11 ms·

Colonizing Mars: A Critique of the SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System

100 points by huragok 10y ago

M_Grey 10y ago
To be honest, I'm still hung up on the lack of viable radiation shielding, a way to protect people from the harmful effects of microgravity, and micrometeorite impacts. I don't doubt that given time and experience, payloads can be sent to Mars, I just doubt that functional, healthy humans can be under this kind of scheme.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  The amount of radiation received on a Earth-Mars trip gives a cancer risk roughly that of being a smoker. Not awesome, but certainly survivable. Plus, a hundred people's worth of water stored in the walls should make a pretty nice shield (not to mention the propellant tanks, which they plan to aim at the Sun to absorb the brunt of radiation). People already stay on the ISS two to four times as long as Musk's proposed travel time to Mars, and they'll be landing somewhere with a third of Earth's gravity. They might all need to hang out for a day or two to get their Mars legs, but I don't see an issue here either. Micrometeorite impacts haven't done the ISS any appreciable damage in its nearly 20 year service history. Again, doesn't seem like a problem.
  - kitsunesoba 10y ago
    And as missions become routine, costs drop, and dangers become well-known all of these things will only improve. The biggest obstacle to making space travel more human-friendly is that practically no humans are traveling through space. Change that part of the equation and the rest is downhill.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      It's easy to talk about sacrificing people for the sake of progress, but it's still barbaric.
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    It's not really the trip that worries me, it's living on Mars. You need to live under five meters of soil in order to get the same radiation protection as Earth's atmosphere provides. You're basically mole people. Which means the difference between living on Mars and living in windowless apartment complex on Earth is that you can do a couple space suit jaunts through the Martian deserts each week. People can definitely survive living almost entirely indoors. I expect VR will be big on Mars. But I think the lack of natural light will really limit the comfort level. If someone can invent an invisible electromagnetic radiation shield that would change the game.
    - Hondor 10y ago
      Is EM radiation that can't be blocked by sheets of metal really an important problem? It looks like we can use magnetic fields to block charged particles and apparently that's good enough for space travel - but perhaps not for a person's whole life. http://www.sr2s.eu/project-news/19-eu-space-project-will-allow-astronauts-to-undergo-deep-space-travel http://www.sr2s.eu/project-news/19-eu-space-project-will-all...
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        Sheets of metal have a lot of issues, unless you bring hugely THICK sheets of dense metals. All you do with thinner shielding is turn your alpha/beta risk into a re-radiated gamma risk. Plus, dense shielding is heavy... and therefore expensive in terms of its Delta-v.
    - elihu 10y ago
      Artificial light isn't the best, but it can be made to resemble daylight; I don't see that as a show-stopper. If we can find some nice lava tubes that can be sealed and pressurized, it might make for some rather spacious dwellings. But yes, I expect the first Martians to effectively be mole people. I imagine living on Mars would be a lot like living in a place like Whittier Alaska [1] (a town where everyone lives in the same building). Not for everyone, but some people might like it. [1] http://www.npr.org/2015/01/18/378162264/welcome-to-whittier-alaska-a-community-under-one-roof http://www.npr.org/2015/01/18/378162264/welcome-to-whittier-...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- marze 10y ago
  People have lived in zero g for a year at a time, without significant health impact. The SpaceX proposed transit of three months is a quarter of that. These year long stays were on the space station, which has similar or less shielding. The Earth's magnetic field helps, but really, by the time you get to your Mars habitat with unlimited shielding mass available, your total dose is not that high.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    There's all sorts of concerns after a year in space. http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/1/11138102/scott-kelly-year-in-space-health-effects-return-to-earth http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/1/11138102/scott-kelly-year-i... I guess they aren't well characterized yet.
    - marze 10y ago
      Risks are relative. Early travelers will face very significant risks. Radiation and zero g are indeed risks, but a minor compared to the other risks.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        Risks are relative. is a very different calculation than People have lived in zero g for a year at a time, without significant health impact.
        marze 10y ago
        Different, but both true. If you have a 5% of dying in transit or at Mars due to equipment failure, as well as a 2% increased chance of getting cancer at some time in the future, the first obviously is the one to worry about.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        It's going to be dangerous enough on Mars, without adding those factors in. Worse, it's going to be difficult if the person who dies is in a critical position. You would have some redundancy in personnel, but that's costly in terms of Delta-v too, for them, and for everything it takes to keep them alive.
- fizixer 10y ago
  see my response to marze: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12766618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12766618
- hammock 10y ago
  Would make a great TV series, a la Terra Nova. You might have a society where the average lifespan is cut in half, predominant diseases are space-related and accidents are a daily or weekly part of life. It wouldn't be like living on Earth, but it would be something.
