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Elon Musk To Write a Book About Earth Sustainability and Mars Colonization
MarkWhittington writes Elon Musk has taken on quite a number of projects with a goal of changing the world while making lots of money doing so. He proposes to revolutionize space travel through his commercial launch company, SpaceX. His more earthly endeavors have included electric cars, home solar power, a transportation system called the Hyperloop, a space based Internet and, most recently, a battery that can power a house. Now, according to a story in Business Insider, Musk will open his mind on his views on "sustainability" was well as Mars colonization in book form.
Psilocybin is a hell of a drug.
Whatever you think of Elon Musk, at least he's not using his brain, money and industrial magic for developing new super-weapons. I don't think.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Can't we wait for the actual book to be written, published, and reviewed by one of ours — instead of seeing more vaporware appear on the /. front-page?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
So is Elon just going to summarize the MIT sustainability report (doomsday report) that projects population decline in the 2030's or do you think he is going to come up with his own idea of how its going to happen?
I love reading books written by experts in their field about their field. What I never read are books written by people who think that success in one field gives them magic insight into fields not their own.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
A guy who got rich off of one of the more hated financial service companies must automatically be a futurist genius.
Paypal was just one of his many accomplishments. There is also Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity. I think he is at least as qualified as anyone else to make predictions. Especially about the future.
The shallowness of the public just gets more shocking all the time.
So who should the public be listening to? Visionaries like Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren?
And yet, he continues to have a massive backlog, even though they are now producing at a rate of over 50,000 cars / year.
As to China, that was a horrible mistake for him. The only way that they will buy is if he moves manufacturing there.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You mean his many accomplishments that benefit the other rich people like himself?
"Trickle-down" may not work for economics, but it certainly works for technology. Here is a list of things that were once considered playthings for the rich: cars, TVs, home computers, cell phones, glass windows, indoor plumbing, ....
"Expert" predictions are notoriously wrong
The purpose of his book is to change the future, not predict it. I is about what should be, rather than what will be.
That's kinda backwards. How about charging the batteries during the day with solar and using the electric company as standby?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Even if you start a successful company in a particular field does not mean you have insight into where that field is headed.
Asked and answered... Present growth rates give us about 450 years at best before we boil all the water off.
Mars Colonization?
Please! Stop with this obsession. Do the moon first.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
>If Musk made the prediction that the future is going to be a low energy future with less material wealth than your parents, would you defend him as much?
Well, those are kind of the options, aren't they? Either we go to space, or we are forever limited by the resources available on Earth. The limits which all rational predictions say are going to starting to hit hard over the the next century. Granted, if we get off fossil fuels we can increase total energy consumption by at least an order of magnitude or two before waste heat starts causing comparable problems - but when it comes to raw resources, mining space is likely to be considerably easier than mining the Earth's mantle.
And then there's the pesky fact that space-based solar is the only long-term viable technology for achieving that kind of energy consumption without doing massive environmental damage - sucking that much energy from the winds or tides would almost certainly wreak havoc, and it would completely consume estimated total (not just discovered) fission and fusion ore reserves within only a few centuries. And you can't very well do ground-based solar on that scale, not unless you want to encase the entire planet in solar panels. And building space-based solar farms economically will require either fundamentally new surface-to-orbit technologies, or a viable space infrastructure. Sure, it's a very long-term plan, but our species has reached the point where we really need to start planning beyond our own lifetimes if we want to survive - just look at the problems our short-sightedness is already creating.
The real lunacy is to think that we can sustain a perpetual-growth based economy within a fishbowl. It worked for a couple centuries, but we're pushing up against the glass now, doing serious long-term environmental damage for the sake of a few more resources. Going to space will at least open the door to a few more centuries of "sustainable" growth before we reach the limits of the solar system, maybe as much as a several millenia depending on growth rate and whether we find that the Oort cloud is conductive to harvesting.
There's certainly an argument to be made that we need to get off the "sustainable growth" delusion that has infected our species, but personally I'd like to see the door opened to continuing it for a while without destroying our planet - just in case we can't cure ourselves overnight.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Agreed.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Sycophants and experts. Don't forget the actual experts, those are important - anyone of decent intelligence can have insight into lots of disparate areas if they have an army of experts to consult - it's just that so few people have both the means and the will to support such an army.
