Elon Musk Hints 1st Person To Mars May Go Via New Brownsville Spaceport 91
MarkWhittington writes If SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has his way, the first astronaut to set foot on Mars may begin his or her journey from the new commercial spaceport being built at Boca Chica Beach, just outside Brownsville, Texas. The Texas Tribune reported on Monday that Musk made the suggestion at the ground breaking ceremony of the commercial spaceport. The ceremony was also attended by Texas Gov. Rick Perry and various other Texas politicians and dignitaries, Musk's desire to establish a Mars colony and even retire to the Red Planet himself is not a secret.
Is this anything other than a press release? (Score:2)
I mean, "We're building a [cool thing] and [cool related activity] might happen there" isn't really meaningful outside of a PR office.
Re: Is this anything other than a press release? (Score:1)
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The announcement is as void as space.
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The announcement is as void as space.
"In space no one can hear you announce."
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I bet that if you have a *really* powerful speaker, and a *really* sensitive microphone, you would be able to detect the announcement, even in empty space (*)
(*) I'm talking about tera-watts here.
The exact dimensions would be something for e.g. the xkcd creator to figure out.
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You wouldn't need tera-watts if you just fired particles straight at the mic, if you'd still call that "sound."
Otherwise I think you'd have to expect to be limited to incredibly low frequencies.
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Moving charged particles around generates electromagnetic radiation, which can be picked up by e.g. a coil in a microphone :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... [wikipedia.org]
On topic: your sig (Score:2)
I bet The Doctor could use the LHC as a high frequency speaker.
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Wouldn't need it. A sonic screwdriver and a Christmas Mobile Disco and he'd be all set.
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It's a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake.
If the way is hazy,
You gotta do the cooking by the book.
You know you can't be lazy.
Never use a messy recipe.
The cake will end up crazy.
If you do the cooking by the book,
Then you'll have a cake.
We gotta have it made.
You know that I love cake.
Finally it's time to make a cake.
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Because nobody on /. wants to go into space or go to Mars.
We all live in our mom's basement and are afraid to go outside.
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Indeed. It would be a huge surprise if anybody went to Mars in the next 50 years. Let them sustain a Moon-base for 20 years, and then we can talk about it. All this "going to Mars" is pure nonsense at this time, as there is nothing there and no way to come back.
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> as there is nothing there
There is as much land area as the Earth. It just needs proper development. Las Vegas is in a fucking desert, and people live there anyway. The real problem is people who look at an empty piece of land and see nothing, rather than seeing the potential for what it could become.
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Re:Is this anything other than a press release? (Score:5, Insightful)
Antarctica is the most comparable place on Earth, and we've not managed a large-scale colonization of it yet despite the easy access, regular resupply flights and air.
Re:Is this anything other than a press release? (Score:4, Interesting)
No thanks.
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Then *PSSSHHH*, the doors open, and you are basically in Antarctica - for LIFE!
Except that even the highest point in Antarctica has almost 100 times as much atmospheric pressure as the surface of Mars.
—George
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Antarctica is the most comparable place on Earth, and we've not managed a large-scale colonization of it yet despite the easy access, regular resupply flights and air.
That's because short trips to Antarctica make more sense. When you are talking about Mars, you are talking about a very long trip, i.e. permanent.
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Antarcita is not more comparable to Mars as e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]
Actually it is two bladed: Antarctica at least has an atmosphere ... besides that Mars at the equator is just more hospitable.
Re:Is this anything other than a press release? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there is no reason to colonize Antarctica. It has all the negatives without any of the positives.
Mars has some huge positives, namely the fact that it's not Earth. Think of it as an offsite backup for the human race.
Colonizing Antarctica would be like making a backup of your computer on a USB stick and then leaving it plugged in.
Re:Is this anything other than a press release? (Score:4, Funny)
Because there is no reason to colonize Antarctica. It has all the negatives without any of the positives.
Penguins are a huge positive.
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Human psychology is extremely relevant here.
We could build a self-sustaining underground colony on Earth that's powered by nuclear reactors and which grows its own food hydroponically. It could probably survive a dinosaur-killer asteroid event. And as you mentioned, it would cost way less than a Mars colony.
But think about it. Who the hell wants to live in an underground colony on Earth, permanently? You're not gonna get many volunteers. And I guarantee *nobody* is going to fund it. Living underground in Ka
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Underground or aboveground, won't change Kansas. People live there now.
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But think about it. Who the hell wants to live in an underground colony on Earth, permanently? You're not gonna get many volunteers.
Umm. Where do you think the Mars colonists will live? Mars is bathed in radiation, and it is, for all intents and purposes, a vacuum. To live on Mars is to live underground. On Earth, you could shelter underground and then return to the surface to live, after only a few days, should a Chicxulub type event ever occur. And then, back to business. On Mars, you are underground until your colony dies out, which it will.
And I guarantee *nobody* is going to fund it. Living underground in Kansas has zero glamour. Like it or not, humans love exploring new places and thanks to sci-fi, Mars has a tremendous romantic value.
