain how would childbirth look like in zero g and it's just the one of many problems. Mars is much more hospitable than pure vacuum.

By building underground structures?

Re: Starship Update [video]

#172

Post by lamontcg »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #125
flyt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, but they are. The average westerner (in the US, at least) is a $400 unexpected bill away from bankruptcy. Also, Musk was not a founder of Tesla.

The average American is not an unexpected $400 bill away from bankruptcy. This has been debunked countless times. Per the US government's own detailed statistics (BLS), the median household has $1000 per month leftover after all ordinary expenses. That's literally money available to piss away on whatever after all the basic lifestyle expenses, so it will definitely cover a $400 expense. Americans have a lot of discre…

how many people would have a $50,000 expense set their retirement savings back at last a couple years, if not bankrupt them?

none of these people are building a rocket company in their lives.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#173

Post by elkos »

sfblah wrote: post #153
fastball wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if an asteroid destroys earth, your volcano base ain't gonna save life as we know it. Because any such project is going to require herculean effort on the part of many humans, and many humans are interested in colonizing Mars but not so many are interested in colonizing volcanoes. Your question is basically: why do people care about this thing I don't care about and instead care about this thing that neither…

I guess you’ve never read about Xenu. Some people believe volcanoes are pretty important.

And DC-9s if I remember correctly

Re: Starship Update [video]

#174

Post by Barrin92 »

pageandrew wrote: post #27
sillysaurusx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, he's always like this. See his Neuralink presentations. He got to where he is through a combination of hard work and luck (a large part of which was the birth lottery), like everyone. Imagine if Woz was intensely interested in building Apple, and had Jobs' judgement. As far as I know, he's planning on a time frame of 200 years to build a sustainable city. He's also intending on building thousands of Starships,…

> birth lottery There are plenty of people born into more favorable conditions than Elon Musk, who haven’t had 1/10,000th of the success that he has had.

Most successful tech entrepreneurs seem to come from more or less his demographics, which is a upper middle/professional class upbringing. I don't think coming from extreme old money generally lends itself to entrepreneurship, there's a goldilocks zone that involves some degree of having to work for a living, having migrated or something along those lines.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#175

Post by jnsaff2 »

panick21_ wrote: post #33

The Raptor 2 engine is just an absurd. The original specs were already kind of insane. But Raptor 2 is an monster. They really pushed already significantly into a second generation design before first flight. Raptor 2 is not just a slight upgrade, its a huge upgrade. If it can actually launch multiple times a day without any refurbishment, it will simply totally break space travel as we have known it. This engine mak…

Whenever I read enthusiasm like this for space travel .. especially talk of Musks interplanetary species and stuff, I get a flashback to Stark by Ben Elton . Published in 1989, getting closer to true by the day. Also probably the funniest book I've ever read.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stark_(novel)

Re: Starship Update [video]

#176

Post by cookingrobot »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #25
sillysaurusx wrote: post #5

"It's gonna be cramped, dangerous, difficult, very hard work. You might die." -- Elon's sales pitch for Mars, in his own words. I wonder if any billionaire (or their children) will be doing the early work. It's an interesting game of "Who values their life the least?" knowing that their sacrifice will make for a better future. Of course, it's not a foregone conclusion that there will be a disaster. But over the cours…

It's not just their sacrifice. They're also sacrificing their children, who had no say in the matter, to have a substantially worse life than they would have had had they stayed on Earth. I wouldn't go so far as to say that is unprecedented in the history of immigration but it does seem pretty uncommon.

It’s not a one way trip if you want to leave. They’ve said in previous presentations they plan to bring the ships back for multiple flights, and so there’s an option to return if you want it.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#177

Post by XorNot »

monocasa wrote: post #117
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass to orbit gives you lots of options: Starlink completed, more telescopes like James Webb but cheaper, a moon base, radio telescope on the far side of the moon, orbital rotational space stations (for G forces), missions to asteroids, Mars, outer planets, are just a few things. Point to point transport on Earth, halfway around the world in less than an hour.

It also opens up off planet manufacturing in a way that can snowball into self sustaining growth. Which IMO is how we're going to mint the first trillionaire.

Also the only true way we'll save the biosphere IMO - doing it all somewhere there isn't one, and where your pollutants basically don't matter.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#178

Post by kadonoishi »

irrational wrote: post #6

This is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak. Is he always this awkward? Based off of the 5 minutes I watched, he clearly hasn’t gotten to where he is through charisma and public speaking skills. I’m just wondering if this is typical for him. Also, a million tons to Mars? If each starship lifts 100 tons, that is 10,000 launches. I think he said launch windows only come around every 2 years. He is either planning…

He doesn't practice any of his speeches ahead of time. Too busy. When you hear it that's the first time he's said it, generated right there in realtime. Often he'll repeat something he said in another talk, but when it's the same idea that's hard/pointless to avoid.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#179

Post by lamontcg »

irrational wrote: post #49
rtpg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need to fly 3 months to some inhospitable planet that is in worse condition than Earth would be (even after nuclear wars and global warming) to make progress? I suppose there's an idea we could apply everything done on Mars to Earth, but like... seriously, what we just took all the prep for mars and just put it in the middle of the Empty Quarter, the Saraha, Antarctica? People barely want to live in the arc…

The basic idea is to not have all your eggs in one basket. We are one asteroid strike away from losing all human life on earth. Having 2 habited planets spreads the risk. Obviously having those planets in different solar systems would be even better, but we don’t have the technology for that, yet.

Gonna be interesting to see how many people actually pony up to really take part in that kind of vision.

Are there any economic incentives for colonizing Mars? Asteroid mining makes sense and bases on and around the Moon make some kind of economic sense at least. I don't know how Mars fits into that picture in the 50-100 year "medium" term picture.

Re: Starship Update [video]

#180

Post by ksec »

sfblah wrote: post #40
panick21_ wrote: post #33

The Raptor 2 engine is just an absurd. The original specs were already kind of insane. But Raptor 2 is an monster. They really pushed already significantly into a second generation design before first flight. Raptor 2 is not just a slight upgrade, its a huge upgrade. If it can actually launch multiple times a day without any refurbishment, it will simply totally break space travel as we have known it. This engine mak…

And then what? What's the use case?

I am by no means an expert or even enthusiast. Space Manufacturing, New innovation possibility with near zero gravity. New way to harness energy from the sun. Or the real possibility of space tourism.
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