Waitbutwhy's blog on SpaceX, Mars and the future

[ChrisSpace]

So, finally, after months of waiting, it has finally come out:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html

This is by far the best blog post WBW has come up with. It details the history of SpaceX, and their plans for the future. Read the article before posting.

Discussions, activate!

[Ralathon]

I read it yesterday evening. It's indeed a good blog post and I recommend everyone who's interested in spaceflight to read it. But I wasn't terribly convinced by the "multi planet colonies = life insurance" argument.

The article correctly ascertains that we don't really have to worry about asteroid strikes, gamma ray bursts or supernovae etc. The timescales are just too damn long. The main reason we need life insurance for our species is due to our own actions. Nuclear war, genetically modified diseases, runaway climate change and unforeseen impacts of new technology. But the article never properly explains why we need to go to Mars to protect our species from this. Obviously Mars would be better than the Earth from a safety standpoint, 225 million km is a nice safety distance. But building a few well insulated pockets of humanity deep underground would be orders of magnitude cheaper and be almost as good.

It's kinda like buying insurance for your house. For 1k/year you can get fire insurance or for 100k/year you can have fire+asteroid+tsunami insurance. The latter is obviously better from a safety standpoint, but can you justify spending that much money for only marginal safety gains? Obviously we need some kind of insurance, but should we really go with the luxury package?

SpaceX is aiming to bring down the cost of fire+asteroid+tsunami insurance, which is really cool. But I'll have to see it before I'll believe it. Sure, you can cut some costs via vertical integration and reusability. And I have no doubt that ULA and other launch companies are overcharging. But I have a hard time seeing costs drop by a factor 100. The fundamental physics of spaceflight just don't add up to cheap orbital access. You're always going to lose some parts of your rocket and you will always need a whole boatload of reaction mass. You can't bend the laws of physics by tossing enough technobabble at them.

All in all, the article has the same problem as the AI post on WBW: it is hopelessly optimistic. Both in spaceflight and AI development things look very promising if you only look at the big picture, but once you get down in the nitty gritty you run into a myriad of big problems. The problems aren't necessarily insurmountable, but they'll take time. A lot of time. So his timeline is at least twice as fast as mine. Manned Mars flights in 2030? Rather unlikely, but I reckon we have a good chance at seeing one around 2040.

Edited August 18, 2015 by Ralathon

[RainDreamer]

That blog gave me this site:http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/

I can't wait until the day we see that number goes to 2 digits regularly.

[Nibb31]

Really TL:DR;

Especially as it's mostly (longwindedly written) stuff that we've already discussed at length on these forums. But I pretty much agree with what Ralathon said.

[RainDreamer]

But building a few well insulated pockets of humanity deep underground would be orders of magnitude cheaper and be almost as good.

Are you saying that we should build....Vaults?

[Bill Phil]

The problem is really more about the amount of energy space requires. To get to orbit you need huge amounts. However, our civilization will eventually produce much more energy, and then space will be much more accessible. That will take time, though.

[Ralathon]

Are you saying that we should build....Vaults?

Pretty much. If you have a vault with a self sufficient life support system, enough data storage to hold most of our knowledge and a genetically viable pool of humans that should be enough to rebuild our civilization from scratch. You would need something really apocalyptic to wipe out both the entire surface population and these vaults. So that should be enough to get us safely through the next couple of centuries.

Eventually we will need to colonize the solar system, and eventually the galaxy. Either because we need more resources to sustain economic growth or because the sun goes nova. But now we're talking about enormous timescales. So we aren't in a hurry. We could easily afford to wait a few centuries so new advances in material science and fusion power make spaceflight much cheaper and easier.

[RainDreamer]

Pretty much. If you have a vault with a self sufficient life support system, enough data storage to hold most of our knowledge and a genetically viable pool of humans that should be enough to rebuild our civilization from scratch. You would need something really apocalyptic to wipe out both the entire surface population and these vaults. So that should be enough to get us safely through the next couple of centuries.

