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I'm very conflicted about SpaceX. On one hand, I can appreciate the technical performance like everyone, and I do believe this may have a great impact for send

I'm very conflicted about SpaceX. On one hand, I can appreciate the technical performance like everyone, and I do believe this may have a great impact for sending things to space, including humans. On the other hand, SpaceX's main goal of having men living on mars to me sounds completely insane. No matter how cheap is the trip to mars, I would not live there as I could not afford to, and I doubt anyone on Earth currently can. Maybe a scientific base with public funding would make some sense but it would still be so insanely expensive that it'd be tough to sell to the tax payer. And it's clearly not what SpaceX has in mind, anyway. Also I don't share the fear of an upcoming cataclysm that would make Earth worse a place where to live than mars. I just don't get it. For reference: https://youtu.be/3YDnGHaXdxw https://youtu.be/3YDnGHaXdxw

grumble1234 11y ago
To those that aren't aware, Elon is part of this weird futurist SV clique along with Pete Theil, Ray Kurzweil, Eliezer Yudkowsky etc. They're trying to create a utopian libertarian society and aren't too concerned about the details. It's pretty cool and definitely pretty crazy/idealistic I can already see the future - being a remote web dev on Mars! If you don't work hard enough they might cut off your oxygen. What a motivator! Ayn Rand would be proud Or maybe they'll be all applying for research grants (wouldn't THAT be ironic)
- grondilu 11y ago
  I don't think the current tax system can allow anyone to become rich enough to afford living on mars, and I doubt settling on mars can exempt from taxation.
Walkman 11y ago
The sun will not explode tomorrow, but it will eventually. You gotta start to move sometime if you don't want humanity die out.
- grondilu 11y ago
  Earth will remain inhabitable for about 500 million years. Making any kind of a plan for such a time frame is just dumb.
  - MPSimmons 11y ago
    The thing being defended against isn't the sun blowing up. It's a species-ending impact or some other localized global catastrophe that would cause the loss of 100,000 years of culture, art, and history. Everything we've worked for during the entire history of the human existence can be erased in an instant. All other benefits of being interplanetary aside, redundancy is important.
    - grondilu 11y ago
      > The thing being defended against isn't the sun blowing up. It was in the post I was replying to. > It's a species-ending impact or some other localized global catastrophe that would cause the loss of 100,000 years of culture, art, and history. Do you plan on building museums on mars or something? Whatever you plan on doing on mars in order to preserve "culture, art and history", you can do it for much, much less money on Earth. > Everything we've worked for during the entire history of the human existence can be erased in an instant. That's a gross exaggeration.
jijojv 11y ago
me too, there is so much uninhabited space on earth that Musk can improve upon...
MzHN 11y ago
I agree with you on being skeptical about the Mars plan. I won't say it will be affordable in the future, but I also don't believe when you say it definitely never will be, without any reasoning behind it. The "How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars"[1] acknowledges the part on how it would be made affordable. It is similar, but not the same, as Tesla's plan to make EVs affordable. The question then remains, will it happen, rather than how it would be possible. As I said, I am skeptical about the Mars plan too, despite the plan. [1] http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html/5 http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-coloni...
kayoone 11y ago
True. Saving earth would be much easier in almost every way imaginable (economic, logistic, structure) than trying to establish a new earth in space. Not saying we should not explore possibilities, but human sense and desire for exploration was always driven by the search for places that are good for humans to live in or provide value to our direct needs, while space is so hostile to our race that the efforts would be enormous and the benefits little. We have been to the moon, but found nothing too valuable and efforts have largely scaled down since then. We humans are bound to earth by our very own evolution, finely tuned for this environment. We are children of the earth and children we will remain.
Joeri 11y ago
What SpaceX is doing is raising the bar. Not to where it needs to be, but at least a little bit out of the deep hole it is currently buried in. As a child I was fascinated by technology and sci-fi, because of the unlimited potential held by it. It seemed to me like people could go anywhere, achieve anything, if only they set their minds to it. Growing up involved being told over and over again about all the things that aren't possible, all the ways in which that is naive thinking. The bar of what could be achieved was constantly lowered. All that lowering of the bar? It is BS. Things are only impossible because they're believed to be impossible. We don't need more technology, we don't need more resources, we just need to believe we can do better. SpaceX is demonstrating that with every launch. Any spacefaring company could have done what they did, but they simply lacked the ambition and the belief. When (not if) they put people on mars and turn a profit doing so, it is a challenge to the rest of us to raise the bar in our own line of work.
sktrdie 11y ago
As Dr. Zubrin once said "I think societies are like individuals, we grow when we challenge ourselves, we stagnate when we do not." - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2Mu8qfVb5I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2Mu8qfVb5I I truly believe the whole point of going to Mars is to challenge ourselves. New skills will be required; new passions will be planted in future generations. The benefits will dwarf the cost of the program. But above everything, humans are wired to explore. Obviously we're exploring things in many other fields, but "exploring other planets" is a different kind of exploration.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- grondilu 11y ago
  > The benefits will dwarf the cost of the program. There will be no benefit if nobody can pay the costs. > I truly believe the whole point of going to Mars is to challenge ourselves. SpaceX does not just want to go to mars, they want to have people permanently live there. > But above everything, humans are wired to explore. The point of exploration is to discover new places and what they look like. We know what mars is and what it looks like. We're currently exploring it. Sure, bringing humans there will make us know a bit more about it, and in that sense that's still exploration, but that's very marginal an improvement over what's currently done. Also, exploration is a scientific endeavor, and as I said SpaceX's goals are clearly not just scientific. It's that non-scientific part I find insane.
- erikpukinskis 11y ago
  I agree with this, but I don't understand people who look at Earth and see no interesting challenges of this class. Climate change? Widespread torture of thousands and thousands of marginalized classes of humans all over the world? Healthcare? Those are vastly more challenging than Mars. I think the appeal of Mars is that it's somewhat challenging, but it's not messy at all. It appeals to people who can't stomach chaotic systems. They need a clear goal and they need "dumb" opponents, i.e. the laws of physics, materials science, etc. In the face of an intelligent opponent, the challenge becomes too high and they lose interest. The idea of putting together a solution to a problem with known constraints, and then finding out those constraints changed, or worse yet there was active interference from another human is soul crushing to these people, so they retreat to difficult engineering problems where they will be challenged but not surprised.

