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Life On Mars: Elon Musk Reveals Details of His Colonisation Vision
Elon Musk has put his Mars-colonization vision to paper, and you can read it for free. SpaceX's billionaire founder and CEO published the plan, which he unveiled at a conference in Mexico in September 2016, in the journal New Space. From a report: The paper outlines early designs of the gigantic spacecraft, designed to carry 100 passengers, that he hopes to construct. "The thrust level is enormous," the paper states. "We are talking about a lift-off thrust of 13,000 tons, so it will be quite tectonic when it takes off." Creating a fully self-sustained civilisation of around one million people -- the ultimate goal -- would take 40-100 years according to the plans. Before full colonisation takes place, though, Musk needs to entice the first pioneers to pave the way.
I'm sure Musk could easily find thousands to initially travel to mars, even with a 50% survivability rate... just look at how many people applied for that contest that was a one-way mission.
I myself would happily go, if they are really looking...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
#DeleteFacebook
No thanks, not until they can fix Gibabit internet connection.
This will work. All we need to do is mine and asteroid for space dust and fill the hull with it. When we land on Mars we will construct caves and live in them to get around the radiation problem. Anyone else have any ideas on how to colonize Mars?
Are there valuable minerals and resources on Mars? Because besides that I can't think of a good reason. Overpopulation isn't really a problem once nations modernize. In fact, underpopulation is. Don't we have better things to be doing then this?
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...to fuel the Elon Musk money machine. You are all fools.
It is a little cold, but we can warm it up. It has a very helpful atmosphere, which, being primarily CO2 with some nitrogen and argon and a few other trace elements, means that we can grow plants on Mars just by compressing the atmosphere.
Just by compressing the atmosphere...? How do you compress an entire planet's atmosphere?
Because it's the ultimate in real exploration and a frontier needing a million problems to be solved, both technical and physical.
I wouldn't expect to ever come back again; I wouldn't really care. Though I'm sure eventually some people would be able to return I'd think that would be pretty rough with years spent in the lower gravity of Mars.
I could easily turn the question around though, and say - I can't imagine not wanting to go, so why NOT go? It makes no sense to me, for any reason.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Taking the sun's-eye view of Life As We Know It, it can all go away with a massive asteroid (that we can't see), a freak solar storm (that we'd see for about 8 minutes), or other event that could take us all out.
After that, all the science, all the technology, all the things we've done to separate ourselves from the rocks we kill each other with are gone. All because we are on a semi-closed system (planet Earth can take new mass in, and ejects minimal amounts of hydrogen).
It seems prudent to me that we make the ark (Stephenson wasn't the first to name it) and get at least some life (some of it with the ability to sustain the rest) off of this planet. That gives us a non-zero probability of surviving if an extinction level event should happen. We have a budget of billions of dollars spent on items of less importance, sometimes I wonder how we get priorities like this.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
All the challenges of trying to inhabit a resource poor super cold desert, but the atmosphere is still breathable.
And if the your test colony fails, there is still a chance of evacuation.
Why else do you think all the billionaires are pursuing stuff like life extension and rocketry? They want to live forever and not with you, peasants.
This is exactly correct. It's been true throughout all of human history.
Elon Musk only got media attention after Steve Jobs died. It's a Highlander scenario.
Who would you rather have on Mars with you, one 300 lb man, or three 100 lb women? Cost to get there is the same for both right, based on weight?
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Still better than...Captain Donner: "Welcome aboard, please join us for dinner."
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Who would you rather have on Mars with you, one 300 lb man, or three 100 lb women?
That's not hard to choose at all - the one guy uses less oxygen than the three women, not to mention if it comes down to it that one 300 pound guy provides a lot more calories than three thin women.
Cost to get there is the same for both right, based on weight?
See: Oxygen. Plus you could half the food rations for the 300lb guy figuring he can live party off his own body weight for a while at least.
In fact if they were smart they'd send only really fat people up in the first few missions so they could ship up very little food.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Any great project starts with a vision. The details of this one are extremely expensive and challenging, but I don't think they are physically/technically impossible. Although I will concede they are economically impossible at the moment.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
Every person who even thinks about colonizing Mars should overwinter at McMurdo station for a least 2 years straight. I don't think you'll find a million volunteers after that screening process. Even Elon Musk would probably change his tune.
