Mars Colonization Discussion Thread

[tater]

2 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

It does for Mars.  

Show your work, please.

[Diche Bach]

Just now, DAL59 said:

It does for Mars.  

Details? What are the rewards for the principals and backers? What are the inevitable rewards to humanity: meaning, the rewards even if the short-cut methods followed contribute to catastophic failure, 100% fatalities bankruptcies, suicides, and tragedy on the news for months on end?

Failure is not an option, at least not if the point is to PROMOTE this Multiplanetary species thing. The first three missions must be utterly successful or the whole zeitgeist might be set back decades.

[tater]

Just now, DAL59 said:

The ITS is sustainable.  Plenty of money from satellites and point to point transport.  

Sats yes, point to point seems pretty dubious until some distant future where it is demonstrated airliner safe.

[DAL59]

Risk- Musk himself has admitted that it is very high.  However, there will be precursor landings, and again, nobody i being forced onto the ship.

Just now, tater said:

point to point seems pretty dubious

True, for passengers...but for the military, they would really, really want a reusable, high payload rocket that can get anywhere in an hour with little danger of being attacked.

Rewards- science, extreme reputation, national pride, off world habitat, global recognition

[Diche Bach]

On 10/6/2017 at 12:14 PM, GreenWolf said:

Planets are a distraction.

I expect all of you are familiar with the extreme delta-v requirements necessary for landing or launching something on a planet.So I'm going to pose this question:

If you have the technology to create a closed-cycle life support system that is self-sustaining (or needs only a relatively small amount of occasional materials inputs) and capable of indefinitely supporting human habitation in space, why would you go to the trouble of building it on the surface of another planet, which would require you to haul everything up and down two gravity wells and across vast interplanetary distances?

Gravity? Well, Mars doesn't have very much of that in the first place, and it's trivial to build a counter-weight and tether system to provide centrifugal gravity.

Minerals? Maybe, but anything you can get from Mars, you can get far more easily from asteroids. In fact, there's a lot of things you can get from asteroids that you can't get from Mars, like phosphorus.

Water? Same deal as before, get your ice from comets and asteroids.

Radiation shielding? Here Mars has a slight advantage, in that it has more space available to put stuff beneath several meters of rock. But it's not too hard to add some layers of shielding to a spacecraft. If you really want to go the distance, you can hollow out an asteroid and use that as your living space.

 

There is nothing on Mars or which can be provided by Mars that cannot be obtained more easily from small-mass asteroids. Colonizing planets is a foolish distraction, the idea of which is only kept alive by naive romanticism. We should be focusing on building arkships and asteroid habitats, which pose far fewer engineer challenges and have the added benefit of being mobile. (Or mobile enough that we could set one [or two, or three, or a hundred] up to slowboat out of the solar system, thereby ensuring the continued survival of the human species, even if, say, a gamma ray burst scoured the life from every planet in the system.)

TL;DR: Mars ain't the kind of place to raise a kid.

So well said. Beautiful.

[DAL59]

2 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

Planets are a distraction.

I expect all of you are familiar with the extreme delta-v requirements necessary for landing or launching something on a planet.So I'm going to pose this question:

If you have the technology to create a closed-cycle life support system that is self-sustaining (or needs only a relatively small amount of occasional materials inputs) and capable of indefinitely supporting human habitation in space, why would you go to the trouble of building it on the surface of another planet, which would require you to haul everything up and down two gravity wells and across vast interplanetary distances?

Gravity? Well, Mars doesn't have very much of that in the first place, and it's trivial to build a counter-weight and tether system to provide centrifugal gravity.

Minerals? Maybe, but anything you can get from Mars, you can get far more easily from asteroids. In fact, there's a lot of things you can get from asteroids that you can't get from Mars, like phosphorus.

Water? Same deal as before, get your ice from comets and asteroids.

Radiation shielding? Here Mars has a slight advantage, in that it has more space available to put stuff beneath several meters of rock. But it's not too hard to add some layers of shielding to a spacecraft. If you really want to go the distance, you can hollow out an asteroid and use that as your living space.

 

There is nothing on Mars or which can be provided by Mars that cannot be obtained more easily from small-mass asteroids. Colonizing planets is a foolish distraction, the idea of which is only kept alive by naive romanticism. We should be focusing on building arkships and asteroid habitats, which pose far fewer engineer challenges and have the added benefit of being mobile. (Or mobile enough that we could set one [or two, or three, or a hundred] up to slowboat out of the solar system, thereby ensuring the continued survival of the human species, even if, say, a gamma ray burst scoured the life from every planet in the system.)

