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SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

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Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#251

Post by wallace_f »

staticelf wrote: post #200
wallace_f wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. What about all the other things I mentioned as well? There are so many more--what about for profit prisons? As technology increases our suicide rate isn't really consistently declining. Our prison population has increased. Technology cant make those improvements alone. We need improvements in governance, culture and education for this to happen. Technology can be used for good or bad. By itself, it is just…

All of these things are not related to investment in science or technology for the betterment of society. But we also live in a time with least war and a lot less suffering in general. Technology may be a tool, but science is not. With science we can prove that x makes more people happy and reduces suicide rates and hence make that choice. The issue is that science is not really that present in the chamber of politic…

We live in a time where war no longer needs constitutional approval or even traditional military force. We have the longest running war in US history. 26,000 bombs dropped last year.

You need to put that scientific method you are talking about to use. Are people really happier today than in 1950? Why is the suicide rate going up

The difficulty with your argument here is that tech has enormous potential to make life better, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it will. You may be interested in noting that this is a common idea: I've seen the popular science educators like Sagan, NDT, Nye all say this...

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#252

Post by solveinequality »

evanlivingston wrote: post #84
bicubic wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of access to clean water and most of the bad stuff happening around the world is not an engineering problem, it's a political problem. Elon Musk's passion lies in engineering, not in politics. So while your sentiment is fine in a vacuum, I don't think it fits on this thread, and it's certainly not a sound criticism against advancing space colonization. In fact, there's a sizable sentiment that this planet is…

I don't mean to antagonize Elon Musk himself. What I wanted to point out is that the future doesn't exist in a vacuum. While some people are jumping around on mars others will be unable to put food on their table. It saddens me to see that things that make people most excited about the future are the development of technologies that don't address issues of inequality. Why would our political failures not follow us to…

what technology will change inequality? genetic engineering to turn the entire human race into sex-free clones?

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#253

Post by MertsA »

curiousgal wrote: post #3

Musk's public speaking skills (the stutters) give me hope as a non native English speaker.

That seemed really out of place for Elon. Compared to last year's speech and many other interviews he sounded impaired quite frankly. I guess that's what chronic sleep deprivation will do to a man.

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#254

Post by MertsA »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #184
hacker_9 wrote: post #77

Great presentation, only thing I'm worried about is human flight in these things. I mean what happens if this thing is 1% off on the landing? Does the whole thing topple over and blow up into a million pieces? Additionally with the entire flight being automated, what happens if the software gets taken over in space and they just drop it like a rock onto a city? The damage would be catastrophic. We need Elon to invest…

As brutal as it may sound, I'd expect the BFR to have a remotely activated self-destruct system. OTOH, what if terrorists gain access to that system?...

Well yeah, it's a rocket, it's going to have range safety. The space shuttle had range safety as well.

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#255

Post by AmIFirstToThink »

I think humanity is not ready to be multi-planetary. Time or distances or conditions are not on humanity's side. Even humanity is not on humanity's side.

I think the dreams of being multi-planetary are similar to buying doomsday bunkers in New Zealand. I see it as a desire to escape the problems of earth.

I would ask a question to Anjum Choudhary, "If there is a colony on Mars, and your ideology got hold of major countries on Earth, would you try to convert those on Mars?". I think the answer, undoubtedly would be yes.

Humanity has much to resolve on earth, if we go multi-planetary before we reconcile then all we would end up doing is make our problems multi-planetary.

Unless few people escape earth and destroy earth so that there won't be anyone following them. Equivalent to you first going into a safe bunker and then nuking the world, wait out the nuclear fallout to emerge. But then you would be pure evil.

I don't know if they have thought this through. On the scale of centuries, not quarter ends, all they are doing is working for those with higher rate of reproduction.

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#256

Post by greedo »

AmIFirstToThink wrote: post #255

I think humanity is not ready to be multi-planetary. Time or distances or conditions are not on humanity's side. Even humanity is not on humanity's side. I think the dreams of being multi-planetary are similar to buying doomsday bunkers in New Zealand. I see it as a desire to escape the problems of earth. I would ask a question to Anjum Choudhary, "If there is a colony on Mars, and your ideology got hold of major cou…

Umm, interesting take. There are some good sci-fi series that explore the idea of religious groups expanding via space colonies. Heck, even the KSR Mars series discusses this.

Living in fear of Islam (or LDS, or Branch Davidians) is a foolish way to evaluate a scientific/societal exploration project.

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#257

Post by [deleted] »

nickik wrote: post #117
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…

I think the key is that this rocket will replace the F9/FH/Dragon architecture rather then being a separate line of development.

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#258

Post by collinmanderson »

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…

Right, plus 100% reusability and therefore cheaper per-launch cost than where SpaceX is now.

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#259

Post by Asdfbla »

DrBazza wrote: post #246
rtpg wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the billionaires in their RVs at Burning Man would be willing to spend 6 months in that condition? Even at a "ridiculously low" price of $500k, you're basically offering a mount Everest experience for people. Dangerous , uncomfortable, generally hard to do if you're not super free. A crazy adventure Some people are interested, but you can't argue much for economy of scales when the total market of afford…

You are also ignoring the pioneer spirit. Don't forget that essentially built America. Imagine if no-one wanted to cross the Atlantic because it was too expensive or it was 'unsettled'? People want to go to Mars. People want to try and live there. Scientists want to go there and learn, and explore.

Well, America had something going for it, especially when reports came back from the early explorers that it's lush and habitable (in many areas at least).

On the other hand, people know what to expect from the rock that is Mars. If Mars was an unknown and people would want to go there to discover what's there, then the analogy would be correct.

Of course, people will still go, but reaching a critical mass for an unnecessary settlement (at which point it might turn slightly more alluring for more immigrants) remains to be seen. But I guess what happens happens, we'll see.

Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]

#260

Post by greedo »

jerven wrote: post #216
mastazi wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

Couldn't you just use a Hyperloop to travel to the launch site?
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