You mean that they want the species to live. That's the important part; Musk is deeply concerned about the survival and prosperity of humanity as a whole. That's part of why one of his big projects is electric cars and another is solar panels. Heck, even his rocketry architecture is done with sustainability in mind; SpaceX's next generation of engine, the Raptor, uses methane. This is for two reasons: first, it is easy to produce on Mars. But second, it is easy to produce on Earth using the same process so one can in the long-run have carbon neutral rockets. And if you talk to the people pushing for life extension, they want it for *everyone*. I'm amazed how there are many billionaires who get private islands and similar junk, but the vitriol is somehow reserved for those who are actually trying to help.
Musk is a strong believer in powerful AI coming soon. He should combine his two visions, and send robots to Mars so they can build a nice cozy house for him to live in, and enjoy the sunset.
The paper outlines early designs of the gigantic spacecraft, designed to carry 100 passengers, that he hopes to construct.
the paper states. “We are talking about a lift-off thrust of 13,000 tons, so it will be quite tectonic when it takes off.”
The current situation is summed up in a Venn diagram
“What we need to do is to move those circles together,” Musk explains
the paper strikes a buoyant, even jocular tone and doesn’t get excessively bogged down in technical detail
It would be quite fun to be on Mars
The spaceship’s design is summed up as: “In some ways, it is not that complicated,”
“We have to figure out how to improve the cost of trips to Mars by five million percent”
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
why he spells it with an "S" in the title and a "Z" in the summary? That's what we really want to know. Dual British/American citizenship? Or just lousy copy editing?
Vacate the basement, Brent.
Climb up the stairs, bears.
Get your ass to Mars, Lars.
And get yourself free.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
What?
Don't they need to do a 5 year EIS? Mars is pristine. What if they introduce pathogenic that wipe out whatever life may be hiding there?
Not really. The entire planet is covered with perclorates which are sterilizing agents.
The sea dragon was a gigantic rocket designed to be as simple as possible. It was never done full scale, though small scale tests were done and the design was considered viable. It was designed to bring 550 tons to LEO, which is about the same as Musks's super rocket.
A few awesome facts about the sea dragon :
- 2 stages, with a single engine (the same) for each stage
- The first stage of the Saturn V can fit in the engine bell
- It is a pressurized tank design. No turbo-pumps, the engine is basically 2 valves and an igniter
- The first stage burns kerosene + LOX. Regular kerosene, not the more expensive RP-1. The 2nd stage uses hydrogen
- Designed to be launched directly from the sea, with most of the rocket being underwater. The rocket would be powerful enough to destroy any launchpad anyways.
- Made from 8mm sheet steel, in a ship yard, using the same techniques they use to build submarines
- Reuseable. It is designed to be able to resist a fall back into water. No costly delicate parts to break
The whole idea behind this rocket was to make things BIG instead of complex. It is terribly inefficient compared to current designs but it is so huge that it doesn't matter.
they'll leave you to die long before that.
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and making city air clean. And making clean manufacturing. And What about the upcoming potable water crisis? Mars doesn't exactly solve that one. Now, if we're going there to get more Helium after venting it all into space to make party balloons I might be for it (electronics require Helium)
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So much energy is needed just to escape Earth's gravity well, it would make more sense to set up a refueling station either on-orbit or on the moon (much smaller gravity well). That way the giant rocket doesn't have to make the whole trip in one go and it would be much easier to arrange resupplying missions. Anyway, an unmanned mission should be planned first to set up power, air, and begin producing fuel so that the colonists have some things waiting for them that they can rely on for survival. Sending people alone with nothing set up on the other end is easier to plan but has higher chance of disaster. Better to take it slow and incrementally.
You claim if "any of that happens you are dead" but...
Well, if shit breaks you can get spare parts
Which you obviously pack more of on a ship to Mars, then in many scenarios get shipped to you about once a year while you are there.
Also of course, you do realize you ship a lot of spare equipment out ahead of time and don't go until you know it's safe???
Low on food?
How would that realistically happen on the trip out which would have packaged meals to last the trip + one year minimum on Mars (probably more). It's the time past that where growing the food may become an issue but that's quite a long point beyond the main goal which is simply to live on Mars and advance a colony. Even if you all day you have at least prepped something for those that come after.
And again you would have shipped extra food out ahead of you so you know if you arrive you will have enough to eat for X number of days.
Low on air? Simply make more
This is the only realistic danger to my mind but with enough spare oxygen redundantly stored on the way out along with scrubbers you should be OK. At least in this area we actually have a lot of experience providing long term oxygen supplies in space.
Once you get to Mars you can also make more.
Got a fire? Lots of water to put it out.
Guess what fire needs to burn, and you can't find in space or in much abundance on Mars... Lots of small compartments easily voided mean fire is less of an issue.