No it doesn't. There is little, if any, public feeling in favour of a Mars colony. There is a
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Mars has some huge positives, namely the fact that it's not Earth. Think of it as an offsite backup for the human race.
Colonizing Antarctica would be like making a backup of your computer on a USB stick and then leaving it plugged in.
If you were my backup guy, I'd fire you. Your backup plan is analogous to moving (not copying, moving) a few gigabytes of a petabyte production system onto a usb stick, and then storing that usb stick in a ziplock bag under an iceberg on the arctic circle. This is not a good backup plan, owing to the following:
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Excellent point!
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Send them first.
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You forgot the telephone sanitizers.
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Indeed. Now, if we manage to make robots that can make more robots on Mars, they could prepare some kind of colony. But judging from CS, Material Sciences and other advances of the last 50 years, that is far, far away. And at the very least we would need to solve the energy problem first. Working, reliable nuclear fusion is at least 50 years away. Add another 50 years for miniaturizing it and making it space capable. At that point, we can revisit the idea, but not before.
The facts just do not pan out on bas
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To clarify, low probability of first leaving for mars from Boca Chica, not a low probability of eventually going to mars.
Woohoo (Score:2)
One's dreams may be superseded (Score:1)
Re:One's dreams may be superseded (Score:4, Funny)
Then he will spend his latter years telling people how he traveled to Mars before it was cool.
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Re:One's dreams may be superseded (Score:4, Insightful)
It would certainly be funny, but it would also never happen, because the Singularity is the nerd version of the Rapture. Human consciousness is not hardware agnostic.
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Wow, that is the most insightful thing I've read on Slashdot in years!
Re:One's dreams may be superseded (Score:4, Insightful)
Human consciousness is not hardware agnostic.
[citation needed]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... [wikipedia.org]
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Speculation, and only relevant if we want to duplicate human consciousness. And even then, lower levels of virtual sensory input may well be sufficient for those purposes.
For much of the Singularity's predictions, non-human intelligences with varying levels of consciousness would be enough. We don't need to make a submarine swim like a fish for it to be useful.
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Not seeing any connection with consciousness there?
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The consciousness of the future will not be like that of today, same as the consciousness of today is not like that of yesterday. But it may still call itself "human."
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Well, maybe his ashes will go there. That wuld be realistic. Nothing else is.
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We've had the capability to put a man on Mars since the mid-1970's.... Just not the political will. Now that spaceflight is in the commercial realm, it's no long political willpower + taxpayer cost, it's just private cost and selling that dream to the right person.
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Not if that man should survive for any length of time or be able to get back. Also note that that man will arrive sterile due to radiation damage.
There is a song about this (Score:2)
Sing along now! Oh we'll send him to outer space, to find another race
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It is probably a practical impossibility to reserve enough fuel on the Falcon 9 to do an RTB back to the cape, as staging occurs right around 2000 m/s and reversing direction from that sort of velocity is surely more dangerous, inefficient, and mechanically wearing than launching from Brownsville and letting the first stage follow its natural 2 km/s parabolic path over Florida instead.
The current version of the Falcon 9 absolutely has enough fuel to return the first stage back to the cape for LEO launches. That was the whole point of the v1.1 upgrade. They already do the direction reversal and flyback on all non GTO launches. The only reason they haven't done a pad landing yet is that they are still practicing landing over water just off shore before they are comfortable enough to actually land on the pad.
They might be able to get a higher payload to LEO with the current Falcon 9 by laun
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But really, I'm surprised you're not a bot. And that you posted not once, but twice on the same day without mentioning your hosts file. I apologize to the rest of slashdot for bringing it up (in jest), as I had no idea it would backfire like this.
Anyway, apk, while Mr. Musk is doing cool shit here, it's important to admire the cool shit, not Mr. Musk, as the last thing we need is another cult of personality. Kudos to SpaceX for recently setting a new (personal best) record for
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yes, you summoned *him*
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Frighteningly, he doesn't seem any better or worse than a typical slashdotter when he's not talking about the hosts file. Case in point: his reply to your post. Totally blows away any preconceptions I had of him, to say the least. Weird.
I'm still irritated by his frequent misuse of punctuation and capitalization, but that's par for the course here.
The first person to go to mars will not return (Score:1)
A lot of people died just trying to cross the Atlantic ocean for the first time... and that's in an environment that is actually hospitable to life.
I suspect that making the months-long trip to mars to be just as fatal for many before we succeed.
Re: The first person to go to mars will not return (Score:2)
secondly, other than the house neo-cons/tea*, nobody expects anybody going to mars to come back for at least 10-15 years if ever.
Of course they would boogie up from Brownsville (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
.
bit ambitious, innit? (Score:2)
I'm thinking that a good first step would be something a little closer like, I dunno, that big whiteish thing that we can see in the sky at night... what's that forgotten thing called again?...
Brilliant idea! (Score:1)
Building a spaceport in Brownsville is a brilliant idea. Presumably it will save a lot on rocket fuel, as rockets will take off by sheer force of will just to get the fuck out of Brownsville.
Backup Plan? (Score:2)
Many CEOs have emergency plans for a retirement out of reach from shareholder class action suits, but this seems a bit excessive.