Just imagine what you could accomplish if you could pass off every passing fancy to a handful of engineers who would assess it's viability and start working out the details of possible implementations.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Trickle-down works in economics as well, just not the way the likes of Bush promoted it. What is good for the super-rich is not necessarily good for the rest of us (usually it isn't), but a strong middle class has a positive impact on the lower class. Middle class wealth most certainly trickles down.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
"accomplishments"??? He was at the right time at the right place
Most of us have good ideas from time to time, and frequently at a time when conditions are favourable. What matters is what you do with that opportunity. First you have to recognize that the time and market are right for your idea, or you have to be willing to take a gamble on that. Next you need to organize capital and people to make it happen. That is where the accomplishment is.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
CRTs were research and military devices. TV was precisely designed as a mass market medium for the 20th century.
Home computers were popularised in the '70s by hobbyists.
Cell 'phones were the commercialisation of the '80s CB craze, itself a popularisation of ~70 years of ham radio.
Glass windows were sorta playthings for the rich, in that their optical properties were so poor that few people gave a shit about them for a good millennium.
Indoor plumbing was common in various civilisations 2000+ year old for the middle classes, because those civilisations tended to be either fascist or social democratic, which meant central administration. It's true that in capitalistic Europe the rich men and women got indoor plumbing first, but this had nothing to do with the technology being developed while exclusive to the rich, and everything to do with huge fucking wealth inequality and little in the way of modern central infrastructure to do anything about it.
It tends to be the middle classes (scientists then engineers) that drive technological process, supported by cheap labour of lower classes. Aristocrats have little need for progress - everything's just fine for them as it always was.
I'll give you cars, which is why they're the most polluting, statistically dangerous things you'll find in everyday life now.
So, you do not believe that he had ANYTHING to do with any of these businesses?
And that is in spite of what others in the company claim?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Let me see if I understand this right.
1) You are so scared of the guy that you do not show your login.
2) Here is a guy that has been critical to 5 companies being successful, but he is a PR firm.
3) how many entrepreneurs have 5 of 5 companies be successes?
4) how many entrepeneurs can you list that were critical in changing society in 3 companies, let alone 4?
So, why are you so afraid to face facts? Why are you so afraid to show who you are? My guess is that you are simply another troll that is paid to lie here.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If every home and business had a battery system capable of delivering 24 hours of average load, we could switch to 100% renewable energy sources virtually overnight. (It would still take several years, even under ideal conditions, I know.) I'd venture to say that enabling such a transition is Elon's primary impetus for bringing the "home battery" to market.
I'm just spitballin' here, but I bet they'll figure some way to integrate the battery pack with a solar installation in such a way as to satisfy the grid-tie requirements that some states have recently imposed, while still delivering "off-grid" functionality. If, for example, they only start feeding power back into the grid after the battery pack is fully charged, then they could still satisfy some of these local statutes while delivering "effectively" off-grid capability in times of need.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Even if Mars could be colonized, only a few rich people will be able to afford to make the trip, so it's not going to do anything to fix the "fishbowl problem".
It would be a mistake to leave, at great expense, a gigantic gravity trap like ours just to fall down yet another on another planet. Free Earth or solar orbit, or libration points among the planets, are the place to colonize.
Mars has limited room. Population growth would cover it in less than two centuries, not to mention suburbia syndrome, which would have the first settlers become real estate moguls selling to wealthy later arrivals who each want to buy ten thousand hectares of Martian land to build the equivalent of a ranch. Not only limited room, but immediately wasted room as they emulate the American property model. And they'd point guns at anyone taking "their" land, so don't picture a Star Trek utopia.
Free orbital spaces - rotating terraria - could be built out of asteroidal or lunar material ("rail gun" launched, using a recirculating bucket on a track to fling it into a manufacturing complex where abundant solar energy could power the industry. Build large structures (Babylon 5, tho I never saw the show) that rotate to create a down, air, containt whatever landscape or factory settings you want, grow their own crops, and house tens of thousands to who the hell knows how many once people figure out how to build BIG ones. In contrast to Mars, the environment would be compatible with humans. And so much asteroidal material is out there - even ONE could supply thousands of terraria - that we could house hundreds of billions. And point being, really - anyone who tried could go. Enough room for everyone. If Earth doesn't suit you, build one of your own. Mars, on the other hand, will be limited from the get-go. Not that I wouldn't go to Mars, to stay, one-way ticket, to live out my life. But I'd rather be part of a much bigger picture.
I noted Musk was going the wrong direction earlier this year. Can't blame him - NASA and the most vocal "crazy" scientists have been talking up Mars for sixty years. But I don't think he ever read "The High Frontier" or any of the 1975 Ames studies on space colonies (should be christened "terraria" - Kim Stanley Robinson takes the credit for that name, its perfect). He also doesn't understand that a electric launcher doesn't have to speed a rocket to escape velocity - just a few hundred miles an hour over a cliff would do to eliminate the need for a multistage rocket.
