[BortimusPrime]

This is stupid, we don't even have a good space station in Earth orbit yet. Putting people on Mars means having to land a bunch of crap on Mars with its thin atmosphere, and once you're down there you're trapped because no one is going to pay the billions of dollars to pull your fucking ass out of that gravity well once you decide spending the rest of your life in an aluminum box won't be fun after all.

It makes a lot more sense to try and drag a small asteroid into Earth orbit, mine it out to build a space station, and then spin that station up for artificial gravity. The people living on that station at least would have the option to return to Earth. A necessary first step in space colonization is being able to sustain a population in an artificial environment. Dealing with the gravity and weather of other planets should come later.

[Captainstabbin]

Musk keeps announcing bigger projects to distract from the problems of his existing projects.

What are we up to, 7? Batteries, Solar, Power Packs, Cars, Trains, Rockets, and now Mars habitats. Any one of these projects would require 100% dedication, instead he keeps giggling his way through press conferences hoping no one realizes that Google and Apple are about to destroy Tesla forever. Or that Tesla had to buy Solar City's debt to save him from the embarrassment (and drop in investor confidence) when it went bankrupt, or that his rockets keep blowing up, or that he had to switch up the Powerwall product line to disguise the fact that they weren't selling, or that he keeps missing timelines, or that he's lost money for 3 years straight, or that he makes customers sign non disclosure agreements to fix their cars to avoid bad press, or that his companies are kept afloat by government handouts and cronyism, or that he's losing employees...the list goes on.

Elon acts like a man in a heavy mania episode. But he's charismatic enough and has enough government backing to charm investors and keep the ride going.

[Glaucon]

But why would we want to go to Mars? It sucks to live there, you can't even go outside without dying.

[The Beast1]

My complaint with Musk is that he tries to run before he's even learned to crawl.

Trip to Mars? Why not the moon first? Why don't we establish a moon base first and properly send folks to and from it?

He hasn't solved the problem of micro gravity and worse, Mars has no magnetosphere meaning you will get a massive dose of solar and cosmic radiation.

Personally, his electric cars are a joke. They use an ass ton of chinese made laptop batteries. Why not build a fleet of cheap cheap cars using american sourced natural gas?

I'm not happy with him milking the government for the priviledge to do this. This isn't a point of a mars colony beyond saying, "we did it!"

Let's mine an asteroid first. He'd at least get a massive return on his investment.

(09-28-2016 09:07 PM)Slim Shady Wrote:  

..
Humanity has an expiration date -> when the Solar System becomes uninhabitable as we approach the death of the Sun.

The death of the sun will occur in about 5 billion years. The earth will probably become inhospitable around 1 billion years.

Modern humans have only been on the earth for 200,000 years (with our ancestors spanning 6 million years).

Needless to say, this is a problem that is in no need for an immediate fix.

[britchard]

[Captainstabbin]

(09-29-2016 01:28 AM)britchard Wrote:  

Was the landing ever released? It must have been recorded.

WB the chubby blonde in the blue dress...

[BossOfBosses]

Sending humans to Mars right now, given current technology, is just not a good idea. On top of that, given Musk's track record of spectacular launch fails/blowups and crashing his self-driving teslas, I wouldn't have the greatest confidence in his ability to send me to Mars or keep me alive. He's putting the proverbial cart before the horse. Fix and perfect those issues first, then think about bigger ambitious projects.

Musk is heading into "Theranos" territory here with all the media love he's getting yet little provable concepts. He's not really a producer or a particularly talented inventor, but he's a helluva salesman/hypeman. He's backed by hundreds of millions in government contracts and subsidies, a media circus that tracks and glorifies his every move, and a captive public/investors that doesn't realize what's going on.

I'd be willing to bet money he won't be on the first flight to Mars or even the second. The poor sods who'll make up that mission are essentially his guinea pigs. Elon leads from the back, because....it's safer and he knows better.

[weambulance]

Since people keep saying he has a problem with rockets blowing up, I feel I should point out SpaceX's unmanned mission success rate is the same as NASA's. Presumably, just like NASA, they would be much more careful if real people were onboard.

