Life On Mars: Elon Musk Reveals Details of His Colonisation Vision 229
Elon Musk has put his Mars-colonization vision to paper, and you can read it for free. SpaceX's billionaire founder and CEO published the plan, which he unveiled at a conference in Mexico in September 2016, in the journal New Space. From a report: The paper outlines early designs of the gigantic spacecraft, designed to carry 100 passengers, that he hopes to construct. "The thrust level is enormous," the paper states. "We are talking about a lift-off thrust of 13,000 tons, so it will be quite tectonic when it takes off." Creating a fully self-sustained civilisation of around one million people -- the ultimate goal -- would take 40-100 years according to the plans. Before full colonisation takes place, though, Musk needs to entice the first pioneers to pave the way.
Not hard to find volunteers (Score:2)
I'm sure Musk could easily find thousands to initially travel to mars, even with a 50% survivability rate... just look at how many people applied for that contest that was a one-way mission.
I myself would happily go, if they are really looking...
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Applying is one thing. Strapping in during the countdown is another.
Who would you rather have? (Score:2)
Who would you rather have on Mars with you, one 300 lb man, or three 100 lb women? Cost to get there is the same for both right, based on weight?
Pretty easy (Score:3)
Who would you rather have on Mars with you, one 300 lb man, or three 100 lb women?
That's not hard to choose at all - the one guy uses less oxygen than the three women, not to mention if it comes down to it that one 300 pound guy provides a lot more calories than three thin women.
Cost to get there is the same for both right, based on weight?
See: Oxygen. Plus you could half the food rations for the 300lb guy figuring he can live party off his own body weight for a while at least.
In fact if they were smart th
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I'm sure Musk could easily find thousands to initially travel to mars, even with a 50% survivability rate...
Sure, staffing the first ship is easy.
Staffing the second ship, after everyone has seen what happened to all the people on the first one, however... that will be more challenging.
Why Not? (Score:3)
Because it's the ultimate in real exploration and a frontier needing a million problems to be solved, both technical and physical.
I wouldn't expect to ever come back again; I wouldn't really care. Though I'm sure eventually some people would be able to return I'd think that would be pretty rough with years spent in the lower gravity of Mars.
I could easily turn the question around though, and say - I can't imagine not wanting to go, so why NOT go? It makes no sense to me, for any reason.
Re:Why Not? (Score:5, Insightful)
If not, then how can you say that you want to go to Mars and never come back when you don't even know what its like to live and work on the extremities of this planet?
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This. Anyone who isn't an astronaut who says they want to go to Mars is full of shit. They are fabricating this "cool" adventure in their heads without understanding that a real mission would not be cool, nor would it be very adventurous. It would be months stuck aboard a tiny can where even the smallest problem means death for everyone. If they reach Mars without dying, they then have to struggle to survive every single day on a ball of dirt doing mundane shit, never being able to come back to Earth to see
Re:Why Not? (Score:4, Insightful)
I know all of that but it doesn't want to make me go any less. It's just part of the risk it takes to do something really important for the species.
The fact that you are unwilling to take these risks means very little to those of us that have evaluated and accept them.
The fact is I've always had a high tolerance for risk and have done many quite risky things in my life (including some that could have eded in death) for a variety of reasons, so I simply do place the same weighting on risk that you do.
You are placing way to much emphasis on your own reactions to understand how others truly feel about it.
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Having the chance to participate in a major milestone for human achievement could be motivation enough. History would remember the brave pioneers that colonized the first extraterrestrial world, their legacy preserved to be taught to future generations to serve as an example to the spirit of exploration.
Those that never take the risks, they may have lived a longer life having played it safe, but they will be forgotten. You could spend your whole life never leaving the safety of your bedroom, and it's still [theguardian.com]
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The points you make are quite irrelevant to wanting to go live on Mars.
