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SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

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Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#211

Post by deepGem »

jonnybgood wrote: post #179
deepGem wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how I've always felt about presentations, not just by Musk but anyone who presents candidly. Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Bill Gates also present more or less similar characteristics. They don't prepare/rehearse for the talk. They are thinking on the fly, but they are still confident. This natural behavior is what makes listening and watching to these people so gratifying.

> They don't prepare/rehearse for the talk. How do you know that?

They all have publicly stated that they don't prepare for talks or presentations.

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#213

Post by DavidSJ »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #207
DavidSJ wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We may always face existential risks. We now know of some concerning the next 50-100 years, but in 100 years we may know of different ones. Planetary redundancy conceivably aids our chances with those risks as well, so is a project best begun now, whatever the lead time. I don't want us always just solving the present crisis. We should think about the distant future too.

If you ask me, focusing on colonizing planets is the completely wrong long term survival strategy anyway. What would be much better would be finding a way to survive in space, just orbiting a star in some kind of craft. I mean, if you can't grow food on it anyway than a planet is just a really big asteroid with an unreasonably large gravity well to deal with. If and when we eventually work out a way to viably travel…

There is the possibility of growing crops in Martian soil. [1] Nevertheless many agree with your conclusion that stations in deep space offer decisive advantages in their low-energy access to asteroid resources. [2]

Regardless of which path we take, the immediate technological prerequisite is the same: an economical way to send Earth payloads to space, i.e. a fully and rapidly reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle. That's what SpaceX is developing.

[1] https://phys.org/news/2016-06-dutch-crops-grown-mars-soil.ht... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#214

Post by pmontra »

agildehaus wrote: post #33
perilunar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 30 minute trips you barely even need toilets.

I'd just shit my pants on liftoff.

That's really on spot but maybe it won't be your case. Many people don't like accelerations. Braking and turning a car a little harder than usual is much less that 1 g but some people don't feel comfortable with it, even when there is no danger. Remember motion sickness and the puke bags on planes. Lifting off with a rocket is always going to be higher g than with a plane. Furthermore it's probably going to require some amount of fitness. Too young or too old: fly on a plane. In the middle: it depends.

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#215

Post by ygra »

teabee89 wrote: post #201
perilunar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not negative, since you are creating just as much CO2 burning the CH4 as you removed in the first place. Carbon neutral though.

I thought CH4 was ~four times more potent in the greenhouse effect than CO2, significantly worsening the global temperature rise.

The rocket works by burning the methane, though, instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. Burning it results in water and carbon dioxide.

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#216

Post by jerven »

mastazi wrote: post #205
trevyn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Objections, sure, but any enforcement ability? That’s international waters.

International waters start more than 20km out from the coastline (12 nm)[1], that would be a very long ferry just to reach the spaceport, not just a short hop like shown in the video... [1] https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...

That's about half an hour at a not that fast 25 knots. 30 minutes from a city center. For any coastal city, that is likely to be no worse as the time to get to an intercontinental airport. Still means about 2h00 from NYC to Shangai, door to door. Quite an improvement over the 17hours today.

Non coastal cities have a problem...

In any case it takes care of most nimby as it's to far away for the neighbors to care. So reasonable, in that aspect.

Of course ITAR, fear of nuclear strikes etc... general FAA/EASA regulations remain issues for this business plan.

Weather will also be an issue. Flights rarely get canceled for weather issues. But transferring from a ferry onto a barge at high sea in bad wind seems like an non fun experience in a three piece suit.

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#217

Post by kensai »

nickik wrote: post #119
kensai wrote: post #109

The plan is good and modestly aggressive time-wise. But he has to be careful. Even a single high-profile disaster with human loss or precious cargo will put the whole endeavor at risk.

> Even a single high-profile disaster with human loss or precious cargo will put the whole endeavor at risk. Why? This is not a government bureaucracy. People die in many places in private business. As long the company has high level of assurance that they will not get sued or regulated, I don't see how a failure could collapse the whole endeavor.

You don't but I do. People will be scared. And there is no competition at the moment, he plays alone. People might think it's too early, it's not worth it, etc.

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#218

Post by shpx »

Asdfbla wrote: post #142

Making life multiplanetary seems like one of the least important issues of our times to me: either we figure out how to make life on earth sustainable in the medium term (next 50-100 years) or we do not have enough time to become multiplanetary anyway (since that will take centuries, and we will likely never leave the solar system anyway). So it seems a bit premature to concern yourself with interplanetary ambitions…

https://xkcd.com/1232/

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#219

Post by icc97 »

tsaprailis wrote: post #106

So the key takeaway for me today compared to 1 year ago, is that Elon has put a lot of thought on how to make this plan economically viable compared to just the vision last year. Multiple potential streams of revenue: - Government/intragovernment contracts to cleanup space debris. - Government/Private satellite launches. - Earth to earth transportation which Elon announced on Instagram that the cost would be comparab…

The other major thing was that companies could launch much bigger satellites where Space X would have no competition

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#220

Post by dogma1138 »

grondilu wrote: post #85
extrapickles wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats why they show the spaceport out at sea, as it kills the standard NIMBY objections. Also the cities they want to fly out of don’t have enough room to easily build a spaceport.

> Thats why they show the spaceport out at sea, I suspect putting the spaceport at sea is mainly a security issue. Failing to reach the landing pad is certainly less catastrophic on water than on the ground.

Not for the passengers, although if they can do a soft water landing and the ship is somewhat buoyant you have some chance of hull recovery.

And that would actually be better than aircraft, there isn't such thing as a water landing there it's called crashing in the ocean.

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