Nibb31

So it isn't self-sufficient after all. Not many people want to live in a complete anarchy, controlled by either corporations or thugs. No government also means no public service, no rights, no justice, no protection. You can't really have much of a society without at least some form of government.

Biosphere 2 was a spectacular failure. Mars-500 was a mostly a behavioral experiment and wasn't in close loop. BIOS-3 kept 4 or 5 people alive successfully for 180 days. None of these are actually self sufficient though. They rely on carrying enough supplies, just like the ISS. The goal for a self sufficient colony is to be able to survive even if supplies stop arriving. Also, extending the same techniques to keep 100 people alive is an order of magnitude more difficult.

It makes sense as long as people stick to the silly analogies involving Columbus or the Union Pacific Railroad. It is totally different. In the past, colonization was driven by strong political motives. When free enterprise was involved, there was always a government backing it. There were actual resources, and both private and government investments were driven by the expectation of large economical returns. There were also populations willing to populate these lands, driven by the promise of a better life for themselves and their children. For Mars, there is are no government grants, no land plots. There is no business model that promises any economical return. There is no better life awaiting the people who go there (unless you're so miserable that you're willing to sell your suburban house to live the rest of your life in a hab module eating hydroponic tofu). The only thing driving this effort is one billionnaire's personal dream.

But SpaceX has zero interest in Martian agriculture. Musk specifically said that he is focusing on transportation only, and is leaving the rest to others to figure out. He wants to be the Union Pacific Railroad of Mars (as if that made any sense...). In other words, settlement enabling technologies are not part of the SpaceX discussion.

We are talking about using hydroponics with an artificial substrate, imported nutrients, and artificial lighting. The same principle would apply to Mars and Antarctica. Mars has no soil either. You can only find easily accessible water at the poles. Settling at the poles gives you the same lighting problem as on Earth, because Mars' axial tilt (~25°) is similar to Earths (23.5°). Settling elsewhere is going to require ice extraction techniques that we simply don't have the slightest idea about. It depends on your latitude, just like Earth. First settlements are likely to use inflatable technology similar to Bigelow modules, which will be quick to set up and include adequate shielding and MMOD protection. Digging requires a lot of work, which simply isn't practical in the early stages. They will have enough other problems to deal with.

And what this gives you is a sterile substrate. It's not dirt. It's not soil. You might as well just import polysterene foam or sand. You are still going to need to add massive amounts of fertilizer and nutrients imported from Earth. As for the this and the cycler discussion, can you please take them to another thread? This is supposed to be about SpaceX. SpaceX is not interested in cyclers and is leaving development of colonization techniques to others, so all of this talk is really off topic.

Listen, he knows about cyclers, he has voiced his opinion on them several times, dating back to this article in 2012 at least: http://www.space.com/18596-mars-colony-spacex-elon-musk.html He knows what a cycler is. He's done the math. He is surrounded by a lot of smart people who have come up with a lot of smart plans. Cyclers are not part of those plans. I don't know what else to tell you at this point. Take up the argument with him. I hear he's on Twitter a lot.

He was already asked about the cycler idea at press conference after the IAC presentation and dismissed it as not efficient. Believe me, he's already done the math.

Because there is nothing that makes any logical sense in designing a ship to transport 100 people to Mars when you don't even have a clue what to do with those 100 people, or how to keep them alive, once you get there. From the volume that was presented to us, I don't think you could actually even fit 100 people comfortably in there for 4 months however you look at it. If SpaceX ever manages to build it and gets someone to pay for it, then maybe we will see a couple of chartered expeditions of 10 or 20 people. Once that phase is done, then we can start thinking about settlement. Since we have no idea what a Martian settlement would be like, the requirements for an actual colonial transport spaceship are likely to have changed entirely by then. Well, I respectfully take Elon Musk's vision with a grain of perchlorate salt myself, so I think we can call ourselves quit. I'm sorry if I don't drink the SpaceX kool-aid.