I have lived in extreme conditions and/or small spaces for a week or so at a time. But I don't think having done so lends any weight to the choice of going to live on Mars or not. You have no idea what living conditions will even be like, and simply because of the need to grow your own food and the need to be outside often for construction or research, it's inherently different from the cases you list. McMurdo is closest but even then
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I have lived in extreme conditions and/or small spaces for a week or so at a time. But I don't think having done so lends any weight to the choice of going to live on Mars or not.
You are absolutely right to think that whatever camping trip that you went on lends no weight to your argument. The fact that you would even bring that up shows how laughable little experience you have to make any relevant judgement.
need to be outside
The hypothetical colonists on Mars will NEVER go outside in any meaningful sense. You will be living in a cave, monitoring the robots that do the actual surface work. Do you think that being coal miner sounds like a lot fun? Because that will be your existence, 24/7. If you've w
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While colonists would obviously spend most of their time inside, there's nothing preventing them from taking trips to the surface. If you think the radiation is too extreme for occasional visits, note that a number of people endured even harsher radiation conditions on the moon. Yes their cancer risk in old age will increase, but these are people taking much worse risks already.
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I didn't think it was supposed to be a "fun way to unwind outside." If that's the sort of person who thinks that's what Mars will be like, then it doesn't sound like the sort of person who would be much use on a Mars trip.
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There are a lot of people who enjoy wintering in Antarctica and serving on submarines. Probably a million of them out of 7 billion people (that's 1/700).
Some of that is less risky than it seems. (Score:3)
You claim if "any of that happens you are dead" but...
Well, if shit breaks you can get spare parts
Which you obviously pack more of on a ship to Mars, then in many scenarios get shipped to you about once a year while you are there.
Also of course, you do realize you ship a lot of spare equipment out ahead of time and don't go until you know it's safe???
Low on food?
How would that realistically happen on the trip out which would have packaged meals to last the trip + one year minimum on Mars (probably more).
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It's not really an adventure if you are dead within 1-3 months.
Going to Mars is not like going to the "Frontier" of old, where conditions may have been harsh, but ultimately survivable because the environment was fundamentally compatible with your biology.
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A very significant percentage of people going to "the frontier of old" DID die within a short period of time.
http://www.octa-trails.org/art... [octa-trails.org]
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If my playing of Oregon Trail is historically accurate, 98% died of dysentery.
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Re:Not hard to find volunteers (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not really an adventure if you are dead within 1-3 months.
Going to Mars is not like going to the "Frontier" of old, where conditions may have been harsh, but ultimately survivable because the environment was fundamentally compatible with your biology.
When you consider the levels of technology involved in the two cases, actually it is. I'm just back from Iceland, a place where in 871 CE the first Norsemen landed to find no trees, and the Arctic fox as the only animal. Everything else had to be brought in. And not on the high-tech ships Columbus used centuries in their future, but more like rowboats with sails. Once there, they had to build everything they needed out of stone and driftwood. That gave them the toehold it took to advance their hunting skills so that whale meat and whale bone could be added to their usable resources.
Today we have robot emissaries already crawling around on potential new worlds, pre-experiencing what humans will have to face. Knowing what awaits us on Mars, including being able to test manufacturing essentials, beats lack of atmosphere. In any given era, it is human nature to take any frontier we can take.
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In any given era, it is human nature to take any frontier we can take.
How many people are living in Antarctica? Actual colonizing: growing their own crops, raising children, manufacturing their own essentials, etc. How about interior Greenland? Gobi desert? How can you say that we're ready to colonize Mars when we haven't even colonized all the frontiers on this planet?
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How can you say that we're ready to colonize Mars when we haven't even colonized all the frontiers on this planet?
We can say this because it may in fact be easier to get to Mars and create a colony there than some places on Earth.