Eventually we will need to colonize the solar system, and eventually the galaxy. Either because we need more resources to sustain economic growth or because the sun goes nova. But now we're talking about enormous timescales. So we aren't in a hurry. We could easily afford to wait a few centuries so new advances in material science and fusion power make spaceflight much cheaper and easier.

That is if the government's' social experiments in those vaults didn't end up wiping us out first.

But yeah, short of something that actually impact the structural integrity of earth itself, vaults with their own biomes sounds good. In fact I think that is something we should figure out first. A way to create a safe sustainable eco system with our own technology. That would probably save us from climate changes and other short term disasters so we have time to deal with the longer ones.

[Mazon Del]

The real problem with vaults is that actually expanding a civilization underground is quite difficult, for a lot of reasons.

While yes, on Mars you have other difficulties you do get the advantage that above-ground construction and expansion is easier than below-ground. Besides, who knows how long you could be trapped underground from whatever calamity forced you there in the first place. On Mars, nothing short of the Earth exploding into fragments that reached Mars and force them underground could keep them from being able to continue to expand into space if they wanted. (Assuming of course the main disaster we are discussing happens to Earth).

But what is probably the biggest reason you'd want to have a Mars colony instead of vaults is that vaults are only as good as your ability to put people inside of them before it is too late. There are a wide variety of known extinction level events that could happen too quickly for a majority of the vaults to be useful. Gamma Ray Burst being one, and currently an extinction level asteroid strike. We still quite suck at detecting asteroids these days, particularly if they are approaching from the southern hemisphere in any appreciable way. In the last 15 years there have been something like 20 asteroid strikes in the kiloton+ range on Earth that the only reason we know they happened is because of the system in place for detecting nuclear tests. There was no warning for those, one moment a nice day, another moment the people in NORAD are concerned that someone's breaking the test ban treaty until they figure out it was non-nuclear.

With Mars...it's constantly staffed 24.66/7/687. (which admittedly does not roll off the tongue as nicely)

[PB666]

Sorry, its a gasbag of hype and the links don't work for the godaddysite.

- - - Updated - - -

Pretty much. If you have a vault with a self sufficient life support system, enough data storage to hold most of our knowledge and a genetically viable pool of humans that should be enough to rebuild our civilization from scratch. You would need something really apocalyptic to wipe out both the entire surface population and these vaults. So that should be enough to get us safely through the next couple of centuries.

Eventually we will need to colonize the solar system, and eventually the galaxy. Either because we need more resources to sustain economic growth or because the sun goes nova. But now we're talking about enormous timescales. So we aren't in a hurry. We could easily afford to wait a few centuries so new advances in material science and fusion power make spaceflight much cheaper and easier.

Better hurry, this planet is going way-bad and fast. Looking like population bomb is kicking in a big way and climate change has pitched into help.

[RainDreamer]

Biosphere technology is going to benefit us both long term and short term either way, since we would be able to finally solve that pesky problem of the habitable environment being so darn fragile and out of our control, which would allow us to terraform and turn anywhere into a home. Going to need that for space station and interplanetary craft, at the least.

[justidutch]

I disagree with the vault thing. Maybe it would be cheaper, but in my experience cheaper does not necessarily equal better. In fact, I would suggest that 99% of the time, cheaper <> better.

If, as Ralathon says, "Eventually we will need to colonize the solar system.." anyways, why not begin that now? Or, even better, why not do both? More baskets for the humanity eggs. But if I had a vote I would choose the Mars route.

[Bill Phil]

Why Mars? Asteroids are much more accessible, and don't have a gravity well to speak of.

[More Boosters]

Wouldn't it take time to make Mars or anywhere else habitable without extensive life support measures? Doesn't that mean we should start thinking about long-term unmanned methods of making Mars habitable? Or is that just a pipe dream and will the first human settlements have to start in dome bases rather than a terraformed Mars?

Why Mars? Asteroids are much more accessible, and don't have a gravity well to speak of.

Because I don't think you can make an asteroid habitable without turning it into a space station.

