Slashdot Mirror
Elon Musk: First Humans Who Journey To Mars Must 'Be Prepared To Die' (theverge.com)
At a conference yesterday, Elon Musk outlined his company SpaceX's plan to send humans to Mars. The vehicle is called the Interplanetary Transport System and it is capable of carrying 100 tons of cargo (people and supplies). Musk added that this rocket ship could take people to Mars in just 80 days. But he also reminded that the first batch of people who are brave enough to go to Mars should be well aware that they are almost certainly going to die. The Verge adds:During the Q&A session that followed, the question inevitably came up: what sort of person does Musk think will volunteer to get strapped to that big rocket and fired toward the Red Planet? "Who should these people be, carrying the light of humanity to Mars for all of us?" an audience member asked. "I think the first journeys to Mars will be really very dangerous," answered Musk. "The risk of fatality will be high. There's just no way around it." The journey itself would take around 80 days, according to the plan and ideas that Musk put forward. "Are you prepared to die? If that's okay, then you're a candidate for going," he added. But Musk didn't want to get stuck talking about the risks and immense danger. "This is less about who goes there first... the thing that really matters is making a self-sustaining civilization on Mars as fast as possible. This is different than Apollo. This is really about minimizing existential risk and having a tremendous sense of adventure," he said.
We're all going to die.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Basement on Earth, basement on Mars, the view's all the same...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The fact of the matter is he's right. And even if they do make the trip back, the probability that they will have crippling health issues is high. Exploring any frontier was dangerous throughout human history.
Out of several tens of billions of humans, only a fraction have not yet died, and of those who died, only a small percent of disputed cases indicate recovery.
I nominate Congress to go on the first voyage. This would be the best use of taxpayer money ever.
Ill respect a guy who can fail and ask for help over a guy who is successful without failure. The latter is always hiding something.
At least I'd get away from all the Elon Musk stories.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What is the difference if you are not prepared? Will you fail at it?
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
The first Mars colony is always wiped out. It's the second one that thrives -- after 90% of the colonists are wiped out.
Isn't that also in the Microsoft License Agreement?
Table-ized A.I.
If your goal is a self-sufficient colony on mars and your serious about it your opening move will not involve sending people there initially because this would be a pointless waste of resources.
It isn't enough to just preposition supplies you need to develop and transport a highly automated industrial base using technology that does not yet exist to create the things people will need to survive.
The solution today is basic research and development not building space buses and telling riders they are probably going to die.
You can't just ignore reality and subscribe to new age planning doesn't matter we don't need to learn how to walk first nonsense because if you do that you will fail.
So I have this friend with a father who is a Vietnam war hero. When the base was under attack, he would grab the nearest weapon he could get his hands on and run toward the enemy. He won a medal for demonstrating that after the enemy shoots the tail off your helicopter, it is indeed still flyable if you go just go fast enough. Funny thing was, his very successful military career was something of an accident. Before joining the army, when there was nothing at stake and nothing to be gained by it, he would get in trouble by doing some damn fool wild thing. After the umpteenth time the judge finally told him, it's the jail or the military, you choose.
It took a long time for me to understand because I am not like that myself, but some people need high-risk, crazy adventure to thrive. If that is denied to them, they will seize it anyway, however they can. So those people might as well expend that impulse on something socially redeeming, like establishing off-world human colonies, while the rest of us cower here on earth until interplanetary transport is proven safe.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Musk is a Space Nutter.
You throw around the phrase "space nutter" as if that actually means something every time an article about Musk is posted. Let it go. If you want to make an evidence based case that going to Mars is not possible then fine. Ad-hominem attacks do not in any way bolster your case. They just make you look like a jerk.
There is no way ANYONE is going to Mars.
If you want to claim that people aren't going to be on Mars in the near future I would agree with you. Any such mission is going to take a while before it happens. If you are going to claim that it is categorically impossible that humans will ever set foot on Mars then you have no evidence to back you up. Present some actual and irrefutable evidence that putting humans on Mars is irreducibly impossible or shut up about it. So far your argument consists of calling anyone who is interested in solving the problem a "space nutter".
The trip alone would kill you with radiation.
And you of course have irrefutable proof not available to the rest of us that there is no possible way to mitigate that problem? Rhetorical question because of course since you don't and we know you don't. It's a known problem with numerous potential solutions. We aren't going to Mars tomorrow. If/when we do try to go it will be among the engineering challenges we face and one of the risks along the way. There is no evidence that it is a problem without any feasible solution given enough research and funding.
This guy is a scam artist and is trying to get taxpayer money to fund it, so he can siphon it off to pay for his other projects.
I'm not sure you know what the word means. Building at last count 4 successful and industry changing companies, three of which have nothing to do with space nor rely on any direct tax dollars, is a peculiar means of scamming people out of tax dollars. Furthermore most of the SpaceX mission list has private companies as clients as of today so basically no tax dollars are at work there either. Additionally SpaceX is actually SAVING tax dollars by reducing the cost to orbit over what NASA can do themselves. You might want to actually use some facts in your argument at some point. They tend to help.
Australia should send all their prisoners to Mars just to be ironic.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
He's not "asking" anyone to do anything. It's a simple reality that if there was a mission to Mars coming up shortly and you passed a signup sheet around, and at the top of it was written in large letters "YOU WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY DIE AT SOME POINT DURING THIS TRIP", you'd still get thousands of signatures from people who are utterly thrilled at getting the chance and couldn't give a rat's arse about the risk.
Everybody point at the libertarian and laugh.