Focusing on Mars - or Luna (it ain't the Moon! It has a name! Lost cause I know) will waste another half century when we could be creating a far larger, and richer, and superior endeavor. And the industrial capacity of orbital settlements would be immense. Need an umbrella to shade the Earth? No problem, about ten years with downtime capacity on the terraria fabricators, and we have a parasol. Need ten million tons of titanium to build superrails or superhighways? Sure, splashdown where you want it. Earth needs to get the crushing industrial poisoning and overgrowth moved off planet. And it would be better, cheaper, and practically unlimited. We're grasping for oil when we are surrounded by enough energy to supply our civilization ten thousand times over just above the atmosphere. Poisoning our water supply for one last dreg of crude.
Free orbital spaces - rotating terraria - could be built out of asteroidal or lunar material
Too expensive. When faced with resource struggles due to overpopulation, people aren't going to build rockets. They'll just kill each other.
NO, he had the insight, and much more importantly, he took the risk and made things happen. It's the right time and the right place only in hindsight.
Keep bitching and moaning about others' success from the comfort of your couch, while the risk takers out there continue to do big and great things.
... Sarah Palin.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
The actual energy to reach Earth orbit, at retail electric rates, is about what Walmart sells bags of potatoes for. It costs way more than that because we basically are using weapons of war (rockets descended from ballistic missiles) to do the job. The cost of a ballistic ICBM is limited by the value of the targets it destroys, so cost was not seriously limited.
As soon as billionaires rather than governments got involved, where cost came out of their own pocket, sanity began to reign. Carrier airplanes to raise launch efficiency, using the expensive aerospace hardware more than once, etc. Launch costs have room to drop about 50-fold from today's prices, and still be well above raw energy costs, the way airplane trips are well above fuel cost.
From Earth orbit to Mars we can build a chain of "truck stops" that supply food, fuel, and other necessities, rather than launching it all from here. Physics says it makes much more sense to get your supplies from a nearby asteroid than the bottom of a deep gravity well (Earth). The particular locations would be Earth-Moon L1, Mars Cycling Transfer Orbit, and Phobos. We already know of 12,000 Near-Earth asteroids, and the region between and near Mars should have just as many. They are farther away, so our Earth-based telescopes can't spot them as easily.
Using local materials, we can gain another 50-fold price reduction for the trip. So instead of $1 billion/seat, we are looking at $400K per person, which a corporation may well finance to get people to the work location.
What is this fusion "ore" you are talking about? Even if we restrict ourselves to deuterium or even tritium, the ocean reserves are plentiful even in the "multiple orders of magntiude" energy consumption case. Longterm, exponential growth will require space exploration and I am all for it in short-term, but let's keep to the facts.
Sure, Mars itself is an extremely long-term investment; however, and this is the important bit, it is by far the easiest off-Earth location to colonize and develop the basic technology and know-how that could then be refined to work in more hostile locations. Lots of water, CO2, and sand to provide an immensity of raw materials to work through the inefficiencies in early production techniques, and none of the hideously abrasive un-weathered dust to deal with like you have on the moon. Then, once the basic technology has been developed and stress-tested in a relatively hospitable environment, future missions to the Moon, asteroids, etc. can focus on the additional challenges those pose.
As for Mars itself, it really makes sense more as a long-term insurance policy on the survival of human civilization than a direct answer to Earth-bound problems. Though I suspect you're wrong about it only being available to the rich - the people who could afford to get there on their own dime can almost certainly afford to also bring at least a handful of other people to do all the hard work so that they don't have to. And there will be a lot of hard, dangerous work to be done. I suspect we'll see a system not unlike the indentured servitude that gave so many poor Europeans the opportunity to travel to the Americas back when crossing oceans was a ridiculous expense.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I've been thinking lately that Venus might be easier to terraform than mars. It would be a bonus if we could figure out how to move the excessive atmosphere from venus to mars, and we could perhaps get two for the price of one.