All of the issues you raise apply to the space station to some degree, even though it can get new supplies that does not happen with greta regularity. Yet it has been around for a long time without major issues.
The biggest danger at all is landing, but there again is where landing a few un-manned supply ships of the same design ahead of time ensures a higher degree of confidence in being able to land. In an era where we can land a rocket on a freaking floating barge in the ocean I'm pretty sure we can land on a stable rock.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The article talks about their plans for building a rocket. I really would like to know about the plans for *colonization*.
Don't you worry yourself about the details. Just get on the rocket.
Have gnu, will travel.
And if you talk to the people pushing for life extension, they want it for *everyone*.
That's a noble idea, but it's the ultra-wealthy who will decide.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Physics is simple. Biology is complex. Humans are insane.
Like many, I am excited about what SpaceX is trying to do. I am often trying to fill in the blanks they've left, though. Here are a few:
1. Gravity. I've long advocated a broad pill-shaped vessel for distant space travel. Spin can be used to simulate gravity but too much will create an uncomfortable corealis effect (dizziness, and the feeling of being pushed walking one way, pulled walking the other). Zero corealis is when the spin is 2 rpm or less but even at 8 rpm, the effects are reasonably negligible. For 2 rpm and Earth-like gravity, the craft would have to be 400 meters in diameter.
The colonial transporter does seem to have bare walls in the lower occupiable deck. It looks like they may be able to put spinning crew quarters in there with perhaps a bit better than moon-like gravity. One could design a toilet to flush with splash-guards in that environment. If a curfew is put into effect, one could increase the rate of spin after lights out, such as to perhaps greatly reduce the long term effects of weightlessness... then slow it back down again just before wake-up time. The transition between a weightful and weightless environment can be disorienting but I presume one could reasonably adapt in low gravity to no gravity.
2. Carbon Monoxide. For the colony on Mars itself, nobody (not even NASA) seems to be talking about the CO risk. CO will inevitably find itself way into habitation chambers and at some point, silently kill. Mars CO levels are trace gas but in deadly percentages. CO is very small and is not easily contained--it will seep through most containment materials.
My solution would be to standardize on hydrogen combustion for heating, cooking, smelting, and other activities requiring high heat. The ambient air will draw in the CO with the oxygen destroying it. Of course, CO monitors must be kept in working order at all times. Hydrogen is easily obtainable through electrolysis of water--which is plentiful in the soils of Mars.
3. Oxygen Toxicity. This criticism has been made of the Mars One project's published plans. In order to grow enough food to feed a certain number of people, you will inevitably also create more oxygen than they can consume and convert to CO2 through breathing. When too much oxygen builds up, it ultimately freezes the lungs from which the crystalization causes irreparable cellular damage... and death.
My solution for Oxygen Toxicity is the same as for Carbon Monoxide--combust hydrogen to create heat. Any combustion will consume large amounts of oxygen but combusting hydrogen also solves the CO problem. Mars is very cold and heat it needed for many things.
4. Heat Dissipation. Most seem concerned with generating and retaining heat in Mars' cold environment. However, heat loss on Mars will not be as rapid as it is on Earth because the atmosphere is thinner. Yes, thin atmosphere equals cold. However, exchange of heat requires molecules to come in contact with each other and when the air density is 1% or even a bit less than on Earth, don't expect the freezing to happen within seconds. A well insulated habitat is likely to over-heat, if no cooling system is available... even perhaps from body heat.
I propose running cooling coils spread out into the Martian regolith, with ammonia as the heat exchange liquid. The regolith will be fully cooled and, mostly of silica, will very rapidly move heat away. Ammonia will not freeze at Martian temperatures and is readily made by the human body--in pee.
5. Mental and Emotional Well-Being. Elon Musk's claims that the voyages will be fun seems hopeful but naive. Zero-G games, crew quarters, movies, and lecture halls, and a restaurant (aka glorified cafeteria) will all become old, quickly. Although the privacy of personal quarters, the challenges of games, and various forms of leisure are highly saught after on Earth, that is because we work so much. The truth is, having the stress and feeling of importance of your activities are more essential for human happiness.
They are technologically impossible at the moment. Economics does not even come into it.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Nobody says anything about doing nothing for 100 years. But remember that we still have no permanent base on the moon and that one is orders of magnitudes simpler as it _can_ be supplied from Earth? In fact, we do not have a replacement project for the ISS at this time. This tells me that 100 years for a realistic attempt at a permanent human presence on Mars is optimistic. Of course that also requires that human civilization does not go down the drains in that time and there are some rather huge challenges coming in that area in this time-frame.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
For free? As in, there is some expectation that one would have to pay for Musk's position paper?
