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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species
- tehmillhouse 10y agoJudging by the preview image for the live stream (yeah, I wish I had more to go on, too), this looks to be a long-haul plan for terraforming mars. I wouldn't hold my breath for the first actual settlements up there. That being said: Yes. Oh yes. Fuck yes. All my yesses.
- tsaprailis 10y agoWell I think this will be more along the lines, Yes we want to be a multiplanetary species, and this is the rocket that will achieve this. Go Elon!
- tomp 10y agoThis image has actually been a backgroud of SpaceX's Twitter account for quite a while... I too was ecstatic when I realized what it is!
- espadrine 10y agoI love the idea BUT… If we can't terraform Earth's deserts, do we really stand a chance with Mars? I might be mistaken in my analysis. Still, the only way a colony might survive seems to be by sending tremendous amounts of resources to Mars yearly. They can never hope to be self-sustaining until either astronomically large amounts of time or astronomically large amounts of energy are spent.
- arethuza 10y ago"They can never hope to be self-sustaining until either astronomically large amounts of time or astronomically large amounts of energy are spent." That might be true, but if we could divert even a small part of the global arms industry to something as constructive as colonizing a new world then I suspect we might help things here as well as achieving something wonderful. Edit: "Oh yes. Fuck yes. All my yesses" Can I second this. I remember reading Zubrin's "The Case for Mars" and getting quite enthusiastic about actually being a Martian colonist :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars
- fractal618 10y agoWe could do the impossible if we stopped fighting each other.
- robryk 10y agoPesky Nash equilibria.
- sillysaurus3 10y agoNot a high chance. Earth has a molten core, which generates a magnetic field that shields us from harmful cosmic rays. It's been like this for so long that we've evolved to require this shielding. Mars has less of a molten core, and a very weak magnetosphere. Therefore outdoor terraforming seems unlikely. We may have to walk around on Mars inside shielded colonies only, along with whatever other life we bring: plants, animals, everything. More on this: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Earth-have-an-active-core-while-Venus-and-Mars-do-not https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Earth-have-an-active-core-whi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays#Human_health_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031891439900698 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031891439... Water seems to be a fairly decent shield, so it's tempting to imagine a human-made aquatic ecosystem. Fish would probably survive without any extra shielding besides water, so that's one natural resource we could start generating, assuming we could transport massive quantities of water to Mars. Unfortunately, the water would just evaporate or freeze, so we'd need shielding for that too.
- harperlee 10y agoSo could we engineer ourselves to be able to withstand more radiation? Perhaps with advances in cancer treatment and CRISPR-style modifications on the most fragile parts of the genome we can make us more resilient so we can become a multiplanetary species... On the other hand, sending life to Mars, due to that radiation, would make it evolve much faster, right? Perhaps we can start terraforming it and study the evolutions of plants and animals there to gain insight in how to overcome our frailties.
- DanielBMarkham 10y agoI'm not sure of the exact amount, but water can be used for shielding. So maybe we end up with huge domes made of tanks with 20' of water in them. Also, since Mars has CO2, I'm guessing once a dome is up, we simply pressurize it with the surrounding atmosphere? Once pressurized we could use O2 tanks and cannulas, or add plants? I fear that there is going to be a huge political debate first -- a lot of folks are going to say that man isn't worthy/able/competent/etc to colonize another planet.
- lmm 10y ago> If we can't terraform Earth's deserts, do we really stand a chance with Mars? It's not that we couldn't, it's that we don't care to - partly because the reward isn't there, and partly because there are opposing interests. Humans absolutely have had (and are having) large-scale impact on the Earth's climate, and that's while mostly trying not to.
- espadrine 10y agoIt is easy to have an effect on something, and much harder to have a positive one. Building a house takes months, but in a day, it can be burnt. Fighting entropy 101.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoNow imagine building that house together with 20 people who all try to scream at, sue or shoot each other over trivial and irrelevant details. That's generally how all international affairs look like. In terms of lowering entropy, we're not even trying.
- namaemuta 10y agoThat's why I want SpaceX to success. If they manage to get some profits or find something interesting out there, the race for the colonization would be even bigger than the space race during the cold war.
- grondilu 10y ago> If we can't terraform Earth's deserts, do we really stand a chance with Mars? To be fair, it can be done and it is slowly being done in some countries. It's still very difficult and expensive, though. That being said, indeed doing it on mars would be orders of magnitude more difficult.
- apatters 10y agoI'm just as impressed by SpaceX's achievements as the next guy but the Musk fanboyism is really getting out of control here. He's not going to terraform Mars, because we have no idea how to do it, the cost would likely be measurable in "percentage of all human GDP" terms, and it would take longer than a single human life, it'd probably have to be the longest-haul plan humanity had ever undertaken. If the announcement actually broaches the subject of terraforming it'll be the definition of vaporware.