Don't even bother replying. Anyone who can look at everything Elon Musk has done and come to the conclusion that it just "benefits the other rich people" isn't going to think about what you wrote.
for what its worth, I think you are really stretching the limit of "success". Solar City, Tesla, and SpaceX are not successful by traditional metrics. They don't make money. All success so far is self-perpetuating hype, which in fact may dramatically assist long term success, but has not yet. These companies are all valued on future promises based on quite uncertain growth projections, which may or may not pan out. I'm not really familiar with SpaceX because its private, but the only money made on Tesla and Solar City is by speculators who have managed to "sell" promises to other spectators. Investments in these companies haven't paid off by generating income. I think this would be the basic formula to decide success. Not fantastic growth that could torpedo at any moment and leave a 20b hole in speculator pockets.
Solar city's anticipated success is based on a business plan they are already transitioning away from, lofty valuations of future revenue will not materialize as they are forced to abandon their cash cow, principally due to well-financed competitors who are willing to pass on more of the economic benefits of solar energy to their customers. The amazing thing, is that despite approximately 6 months of this knowledge, most analysts have not substantially reduced targets based on solar city's own information. That should tell you something about the importance of "hype" or "future promises" in determining the "success" of a company.
Okay, fair enough. I was thinking of boron and other aneutronic fuels - the sort of stuff that doesn't produce gobs of neutron-activated waste that we then have to deal with. Most fusion produces far more high-energy neutrons per watt than any form of fission.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Scientists study a lot more than climate change. They study economics and nutrition too. I think that sums up the collective contribution of scientists to human progress right there.
With proper tech, the penalty for Mar's gravity well can be made pretty small. For example, one of the giant volcanoes on Mars sits right on the equator. It is so tall that the top is essentially in vacuum. So you can build an accelerator that throws things into Mars orbit. From low Mars orbit to Phobos you can use the Rotovator type space elevator.
Mars has advantages that loose asteroid's don't. Tectonics, internal heating, water, and other geological processes have sorted the planet into differentiated ores. But focusing on the Moon or Mars or Asteroids as if you have to choose one is as silly as focusing on only California, Minnesota, or Texas when expanding the United States. The right answer is to expand outwards in terms of difficulty, and using the fuel and supplies you can produce at one location to leverage getting to the next. The right answer is "everywhere in the Solar System", though some places will need to wait quite a while until our tech and needs demand using them.
I suspect we'll see a system not unlike the indentured servitude that gave so many poor Europeans the opportunity to travel to the Americas back when crossing oceans was a ridiculous expense.
Travel to the Americas was much cheaper than a trip to Mars will ever be, and still only a few percent of Europeans made the trip.
Lots of water, CO2, and sand to provide an immensity of raw materials
Less water and CO2 than on Earth. And the sand isn't a good source of high grade ores. Also, no useful atmosphere and no magnetic field to protect against the Sun's hard radiation, and too far from the Sun to get good light and heat. And it's a small planet too. Only a quarter of the Earth's surface area. You could put more people on floating rafts on the ocean than you can put on Mars.
we are looking at $400K per person
In other words: even with insane cost reduction, only rich people can afford to make a trip to a location that would make the Sahara desert look like a luxury resort.
Home Computers were never considered playthings for the rich. They were playthings for the nerds. In the 70's that didn't make one rich.
You're basically on target, but check your payload size there partner. Low Earth orbit has a specific orbital energy of about -30MJ/kg, as compared to -63MJ/kg for something standing on the surface of the Earth, that's a 33MJ/kg investment just to reach LEO.
(33MJ/kg) * (0.28kWh/MJ) * ($0.15/kWh) * (100kg passenger + luggage) = $137
That's an awfully expensive bag of potatoes, and that's the absolute theoretical minimum expense assuming you're launched naked into LEO from a magical ground-level catapult and ignore air resistance. If you have to factor in the mass of the rocket itself and the massive amount of fuel required by rocketry non-linearities you can reasonably assume at least an order of magnitude or two increase. Still potentially within reach of most, but we're talking a new car, not a sack of potatoes.
And if we're looking to go to Mars, well then we have to pay off the complete -62.6MJ/kg energy deficit to escape Earth, plus the 152.5MJ/kg difference between Earth and Mar orbital energies around the sun (For convenience I'll assume we can ignore the landing energies using atmospheric braking, or something). That's a 215MJ/kg total energy difference, or $892 for a 100kg launch from our magical electric catapult. Add an order of magnitude or two for rocketry inefficiencies and we're looking pretty inaccessible for most people. Plus that's going to be a pretty slow trip - to avoid permanent radiation damage you'll need to take a much faster, less efficient path, or be protected by a ridiculous amount of shielding - say riding in a hollow asteroid on a permanent elliptical transfer orbit that consistently syncs with both planets. But even if such an orbit is possible we're talking multi-year trip times for such a thing.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Well, like I said, in the short term the value of a Mars colony is more of a technological testbed. We'll still need to continue bringing population growth rates down to zero, emigration has never been a realistic option for population density problems. As for the size and radiation - both problems are solved by building down, Mars has a much thicker and more stable crust. And yes, less water than on Earth, at least on the surface (who knows what might be deep underground), but I was really thinking just for the first few hundreds and thousands of people, when the colony is struggling to develop the necessary technology - plenty of water in the ice caps for them, and I was thinking of the sand and CO2 as a construction materials in their own right: Sand for concrete, and maybe glass (I think the silica ratio is low though), and CO2 for nanocellulose, an incredibly strong, durable, gas-impermeable substance. It won't be a gleaming Star-Trek colony, but a more "industrial Russia" theme should be quite doable.