[Ralathon]

I disagree with the vault thing. Maybe it would be cheaper, but in my experience cheaper does not necessarily equal better. In fact, I would suggest that 99% of the time, cheaper <> better.

If, as Ralathon says, "Eventually we will need to colonize the solar system.." anyways, why not begin that now? Or, even better, why not do both? More baskets for the humanity eggs. But if I had a vote I would choose the Mars route.

If our resources were limitless and opportunity cost wasn't a thing I'd agree with you. However, we live in a world where a lot of resources are needed for a lot of projects, and colonizing Mars now means losing a lot of other things we need. Especially when new technology can make colonization a lot easier and safer in the future.

It's kinda like cavemen in europe saying "We should cross the Atlantic ocean! It will be harder for the bears to eat us!". Sure, they could do that. But crossing an ocean with stone age tech is rather difficult and risky. Better to invest in a better cave to fend off the bears and wait till the renaissance to cross the atlantic.

[SargeRho]

We have, in the past, quite successfully crossed the Indian and Atlantic, and possibly Pacific oceans with Canoes, colonizing South America. Long before the age of sail, or even any sort of powered ships existed.

We can wait until we have better technology and possibly not go for another century or two, if ever, or actually work towards developing said technology. and actually go within a decade or two. The resources used for and by Rockets is minuscule compared to just about every other large project. The amount of Kerosene burned by a Falcon 9 on its way to LEO is similar to what a 747 burns on a 10 hour flight.

Edited August 18, 2015 by SargeRho

[NFUN]

I disagree with the vault thing. Maybe it would be cheaper, but in my experience cheaper does not necessarily equal better. In fact, I would suggest that 99% of the time, cheaper <> better.

If, as Ralathon says, "Eventually we will need to colonize the solar system.." anyways, why not begin that now? Or, even better, why not do both? More baskets for the humanity eggs. But if I had a vote I would choose the Mars route.

Cheaper almost always is worse, but the degree matters. When you bought or built your computer, how much did it cost? I'm assuming you aren't in a rush to upgrade it with a Titan GPU and the latest i7 even though they're better. Perfection is the enemy of good enough, and Ralathon argued that at this moment and for the near future, investing in vaults would provide a greater ROI on protection than extraterrestrial colonies-- why bother going to Mars when comparable safety is here at a fraction of the cost?

We shouldn't necesarily begin colonizing the solar system now because it would cost a metric crapton of capital for no solid gains in a reasonable timespan. Give it a decade or two, I mean, look at 2005. How many private spaceflight companies comparable to those today existed? SpaceX is getting closer to being man-rated, and several other companies are on its heels. If Planetary Resources becomes successful, we could see an enormous decrease in costs of spaceflight. At some point we need to bite the costs and jump in, but it is up to debate if now is that time.

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We have, in the past, quite successfully crossed the Indian and Atlantic, and possibly Pacific oceans with Canoes, colonizing South America. Long before the age of sail, or even any sort of powered ships existed.

[citation needed]

[More Boosters]

It's kinda like cavemen in europe saying "We should cross the Atlantic ocean! It will be harder for the bears to eat us!". Sure, they could do that. But crossing an ocean with stone age tech is rather difficult and risky. Better to invest in a better cave to fend off the bears and wait till the renaissance to cross the atlantic.

I follow this train of thought but I don't believe justidutch recommended going *now* but rather being more enthusiastic; like funding it more and trying to come up with a solid plan. Can someone here enlighten us on how Mars could be terraformed over a long time span? Because if that is possible even if remotely so with our current technology we should start soon.

[Bill Phil]

Wouldn't it take time to make Mars or anywhere else habitable without extensive life support measures? Doesn't that mean we should start thinking about long-term unmanned methods of making Mars habitable? Or is that just a pipe dream and will the first human settlements have to start in dome bases rather than a terraformed Mars?

Because I don't think you can make an asteroid habitable without turning it into a space station.

So? You process the asteroid, and then use it to build a Bernal Sphere habitat. It is a colony.

