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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

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Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#841

Post by mentando »

peeters wrote: post #675
tux1968 wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's full size they just use 27+ of them on the heavy lift version of their rocket, and 40+ on the proposed rocket for lifting the Mars ships off of Earth.

Falcon Heavy will use 27 Merlin engines, not Raptors. The Merlin is already being flown in Falcon 9, and they're producing dozens per year. The Heavy is basically a Falcon 9 with two more Falcon 9 first stage cores strapped on the side as boosters. Though I think there is talk of moving all Falcon to the Raptors eventually.

With the ~3 times of thrust from the Raptor engines, do you think they will move to a "Falcon-3" design with 3 Raptor engines?

Because that would decrease the redundancy, right? With Falcon-9 you would lose 2/9 of thrust if you turn off the mirrored engine in the best case. In a Falcon-3 scenario, you would lose at least 1/3 for middle engine failure or 2/3 for a side engine failure.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#842

Post by yread »

peeters wrote: post #670
rtpg wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what are the advantages of a Mars colony? It's not like we'll be shipping things back to Earth. I'm for exploration and all that but there's a pretty good point. Figuring out how to make the desert habitable on this planet is a pretty good test run for the Real Deal.

> what are the advantages of a Mars colony? Survival of our species. Protection from an extinction event on Earth. Stepping stone to further expansion (interstellar).

Hey underwater would check two of those boxes

EDIT: or moon surface

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#843

Post by grecy »

simonh wrote: post #835

I'd expect the first rocket, or several rockets to actually stay on Mars at least for a while. 1. It means you have somewhere to live and even if you set up habitats it acts as a fallback habitat. 2. You'll need a return to Earth option if things go potato shaped. 3. It can manufacture fuel in advance for future visiting ships so acts as a backup to their Sabatier reactor and other important systems. 4. Once you have…

> I wonder if these will be capable of operating automatically

They have said many times the F9 lands itself completely autonomously, because when it's happening on Mars the signal delay will be too great for them to do anything from Earth anyway.

Given that, I'm going to take the leap and say the whole thing will be autonomous. I also think it makes sense so you don't need trained "pilots". You can pack the thing with 100 people that have no clue.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#844

Post by awesomerobot »

andrepd wrote: post #822
jernfrost wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, I wrote a medium article about exactly this phenomenon partly inspired by you: https://medium.com/@Jernfrost/the-crab-people-and-space-expl... I've been annoyed by this attitude for quite some time now. You see it all the time. Same deal with Tesla an Model S. Because not everybody can afford it, and because not all power is renewable an electric car like Tesla Model S seems like some sort of terrible crime. W…

Oh it's progress, no doubt. There's no question about that. What me and other skeptics argue against is these kinds of overly futuristic announcements that have no ground in reality, yet have people praising them like they are some kind of achievement by themselves. Elon Musk grandly announces: I'm going to make humans an interplanetary species. This is such a grand and far reaching goal that were it to be achieved i…

I'll praise anyone who tries this shit, even if it's just a presentation to start. I'd like to encourage more people to try.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#845

Post by grecy »

peeters wrote: post #675
tux1968 wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's full size they just use 27+ of them on the heavy lift version of their rocket, and 40+ on the proposed rocket for lifting the Mars ships off of Earth.

Falcon Heavy will use 27 Merlin engines, not Raptors. The Merlin is already being flown in Falcon 9, and they're producing dozens per year. The Heavy is basically a Falcon 9 with two more Falcon 9 first stage cores strapped on the side as boosters. Though I think there is talk of moving all Falcon to the Raptors eventually.

> The Merlin is already being flown in Falcon 9, and they're producing dozens per year

Musk said they're already building more than 500 Merlins per year, so they are not at all worried about being able to build Raptors fast enough.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#847

Post by Brakenshire »

f_allwein wrote: post #563
anexprogrammer wrote: post #93

I'd really like to see us taking space seriously. While I'm still here. One of my earliest strong memories was the last moon landing. This was followed by years of "Tomorrow's World" and "Horizon" telling us about the Moon bases, Mars bases and orbital platforms that would soon follow. We got Skylab and some very interesting probes. I'm a tiny bit disappointed in that. We were meant to be en route to Starfleet Comman…

There is a line in the film “Interstellar” that stuck with me: “We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.” Now the film plays in a dystopian future, but I think the quote is still appropriate for us as a civilization. If Elon can change that, all the better.

Honestly, the quote is a reflection of a distorted understanding of reality transposed over from utopian science fiction. The stars are incredibly far away, and are overwhelmingly utterly hostile to human life. The 'dirt' is one of the very few places in the galaxy, perhaps the only place, actually well suited to human life, and the ecosystems that support it.

If our understanding of fundamental physics is correct, there will never be an interstellar civilization of the sort that sci fi depicts. Only balkanized civilizations separated by many decades of travel. Within a solar system, no doubt interplanetary colonies will happen, but the conditions for life on other planets within our solar system are overwhelmingly harsh, difficult, and expensive.

Most of the work that needs to go into making either of those things happen will occur here on Earth. Although a Mars colony could help, if there was some economic imperative which could sustain and drive it.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species [video]

#848

Post by 7952 »

jernfrost wrote: post #810
mikeash wrote: post #148

Some of the comments here make me think of crabs in a pot pulling down the ones who try to climb out. Nobody's making you participate in this venture. If you don't like it, then you're free to go do whatever it is you do like. You might think Musk could better direct his efforts and resources elsewhere, but most other billionaires don't do anything all that interesting, they just invest their money in mundane stuff,…

Agree, I wrote a medium article about exactly this phenomenon partly inspired by you: https://medium.com/@Jernfrost/the-crab-people-and-space-expl... I've been annoyed by this attitude for quite some time now. You see it all the time. Same deal with Tesla an Model S. Because not everybody can afford it, and because not all power is renewable an electric car like Tesla Model S seems like some sort of terrible crime. W…

The attitude is probably focused at the generality of human activity. So many important projects become domainated by personal rivalries and greed. The irony is that Musk has found a way to avoid exactly this kind of problem. Mars can act as a unifying mission that everyone can work towards. There is something more important than the individual that justifies the effort.

And it could inspire a whole host of companies that simply try and do X on Mars. And perhaps in the process we will learn how to do X better on Earth also. Because the unique constraints of Mars are an extreme version of the sustainability issues we face on earth. Humanity has to evolve to be independant of ecosystems that we will otherwise destroy.

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