Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars • Hacker News Board

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

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Post by koheripbal » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #127

Ajedi32 wrote: post #56

The pace of innovation here is absolutely ludicrous. They designed and built a custom welding machine _and_ a custom x-ray machine for building tank domes in four weeks ? They've gone from a production rate of one prototype in 8 months to one prototype every 2 weeks in less than a year. They doubled the size of their workforce in less than 48 hours. I'm gonna have to agree with the article author here: this is absolu…

It's really helping them that they have some of the most motivated employees on Earth. Their people absolutely believe in this vision of colonizing Mars just as much as Elon Musk does. (Hell, I do too, I just don't work there.) Meanwhile I'm working at an advertising company.

...not to mention talented. There is a massive efficiency multiplier when you combine multiple brilliant and experienced people together.

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

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Post by koheripbal » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #242

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found the dichotomy of Soviet culture interesting - that engineers were the most pragmatic I've ever seen, and the politicians were just...fucking idiots. The best example being Korolev, possibly the greatest rocket designer in history (certainly up there with Von Braun and Xuesen, and in my opinion more impressive), who died because he was sent to the Gulags by a bitter politician (this is an incredibly sho…

>> I always found the dichotomy of Soviet culture interesting - that engineers were the most pragmatic I've ever seen, and the politicians were just...fucking idiots. I'm not familiar with that history, but I'm quite familiar with Corporate America. One thing I've seen is that when Engineering is great, it gives the company great momentum and allows the Management/"Business"/Strategy/etc functions to lag and get lazy…

This is a vague statement that is just as often untrue as it is true.

It's more of a stereotype to hate on "management" and is lazy thinking.

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

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Post by justapassenger » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #236

justapassenger wrote: post #4

Is it me, or does this article basically romanticize abusing workers and glorifies running projects without a plan, just with a goal?

If you want to change history, you'll put up with a brutal working schedule. If you want a cushy 9-5 job, just apply to the nice big corporation down the street. At the end of the day, you just go home and enjoy your comfy bunny slippers.

Changing a world is a marathon, not a sprint.

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

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Post by nixpulvis » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 11:45 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #281

nixpulvis wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that definition, Hitler was pretty successful. Yes, learn from your mistakes. No, don't actively go in the wrong direction.

Well, yes, Hitler was pretty successful at what he was trying to do. Now you're talking about if you need to consider any moral implications of the activity you're undertaking, which is a whole different discussion.

No, my entire point is about morals!

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

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Post by grecy » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 12:11 AM UTC

nixpulvis wrote: post #304

grecy wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, Hitler was pretty successful at what he was trying to do. Now you're talking about if you need to consider any moral implications of the activity you're undertaking, which is a whole different discussion.

No, my entire point is about morals!

The discussion started out as "is it better to do something, or do nothing at all", which is outside of morals, but more about motivation and actually doing something.

Obviously if it's a horrible moral choice (i.e. Hitler) then sure, it's best if nothing is done.

In the very vast majority of cases ( build a better car, spaceship, software, grow better food, get fitter, learn a new language, help our community, be a better friend, etc. etc.), then doing something is much, much preferable to not even trying.

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

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Post by kybernetikos » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 12:44 AM UTC

thu2111 wrote: post #235

KoftaBob wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overarching goal is to have a "backup" of humanity so to speak. Having some of society living on Mars so that if something were to happen to Earth, humanity wouldn't cease to exist. Settling Antarctica doesn't solve that problem.

I'm a huge Musk fan and would love to see us settle mars. But. Really. What's the threat model here? Mars is meant to be a backup of humanity. OK. Against what threat? We can think of many, but a self-isolating base in the Antarctic would survive nearly all of them with better conditions than a Mars base. Nuclear armageddon? Not much fallout over Antarctica and OK, you can't go outside of a while. Still better than M…

Antarctic city is good. I like underwater cities personally.

A decent depth of water is very good protection against an awful lot of stuff, including almost anything Mars would be good for, and if you still love space, any technology we build to live deep in the ocean can probably be reused on Europa.

It's also, to bring it back to the 'iteration' discussion way way easier to iterate building underwater cities than building habitats on Mars.

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

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Post by kybernetikos » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 12:50 AM UTC

bergoid wrote: post #129

daxaxelrod wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be living underground. Water is also an effective radiation shield. Combined with predictive modeling, we might have a chance. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/spaceweather/ind...

Agreed. You could cover your above-ground pressurized habitat with blocks of ice. Or with a thick layer of dirt. But the subjective experience remains about the same as living underground.

And then the big question becomes "How is living underground on Mars better than living underground on Earth?"

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

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Post by hutzlibu » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

cstross wrote: post #181

This is a spectacular gamble, however Musk has a track record and I think Superheavy/Starship will pay off with unpredictable dividends. But the elephant in the room that Musk appears to be ignoring is the life sciences side of things. Only 12 humans have sortied outside the Van Allen belts (which protect us from the deep space radiation environment). Nobody has spent more than 18 consecutive months in space or reduc…

Well, for context, it seems, that he know, that the whole thing is not so easy ...

"“I’ll probably be long dead before Mars becomes self-sustaining, but I’d like to at least be around to see a bunch of ships land on Mars,” Musk said."

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

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Post by Bendingo » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:11 AM UTC

varjag wrote: post #292

aguyfromnb wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They probably designed their tolerances assuming perfect welds and then didn't have them. This sounds like terrible engineering practice.

It's perfectly normal engineering practice. Camshaft, gearbox profiles, and bearing surfaces in your car have very tight tolerances. A one slightly unbalanced turbine blade in your airliner engine would assure catastrophic failure. etc etc

Yes, but these items (camshaft, gearbox etc) are not made "by hand".

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

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Post by cbHXBY1D » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #284

ilyich wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only fucking idiot among top Soviet politicians was Gorbachev who sold one of the world's biggest economic, scientific and military powers just for 30 pieces of silver. His predecessors were no idiots at all. They are depicted as complete morons by the western propaganda - it's true. But propaganda and reality are two completely different things. I would advise you to learn history instead of blindly believing th…

So the politician who sent the world's greatest rocket engineer to the gulags out of spite isn't an idiot? I'd be happy to learn more if you can point me towards some sources.

I read Stephen Kotkin's excellent three part series on Stalin this summer and Kotkin (who is by no means a Soviet apologist; he's a conservative) thinks Stalin was a political genius, a modern Machiavelli. For example, in this interview [1] he explains how Stalin's administration was what he considers a "transcendental work of art" while also explaining how it was psychotic and evil.

I highly recommend Kotkin's books. You can jump into the second, Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 if you want to learn more about him as a leader.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz1ROc0pTU4