Assess slashvertisement due to artificial inducement through unwarranted use of "for free".
Does Musk remind anyone else of S.R. Hadden from Contact?
See my post on Slashdot from 2005: https://slashdot.org/comments....
"So that is why I think billionaires like Jeff Bezos spending money on CATS is a tragedy -- they should IMHO be spending their money on DOGS instead (Design of Great Settlements)."
If Elon Musk wants to get to Mars, he should invest in projects like OSCOMAK (my idea, but other people have similar ones):
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...
"The OSCOMAK project is an attempt to create a core of communities more in control of their technological destiny and its social implications. No single design for a community or technology will please everyone, or even many people. Nor would a single design be likely to survive. So this project endeavors to gather information and to develop tools and processes that all fit together conceptually like Tinkertoys or Legos. The result will be a library of possibilities that individuals in a community can use to achieve any degree of self-sufficiency and self-replication within any size community, from one person to a billion people. Within every community people will interact with these possibilities by using them and extending them to design a community economy and physical layout that suits their needs and ideas."
Build that first, then deploy automated seeds to Mars and the Moon and Asteroids, and they will come... Because there will be a reason to go there...
CATS (Cheap Access to Space) is the technological equivalent of supply-side economics.
Supply side economics is the dumb (yet brilliantly marketed) idea that if we give all out money to rich people, then stuff will trickle down eventually because they will invest in businesses and hire people. That totally ignores that anyone with provable demand for a producible product can already get a bank loan based on booked orders (as well as of course angel investments and venture capital). Give the money to people to spend, and immediately you will see businesses pop up to service that demand. What really happens when you give rich people more money is that they either do the financial equivalent of stuffing it in a matters or they gamble it in high stakes poker games with other rich people and none of it ever reaches the real economy.
CATS is about supply. The idea goes that if we can make launching people into space cheap enough, if we can make getting to Mars cheap enough, then people will go there. CATS is a dumb idea for the same reasons as supply side economics. We don't go to space because, except for a few scientists studying it and a few tourists on thrill rides, there is nothing of obvious human interest there right now.
I'm not saying cosmology or astronomy is not interesting -- it is fascinating. But if you want to study cosmology, you will almost certainly be much much happier studying such things on Earth right now than by yourself and maybe a few others cooped up in a tiny buried shack on Mars after having been irradiated for months on the way there.
If we can build great settlements on land, underground, in Antarctica, and in the oceans -- then soon enough we can build them anywhere including Mars, the Moon, and the Asteroid. Then people will move to space habitats for the same reasons people move to New York City or Austin or Paris or Amsterdam -- because they are interesting places to live around lots of interesting people doing interesting things. And once there are interesting places to go in space, then people will figure out cheaper ways to get there -- including by beaming power to Earth if needed and building space ships in space to shuttle people up from Earth.
I once calculated that we could evacuate the Earth in about ten years if we switched all our industries to the effort and accepted a 1% - 5% fatality rate (same as ocean voyages to the "New World" centuries ago). So, the issue is not the cost of getting into space. The issue is that there is no pl
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I laughed because its all rocket jock talk
Physics is simple
?! I don't think that you have got right my position regarding all this and/or interpret those quotes in the way that I thought that virtually anyone would have done. Well, I guess that I shouldn't be surprised at all.
Here you have references to some of my previous comments about this matter to help you and future readers (for whom statements like "physics is simple" makes sense at all) get the context (= what I consider basic knowledge) and my intention right:
- What I think of the generic-talking, video-based approach of Musk (sarcastic remark, although I included a clarification expressly highlighting that point. BTW, I see you in one of the comments below, did you get my intention right that time or not?).
- Generic ideas Musk/Mars (+ was I whooshed?).
- Explaining someone that there will be no trip to Mars.
- Clarifying that, without being too interested in any outside-earth option, the moon seems the only acceptable alternative.
Just in case you are still not getting it: I laughed a lot after reading those quotes (found particularly funny "The current situation is summed up in a Venn diagram" + “What we need to do is to move those circles together,” which seems to reflect the understanding of a 5yo) and was expecting other people to find them very funny too.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
But not physically impossible. $=engineering=technology. Anything that is physically possible is possible with enough motivation ($$).
"Physically possible" does buy you exactly nothing. Your reasoning is also fundamentally flawed, because there are loads of "physically possible" things that are not practically possible in this universe, much less for the human race. Also you seem to be completely unaware how applied research works, because it is _not_ a matter of money spent beyond a pretty low threshold. In fact, there are indicators that you slow research down if you invest too much money, because you get more and more people with mediocre talent in.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Many goods, like cell phones and TVs start off just for the wealthy. Their prices go down over time and they become available to everyone. In the early 1990s there were were people worried about how there would be a permanent underclass made up of people who could not afford internet access.
