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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

#261

Post by dexen »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #226
dexen wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They designed and built a custom welding machine _and_ a custom x-ray machine for building tank domes in four weeks? That's feasible due to the requirements being narrow and specific, and also well understood by a team close to the team building those machines. Contrast that with expensive & slow-to-build machines available on the general market, where the requirements are broad, under-specified, and always shifting…

Perhaps it's a demonstration that the market should have more tools as composable building blocks, rather than turn-key solutions.

>building blocks

Yeah, we seem to have strayed a bit too much towards the turn-key end of the spectrum.

IMO both have their rightful place on an open market. The problem with managing building from blocks is that it requires innovation for end results, and, as the saying goes, "Innovation is hard to schedule" (with apologies to Dan Fylstra).

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

#262

Post by carapace »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #234
zshrdlu wrote: post #165

Why Mars, specifically? Why not "settle" Antarctica or Marianna's trench? Aren't these orders of magnitude easier?

It's unfathomable to me how you're missing the fact that we're literally talking about different planets, and why that is the crucial difference.

Now, now, the fact that the sky is full of great big fucking rocks that occasionally fall out of it and hit the Earth has only been known for about two hundred years

It takes time for these things to sink in (apparently, despite e.g. the Chelyabinsk meteor, and all the craters, and how all the dinosaurs have wings now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impact_craters_on_Eart... )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid#History

> Although meteors have been known since ancient times, they were not known to be an astronomical phenomenon until early in the nineteenth century. Prior to that, they were seen in the West as an atmospheric phenomenon, like lightning, and were not connected with strange stories of rocks falling from the sky. In 1807, Yale University chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman investigated a meteorite that fell in Weston, Connecticut.[30] Silliman believed the meteor had a cosmic origin, but meteors did not attract much attention from astronomers until the spectacular meteor storm of November 1833.

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

#263

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

derekp7 wrote: post #91
KineticLensman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rocket equation [0] disagrees: "In what has been called 'the tyranny of the rocket equation', there is a limit to the amount of payload that the rocket can carry, as higher amounts of propellant increment the overall weight, and thus also increase the fuel consumption" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation

I'm having a mental blockage on this, as you can always launch 10 rockets at the same time and get 10 times the payload. Having those 10 rockets strapped together should not change the payload of them flying independently. What am I missing here -- I'm sure I'm overlooking something.

You aren't missing anything, the comment you are responding to is confusing the per unit of fuel payload limit to be the total limit of the rocket. You can add more engines/ use bigger ones which would allow for more fuel and thus more payload( in theory at least).

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

#264

Post by majkinetor »

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…

That line of thinking is next to insane. You should be happy he is not somewhere on the yaht drinking $20K whine every night.

That can be said about anything - why do you buy board games or watch sport events every night or learn to play piano - you should be saving the planet ffs...

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

#265

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

nixpulvis wrote: post #220
dwaltrip wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology developed for Mars will improve life on Earth, in ways we can't even imagine. Human effort isn't completely fungible. There is no guarantee that all of the people working incredibly hard at SpaceX would switch to work on whatever problem you want them to.

It's sad that you frame this as "whatever problem you want them to work on". As is there should be any doubt.

It's sad that you think your priorities should be everyones' priorities. Find like-minded people and get to work. But what people get inspired of is none of your business to judge.

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

#266

Post by nixpulvis »

majkinetor wrote: post #264
nixpulvis wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

That line of thinking is next to insane. You should be happy he is not somewhere on the yaht drinking $20K whine every night. That can be said about anything - why do you buy board games or watch sport events every night or learn to play piano - you should be saving the planet ffs...

I do worry about the mass lack of action due to social distractions...

But this is larger, as it seems to imply an escape from the problems of the Earth in a new world. A dream that will never become a reality.

Either we fix the Earth or we parish. There is no salvation in the stars, and no second coming of Christ.

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

#267

Post by ash »

ceejayoz wrote: post #134
ash wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Siberia is not survivable without technology. Mars requires more technology, but that's a matter of magnitude, not impossibility.

Keeping people warm is the only problem to solve in Siberian winter. Humanity solved it thousands of years ago.

Antarctica is cold year around, lacks food, lacks sun light for half a year. Almost no one wants to live permanently in Antarctica.

Mars has all of the Antarctica problems, almost zero sun light, lack of air, lack of water, radiation, toxic soil, low gravity, extreme remoteness.

It may be theoretically possible for a colony on Mars to survive, but it remains to be seen if enough people would do it in practice.

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

#268

Post by nixpulvis »

vermontdevil wrote: post #253
nixpulvis wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point, and I'm not trying to say everything Elon is doing is bad or wrong. I wish his other projects got even a fraction of the attention his space project gets.

Tesla?

Ok fair... it's not about attention of other projects, and I shouldn't have said that.

I'm just reacting strongly to this Mars madness. That is all.

Defending this project by saying its leader is also compassionate toward other goals isn't compelling to me.

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

#269

Post by nixpulvis »

HeadsUpHigh wrote: post #265
nixpulvis wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that you frame this as "whatever problem you want them to work on". As is there should be any doubt.

It's sad that you think your priorities should be everyones' priorities. Find like-minded people and get to work. But what people get inspired of is none of your business to judge.

I feel perfectly entitled to judge those who spend their days dreaming of Mars as a solution to their problems.

I will not support such efforts, and I feel quite comfortable being a detractor as well.

Who are you to tell me what to judge?! This argument gets you nowhere with me.

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

#270

Post by ceejayoz »

ash wrote: post #267
ceejayoz wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siberia is not survivable without technology. Mars requires more technology, but that's a matter of magnitude, not impossibility.

Keeping people warm is the only problem to solve in Siberian winter. Humanity solved it thousands of years ago. Antarctica is cold year around, lacks food, lacks sun light for half a year. Almost no one wants to live permanently in Antarctica. Mars has all of the Antarctica problems, almost zero sun light, lack of air, lack of water, radiation, toxic soil, low gravity, extreme remoteness. It may be theoretically poss…

> Almost no one wants to live permanently in Antarctica.

I mean, that's at least in part because you can't on a legal level. There's no private property rights and any of the Antarctic Treaty participants has the right to enter and inspect any installation on the continent. It's a set of research stations, not a colony.

Siberia has other problems similar to Mars. Water is frozen, so you have to melt it (as on Mars). Growing seasons are short (similar to the sunlight issue, which we've solved on Earth with grow lights...).

Focusing on the "Mars has more things to solve" thing continues to ignore the point.

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