As for the cost, I just replied to an excessively optimistic post above running through the details - but we're talking a 215MJ/kg energy difference that must be imparted to get from Earth's surface to Mars (assuming landing costs can be paid with aerobraking, etc), Less than $10/kg at current off-peak electricity rates, or $1000 for a 100+kg person-and-luggage. Granted, that's assuming we have infrastructure built to do such things efficiently - mass accelerators instead of rockets, docking with permanent transfer-orbit facilities (hollow asteroids?) to ride out a long trip in safety, etc. But if Mars eventually becomes a thriving planet in it's own right that becomes almost inevitable.
Plus there's the fact that technologies such as tumbling-cable space elevators can, with enough mass, and in the presence of sufficient two-way traffic, do the job essentially for free by scavenging momentum from incoming travelers and imparting it to those outbound.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Mars colonization in book form.
After reading KS Robinson's Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) I just don't know if anything except the real thing will be worth reading
The appendices of Mars Trilogy have actual fictional research papers...it's pretty detailed.
The science hasn't changed that much, and he explores all different kinds of colonization approaches and technical solutions.
From a practical standpoint, i guess a technical description of actual robots we could make and use with existing technology would be an interesting read, but it's still just science fiction unless...you know....you're actually going to do it
Thank you Dave Raggett
Tesla reports HUGE loss and stock took massive hit. vacuum Tube train was patented in like 1920 or somthing and Elon is so confident in it he hasn't put one penny in it. Toyota pulled out of giga Factory and its profitability is far from certain and SpaceX seems to be doing ok with Googles billion dollar investment. The Solarcity thing is almost a scam. No one lives in their house for 30 years so unless you take the out right payment option you are pretty much a sucker who will be selling their home while still paying for those panels which don't go with you oh and the extra you kick back to the grid belong to Solarcity not you. (even if it is very unlikely you will kick anything back to the grid) AWESOME.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
What has he done? Made a car that isn't even on the list of Green cars. A solar panel company that keeps the money from the electricity you put back into to the grid. Massive environmental destruction of the mountain of argentina and Peru with lithium poisoning from the Lithium mines. http://www.fool.com/investing/... The vacuum train that he came up with accept he didn't and isn't putting one penny of his on money into. He is a smart business guy and he is making cool shit. He isn't Tesla, or Bell. He might be Edisonish accept he hasn't come up with any of his companies on his own. At least edison invented some stuff himself. Elon is more a Elison. Pretty freaking smart guy by no means the smartest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
I always wonder why population control isn't every talked about as a way to make humanity sustainable.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
I've got this covered. We'll have population increases over the next century up to the point of a sustainable level at 50 Billion. This will allow one quarter of the earth's land area to be set aside as natural parks areas, move people out of the urban areas and back to the land, get almost everyone involved at least to some degree with producing at least 10% of their own food, improve health and education all while lowering consumption by 90%.
Made a car that isn't even on the list of Green cars.
I wasn't aware that I was supposed to care that there's an official list of "Green cars". And the $35k car that he's making is definitely not for rich people.
Massive environmental destruction of the mountain of argentina and Peru with lithium poisoning from the Lithium mines.
That's what regulation is for, right? And all those people getting paid to mine lithium aren't rich.
The vacuum train that he came up with accept he didn't and isn't putting one penny of his on money into.
But it's better than the train that California is sinking a few billion in. You know, the train that supposedly is to help non-rich people get from point A to point B.
He is a smart business guy and he is making cool shit. He isn't Tesla, or Bell. He might be Edisonish accept he hasn't come up with any of his companies on his own. At least edison invented some stuff himself. Elon is more a Elison. Pretty freaking smart guy by no means the smartest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
And of course, since he hasn't done this all by himself, that means he did it for the rich people.