By "easier" that does not mean only technologically or logistically but also politically. Settling some places on Earth can mean getting your house bombed by someone that doesn't want you to live there, that's a political hurdle. Technologically it can mean things like trying to get to the Antarctic interior means battling harsh winds. We can (quite likely) land something on a windless (rel
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We can say this because it may in fact be easier to get to Mars and create a colony there than some places on Earth.
http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/88... [quickmeme.com]
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Air isn't much of a problem. As Slashdot pundits are fond of pointing out, the entire planet is covered with perchlorates, which are an excellent source of oxygen. Curiosity has found nitrogen too.
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The air argument is even sillier than that. Terrestrial planets are roughly 1/3 oxygen by mass. The fraction's a little higher for Mars due to its smaller iron core. The only thing needed to extract oxygen from rock is energy, and any serious smelting operation (likely based on molten oxide electrolysis) is going to produce huge amounts as a waste product. And any sort of settlement will be near ice deposits substantial enough to refuel the rockets for return, so you could just electrolyze a bit more water
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Bird eggs.
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The native 'trees you speak of were scrub butch, useless for any kind of construction, so they were rapidly cleared for sheep pasture and used as fire fuel. Lumber trees were then brought in and established in a few sheltered spots; in most of Iceland it's too windy. Even today, forestation projects look like Christmas tree farms, little stands of conifers all the same age.
For centuries, the only building materials were stone, sod, driftwood and whalebone.
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Maybe that guy who robbed a bank to get away from his wife can go.
Beats House arrest...with his wife.
50 ways to leave your mother... (Score:2)
Climb up the stairs, bears.
Get your ass to Mars, Lars.
And get yourself free.
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Or make sure half of them are and make sure they all sign waivers saying the understand that all rooms are monitored by cameras and they agree to be televised back on earth...
That was a joke answer but actually I think that would be pretty amazing for the world be to able to follow along with the lives of all people on Mars, and I'll be most volunteers would agree to it.
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Mars One planned to fund the project by producing a reality show.
Too bad when it gets cancelled.
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Knowing human nature, the final episode where everybody suffocates as they shut off the oxygen will get by far the best ratings of the series. Maybe that'll make enough money to fund the next expedition.
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Actually, that sounds pretty awesome. Maybe I'm could support this whole plan after all.
Obligatory Futurama (Score:2)
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
I think this will work (Score:2, Interesting)
Why are we doing this? (Score:2, Informative)
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Low G retirement. Live to be 150, maybe. The moon might be better, but we really don't know what the ideal G load for old farts raised in 1 G is.
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Naw, retirement's for the 1% (Score:2)
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Why would you expect that gravity has a significant impact on lifespan? Telomere shortening looks like the major impactor, but it's not clear to me whether or not that's followed or trailed by cancer.
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Cardio built for 1 G could have an easy job in 1/6. But there is no actual data for low G and very little (a few mouse lifespans IIRC) for zero.
Re:Why are we doing this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe Musk's stated reason is that it's good for the long-term survival of mankind to not have all of our eggs in one basket. It could take centuries to create a colony on Mars that is self-sufficient enough to live on indefinitely should Earth get stricken by an extinction level event. If we wait until an unavoidable threat to Earth is on the visible horizon, there might not be enough time left to build such a colony. Even if we ignore all that, however, a perfectly valid reason for going to Mars is simply because we can. Humans dedicate time and resources to all manner of endeavors that serve only to stoke our collective egos over what we're able to accomplish. If Musk and a ton of other people want to go to Mars simply because they think it would be a cool adventure, then that's good enough reason for them to do it.
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Re:Why are we doing this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't we have better things to be doing then this?
What, like invade third-world countries that pissed us off? Or sponsor another iteration of the Olympics? Or look at amusingly captioned photos of catst?
In a lot of cases, the potential benefits of doing something are impossible to know in advance, but maybe you just do it anyway because it looks like it would be a cool thing to do. This is one of those cases. If you don't think it's a promising avenue, go do something else instead; nobody will stop you.
How about solving public transportation first (Score:3)
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How are you going to smelt these minerals? Burn coal?