TL;DR: Mars ain't the kind of place to raise a kid.

This is true.  I expect most space colonists to live in oneill cylinders, however, I think there will be at least some cities on Mars.  

Due to expanded scientific outpost,

consistent launch windows, and you don't have to redirect asteroids.

[Diche Bach]

Martian holiday resorts is something I could get behind . . .as long as they can meet the same safety standards that Disney World meets! 

[tater]

Moving asteroids takes very little other than time. Robots don't care about time.

Even orbital colonies require a reason for large numbers of people to be in space. What is the reason? Hard-hat wearing space factory workers? Asteroids mined---by humans with pick axes? What?

1 minute ago, Diche Bach said:

Martian holiday resorts is something I could get behind . . .as long as they can meet the same safety standards that Disney World meets! 

Maybe in the post singularity world of super intelligent AI. Before that, who would get off work for over a year to vacation on Mars  .

[Diche Bach]

Just now, tater said:

Moving asteroids takes very little other than time. Robots don't care about time.

Even orbital colonies require a reason for large numbers of people to be in space. What is the reason? Hard-hat wearing space factory workers? Asteroids mined---by humans with pick axes? What?

Imagine the rollercoasters on Mars though!

[Green Baron]

@Diche Bach, you are absolutely right with your doubts.

The ITS was a presentation of last year (or so). It is cancelled and will never be built.

Then Musk came up with the BFR, a downsized version of it. It is in the state of being thought over, nothing of it really exists, not even an engine (a small sized version).

A journeay to mars might take 3-4 months if phase angles are right, but you need to wait there (idk; a year ?) before being able to return. So all in all 2 years are a reasonable estimation of the timeframe people would have to be kept alive in micro-gravity, radiation and on a planet without any known resources to keep them alive.

ISRU is a dream, no refinery for rocket engine digestible fuel exists that fits in 1000 BFRs, and even the presence and exploitability of resources are unclear.

So, Mars for people like Musk remains a dream for at least 20 more years, maybe a group of specially trained astronauts makes it earlier bit i doubt it.

 

Remember: FH should have flown 2013. It' scheduled for the 29th of december now. I hope they make it until then, but it is not sure, there are still incalculables as Musk himself admitted.

[Diche Bach]

Just now, Green Baron said:

@Diche Bach, you are absolutely right with your doubts.

The ITS was a presentation of last year (or so). It is cancelled and will never be built.

Then Musk came up with the BFR, a downsized version of it. It is in the state of being thought over, nothing of it really exists, not even an engine (a small sized version).

A journeay to mars might take 3-4 months if phase angles are right, but you need to wait there (idk; a year ?) before being able to return. So all in all 2 years are a reasonable estimation of the timeframe people would have to be kept alive in micro-gravity, radiation and on a planet without any known resources to keep them alive.

ISRU is a dream, no refinery for rocket engine digestible fuel exists that fits in 1000 BFRs, and even the presence and exploitability of resources are unclear.

So, Mars for people like Musk remains a dream for at least 20 more years, maybe a group of specially trained astronauts makes it earlier bit i doubt it.

 

Remember: FH should have flown 2013. It' scheduled for the 29th of december now. I hope they make it until then, but it is not sure, there are still incalculables as Musk himself admitted.

Thank you, for reaffirming my sanity and general "up-to-datedness" with techno-dreaming.

[tater]

I think you are overly pessimistic on BFR, @Green Baron. They are planning on making parts by the middle of next year. They already built and tested a 12m carbon fiber tank to destruction. Scaling up the Raptor is not that big a deal, they have loads of experience in this area with Merlin.

I'm not saying the task is trivial, but I think they are spot-on in their business model. NG will be flying in the same sort of timeframe as they want BFR, and BO is a real threat to their current commercial dominance in launches.

[Diche Bach]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

Moving asteroids takes very little other than time. Robots don't care about time.

Even orbital colonies require a reason for large numbers of people to be in space. What is the reason? Hard-hat wearing space factory workers? Asteroids mined---by humans with pick axes? What?

Maybe in the post singularity world of super intelligent AI. Before that, who would get off work for over a year to vacation on Mars  .

"Super intelligent AI . . ." is that an app that can tie its own shoes, doesn't like to stand in the rain, and can understand why my Dachsund likes to play "fetch?"

Or one that can beat a grand master board game player more than 50% of the time?

I'm thinking a pet Goldfish has more "intelligence" than either of those, but that's just 30 years of training and research in the biological and behavioral sciences making me a cranky old skeptic . . .

