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Elon Musk Scales Up His Ambitions, Considering Going 'Well Beyond' Mars (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: For most of its 14-year existence, SpaceX has focused on designing and developing the hardware that will lead to its ultimate goal: colonizing Mars. These plans have remained largely secret from the general public, as company founder Elon Musk has dropped only the barest of hints. But that is expected to change on Sept. 27, during a session at the International Astronautical Congress, when Musk details some of these plans for the first time in a public forum. However, on the eve of the meeting, Musk dropped a surprise on Twitter. The workhorse spacecraft that will carry approximately 100 tons of cargo or 100 people to the surface of Mars, which until now has been popularly known as the Mars Colonial Transporter, can't be called that, Musk said. "Turns out MCT can go well beyond Mars, so will need a new name..." he tweeted on Friday evening. By Saturday evening he had a new name dubbing the spacecraft the "Interplanetary Transport System," or ITS. Mars, it turns out, isn't the solar system's only marginally habitable world for would-be new world colonists. The Moon, Venus, the asteroid Ceres, and outer Solar System moons Titan and Callisto all have some advantages that could allow for colonies to subsist. However, Mars has generally been the preferred destination -- due to its relative proximity to Earth, a thin atmosphere, and sources of water ice. Musk now seems to be suggesting that some of these more distant destinations, especially moons around Jupiter and Saturn, might be reachable with the Interplanetary Transport System.
I'm a really big fan of SpaceX and a lot of the other things that Musk is doing. He's helping solve global warming with Tesla and SolarCity not just with his own companies but by pushing other companies to follow. The Falcon 9 is as of right now the cheapest rocket for medium sized payloads even without reuse (they aren't launching by themselves the very small payloads, and until the Falcon Heavy is setup they won't have the ability to launch the largest satellites). That number will go down even further if/when reuse is successful (and honestly I was very skeptical initially about reuse when they were just starting with the Falcon 1). However, this sort of statement worries me a lot, especially in the context of the recent AMOS-6 disaster where they lost a rocket on the ground and destroyed the satellite in the process http://spacenews.com/analysis-disaster-on-the-launchpad-implications-for-spacex-and-the-industry/. We need to colonize other worlds, simply as a backup plan for serious disasters on Earth, but it would seem a lot better if they focused on systems just for Mars and didn't jump out so far ahead as to aim at other bodies (as cool as that is). I worry that they are proceeding too fast, and that if they fail, it may not be for a very long time until anyone else tries anything similar.
Elon Musk is a complete idiot.
A complete idiot who has made the first practical rocket with a recoverable first stage which is likely going to shortly go into use, has made successful electric cars which have pushed other companies into making similar autos. He may be overly ambitious here (and I suspect he is), but whatever his failings, he isn't an idiot.
You mean a maniac who has created more conflict in foreign policies than any candidate before vs. a candidate supported by money. Anyway, Musk is also not a good candidate, as he over exaggerates his goals and falls short on delivering on them. Furthermore, he is not open for compromise, but that is how politics works (or at least should work). Also he is close to another market radical, cynical guy called Peter Thiel. BTW: Why elect some multi-(b/m)illionaire who has nothing to do with any average person?
How about we get to Mars and get the Model 3 out in 2018 and then we'll talk stretch goals?
Actually that is indeed the plan. As far as Red Dragon goes, it's not much harder to get to Mars than it is to GEO. And Dragon has been designed all along to do automated powered landings, which are necessary on Mars - even though the design purpose was for landings on Earth. The reentry heating is higher, but that's largely just a matter of a thicker ablative coating.
Now, MCT/ITS is much further in the future, and much harder. But again, that is indeed Musk's goal, to self-fund it. It's actually caused some turf wars with some at NASA, who've argued that Mars is their turf and that SpaceX should stay focused on Earth while they go beyond. Rather silly, IMHO.
Obviously, every time there's an incident with the Falcon 9, that sets SpaceX's plans back. Not just for the length of the downtime for the investigation repairs, but also for the time to cover the huge launch backlog that accumulates while they're down. A lot of the reason for Falcon Heavy's delay was the backlog after the CRS-7 accident. Now we've got this new one. Who knows at this point what the cause is and how long it will take to remedy.
"You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
The argument that there's a high probability we live in a simulation has been seriously discussed by philosophers such as Nick Bostrom.
Just because some people have "seriously discussed" an idea doesn't make the idea a credible one. The whole "we are in a simulation" is just a modern repackaging of philosophical questions that have been discussed in some cases literally for centuries.
I disagree with the argument but it isn't by itself a wacky idea or one we should dismiss out of hand.
Oh it's a pretty wacky idea but to date the evidence to support it is for all practical purposes nonexistent. Find a way to make the concept falsifiable and then it will become worth discussing. As it stands it is as much a waste of time as wondering if god exists.
Slashdot denizens hate successful people.
The Martian atmosphere has 1/200 the pressure of Earth's: in other words, it's barely even there, and really not enough to be useful for much.
Mars is an interesting place geologically, but it's also a 6-18 month journey from Earth IIRC, which is far, far beyond anything we've ever attempted with manned missions. It's not a trip you can just go on, drive around in some rovers, take photos, and come back home; you need to establish a permanent settlement there of some kind. We've never done that anywhere offworld. The logical course of action is to build a base on the Moon first, so we can get some experience with building settlements on other worlds. The Moon is only 3 days away, and we've been there before with 50-year-old technology, so it's entirely feasible to do a lot more there now. There's still plenty of scientific work to do there, including looking for useful mineral deposits and other natural resources, to see if an economic case can be made for a more permanent human presence there.
Jumping straight to Mars (or worse, Titan) is putting the cart before the horse.
If radiation isn't a problem for Mars it's not a problem for any of the other choices, surely?
I also understand it's an "increased risk of cancer" thing, not a face-melting thing? Surviving long enough to die of cancer is going to be enough of a problem that the reduced lief expectancy is a side issue.