Electric arc furnaces. Probably driven by solar but nuclear might also be a possibility. Smelting such on industrial scales would create free oxygen to add to the atmosphere. If they could find a source of hydrogen or carbon which seem fairly rare on Mars, that could be turned into more water and carbon dioxide. In long term, it might make a bit of difference to the Martian atmosphere, but pretty much only because it is already so thin that it would be considered a medium vacuum here on Earth.
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They'd need a way to protect the atmosphere from solar wind and other dissipation mechanics before that would even be a relevant consideration. Pumping O2 or CO2 into the Martian atmosphere would quickly be equivalent to pumping it into space, and not especially useful.
Big problem is that Mars has essentially no gravitational field, which we presume is due to its core having cooled enough that its basically solid and not rotating. There's not really anything we can do about that. Bad movies aside, we don
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That's why it's all about industrial amounts. Mars is only losing a few grams of atmosphere a second to space. Once they really begin to start building, the net result will be positive once they are making more than 3000 kg of iron a day. Before that, they'll probably be sequestering such for use in tunnels, sealed habitats, and rockets anyway. What's released to the atmosphere will probably just be benefitial waste unless they start doing serious terraforming stuff like atmosphere processing plants like we
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The gravitation on Mars has nothing whatsoever to do with the temperature of the core, and is about 0.38 times that of Earth. The rate of atmospheric loss is negligible over human timescales, it took billions of years for it to thin to today's state and Mars supported long-lived bodies of liquid water for billions of years. And as for radiation, the current atmosphere of Mars already provides about 2-3 times the shielding that Earth's magnetosphere does, and shielding human habitats doesn't require covering
All we have to do is... (Score:2)
It is a little cold, but we can warm it up. It has a very helpful atmosphere, which, being primarily CO2 with some nitrogen and argon and a few other trace elements, means that we can grow plants on Mars just by compressing the atmosphere.
Just by compressing the atmosphere...? How do you compress an entire planet's atmosphere?
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eh, pump some atmosphere into an enclosed pressurized greenhouse
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Signed,
Space Nutter
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solar panels on Mars get about a third the energy they do on earth. so one just needs 3X the solar panels to get a job done, eh? your first claim is meaningless.
and then you assume no redundant systems, no spare parts, no resupply of a colony until they can make their own things....perhaps by using solar energy, since there won't be any complaints of an array that is "too big", what with all the unused real estate....
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solar panels on Mars get about a third the energy they do on earth. so one just needs 3X the solar panels to get a job done, eh? your first claim is meaningless.
Yeah, but in that case you'd need a company with solar technology and battery technology for this to be feasible, and also has the motivation to take on a task like this... oh wait. Hmm.
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Mars atmosphere is at 6 mBar. The energy requirements to pump the space (which will leak) will greatly exceed anything you'll be getting from solar. With unlimited nuclear energy then this becomes practical, but if the pumps break then you're fucked. Pumps break all the time. We can't even keep pumps on ship and oil rigs running reliably, how on earth are you going to manage to do it on Mars???????
No, if a pump breaks I'm not fucked. The habitat is not like a helicopter where if the motor dies you fall and die. It's more like a scuba tank, you pump it up once and it stays pressurized without any intervention on your part. You would only need to run the pump to replace air lost through airlock operation. If you have a problem with the pump, stop using the airlock until it's fixed.
And you would have more than one pump obviously.
People have been living in airtight pressurized vessels in orbit for decade
Re:All we have to do is... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Every "colonizing Mars" plan has these holes. People say "create an atmosphere" or "dig caves" to live in. With what? There is no Home Depot on Mars. How do you create an atmosphere? How do you keep it when there is no magnetosphere? It is a mystery! But who cares - we are going to MARS!
Perhaps if there was a company that created boring machines to make tunnels, like a Boring Company. Then smelt the iron and other metals from the oxides on Mars to finish the tunnel interiors, and use the left over oxygen to help fill the newly built tunnels.