  - chucksmash 10y ago
    You might enjoy The Expanse book series! There are several world-building tangents that delve into exactly this area. I'm thinking (no spoilers) specifically of how Ceres, having been spun up to provide artificial gravity, becomes a destination for expecting mothers trying to avoid complications associated with low-G.
    - Pinckney 10y ago
      Surely Ceres would just fling itself apart?
      - snrplfth 10y ago
        It sure would. Not that you could spin up something so large.
    - SolarNet 10y ago
      I also like how the only sci-fi conceit the book asks for (besides the antagonist aliens obviously) are the engines which are right on the edge of the theoretical maximum.
    - drakonandor 10y ago
      That TV show is great.
marze 10y ago
The SpaceX Mars architecture: it is the answer to an unknown question, an artifact from the future time traveling back to the present. The objectives and constraints that were used in the design process are not revealed. It is like Phouchg and Loonquawl getting the answer 42 from Deep Thought. People generally have no clue what to make of it. I'd guess that if the objectives and constraints used in the design process were revealed, it would all make complete sense. Elon has a track record of making technical and business decisions that turn out to be 100% correct in retrospect. The epic size of the vehicles are a feature, not a bug, for instance.
- fizixer 10y ago
  Ok I'll mention the elephant in the room. Musk has been surprisingly silent (or has seriously downplayed) on the radiation question, which is a pretty big deal for travel beyond earth's magnetosphere. But here's the thing, IMO: Musk is offering ITS as a transport facility, nothing more, nothing less. If you have payload (a living human) that is fragile (sensitive to radiation) you bring your own extra styrofoam (you include weight of shielding water or lead or what have you as part of the payload). But if he says that out loud, it'll hurt the momentum of the movement. So there you have it.
  - mrfusion 10y ago
    Why would it hurt the momentum?
    - blackguardx 10y ago
      Because it wouldn't be as sensational if he said it cost $10 million to go vs $200k.
      - snrplfth 10y ago
        The idea of the $200K ticket price is only once the system is mature and well-tested. The early trips will have to cost a lot more. Probably a lot more than $10 million a seat.
exBarrelSpoiler 10y ago
Robert Zubrin has been planning for Martian colonization for decades. He's like the Kurzweil for the movement, his Mars Society has been on a quixotic quest. Hopefully SpaceX hires him on as a consultant.
- novalis78 10y ago
  Absolutely. An even closer cooperation between the Mars Society and Spacex would be great. I am pretty sure though his critique will be studied quite closely by Spacex.
- 100ideas 10y ago
  I would hire Kim Stanley Robinson first :)
  - exBarrelSpoiler 10y ago
    Hire both!
  - T-A 10y ago
    For Mars? I doubt it: "It’s important to say that the idea of Mars as a lifeboat is wrong, in both a practical and a moral sense." ... "My feeling now is that faced with the extreme expense, technical challenge, and danger of going to Mars, interest is going to shift to the moon as a destination that can actually be reached and occupied during some of our lifetimes." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-17/why-elon-musk-s-mars-vision-needs-some-real-imagination http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-17/why-elon-m...
    - snrplfth 10y ago
      Ah, Kim Stanley Robinson. Smart guy. If only he understood any economics, at all.
      - 100ideas 10y ago
        Hydrazine is the new gold standard.
nabla9 10y ago
I don't understand the economics of colonization. >Following the example of colonial America, let’s pick as the affordability criterion the property liquidation of a middle-class household, or seven years’ pay for a working man (say about $300,000 in today’s equivalent terms), a criterion with which Musk roughly concurs. Most middle-class householders would prefer to get to Mars in six months at the cost equivalent to one house instead of getting to Mars in four months at a cost equivalent to three houses. Colonization of America was extractive. You send colonists and they survive on their own and even pay taxes and you get products back. That's not what would happen on Mars. There is nothing so valuable that it would be worth carrying back to Earth. At the same time it would take huge amount of money to support high-tech colony in Mars until it can support itself. I imagine that the cost of moving people would be insignificant compared to the "colonization kit" that would enable the colony to become self sufficient. Developing that kit would probably cost more than all technology needed to move people to Mars. Just imagine the amount of technology transfer needed to build and maintain maintain systems for breathable air (air tanks, seals, valves, inspection equipment, instrumentation, automation electronics) without help from the Earth. Until Mars settlers can build things in-house, they need constant economic support from the earth. ps. We don't even know how to sustain biosphere in closed environment yet.