I'd be happier colonizing near Earth space than heading straight for Mars, FWIW.

[The Beast1]

Elon would do far better to send folks to the moon. He can even get them to snap selfies next to the lunar lander!

[Benoit]

(09-29-2016 01:25 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

My complaint with Musk is that he tries to run before he's even learned to crawl.

Trip to Mars? Why not the moon first? Why don't we establish a moon base first and properly send folks to and from it?

The Moon is already considered 'owned' by multiple nations thanks to international treaties.

The science for getting people there is already solved, and can only be improved. Mars requires a totally different scale of engineering effort, and is more likely to trigger innovations.

Even if they fail to get to Mars, their tech advances will be available for other missions.

[Suits]

(09-29-2016 03:55 AM)Benoit Wrote:  

(09-29-2016 01:25 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

My complaint with Musk is that he tries to run before he's even learned to crawl.

Trip to Mars? Why not the moon first? Why don't we establish a moon base first and properly send folks to and from it?

The Moon is already considered 'owned' by multiple nations thanks to international treaties.

The science for getting people there is already solved, and can only be improved. Mars requires a totally different scale of engineering effort, and is more likely to trigger innovations.

Even if they fail to get to Mars, their tech advances will be available for other missions.

No one has established a settlement of any kind on the moon. That has not been accomplished. Mars might be sexier, but no one should be seriously considering sending people to their deaths on Mars until there have been a few legendary deaths on the moon first.

Dealing with the diplomatic implication of establishing a long term settlement on the moon would be much easier than establishing the same sort of settlement on Mars without at least a few years of experience and learning on the moon first.

[The Beast1]

(09-29-2016 03:55 AM)Benoit Wrote:  

(09-29-2016 01:25 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

My complaint with Musk is that he tries to run before he's even learned to crawl.

Trip to Mars? Why not the moon first? Why don't we establish a moon base first and properly send folks to and from it?

The Moon is already considered 'owned' by multiple nations thanks to international treaties.

The science for getting people there is already solved, and can only be improved. Mars requires a totally different scale of engineering effort, and is more likely to trigger innovations.

Even if they fail to get to Mars, their tech advances will be available for other missions.

It'll be owned until someone pulls out a sword and makes it their own.
Until then, it's open for the taking.

[Sooth]

I want to like this guy but haven't seen enough.

Hes a terrible public speaker. Hard to listen to but also gives me hope because this is the opposite of someone like Steve Jobs who was putting the medias microphones in his ass.

So far it seams like hes actually serious about making the world better.

The other thing thing that I'm not sure about yet is that the space race is now from a private company rather than "the government".

[Hannibal]

This would be like if I walked into a hardware store, grabbed a couple of nuts and bolts off the shelves, then declared to everyone in there that I was building a plane capable of transcontinental flight and then start selling tickets.

Also that video is hilarious.

"There's no wifi in the middle of the ocean."

[scorpion]

I agree with Slim Shady that there's a certain long term value in what Musk is trying to do. Unfortunately, I don't think he's going about it the right way. He seems to be building a house of cards built on hype and government subsidy. At some point it will inevitably come crashing down, at which time it will become apparent that despite the name of his premier company, Elon Musk has more in common with Elizabeth Holmes than he does with Nikola Tesla.

[MrFish]

It's funny to me how safe you all seem to feel here on Earth.

While scientists find out more and more about the universe they also find more and more ways in which life on Earth could be wiped out. Our sun dying is just one of the many, many factors that threaten us with extinction.

Comets, solar flares, black holes, gamma ray bursts... All pose a significant threat to our continued existence and a lot of them cannot be accurately predicted by modern day science.

We don't have billions of years. We might not even have tomorrow. We need to spread through our solar system, our galaxy and beyond to be able to guarantee the survival of our species and we need to do it as fast as we can.

[The Beast1]

(09-29-2016 06:52 AM)MrFish Wrote:  

It's funny to me how safe you all seem to feel here on Earth.