[Green Baron]

1 minute ago, tater said:

I think you are overly pessimistic on

 

Actually, i may not sound like i would, but naturally i do hope so !

[DAL59]

4 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

It is in the state of being thought over, nothing of it really exists, not even an engine (a small sized version).

SpaceX will divert all of its employees to work on it.  They already have moved many employees to just ITS work.  He is serious about this.

[tater]

I'm not an AI alarmist who thinks that AI is right around the corner, but I think it has a non-zero probability within the lifetime of my children.

Intelligent systems need not be self-aware, they only need be competent at human level intellectual tasks. A system that could write code, for example, at a basic human level would be self-improving at a rate that is impossible to determine.

[DAL59]

6 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

on a planet without any known resources to keep them alive.

sabatier reaction.  And there is plenty of ice.  And they can carry enough food for 2 years.

Just now, tater said:

Intelligent systems need not be self-aware, they only need be competent at human level intellectual tasks. A system that could write code, for example, at a basic human level would be self-improving at a rate that is impossible to determine.

http://stargate.inf.elte.hu/~seci/fun/Kurzweil, Ray - Singularity Is Near, The (hardback ed) [v1.3].pdf

[tater]

1 minute ago, DAL59 said:

SpaceX will divert all of its employees to work on it.  They already have moved many employees to just ITS work.  He is serious about this.

No, not all.

F9 use, which SpaceX must do until a replacement is actually available, requires that they continue to make Merlin vac engines, and upper stages at the very least (assuming reuses S1, and reused fairings).

[Diche Bach]

Just now, DAL59 said:

SpaceX will divert all of its employees to work on it.  They already have moved many employees to just ITS work.  He is serious about this.

I'll believe he is serious when he sells Tesla and liquidates all other non-space-exploration assets, save only a nest egg for he and his partner to grow old on (and enough for his kids to make it through college age).

He talks about ultimate existential human goals but then he doesn't lead the way by putting in all his chips . . . Phfft . . .

[DAL59]

8 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

FH should have flown 2013.

They decided to spend time making the falcon 9 reusable.  Originally, the Falcon Heavy would have been expendable.

1 minute ago, Diche Bach said:

He talks about ultimate existential human goals but then he doesn't lead the way by putting in all his chips

He need to save some of his personal money to put into his company if it starts failing.

[tater]

Just now, Diche Bach said:

I'll believe he is serious when he sells Tesla and liquidates all other non-space-exploration assets, save only a nest egg for he and his partner to grow old on (and enough for his kids to make it through college age).

He talks about ultimate existential human goals but then he doesn't lead the way by putting in all his chips . . . Phfft . . .

This is unfair. He has multiple interests, which is fine. He has said his goal in accumulating wealth is to spend it on this project, however (wealth above his quite nice lifestyle).

[Diche Bach]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

I'm not an AI alarmist who thinks that AI is right around the corner, but I think it has a non-zero probability within the lifetime of my children.

Intelligent systems need not be self-aware, they only need be competent at human level intellectual tasks. A system that could write code, for example, at a basic human level would be self-improving at a rate that is impossible to determine.

A fascinating discussion, we should get into in some other thread so we don't distract. I too am not an alarmist, but I am a skeptic through and through, and most things people refer to as "AI" at this point strike me as more like "fancy apps" which are almost strictly one trick ponies.

[DAL59]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

No, not all.

F9 use,

correct.  However, they will discontinue the F9 and FH after the ITS.

[tater]

Just now, DAL59 said:

correct.  However, they will discontinue the F9 and FH after the ITS.

After it is operational they will transition. Not sure what they'd do with them if a BFR launch is cheaper, however. 

[Diche Bach]

Just now, tater said:

This is unfair. He has multiple interests, which is fine. He has said his goal in accumulating wealth is to spend it on this project, however (wealth above his quite nice lifestyle).

No, I don't think it is unfair. If he jettisoned the "Multiplanetary Species" bit, then it would be unfair.

He markets as if he is a Messiah, but he fails to behave like one.

I already said, I don't blame if he holds back a sufficient nest egg for he and his partner and kids to make it through the next ~30 years. That is far more than 95% of Earth citizens have at their disposal so I don't think it is possible to be "unfair" to Mr. Musk by subjecting his posh middle-class schemes to commentary.

Want to convince me you are not a snake oil salesman Mr. Musk? Prove it financially. Put all your chips into your "Multiplanetary Species" moralizing.