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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

#321

Post by nixpulvis »

grecy wrote: post #305
nixpulvis wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The topic of better vs worse, or good vs evil is the very basis of morality.

"Morality (noun): principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior."

I encourage you to think more deeply about your argument. I struggle to agree that the "very vast majority of cases" are positive.

It sounds to me like you are sensitive to apathy and/or nihilism. I can understand that, especially these days, but just because it feels like nothing is being done doesn't mean things can't get worse.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a cynic these days.

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

#322

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#323

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

schaefer wrote: post #121

A Linguistic Beef: The word "Starship" means specifically that the ship is capable of traveling between stars. At a minimum, it should travel from it's home star to the nearest neighboring star. What we're talking about here are "Spaceships". -- The only way I can lighten up and enjoy the name Starship in this context is to assume it's being used ironically... like someone who's named their cat "Dog".

Seen from the earth every light point in the sky is a star at first. Even planets. Or the starship itself. Or some satellites. So even if it only travels to Mars, which looks like a star to us it would be OK to call it that. Don't be so uptight!

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

#325

Post by ash »

ceejayoz wrote: post #270
ash wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).…

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

I would like to know if solutions are feasible or even wanted.

Hypothetical Antarctic colony could simply ignore Antarctic Treaty. Did anyone seriously try?

Mars frozen water is likely not directly drinkable after melting. After all, martian soil seems to be toxic.

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

#326

Post by varjag »

Bendingo wrote: post #309
varjag wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Camshafts were turned then ground manually on line lathes and surface grinders for many decades before advent of CNC, with about the same degree of dimensional precision as today.

It is more an issue of quality control and inspection routines.

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

#327

Post by CryptoPunk »

kaycebasques wrote: post #140
CryptoPunk wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developing technology for surviving outside Earth's atmosphere contributes to advances in sustainability tech. It also opens up huge amounts of clean energy resources.

> Developing technology for surviving outside Earth's atmosphere contributes to advances in sustainability tech. Good point, thanks. > It also opens up huge amounts of clean energy resources. Sustainability research is making it clear that we already have an abundance of clean energy resources here on Earth. If Mars does indeed flood the market with cheap clean energy and makes clean energy the overwhelmingly obvious…

>>Good point, thanks.

My pleasure.

>>Also, what clean energy resources are you referring to specifically?

I am referring to solar energy via space-based solar panels. Economical solar energy would give us virtually unlimited energy resources.

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

#328

Post by thesmok »

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #320
ilyich wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, by the time of his imprisonment he was not yet the world's greatest rocket engineer. He became one some 20 years after. Quote from here: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/50_years_of_humans_... > On 23 March 1938, Valentin Glushko was arrested. To reduce his charges he denounced Korolev, which resulted in his arrest on 7 June and a sentence of ten years forced labour. From that day on, the two men were…

An engineer was imprisoned because another engineer was spiteful. You don't consider this a dumb political decision? I consider the default judgment of "everyone goes to the gulags" to be shitty governance, and also quite stupid. My understanding is Korolev's health greatly declined because of his time while imprisoned, and had he never had to endure it he likely would have lived much longer.

I must point out that username ilyich is a transliterated name likely referring to Lenin – real name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. So ilyich seems to be a fan of USSR.

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

#329

Post by aguyfromnb »

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

Do you not see a difference between the intricate components of an engine and the welds on a tank as far as complexity?

Is it even possible to discuss anything Elon Musk anymore without 100% praise of his engineering prowess? Every single comment gets down-voted into oblivion, with very few replies. And, due to the "cool off", this prevents any balanced discourse.

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

#330

Post by immmmmm »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #278
immmmmm wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problem that people follow their dreams, on the contrary, when it is done with respect to others. The Starlink constellation, so far, is not respectful to people who want a clear sky for instance. Regarding Mars, I don’t want to take your dreams back, I just think it has to be framed in a more global and long term context.

> The Starlink constellation, so far, is not respectful to people who want a clear sky for instance. How do the feelings of a few astronomers trump connecting the rest of the world to the internet? You're blowing things way out of proportion as well. You fell for all the aggressive attack campaigns. I've seen all the articles you've read, it's not a real issue. > I just think it has to be framed in a more global and…

Trump??? Is that a new Godwin point???

I suggest you read this article:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2001.10952.pdf

As you can read there it will threaten our ability to detect dangerous objects. As well as other things.

We have optical fibers, common! Do you need to have Netflix in 8K on top of Kilimanjaro?

The issues I have with mars are:

1) the sheer scale of the project(s) (earth has limited ressources)

2) the lack of scientific framework

3) the arguments that it will be useful for survival

4) the very idea of people fleeing earth in time of major existential problems (climate & biodiversity)

So far it just looks to me like a holiday destination for the very rich. But glad if you can point me to some science that contradicts my view.

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