While scientists find out more and more about the universe they also find more and more ways in which life on Earth could be wiped out. Our sun dying is just one of the many, many factors that threaten us with extinction.

Comets, solar flares, black holes, gamma ray bursts... All pose a significant threat to our continued existence and a lot of them cannot be accurately predicted by modern day science.

We don't have billions of years. We might not even have tomorrow. We need to spread through our solar system, our galaxy and beyond to be able to guarantee the survival of our species and we need to do it as fast as we can.

We can achieve everything you want by going to the moon first.

Again I say, you don't run, you crawl, walk, and then run. We're at the crawl stage.

Going to the moon solves the following:

1. Understanding the long term health effects of humans living in environments that have less gravity than the earth.
2. Understanding cosmic radiation and its effects on humans.
3. Figuring out how to handle the supply chain problem and building things locally while waiting for a resupply.
4. Growing food and bringing animals and understanding points 1 and 2 effects on them as well.

Until then, this is just a personality cult and lemmings getting swept up into it. Don't be like the folks who got fooled by Theranos.

[MrFish]

(09-29-2016 07:42 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

We can achieve everything you want by going to the moon first.

Interesting point of view. I did a quick search to see what the pros/cons are for colonising the moon instead of Mars. Seems like Mars has the advantage though. This article sums it up nicely it seems:

http://www.nss.org/settlement/mars/zubrin-colonize.html

Basically the moon is less fit for colonisation due to much lower gravity, month long day/night cycles, extreme heat differences and most importantly the absence of an atmosphere.

The major downside for Mars is off course the much greater distance that needs to be traveled. But when talking about colonisation, as in staying there for a very long time, it's probably worth it.

[Malone]

I am a big fan of Musk.

That said, going to Mars is all dick and no brain. There's no point at all. There's little point to the moon, either.

First we need some real orbital infrastructure. An actual space station in a high orbit, not that toy we have now. We need to bring an asteroid into earth orbit (maybe 2 - ice and nickel) and use it to fuel and create new stuff. We need massive power generation. We either need to bring the cost to orbit way down or start producing a lot more in space.

One that's done, we need to start building larger scale orbital habitats. There's little on Mars or the moon that makes living in space easier other than some raw materials. Those are better taken from asteroids since then you don't need to deal with another gravity well.

Anyway, I like the pressure Musk and SpaceX is putting on the rest of world. It won't be long before we're in space again, I hope. Maybe for real this time. This is what I want:





If you're rich enough and don't do something stupid you'll live to visit or live on one of these, barring apocalypse. By rich enough, I mean rich enough to afford the incremental life extension that will get you there. I expect to live at least a hundred more years.

Musk is an optimist, gotta love him.

[TheFinalEpic]

^^ The science behind these "Halos" is pretty fascinating. Still my favourite childhood video game.

[Alsos]

Malone, you may want to check out these essays on the topic of O'Neill colonies:
http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archive..._1_18.html
http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archive..._1_19.html

--

It's funny reading some of the opinions here, and how rooted they are in a scarcity mindset and a rejection of ambition. Here, of all places!

Going to Mars does not preclude any other activities in space (Earth orbit, Moon, asteroids, etc.) - and would in fact facilitate them. It's perfectly reasonable to question the crony capitalism and taxpayer subsidies involved in Musk's ventures, but much as I hate it myself it may well be a more effective and successful use of taxpayer money than the vastly higher sums flushed down the NASA toilet every year, and may in the long run cause NASA to spend less.