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No serious person would suggest creating an atmosphere these days. Maybe they would have in the 50s or 60s but our knowledge of the planet (and in particular its lack of magnetosphere as you mentioned) has improved a lot since then.
For everything else though, much of it does depend on us being able to find and refine minerals and ores on the planet. It might not be a Home Depot, but it should allow a colony to be plenty self-sufficient if we can figure that one out, in the same way that they didn't ship a
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Every "colonizing Mars" plan has these holes. People say "create an atmosphere" or "dig caves" to live in. With what? There is no Home Depot on Mars. How do you create an atmosphere? How do you keep it when there is no magnetosphere? It is a mystery! But who cares - we are going to MARS!
Man, you're thinking way too limited! You identified the problem but thought small with the solutions. The first thing to do is to bury a lot of metal at the martian core so that it creates a magnetosphere, then you create an atmosphere (with compression?) that won't just get blown away.
Yeah man, MARS!!!!
The main point is as a species we are at risk (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking the sun's-eye view of Life As We Know It, it can all go away with a massive asteroid (that we can't see), a freak solar storm (that we'd see for about 8 minutes), or other event that could take us all out.
After that, all the science, all the technology, all the things we've done to separate ourselves from the rocks we kill each other with are gone. All because we are on a semi-closed system (planet Earth can take new mass in, and ejects minimal amounts of hydrogen).
It seems prudent to me that we make the ark (Stephenson wasn't the first to name it) and get at least some life (some of it with the ability to sustain the rest) off of this planet. That gives us a non-zero probability of surviving if an extinction level event should happen. We have a budget of billions of dollars spent on items of less importance, sometimes I wonder how we get priorities like this.
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It's not just our species, its all life (that we know of) that could not exist anymore. Yes, the universe existed for 10 billion years (or so) before this tiny pebble somehow had a remarkable series of events [amazon.com] occur...I'm not religious but life is special and until we know it exists anywhere else on the universe, it seems like its our responsibility to ensure it continues. Otherwise the universe will be boring.
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and before the grammar nazis get me, yes, I know I missed two apostrophes on the "it's". Someday Ill lurn to prrofreed.
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I never understood this argument. Why is it so critical for our race to not go extinct?
Because when it really comes down to it, that is the entire point of life.
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Why is it so critical for our race to not go extinct? Species go extinct all the time.
Why is it so critical for you to eat food? People die of starvation all the time.
Ah, I see -- you don't enjoy starvation and would prefer to avoid it. Similarly, humanity doesn't enjoy extinction, and would prefer to avoid it.
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Why is it so critical for our race to not go extinct?
In the grand scheme of things? Its not. In fact the universe will keep on turning even if all life everywhere was extinguished forever. The universe doesn't care about us. Or much of anything else for that matter. It just is.
In our own perspective though? We consider our survival a little more important than the rest of the universe does. It might not be "critical" but its certainly "highly desirable."
And of course if you're of the type, you could throw some God into the mix. Though he hasn't shown
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Re:The main point is as a species we are at risk (Score:4, Interesting)
That gives us a non-zero probability of surviving if an extinction level event should happen.
We already have a non-zero probability of surviving if an extinction level event should happen. Earth has been hit by extinction level events many times in its history and every single time its still had infinitely more life than Mars has ever had. Even if Earth were simultaneous hit be a nuclear war, global warming and an asteroid, it would still be more hospitable to life than Mars.
Mars IS an extinction level event. Every single second on Mars is a more hostile environment than Earth has ever been since life evolved. That's not a back up plan. That's a cult suicide pact.
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Earth has been hit by extinction level events many times in its history and every single time its still had infinitely more life than Mars has ever had.
Sure, life has always survived. Large organisms, not so much.
Every single second on Mars is a more hostile environment than Earth has ever been since life evolved. That's not a back up plan.