[More Boosters]

So? You process the asteroid, and then use it to build a Bernal Sphere habitat. It is a colony.

Yeah but where do you go for picnics? You shouldn't take from this that I disagree with scientific outposts on asteroids but people need space (pun not intended) man. Like, give the average Joe a reason to leave Earth. This is obviously very long term and Mars is the best candidate by far for a permanent and habitable planet so I wanted to talk about when and how we could start.

[Bill Phil]

Yeah but where do you go for picnics? You shouldn't take from this that I disagree with scientific outposts on asteroids but people need space (pun not intended) man. Like, give the average Joe a reason to leave Earth. This is obviously very long term and Mars is the best candidate by far for a permanent and habitable planet so I wanted to talk about when and how we could start.

Do you know what a Bernal Sphere is? I suggest Looking one up. That and Stanford Torus and O'Neill Cylinder. You will get the answer to where you go for picnics.

You go to the local park.

[ChrisSpace]

Wow, I didn't expect us to reach three pages already.

The article correctly ascertains that we don't really have to worry about asteroid strikes, gamma ray bursts or supernovae etc. The timescales are just too damn long. The main reason we need life insurance for our species is due to our own actions. Nuclear war, genetically modified diseases, runaway climate change and unforeseen impacts of new technology. But the article never properly explains why we need to go to Mars to protect our species from this. Obviously Mars would be better than the Earth from a safety standpoint, 225 million km is a nice safety distance. But building a few well insulated pockets of humanity deep underground would be orders of magnitude cheaper and be almost as good.

Agreed, worrying about a naturally-occurring mass extinction would be like sitting on a tiny island, worrying about sea level rise when there's a tsunami coming straight for you. As for 'colonizing' underground, that would leave several weak points:

- If grey goo or stranglets turn the entire planet into shiny metallic stuff, that would include the colonies.

- If a large asteroid were to hit the earth, the shockwaves would pulverize any underground colony. Even a casual magnitude 9 earthquake could break the structure.

- If something bad happens to the surface of the earth, our underground colonies would have to handle those post-apocalyptic conditions if they are ever to leave earth. Mars colonists would have it much easier.

- The colony will need to grow its own food. On mars you have free sunlight, but underground you would need to consume massive amounts of power just to light up the greenhouses.

- Earth is running out of resources as is, so trying to rebuild civilization from underground colonies would require resources the earth simply won't have anymore.

- Seriously, what sounds more appealing: Living underground like in the Matrix or exploring new worlds?

You can't bend the laws of physics by tossing enough technobabble at them.

You don't need to bend the laws of physics.

All in all, the article has the same problem as the AI post on WBW: it is hopelessly optimistic. Both in spaceflight and AI development things look very promising if you only look at the big picture, but once you get down in the nitty gritty you run into a myriad of big problems. The problems aren't necessarily insurmountable, but they'll take time. A lot of time. So his timeline is at least twice as fast as mine. Manned Mars flights in 2030? Rather unlikely, but I reckon we have a good chance at seeing one around 2040.

It's sort of a 'if all goes to plan' plan. There are many things it doesn't take into account, but I will be very surprised if there are no footprints on Mars by the end of the 2030s.

That blog gave me this site:http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/

I can't wait until the day we see that number goes to 2 digits regularly.

At the time of writing, there are 3 Russians, 2 Americans and 1 Japanese in space. I really like websites like these.

So we aren't in a hurry. We could easily afford to wait a few centuries so new advances in material science and fusion power make spaceflight much cheaper and easier.

Sadly, we can't leisurely wait around until we have perfect space technology. AGI and ASI could be mere decades away, the Earth's climate will be chaotic by the end of the century, more nations are developing nuclear weapons, every natural resource is declining, and our planet's population is collapsing under its own rate.

While yes, on Mars you have other difficulties you do get the advantage that above-ground construction and expansion is easier than below-ground. Besides, who knows how long you could be trapped underground from whatever calamity forced you there in the first place. On Mars, nothing short of the Earth exploding into fragments that reached Mars and force them underground could keep them from being able to continue to expand into space if they wanted. (Assuming of course the main disaster we are discussing happens to Earth).