This is not about availability, this is about who decides which rules will not only be made, but enforced.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Huh? I don't follow what you mean at all. Enforcing what rules? Are you imagining that we're going to have life extension technology but there will be laws outlining who can get it?
Are you imagining that we're going to have life extension technology but there will be laws outlining who can get it?
That's how capitalism works. Are you imagining that when we get life extension technology, we will all join hands, run off into the forest together and abandon capitalism?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Here is one that is merely informative without being condescending:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting
Note a requirement of a little more than "just add energy".
I have taught some stuff on this topic a couple of years before this site existed. And no, that doesn't make me any more special than any other postgraduate engineering student with a metallurgical focus at the time, you just happen to have hit something I was doing.
Perhaps you should look up some melting points of molten oxides and then consider if your electrodes are going to survive, let alone have your metal of choice plated out on them.
I'm sure that you are extremely good at coding or something, but there are a lot of people on this site and the odds are when you bring up something where you are out of your depth that you will hit someone who has had to actually put some work into that topic. Perhaps instead of feeling threatened and getting insulting you should consider a different reaction.
Uh, what? I don't know how you are defining "capitalism" but it seems you are using it in a very nonstandard way. Look again at the internet and TV and cell phone examples: people *bought* the goods in question. As more people bought the goods in question, the goods became cheaper (both due to economies of scale and due to research making them cheaper). Eventually many people could afford them. Why do you think life extension will be any different?
As more people bought the goods in question, the goods became cheaper (both due to economies of scale and due to research making them cheaper). Eventually many people could afford them. Why do you think life extension will be any different?
Who said it will be different? It will simply be so expensive that most people won't be able to afford it for the foreseeable future. And it will be kept that way artificially if necessary, so as to kill off as many undesirables as possible.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It truly is a bad combination. Seriously, do some research before bragging about teaching on a subject you clearly know nothing about. Just because you're familiar with one particular way of doing things does not mean it is the only possible approach.
Yes, the temperatures are high. Guess what, the people developing these systems figured that out pretty early on, and electricity turns out to be pretty good at heating things to high temperatures, with several experimental designs being heated by the current used for electrolysis. The material difficulties with the electrodes and crucibles are also areas of current research, but workable solutions already exist. The fact is that molten oxide electrolysis can produce large quantities of reduced metal and oxygen with the only inputs being oxides (typically a mix of silicates and metal oxides, as in molten basalt rock) and electricity. No reducing agents required.
Ok. So let's be clear. First of all, you have dropped your claim that this is somehow related to "capitalism" but are now claiming that the technologies will be kept artificially expensive but haven't explained how that will happen. Moreover, this presumes that a) that people will have the ability to keep them expensive while history suggests that barring a few rare exceptions, cartels for technologies almost invariably fail or fail after a few years b) that the people in charge will be willing to kill off many other people in a way that causes them to *get less money*. That means you are presuming that people are not only sociopathic but more willing to part with their money if it means more poor people will be killed. What evidence do you have for this whatsoever? Moreover, what at all makes you think Elon Musk thinks this way other than your own reflexive cynicism and desire to dislike the rich?
Consider aluminium oxide (alumina), you've got to heat it up to a bit above 2000C before it is molten.
Assuming your electrodes can survive how are you going to actually get the aluminium out?
Hence the process I linked to above instead of "just use energy".
Are you getting yet why your "just use energy" is coming across like "just use a Star Trek matter replicator"?
I'm not suggesting impossibility, just that it's not so trivial as you are suggesting.
I'm not bragging, merely pointing out that I know more than nothing about the topic (and that nothing point is sadly where you are arguing from for some strange reason).
Of course it's impractical. It's not just impractical for that metal oxide situation, it's impractical across the range which is why the "just add energy" approach is ridiculous - other things are done before adding energy.
I certainly have done so, far more than you on the topic given what I was doing for a living.
Well no, technically possible does not seem to be coming into it at all.
As for getting iron out of an iron oxide in a silicon rich molten mass - assuming the electrodes survive how are you going to get the iron out at the electrode? It's going to be far too hot to plate out isn't it?
Do you have a citation (instead of an insult) on that which you have come across as part of what you are calling your "research"? If you do I suggest you actually read it and I'm sure you'll find that the only one saying "just add energy" is you.