Nonsense. Oh, you're right that Mars is a more hostile environment than Earth, but that doesn't mean living there is impossible with the right technology. And if we can develop the technology to live reasonably well on Mars, then it is a disaster recovery plan, because it's far away from Earth.
That's a cult suicide pact.
Huh? How do you figure? The decision of some people to go to Mars won't in any way endanger the people who stay on Earth.
And there really is absolutely no
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With the possible exception of the Theia impact.
But more importantly, the Earth is in constant danger of being eaten by an enormous mutant star goat. It's vital that we load the middle managers into an ark and send them to Mars to be safe.
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And you know what? If that happens, chances are 99.9999% that me and all my friends and relatives will be gone to. Only a miniscule number of people
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Eventually there will be the heat death of the universe. Why bother doing anything at all? Why not just off ourselves right now?
Ultimately we do things because we can; all living things act within their limits. If it is possible for our particular strain of life form to extend those limits even for the brief flicker of time within the vast cosmic scale, we should.
Training (Score:2)
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but people live there and similar places. and most the million would be born there, not screened to live there
Robots (Score:2)
Musk is a strong believer in powerful AI coming soon. He should combine his two visions, and send robots to Mars so they can build a nice cozy house for him to live in, and enjoy the sunset.
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Physics is simple. Biology is complex. Humans are insane.
Bring back the sea dragon (Score:5, Interesting)
The sea dragon was a gigantic rocket designed to be as simple as possible. It was never done full scale, though small scale tests were done and the design was considered viable. It was designed to bring 550 tons to LEO, which is about the same as Musks's super rocket.
A few awesome facts about the sea dragon :
- 2 stages, with a single engine (the same) for each stage
- The first stage of the Saturn V can fit in the engine bell
- It is a pressurized tank design. No turbo-pumps, the engine is basically 2 valves and an igniter
- The first stage burns kerosene + LOX. Regular kerosene, not the more expensive RP-1. The 2nd stage uses hydrogen
- Designed to be launched directly from the sea, with most of the rocket being underwater. The rocket would be powerful enough to destroy any launchpad anyways.
- Made from 8mm sheet steel, in a ship yard, using the same techniques they use to build submarines
- Reuseable. It is designed to be able to resist a fall back into water. No costly delicate parts to break
The whole idea behind this rocket was to make things BIG instead of complex. It is terribly inefficient compared to current designs but it is so huge that it doesn't matter.
plan makes no sense (Score:2)
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The plan involves refueling in orbit. The needs for and benefits of doing so are one of the first topics addressed by the paper. As for the moon, you'd spend more propellant landing on the moon than you would going straight to Mars, and you'd need to deliver far more mass to set up ice mining operations on the moon than you would need on Mars. The moon is a place to go if you want to go to the moon, but it's not an easier target, and if you want to go to Mars it's only an expensive detour.
Most Critical Things Missed (so far) in Plan (Score:4)
Like many, I am excited about what SpaceX is trying to do. I am often trying to fill in the blanks they've left, though. Here are a few:
1. Gravity. I've long advocated a broad pill-shaped vessel for distant space travel. Spin can be used to simulate gravity but too much will create an uncomfortable corealis effect (dizziness, and the feeling of being pushed walking one way, pulled walking the other). Zero corealis is when the spin is 2 rpm or less but even at 8 rpm, the effects are reasonably negligible. For 2 rpm and Earth-like gravity, the craft would have to be 400 meters in diameter.
The colonial transporter does seem to have bare walls in the lower occupiable deck. It looks like they may be able to put spinning crew quarters in there with perhaps a bit better than moon-like gravity. One could design a toilet to flush with splash-guards in that environment. If a curfew is put into effect, one could increase the rate of spin after lights out, such as to perhaps greatly reduce the long term effects of weightlessness... then slow it back down again just before wake-up time. The transition between a weightful and weightless environment can be disorienting but I presume one could reasonably adapt in low gravity to no gravity.