- Meegul 10y ago
  I believe in the use of Mars as a sort of space-hub. It's better fit for this purpose than Earth, in many ways. It has less atmosphere, allowing for easier launches. Additionally, with around 1/3 the gravity, launches and landings are even easier. It's also closer to the asteroid belt, potentially making it useful as a sort of space mining hub and providing an economic incentive other than resources found on the planet. That said, I am also doubtful. I don't foresee a trade-hub attracting 1 million people - if there are really a million people who want to go. Who the hell wants to risk their life and net worth just for the privilege of living on a rock less hospitable than Antarctica?
  - narag 10y ago
    Ceres is a much better hub for mining asteroids or as an intermediate step to gas giants. Martian atmosphere is a b as the sad yesterday news show. Also less gravity. If you're going to need living in an underground bubble, look for the practical arrangements, not for the planet status.
haalcion3 10y ago
> SpaceX has no prospect of being able to afford the very large investment — at least $10 billion — required to develop a launch vehicle of this scale. Adjusted for inflation, US gov't spent the equivalent of $65 billion/yr in the 1960's to get a man to the moon: http://www.popsci.com/real-cost-nasa-missions http://www.popsci.com/real-cost-nasa-missions
- qaq 10y ago
  I remember Musk sayin the primary purpose of accumulating wealth for him was so he can fund this project.
- marze 10y ago
  Isn't SpaceX founder Musk's stake in Tesla already worth more than $10B? Obviously, that'd be backup to backup plan for funding.
pixie_ 10y ago
Musk said 5% of SpaceX is working on the project and that number will increase over time. That's already 250 of the smartest engineers in the world working full-time on the Mars project. They've already test fired the Raptor engine for the rocket and produced a full scale tank of the fuselage for testing. These guys aren't going for 'exploration' like Zubrin wants, they're going for full scale colonization. Every ship produced is a new member of the fleet that continually moves between both planets. Opening up an interplanetary transportation corridor. If you're someone with the spirit of a colonist, an explorer, an adventure seeker (there are many in the world with that attitude) then Mars is going to be the place you want to prove yourself on. It is romantic, risky, badass, and there are no shortage of people who are going to take the challenge. An ever increasing number of ships leave every 2 years, and you always have the option to come back. I can easily see people doing fundraisers to go, universities offering scholarships, governments setting up stations to claim some land, companies sponsoring infrastructure projects to say they have a presence on Mars, etc..
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  "Musk said 5% of SpaceX is working on the project and that number will increase over time. That's already 250 of the smartest engineers in the world working full-time on the Mars project." Correction: some of the smartest engineers in the US, maybe. But US laws don't allow SpaceX to hire anyone from outside the US.
  - Inconel 10y ago
    It is actually possible to get ITAR exceptions for candidates who aren't US Persons. I know there are engineers at SpaceX from the UK, Canada, and I'm pretty sure Australia as well. It is a pretty long and expensive process from what I understand so it is used only for those with very specific skills or knowledge. I'm sure it would also be quite a bit harder or impossible for candidates from China/Russia or less "friendly" nations. This of course isn't to imply that SpaceX has a monopoly on talented engineers, I'm sure they exist all over the world.
sssilver 10y ago
If humanity somehow managed to build a self-sustaining long-term colony on Mars, it'd be fascinating to watch how the martian humans would evolve over the next million years.
- Hondor 10y ago
  Probably no more fascinating than what we've seen of human evolution on Earth already. If you were living that far in the future, the differences between Earth people and Mars people would be mundane common sense to you already, just as we're not fascinated by how different chimpanzees are to humans.
