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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

#71

Post by dexen »

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…

>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.

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

#72

Post by runj__ »

Udo wrote: post #47
retSava wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy Musk _is_ obsessed. The world would be a worse off place without SpaceX and Tesla, who both are what they are to a large extent because of him.

> I'm happy Musk _is_ obsessed. I can definitely empathize with that, I'm happy with what's being achieved as well. Seing how SpaceX and Tesla are routinely achieving their goals and arguably change the world, I often can't get over the fact that the output of our civilization seems to hinge on the iron will of a few billionaires. Elon Musk (and SpaceX as his tool) is just an extremely illustrative example of this, b…

The momentum of civilisation is meandering and spread. The few humans burning their own path are straightforward and fateful, there seems to be more change happening once there's a single individual behind it, but perhaps only because more change in every direction seems less than the pure firethrodden path of the single individual.

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

#73

Post by ceejayoz »

krapp wrote: post #66
glouwbug wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine mars would be terraformed eventually over time. It just needs a little atmosphere to get going

Unfortunately, due to Mars' lower gravity and lack of a magnetically active core, not only can it not hold a substantial atmosphere to begin with, any such atmosphere would inevitably be blown away by solar winds. So there's that. Maybe we can put a big dome around the whole thing like Planet Druidia.

The timeline for that process is millennia, so if we come up with a continual process for replenishment that works on shorter timeframes, it's maintainable.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-spee...

> MAVEN measurements indicate that the solar wind strips away gas at a rate of about 100 grams (equivalent to roughly 1/4 pound) every second. "Like the theft of a few coins from a cash register every day, the loss becomes significant over time," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "We've seen that the atmospheric erosion increases significantly during solar storms, so we think the loss rate was much higher billions of years ago when the sun was young and more active.”

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

#74

Post by peeters »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #70
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…

> They designed and built a custom welding machine _and_ a custom X-Ray machine for building tank domes in four weeks? Can any engineer speak to whether this is actually progress, or even necessary? It seems like every time something goes wrong, Elon "invents" a way to do it better. I'm old enough to remember rescue subs, battery swaps, brain implants that will cure autism, factories spitting out factories, solar shi…

I'm not in that area, but I struggle to find an analogue of a large pressurized tank on Earth where mass is the dominant cost factor.

You might have equally big tanks on Earth, under equal pressures, but it will be more cost-effective to just increase the material used on the shell of the tank to solve your problems. Whereas in space, every kg that can theoretically be removed from the launch vehicle is worth investing in, even if it raises the cost of engineering and materials.

So yes it seems reasonable to me that these are groundbreaking challenges.

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

#75

Post by jcims »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #62
wolco wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect we have a few groups. Those who drank the kool-aid and liked it. Those who used to believe in it but after abuse are now stuck in an endless cycle where they have no time for job searches. And those that never drank the kool-aid and will leave after getting time on their resume. It takes a great mix of super smarts and super stupid to work there.

> I suspect we have a few groups. I think that's pretty much accurate, and what I saw when I was at the Job Faire in Browning last month, most were surprised by how extensive my experience was before I applied to get there: I worked for one of Kimbal's companies, I did a short stint at the Mars Desert Research Station, and got to know the Director and was asked to come back under her on a crewed mission etc... Most w…

There is some segment of the population that would pity your perspective as the disillusionment of an abused spouse. I don't. I get it.

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

#76

Post by bergoid »

daxaxelrod wrote: post #52
chottocharaii wrote: post #26

Humans are not biologically adapted to surviving on Mars, and for that reason, any settlement to Mars is bound to fail in the long term.

Humans are not adapted to live in space either. But because of a couple brave people, we now know a little about how to counteract zero gravity's degradation on the body (Bone and muscle loss -> stricter workout regiment). Bound to fail in the long term is quite the statement to make given our ability to build tools based on data that could increase our chance of survival.

Low gravity is one thing. But the radiation outside the Earth's magnetic field is quite another. People colonizing Mars will need to shield themselves from several types of harmful radiation. Wich means in practice: living underground.

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

#78

Post by [deleted] »

runj__ wrote: post #72
Udo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm happy Musk _is_ obsessed. I can definitely empathize with that, I'm happy with what's being achieved as well. Seing how SpaceX and Tesla are routinely achieving their goals and arguably change the world, I often can't get over the fact that the output of our civilization seems to hinge on the iron will of a few billionaires. Elon Musk (and SpaceX as his tool) is just an extremely illustrative example of this, b…

The momentum of civilisation is meandering and spread. The few humans burning their own path are straightforward and fateful, there seems to be more change happening once there's a single individual behind it, but perhaps only because more change in every direction seems less than the pure firethrodden path of the single individual.

[deleted]

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

#79

Post by luckyscs »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #39
jcims wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just means that the employees are more likely to be well taken care of. This intuitively would suggest the company is more likely to be successful, but i think GP's observation is that the opposite might be what we actually see in practice. At least right now.

The model I suggest is used in Germany, and works well for both the business and the workers. On a smaller scale, Costco implements something similar in the US with positive results (Customers and employees before shareholders, but shareholders still profit).

I'd rather have something like a engineering corps that could keep engineers employees during recessions when the private sector can't afford it. Almost like and engineering reserve. I'd rather have the stability than more profit.

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

#80

Post by grecy »

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…

> 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.

This statement resonates deeply with me.

Whenever I meet someone new or that I might be interested in dating I ask "What are you doing with your life?" or "What are you striving for?" and I find the extreme majority of people don't have an answer beyond "I just go to a job I don't really like"

It seems very few people are seriously driven and motivated and living a life where they're pushing hard to achieve something great.

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