While I don't like Musk and have regarded him as a charlatan from day one, I have to give him props for having huge ambitions and actually working to achieve them, however impractical or unrealistic they may seem (or may turn out to be). Even if he ultimately fails, he's shifted the perceptions of what can be done in space. There used to be this thing called the "giggle factor", in which the public and investors saw space as the province of government agencies and a few huge companies - space was hard and expensive, so talk of space entrepreneurialism let alone colonization was the province of nerdy kooks who read too much sci-fi. But notice how many private space companies and sub-industries (think cubesats and microsat constellations and launch-sharing services) that have popped up since he founded SpaceX in 2003 - and then think back to 2003 and how "private space" amounted to Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, Loral and other companies that act as subsidiaries of the US Government (or the similar counterparts in Europe, China, and Russia). That wouldn't have happened had Musk merely talked about what was possible to do now, with off-the-shelf technology, and how he could do the same as the big companies the way they've always done things only in some way incrementally more efficiently - we know this, because every previous entrepreneur in space had talked that way, had soft-pedaled ambition and vision in favor of non-threatening, realistic, marketable practicality. And they failed.

Even if Musk eventually fails, he has killed the "giggle factor" just by articulating his ambitions and acting on them. So, yes, criticize his picking your pockets to do it, absolutely. But rethink criticizing him for having big dreams and a big vision, especially when (charlatan or not) he kicked off a revolution of the entire industry as a result.

[Rhyme or Reason]

(09-28-2016 06:51 PM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:  

Musk's vision is simple, save the world. First, replace fossil fuel cars with electric cars charged from roof top solar panels. Second, establish an off planet copy of human civilization, so we don't have all our eggs in one basket. Probably not many people on this forum are as ambitious in their goals.

Excuse me? What did you just say? Are you not familiar with a user by the name of NASA Test Pilot? I'm pretty sure he already has a colony on mars and has seen the inside of a black hole and lived to tell about it, and apparently that's where Little Dark was born.

[Glaucon]

Fuck Mars, lets dream really big

[Laner]

I can't even pretend to understand how a man like Musk lives in his own mind. I have likely never met anyone like him.

But I do know people who can't seem to sit still, people who are just doers. They always seem to be starting things. The difference between Musk and these people, though, comes down to money.

Musk has a massive advantage in that he has inspired many people due to his ability to continue pushing the envelope. Six years ago people were against Tesla, and could not believe that it would ever be worth anything. But I saw in Musk a doer, someone who would put other skeptical and careful men to create, and someone who I wouldn't mind putting money towards. I gave him $1000, bought some Tesla shares at $27. As the cars began rolling off the line, people were knocking each other over to give him $250 a share. It worked, it inspired.

People are wrapped up in his solar game at the moment. But they get lost in the idea that his solar farms are here on earth. His mind is in the stars. But hey, if he can get people to invest in his solar (not me, no way) than good for him. The link between electric vehicles and solar electricity tick all the right boxes these days. But this solar game he plays on earth will work 100 times better on a Martian colony. Prove it on earth, take it to Mars. All the while being funded by investors and government.

He knows that NA transportation is dead. We have too many vehicles running on petrol. Everyone knows this, and he offers up the quick solution. Now everyone is running at it trying to take out Tesla. I don't think he cares in the least, as his motivation is to get vehicles off of petrol, and damn rights we should. In the six years since Tesla we now have self driving cars. His ideas, by being a doer, get other cautious men off of their asses and into the game.

Like he did with his other projects, his idea to colonize mars is focused on NASA. This is the agency he is after. NASA has given us an idea of what is there, what the minerals are, the science of it. Going to Mars is getting other big thinkers into the game, and perhaps even the beginning of the end for NASA. The young and rag tag group of big thinking doers that put NASA on the stage back in the day are now over at SpaceX. The bloated bureaucratic nightmare is over at NASA.

To me its not about supporting the man, but the vision. I know he has the vision, and has, fortunately for us, found his home and businesses in the USA. Men like him, like Henry Ford and others, can create MASSIVE industries by being a target.

That is why he gave away Hyperloop. He let himself be a target to the men always striving to be him, but always being too cautious to get there. And now, barely two years later, we have a Hyperloop tested and proven in the Arizona desert by men who have little to do with Musk.

This is the man I think he is, and God only knows we need more like him.

[AboveAverageJoe]

Current environmental living conditions on Earth: Currently not-sustainable for long term life.
Current environmental living conditions on Mars: Currently definitely not sustainable.
Musk can't even build a self-driving car without killing people, you are gonna let this sperg launch you to Mars?