2. Carbon Monoxide. For the colony on Mars itself, nobody (not even NASA) seems to be talking about the CO risk. CO will inevitably find itself way into habitation chambers and at some point, silently kill. Mars CO levels are trace gas but in deadly percentages. CO is very small and is not easily contained--it will seep through most containment materials.
My solution would be to standardize on hydrogen combustion for heating, cooking, smelting, and other activities requiring high heat. The ambient air will draw in the CO with the oxygen destroying it. Of course, CO monitors must be kept in working order at all times. Hydrogen is easily obtainable through electrolysis of water--which is plentiful in the soils of Mars.
3. Oxygen Toxicity. This criticism has been made of the Mars One project's published plans. In order to grow enough food to feed a certain number of people, you will inevitably also create more oxygen than they can consume and convert to CO2 through breathing. When too much oxygen builds up, it ultimately freezes the lungs from which the crystalization causes irreparable cellular damage... and death.
My solution for Oxygen Toxicity is the same as for Carbon Monoxide--combust hydrogen to create heat. Any combustion will consume large amounts of oxygen but combusting hydrogen also solves the CO problem. Mars is very cold and heat it needed for many things.
4. Heat Dissipation. Most seem concerned with generating and retaining heat in Mars' cold environment. However, heat loss on Mars will not be as rapid as it is on Earth because the atmosphere is thinner. Yes, thin atmosphere equals cold. However, exchange of heat requires molecules to come in contact with each other and when the air density is 1% or even a bit less than on Earth, don't expect the freezing to happen within seconds. A well insulated habitat is likely to over-heat, if no cooling system is available... even perhaps from body heat.
I propose running cooling coils spread out into the Martian regolith, with ammonia as the heat exchange liquid. The regolith will be fully cooled and, mostly of silica, will very rapidly move heat away. Ammonia will not freeze at Martian temperatures and is readily made by the human body--in pee.
5. Mental and Emotional Well-Being. Elon Musk's claims that the voyages will be fun seems hopeful but naive. Zero-G games, crew quarters, movies, and lecture halls, and a restaurant (aka glorified cafeteria) will all become old, quickly. Although the privacy of personal quarters, the challenges of games, and various forms of leisure are highly saught after on Earth, that is because we work so much. The truth is, having the stress and feeling of importance of your activities are more essential for human happiness.
Does Musk remind anyone else of this person? (Score:2)
Does Musk remind anyone else of S.R. Hadden from Contact?
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Why else do you think all the billionaires are pursuing stuff like life extension and rocketry? They want to live forever and not with you, peasants.
This is exactly correct. It's been true throughout all of human history.
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And if you talk to the people pushing for life extension, they want it for *everyone*.
That's a noble idea, but it's the ultra-wealthy who will decide.
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Elon Musk only got media attention after Steve Jobs died. It's a Highlander scenario.
Still better than... (Score:2)
Still better than...Captain Donner: "Welcome aboard, please join us for dinner."
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Any great project starts with a vision. The details of this one are extremely expensive and challenging, but I don't think they are physically/technically impossible. Although I will concede they are economically impossible at the moment.
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They are technologically impossible at the moment. Economics does not even come into it.
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Nobody says anything about doing nothing for 100 years. But remember that we still have no permanent base on the moon and that one is orders of magnitudes simpler as it _can_ be supplied from Earth? In fact, we do not have a replacement project for the ISS at this time. This tells me that 100 years for a realistic attempt at a permanent human presence on Mars is optimistic. Of course that also requires that human civilization does not go down the drains in that time and there are some rather huge challenges
But Does He Explain... (Score:2)
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What?
Don't they need to do a 5 year EIS? Mars is pristine. What if they introduce pathogenic that wipe out whatever life may be hiding there?
Not really. The entire planet is covered with perclorates which are sterilizing agents.
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The article talks about their plans for building a rocket. I really would like to know about the plans for *colonization*.
Don't you worry yourself about the details. Just get on the rocket [wikipedia.org].