- Pica_soO 10y agoGeneration Nay, that is what they will call us.
- zacharycohn 10y agoThe best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.
- dpina 10y agothe youtube placeholder for the stream has some description[1]: "SpaceX Founder, CEO, and Lead Designer Elon Musk will discuss the long-term technical challenges that need to be solved to support the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars. The technical presentation will focus on potential architectures for sustaining humans on the Red Planet that industry, government and the scientific community can collaborate on in the years ahead." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1YxNYiyALg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1YxNYiyALg
- tanktsla 10y agoElon did not get permission from the system. The system says 255.
- flexie 10y agoImagine the wealth a company could amass if it succeeded in terraforming mars. Rare metals, sale of land etc. This is one of those markets where you have rather high barriers to entry.
- misterS 10y ago> rather high barriers to entry. About 55 million kilometers/34 million miles high at least.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago(nitpick) In space, you count barriers to entry in km/s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v
- tangue 10y agoEach time I'm hearing about minerals (like in asteroid mining) I'm wondering how do you deal with atmosphere re-entry ? Meteorites made of metal are melting so what's the plan here ? And which country will be ok to receive a ton of unguided metal on its territory ?
- gambiting 10y agoThere's literally 0 chance that mining anything on Mars and bringing it back to Earth would be profitable. Obviously mining is still going to be important to build things on Mars, but sending any metals over, no matter how rare, is just crazy.
- singuerinc 10y agoYou are thinking what we can do right now. Probably the same thought had the Europeans 500 years ago.
- gambiting 10y agoThe energy cost of transporting mass over distance isn't going to change no matter what technology we invent.
- dharma1 10y agoIf we succeed (long term), will there be countries in Mars? Governance? Who will own the land and resources?
- espadrine 10y agoIt is really no different than it has always been. If a colony on Mars wants independence, it can draft a military to enforce its independence and/or seek the diplomatic approval of other nations.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dharma1 10y agoI'm not really sure how this would work. Suppose SpaceX (or another operator) establishes a colony with people from various countries - what country (if any) is that colony subject to? Perhaps all the countries initially, but after a couple of generations?
- espadrine 10y agoSpaceX is an american company, so they are subject to their laws. The situation is similar to Antarctica, which is home to a large number of small scientific settlements, each following the rules of the country that it is bound to. A treaty that some countries have signed acknowledges some country borders, but they are not enforced in practice, and those territories are home to settlements from other countries — you even have multi-nationality settlements.
- danblick 10y agoThis reminds me of Astro Teller's recent article: http://qz.com/536483/why-its-compeltely-ridiculous-to-think-that-humans-could-live-on-mars/ http://qz.com/536483/why-its-compeltely-ridiculous-to-think-... """...we live on a planet that is perfect for us, and we seem to be unable to prevent ourselves from making it less and less habitable. We’re like a bunch of teenagers destroying our parents’ mansion in one long, crazy party, figuring that our backup plan is to run into the forest and build our own house. We’ll worry about how to get food and a good sound system later. Proponents of Mars colonization talk about “terraforming” Mars to make it more like Earth, but in the meantime, we’re “marsforming” Earth by making our atmosphere poisonous and annihilating our natural resources. We are also well on our way to making Earth one big desert, just like Mars."""
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoI think Teller really ought to blame the system and leaders who can actually change environmental policies rather than, you know, our whole species.
- CoryG89 10y agoTeller may believe that the system and our leaders are just a reflection of us as a society? After all, it's society as a whole that allowed the system and our leaders to be put into power in the first place.
- grondilu 10y agoYou make it sound like we've been destroying environment only lately and with current political systems. Humans have been wrecking havoc various environments ever since Neolithic. Although there's no definitive proof, there are strong suggestions that they were at least contributing to the disappearance of the Mega-fauna, for instance. Examples of small human settlements in small islands are very characteristic, IMHO. Everywhere it happened, endemic birds where usually eradicated very quickly. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recently_extinct_birds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recently_extinct_birds
- perilunar 10y agoAs Gerard K. O'Neill famously asked, "Is the surface of a planet really the right place for an expanding technological civilization?"[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O%27Neill#Space_colonization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O%27Neill#Space_colo...
- grondilu 10y agoThought about that as well. There's a nice PBS Space Time episode where they invented a word about it : "surfacism". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ5KV3rzuag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ5KV3rzuag
- perilunar 10y agoO'Neill wasn't talking about the clouds of Venus though, he was talking about colonies in orbit or beyond, made from materials mined from asteroids.
- kseistrup 10y agoHumans belong to one of the most, if not THE most, destructive species on Earth. We exploit all resources we can lay our hands on and destroy plants and animals in the wake of our immense and selfish greed. We would serve the Universe best if we stayed here on Earth, and possibly even obliterated ourselves.
- bpodgursky 10y agoPlease, start with yourself and let us know how it goes.