But what is probably the biggest reason you'd want to have a Mars colony instead of vaults is that vaults are only as good as your ability to put people inside of them before it is too late. There are a wide variety of known extinction level events that could happen too quickly for a majority of the vaults to be useful. Gamma Ray Burst being one, and currently an extinction level asteroid strike. We still quite suck at detecting asteroids these days, particularly if they are approaching from the southern hemisphere in any appreciable way. In the last 15 years there have been something like 20 asteroid strikes in the kiloton+ range on Earth that the only reason we know they happened is because of the system in place for detecting nuclear tests. There was no warning for those, one moment a nice day, another moment the people in NORAD are concerned that someone's breaking the test ban treaty until they figure out it was non-nuclear.

With Mars...it's constantly staffed 24.66/7/687. (which admittedly does not roll off the tongue as nicely)

I like everything you just said.

Why Mars? Asteroids are much more accessible, and don't have a gravity well to speak of.

There is a very finite amount of resources on an asteroid, and the lower gravity means the colonists would have a much harder time on high-gravity planets like Earth or Mars. They would also have problems with high-thrust spacecraft maneuvering. As for hollowed-out rotating asteroid colonies, that would be way more expensive than any similarly-sized Mars colony.

It's kinda like cavemen in europe saying "We should cross the Atlantic ocean! It will be harder for the bears to eat us!". Sure, they could do that. But crossing an ocean with stone age tech is rather difficult and risky. Better to invest in a better cave to fend off the bears and wait till the renaissance to cross the atlantic.

'Cavemen' is a bit inaccurate. It would probably be better to use the analogy of Nordic Vikings... oh wait. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_colonization_of_the_Americas

The amount of Kerosene burned by a Falcon 9 on its way to LEO is similar to what a 747 burns on a 10 hour flight.

Hmm... I never knew that.

[Nibb31]

- If grey goo or stranglets turn the entire planet into shiny metallic stuff, that would include the colonies.

- If a large asteroid were to hit the earth, the shockwaves would pulverize any underground colony. Even a casual magnitude 9 earthquake could break the structure.

- If something bad happens to the surface of the earth, our underground colonies would have to handle those post-apocalyptic conditions if they are ever to leave earth. Mars colonists would have it much easier.

- The colony will need to grow its own food. On mars you have free sunlight, but underground you would need to consume massive amounts of power just to light up the greenhouses.

- Earth is running out of resources as is, so trying to rebuild civilization from underground colonies would require resources the earth simply won't have anymore.

- Seriously, what sounds more appealing: Living underground like in the Matrix or exploring new worlds?

- Grey goo doesn't exist. There's no point in paying insurance for threats that don't exist.

- Some would be pulverized. Some would survive. You would still save orders of magnitude more lives than a space colony.

- Mars will never be more hospitable than a scorched Earth. A half-destroyed Earth will still have some sort of atmosphere that you can filter, water that you can recycle, and more wind and solar power than Mars will ever have.

- Mars has less sunlight for solar power.

- What useful resources does Mars have that the Earth doesn't?

- What's more appealing, living underground on Earth with the hope of coming out one day for some fresh air and rain, or living underground on Mars to protect from the radiation, the cold, and the toxic atmosphere.

It's sort of a 'if all goes to plan' plan. There are many things it doesn't take into account, but I will be very surprised if there are no footprints on Mars by the end of the 2030s.

In the 1960's people were expecting Mars colonies by the late 70's.

[SargeRho]

In the 1960's people were expecting Mars colonies by the late 70's.

And it would have happened had they been allowed to continue after Apollo 17.

[RainDreamer]

Like, give the average Joe a reason to leave Earth.

Considering there were like 200,000 people willing to go on something as crazy as Mars One and signed up for it, I would say some people just want the adventure. They might regret it later on, but...they might go.