grumble1234 11y ago

To those that aren't aware, Elon is part of this weird futurist SV clique along with Pete Theil, Ray Kurzweil, Eliezer Yudkowsky etc. They're trying to create a utopian libertarian society and aren't too concerned about the details. It's pretty cool and definitely pretty crazy/idealistic I can already see the future - being a remote web dev on Mars! If you don't work hard enough they might cut off your oxygen. What a motivator! Ayn Rand would be proud Or maybe they'll be all applying for research grants (wouldn't THAT be ironic)

grondilu 11y ago
I don't think the current tax system can allow anyone to become rich enough to afford living on mars, and I doubt settling on mars can exempt from taxation.

Walkman 11y ago

The sun will not explode tomorrow, but it will eventually. You gotta start to move sometime if you don't want humanity die out.

grondilu 11y ago
Earth will remain inhabitable for about 500 million years. Making any kind of a plan for such a time frame is just dumb.
- MPSimmons 11y ago
  The thing being defended against isn't the sun blowing up. It's a species-ending impact or some other localized global catastrophe that would cause the loss of 100,000 years of culture, art, and history. Everything we've worked for during the entire history of the human existence can be erased in an instant. All other benefits of being interplanetary aside, redundancy is important.
  - grondilu 11y ago
    > The thing being defended against isn't the sun blowing up. It was in the post I was replying to. > It's a species-ending impact or some other localized global catastrophe that would cause the loss of 100,000 years of culture, art, and history. Do you plan on building museums on mars or something? Whatever you plan on doing on mars in order to preserve "culture, art and history", you can do it for much, much less money on Earth. > Everything we've worked for during the entire history of the human existence can be erased in an instant. That's a gross exaggeration.

jijojv 11y ago

me too, there is so much uninhabited space on earth that Musk can improve upon...