- noir_lord 10y agoI'm on the other side of this one, while I think it's stupid to wreck the Earth because we need it I don't see why we shouldn't expand out and use the resources, they are just rocks waiting for us to do something with them.
- kseistrup 10y agoWe don't know yet if they're just rocks. And if we can't take care of Earth, I fail to see how we could ever take care of another planet.
- CoryG89 10y agoThink about 50 years from now, when we are expected to have a few more billion people living here on Earth. If you think things are stretched to their limit now, just wait. It may be that the only way to save Earth is to give some of the 10+ billion another place to go.
- restalis 10y agoFor the most activities we embark on, none of us is ready for. We just jump in and learn on the fly, the journey itself transforms and adapts us. So, maybe we haven't learned enough about taking care of a planet, but that's not a reason to hold ourselves back ...isn't it?
- ryandvm 10y agoThe guy that sells rockets wants us to embark on a rocket trip so unfathomably expensive that it could only be paid for by an international conglomeration? You don't say... Look, I know that pie-in-the-sky science futurism is kind of our thing here at HN, but could we at least feign a little pragmatism every time Elon Musk pitches his plan to move us all to Mars?
- sktrdie 10y agoI'm always confused about our priority for us to become a multi-planetary species. Planets are interesting to us for their resources, but they provide a far greater risk: they're another huge gravity well. This means that it's expensive/resourceful to leave these places (as it currently is for earth). So I'm confused to why not make space habitats our priority instead of other planets. Certainly inhabiting planets is something that will happen regardless, I'm just baffled to why it needs to happen before we build something like a Stanford Torus.
- abainbridge 10y agoEven Mars' pathetic magnetosphere is probably better than nothing (ie what you'd get on a Stanford Torus). Either way, meteor showers will be life threatening, instead of pretty, like they are on Earth.
- delecti 10y agoProbably because planets help defend you really really well. The gravity well makes it much easier to keep an atmosphere, the atmosphere blocks UV rays and the majority of harmful falling objects, the planet's magnetic field helps block higher energy solar rays. Plus, if there's a breathable atmosphere on the planet, your habitat isn't limited to the space you can enclose in a bubble.
- fsloth 10y agoCurrently it seems space as an environment is not suitable for humans due to heavy radiation. Massive shielding needed. Also, from a psychological point of view - would you rather have your grandchildren stuck in cramped sodacans in space or colonizing a new world with a sky and mountains and other goodies. A planet based colony is probably a lot more resilient than a space based one. I have no opinion as such towards one or another.
- Gatsky 10y agoLike flying to the moon, colonising Mars isn't a 'bad' idea. It won't harm anyone, most of humanity will keep on doing what it's doing. It doesn't take away important resources from environmentalism or other pressing causes, that's a zero sum fallacy. Musk's point is to push forward relentlessly to a future which incrementally improves humanity's chance of survival. Even if we stop messing up earth, an asteroid or a north korean engineered super flu could still end us while we watch solar powered TV and eat kale chips.
- thatcherclay 10y agoHonest question - would you rather see our species capable of transforming Mars and building a colony there, or be able to create a realistic simulation environment, one that was capable of arbitrarily slowing down time.
- bmcusick 10y agoWell I don't care about all you naysayers and negative nellies. I'm psyched as hell by this. 1/ Does humanity need to stop screwing up Earth? Yes. Does Elon going to Mars make that job any harder? No. Is claiming that people shouldn't try to make progress on issue X until issue Y is fully resolved total BS? Yes. 2/ Are planets the best place for human colonization off Earth? I have no idea. I find The High Frontier to be persuasive but I think we can all agree that landing a few people on Mars is easier than building an O'Neil Cylinder. Baby steps, people! Even if Mars ends up being a backwater, the infrastructure that Musk builds to allow its colonization will also allow us to start developing the rest of the solar system too. Remember, Elon's going to build a giant reusable rocket that can lift hundreds of tons into orbit with each launch, and I doubt SpaceX is going to use 100% of that launch capacity. I'm sure that if Bezos, Bigelow, or some other billionaire wants to throw a 6,000 cubit meter inflatable space-hab at L5 as a starter-home for O'Neil colonies, Musk will be happy to sell him that launch. 3/ Will Elon terraform Mars within his lifetime? Probably not! Is that a reason to never start? No. 4/ Even if the colony doesn't work out, just think of the science! If Musk can put colonists on Mars he'll also be able to send teams of NASA, ESA, etc. astronauts for the Martian equivalent of McMurdo Station. And the same for Venus (in floating habitat at 50km altitude), the Moon, or even the larger asteroids or outer moons. 5/ If you have a rocket that big, and colonization makes the economics cheap, just think of the size of the telescopes you can put into orbit. Hubble, eat your heart out.
- taylodl 10y agoMars is a planet of robots and I suspect that will be the case for a very long time. Robots will have colonized Mars long before we join the party.