I generally agree with you. However, with :
3) how many entrepreneurs have 5 of 5 companies be successes?
If we guess at 1 in 5 companies being successful, then having 5/5 is about 1/3000. There are way, way more than 3000 entrepreneurs in the world. Just by chance there will be many successful people in the world, and past performance is obviously not a good indicator of future performance, using chance.
I'm not saying Elon Musk isn't talented, just that with an entirely random distribution you will get people who go from success to success.
Given another option - leaving - human behavior changes. The Americas performed that function for Europe once, and now we need new Americas. Some will fight for the same old reasons - property owners, mostly - but the usual crew of poor and crazy and criminal will leap at the chance to start over. And the people in the sky will quickly outnumber the people on Earth.
The idea isn't to move people off-planet to ease population crowding, anyway. We can't ship enough - they are born faster than that. The need is to move industry and power generation off planet (and to provide a new place to live too!) so that enormous new energy and material wealth can shower down on the beleaguered overpopulated world. That gives us breathing room to bring living standards and education up to a level people limit their childbearing voluntarily. It happened in Mexico - their birth rate dropped to replacement levels when a certain level of prosperity and education was achieved. We need to do this to leverage our abilities to save our own asses down here.
Hm, indeed. But Mars will be a consumer of resources as far as the Earth is concerned, as it will not return energy or materials to the home world. It provides adventure and a limited amount of room for the fortunate; it can't ship back things we need, AKA power from powersats, or metals, or even habitats for animals that will be wiped out soon enough. As a side note, it would also consume our best and brightest, so the net effect for Earth would be negative again. Yep, we can do both - but Elon Musk is a Mars-only guy. And he doesn't understand electromagnetic launching from Earth, as he thinks we have to fire the ship through atmosphere at escape velocity right from the railhead, when instead you only require a few hundred miles an hour to eliminate the first stage. He is great, but he needs a little advice.
Sorry about the dupe. Pasted too much below the break, didn't see it.
Mars is actually close to the same size as the Earths dry land area. Solar insolation is about 40% of the Earth with less cloud cover and generally clearer skies. The atmosphere is very thin but not totally useless, it can be mined, it allows some erosion so dust particles are at least rounded, thick enough to stop vacuum welding and possibly can support flight. The wet past may have concentrated minerals much as on Earth though that's just a guess at this time.
The big problems are distance and radiation. Possibly the finings (small dust particles) may be a problem as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Two points.
Population growth stops as soon as people, especially women, are educated and wealthy enough to be secure. This has happened in most of the developed world.
The problem is that our economic system depends on endless growth so population growth stopping is frowned on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
well just about anyone educated would work equally as well.
I mean, he couldn't even futurisize how fast his models can be produced despite having all the data.
and well if he could colonize mars he could do a sustainable closed ecology on earth much easier than that. COLONIZE ANTARCTICA!!!!!!!! like, much ado about nothing.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Yet another variations on 'As I Walked Amongst The Fluff of my Navel One Sunny Spring Morning'? Somehow, people who are succesful in business always want to leave a legacy, but unfortunately, all they seem to able to manage is this kind of vanity publications. Most of them seem to tell us that "I struggled in the beginning, but then I got lucky and now I feel I'm better than other people." The difference between the "successful business leader" is not that they somehow possess better abilities; they just got lucky, and they somehow feel entitled to profit. We never hear about the millions of similar, mediocre people who never made it; if we did, we would see the obvious similarities.
Miami vice is 80s and car phones were a thing... Testa rossa was introduced mid 80s
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
He's not fundamentally wrong, just overly optimistic. $1000 worth of energy is still a pretty small price to pay, especially when you consider the technology to start achieving such efficiencies was proposed back in the... 50's? Earlier? The infrastructure would be expensive, but there are several options within the range of current technology.
We solve similarly challenging engineering problems all the time, all that is lacking is the motivation to do such a thing. It's a chicken-and-egg problem: having another inhabited planet within the solar system would probably provide the motivation, but actually establishing a colony without the transportation infrastructure is a real challenge. Still, if we eventually manage to get a good-sized off-planet colony to the point of achieving self-sufficiency I suspect that we'll have sufficient motive to build efficient transportation infrastructure within a few centuries.
In the mean time reusable rocketry is going to so radically reduce the expense of getting into orbit that I think we have a fair chance of getting at least a minimal off-world colony established this century - with reusable rocketry a Mars base would be no more of a leap in technology than landing on the moon was a half-century ago.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.