MzHN 11y ago

I agree with you on being skeptical about the Mars plan. I won't say it will be affordable in the future, but I also don't believe when you say it definitely never will be, without any reasoning behind it. The "How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars"[1] acknowledges the part on how it would be made affordable. It is similar, but not the same, as Tesla's plan to make EVs affordable. The question then remains, will it happen, rather than how it would be possible. As I said, I am skeptical about the Mars plan too, despite the plan. [1] http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html/5 http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-coloni...

kayoone 11y ago

True. Saving earth would be much easier in almost every way imaginable (economic, logistic, structure) than trying to establish a new earth in space. Not saying we should not explore possibilities, but human sense and desire for exploration was always driven by the search for places that are good for humans to live in or provide value to our direct needs, while space is so hostile to our race that the efforts would be enormous and the benefits little. We have been to the moon, but found nothing too valuable and efforts have largely scaled down since then. We humans are bound to earth by our very own evolution, finely tuned for this environment. We are children of the earth and children we will remain.

Joeri 11y ago

What SpaceX is doing is raising the bar. Not to where it needs to be, but at least a little bit out of the deep hole it is currently buried in. As a child I was fascinated by technology and sci-fi, because of the unlimited potential held by it. It seemed to me like people could go anywhere, achieve anything, if only they set their minds to it. Growing up involved being told over and over again about all the things that aren't possible, all the ways in which that is naive thinking. The bar of what could be achieved was constantly lowered. All that lowering of the bar? It is BS. Things are only impossible because they're believed to be impossible. We don't need more technology, we don't need more resources, we just need to believe we can do better. SpaceX is demonstrating that with every launch. Any spacefaring company could have done what they did, but they simply lacked the ambition and the belief. When (not if) they put people on mars and turn a profit doing so, it is a challenge to the rest of us to raise the bar in our own line of work.

sktrdie 11y ago

As Dr. Zubrin once said "I think societies are like individuals, we grow when we challenge ourselves, we stagnate when we do not." - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2Mu8qfVb5I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2Mu8qfVb5I I truly believe the whole point of going to Mars is to challenge ourselves. New skills will be required; new passions will be planted in future generations. The benefits will dwarf the cost of the program. But above everything, humans are wired to explore. Obviously we're exploring things in many other fields, but "exploring other planets" is a different kind of exploration.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
grondilu 11y ago
> The benefits will dwarf the cost of the program. There will be no benefit if nobody can pay the costs. > I truly believe the whole point of going to Mars is to challenge ourselves. SpaceX does not just want to go to mars, they want to have people permanently live there. > But above everything, humans are wired to explore. The point of exploration is to discover new places and what they look like. We know what mars is and what it looks like. We're currently exploring it. Sure, bringing humans there will make us know a bit more about it, and in that sense that's still exploration, but that's very marginal an improvement over what's currently done. Also, exploration is a scientific endeavor, and as I said SpaceX's goals are clearly not just scientific. It's that non-scientific part I find insane.
erikpukinskis 11y ago
I agree with this, but I don't understand people who look at Earth and see no interesting challenges of this class. Climate change? Widespread torture of thousands and thousands of marginalized classes of humans all over the world? Healthcare? Those are vastly more challenging than Mars. I think the appeal of Mars is that it's somewhat challenging, but it's not messy at all. It appeals to people who can't stomach chaotic systems. They need a clear goal and they need "dumb" opponents, i.e. the laws of physics, materials science, etc. In the face of an intelligent opponent, the challenge becomes too high and they lose interest. The idea of putting together a solution to a problem with known constraints, and then finding out those constraints changed, or worse yet there was active interference from another human is soul crushing to these people, so they retreat to difficult engineering problems where they will be challenged but not surprised.