Yes, and you didn't catch the point that you can double the habitable space by launching 50 pax instead on 100, because there is no need to send 100 pax anytime soon. You also missed Musk mentioning that a future version of the ITS could have an extended crew section that could accomodate 200 pax, which could also be 100 with double crew-space if you want. We haven't even see a proper study of how much volume would be necessary anyway. The thing is, there won't be a need for sending hundreds of people to Mars before several decades, because no matter how much money Musk spends on this, the rest of the plan isn't ready. So let's see how the base plan of actually launching this thing and getting it to work. Then we can talk about cyclers and colonial fleets with hundreds of passengers. The shorter launch window is a huge risk. You miss it, you lose the synod. A normal Mars transfer window lasts weeks, which allows you to reschedule. A cycler RV window is hours. You really think he hasn't considered it already ?

As I said already, this just doubles the habitable space, which is pointless and not worth the extra complexity. There is. You get a much shorter launch window (I think you missed my previous reply)

Sure, hydroponics are a thing. But none of those experiments are closed loop. You need to import everything, at which point it might make sense to simply import freeze-dried food. You would need a proper trade study to determine that. I don't think there have been actual experiments on removing perchlorates from regolith, since we have never had any Martian regolith to experiment with. And any such technique needs to then be developed into specific equipment that works under extreme Martian conditions, in low gravity, with little or no maintenance. I'm not saying that it's not possible. It might be. It might not be. But these are all things that need to be hypothesized, experimented, and developed into working solutions. None of that can simply be done in a couple of iterations or handwaved away. These are vital technologies that need to be properly investigated.

Well, the world is very different now, isn't it. The vikings didn't exactly live in democracy, with ethic committees, FAA certification, lawyers, class actions, unions, political opposition, and insurance companies. Also, they didn't fear death, so there's that too...

You gain practically nothing. Double the habitable space, that's all. I have a better solution for that: only send 50 pax. It's not as if the 100 pax capability is going to be needed anyway. Or you can increase the habitable space by extending the crew section as Musk suggested during the presentation. Another problem with the cycler is that if you miss the RV window, you have to wait for the next synod. The window is much shorter than a normal Mars transfer window, that lasts months.

Sure, and I'm pretty sure that we won't see the 100 pax capability before a couple of decades, if ever, because that's the time it will take to learn about Mars and to figure out if and how we can live there sustainably. For the Jamestown colony to succeed, there had to be many failures where hundreds died tragically. When they finally succeeded, they knew that they could breath the air, drink the water, breed livestock, live off the land, and have children. We have no idea whether any of that is possible for Mars at this stage. We are at the Anse aux Meadows stage of exploration, not yet Jamestown. It is nothing at all like that. Plant growth would actually have to be completely hydroponic, with artificial substrates, fertilizer and nutrients imported from Earth. Remember, there is no soil on Mars, just regolith, which is not only sterile, but rich in perchlorate salts, and highly toxic for any biological organism. Just like everything else, you will need to develop techniques for this work in a closed loop, which can potentially take decades to get right. Yes, the Martian was wrong. You can't grow potatoes in Martian regolith.

We don't know either way. You would think that it would be safe to at least know if we can live in partial gravity for long term periods, deal with the perchlorate problem, mine water out of the ground, and even reproduce, before investing in the capability to send millions of people to live on Mars. Musks seems to handwave these problems away by concentrating only on the transportation problem, which is probably the easiest one to solve. He assumes that if he solves the transportation problem, other folks are going to develop solutions for everything else to be ready we he's ready. I don't think anybody is going to suddenly invest millions to start developing, for example, Mars-capable bulldozers and heavy mining equipment without some sort of business model. ...or Koanoke.

No. He said it *might* be able to reach orbit, if you really really stripped it down, with no payload, and no return capability. That is not in any way a useful SSTO capability. There are already plenty of rockets that can do that. Nobody does it, because it's pointless.

Most of them aren't fundamentally impossible. Most of them are possible but highly impractical (space elevator, Orion drive, Cannon, SSTO, Space fountain...), which makes them useless. The EM Drive is unproven technobabble at this stage, which can't be defined as possible or impossible since we don't know how it's supposed to work, or if it does. The only one that is fundamentally impossible to build is the launch loop, since it involves a cable running in a 4000km-long sheath at 14km/s. The velocity of the cable keeps the loop at an altitude of 80km. It's impossible to build, because you cannot transition from 0 to 14km/s without going through a transitory state where the structure is unstable and collapses/breaks up/explodes.

The trajectory of a cycler isn't necessarily as quick as a direct transfer. Therefore, transit times are typically longer, which means that you need more supplies and consumables. The only thing a cycler saves is the mass of a higher habitable volume. RV with the cycler would still be a matter of several days, so you can't really cram 100 people into seats like you would in a 737. You are still going to need some ample room in your shuttle craft. If anything, a cycler might make sense as a much later optimisation, when you need to transport thousands of passengers. We aren't there yet. Even planning more than 10 is ridiculous it at this stage.

No, because they have a booster specifically designed to launch ITS vehicle into orbit for a low cost. And direct reentry and landing from Mars costs less dV than an orbital insertion burn.

Something is either impossible or possible. There can't be one thing more impossible than another thing. The question is ridiculous/impossible to answer.

Oh but you're actually completely right with your concerns. There are even more big issues with the plan when start scratching the surface: Designing an ECLSS that supports 100 people for 6 months. Landing on an unprepared surface with Raptor engines only a few feet above the surface. The ridiculous pricing coupled with the lack of funding. Ability for LC-39A to handle such a big rocket. Manufacture interplanetary spaceships that cost less than an average airliner. The lack of a legal framework regarding a settlement effort on another planet. Handwaving away all the vital technology that doesn't exist yet (ECLSS, ISRU, rovers, habs, food growth, ice mining, etc...) Handwaving away potential biological unknowns (radiation, partial gravity, toxicity, etc...) that might make settlement impossible. The requirement for other people to fund the actual colony so that it aligns with Musk's timeline The unrealistic design of the spaceship (huge window bay, magical folding solar arrays, no radiators, no comms, no docking ports, small cargo doors, impractical unloading, small footprint) Some of those things have solutions, but probably not in a timeline anywhere near the one that was presented, and potentially not in a way that fits Musk's vision.

I wish people would stop talking about SSTO. There is no SSTO in any part of Musk's plans, except the direct launch from Mars surface. The ITS booster is nowhere near SSTO. It separates at around 2500m/s. The whole point of refueling the ITS in LEO is because it burns all of its propellant to reach LEO.

A competitive behaviour is favoured by evolution, so I think it makes sense that competition is part of our nature. The "strongest" gets to reproduce and perpetuate the species while the "weakest" tends to get left behind (and eaten by predators). We got where we are because of competition. The actual qualities that make you "stronger" or "weaker" than your fellow humans are going to vary depending on the environment or the culture. They could be physical strength, beauty, intelligence, humour, knowledge, religious fervor, charisma, or pretty much anything else. Competition necessarily leads to some dominating others. Whether that domination is leads to exploitation or a more benevolent attitude depends more on each individual. I suppose it's possible to reach a dominant position without exploiting your fellow humans.

I think inflatables will be the way to go, at least in the early days. A couple of half-cylinder Bigelow modules would be enough to get started. There will be so much stuff to do and not enough people and equipment to do everything, so you want to concentrate on the things that matter: life support, mobility (the base will have to be at least 1km away from the landing zone), power, water extraction, and making hydroponic tofu. Habitat volume will be low down on the list of priorities. Once you've got the basics working, then you can focus on digging trenches and making concrete out of toxic regolith.