pmoriarty 10y ago
One serious danger I haven't heard anyone mention mention in regards to the Mars colonization project (though it was considered to some extent in Arthur C Clarke's "Contact" and probably some other science fiction) is the possibility of terrorism against either the fragile spacecraft or colony. Musk has said there will be no screening of the Mars colonists, and that anyone could go. That means someone who's mentally unstable and/or wants to make a name for himself (ala Herostratus[1] or any number of modern publicity-seeking terrorists and murderers) could go and attempt to harm the spacecraft or colony, both of which would be incredibly vulnerable to such intentional attempts at destruction and are guaranteed to get massive publicity were they to be destroyed or even merely attacked. This could become even more likely if living on Mars long-term actually becomes viable, and people wind up spending decades on there. Some people will likely go stir-crazy and attempt to harm themselves and/or others. People who are allowed to go live in Antarctica or out in to space are currently screened very carefully to be compatible with each other and able to psychologically withstand the rigors of life there, and the relative isolation. But there will be no such screening for the Mars colonists, according to Musk, and the isolation and danger on Mars will be even worse than it is in Antarctica. The isolation and danger will be hugely stressful and difficult to deal with over the decades people will live on Mars. I've read that even in Antarctica, people are rotated out within a year or so because of the psychological difficulties of living there, and no one's been in space for much more than a year. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus
elihu 10y ago
I'm glad Zubrin brings up the economics of Mars colonization, since that's easy to neglect. Once you're there, how do you make money? Mining might be lucrative if Mars has gold or platinum or some valuable mineral that's easy to extract and worth more than its shipping cost back to Earth. I'm skeptical that patents are going to be a major export. Inhabitants of Mars presumably will have better uses of their time than filing patents, and they would be competing against Earth-bound innovators against whom they don't have any particular advantage other than necessity. (Ideally, Mars wouldn't itself even be subject to patent law.) Space Tourism will be a thing unless there's some explicit policy to prevent wealthy thrill-seekers from going to Mars if they don't plan on doing any actual work while they're there. Science and exploration might be valuable professions. Like, if people on Earth put bids on locations, saying "I'll give you a thousand dollars if you drive your rover out to this location and take a few pictures and pick up some rock samples". Mining companies might be especially interested, but so would Earth-bound scientists who just want to know more about Mars. Real-estate speculation might be another cottage industry. Developers are going to want to establish homesteads in valuable locations, and then they can sell adjacent lots to newcomers. (This assumes some kind of sane framework for land ownership. Hopefully such a thing will strike a sensible balance between being able to claim "dibs" on entire landscapes vs not having property rights at all.) As long as the population of Mars is growing, this could be a lucrative profession.
DennisP 10y ago
It's interesting to see that water on Mars has 6x the deuterium concentration of water on Earth. It's unlikely to be a worthwhile export though. One in 2500 hydrogen atoms in Earth's oceans is deuterium. There's enough in your morning shower to provide all your energy needs for a year, and enough overall to run civilization until the sun goes out. Isolating the deuterium takes some effort, but it's not terrible, and certainly easier than transporting it from Mars, even if isolating it on Mars were free.

100 points by huragok 10y ago

To be honest, I'm still hung up on the lack of viable radiation shielding, a way to protect people from the harmful effects of microgravity, and micrometeorite impacts. I don't doubt that given time and experience, payloads can be sent to Mars, I just doubt that functional, healthy humans can be under this kind of scheme.

ceejayoz 10y ago
The amount of radiation received on a Earth-Mars trip gives a cancer risk roughly that of being a smoker. Not awesome, but certainly survivable. Plus, a hundred people's worth of water stored in the walls should make a pretty nice shield (not to mention the propellant tanks, which they plan to aim at the Sun to absorb the brunt of radiation). People already stay on the ISS two to four times as long as Musk's proposed travel time to Mars, and they'll be landing somewhere with a third of Earth's gravity. They might all need to hang out for a day or two to get their Mars legs, but I don't see an issue here either. Micrometeorite impacts haven't done the ISS any appreciable damage in its nearly 20 year service history. Again, doesn't seem like a problem.
- kitsunesoba 10y ago
  And as missions become routine, costs drop, and dangers become well-known all of these things will only improve. The biggest obstacle to making space travel more human-friendly is that practically no humans are traveling through space. Change that part of the equation and the rest is downhill.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    It's easy to talk about sacrificing people for the sake of progress, but it's still barbaric.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  It's not really the trip that worries me, it's living on Mars. You need to live under five meters of soil in order to get the same radiation protection as Earth's atmosphere provides. You're basically mole people. Which means the difference between living on Mars and living in windowless apartment complex on Earth is that you can do a couple space suit jaunts through the Martian deserts each week. People can definitely survive living almost entirely indoors. I expect VR will be big on Mars. But I think the lack of natural light will really limit the comfort level. If someone can invent an invisible electromagnetic radiation shield that would change the game.
  - Hondor 10y ago
    Is EM radiation that can't be blocked by sheets of metal really an important problem? It looks like we can use magnetic fields to block charged particles and apparently that's good enough for space travel - but perhaps not for a person's whole life. http://www.sr2s.eu/project-news/19-eu-space-project-will-allow-astronauts-to-undergo-deep-space-travel http://www.sr2s.eu/project-news/19-eu-space-project-will-all...
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      Sheets of metal have a lot of issues, unless you bring hugely THICK sheets of dense metals. All you do with thinner shielding is turn your alpha/beta risk into a re-radiated gamma risk. Plus, dense shielding is heavy... and therefore expensive in terms of its Delta-v.
  - elihu 10y ago
    Artificial light isn't the best, but it can be made to resemble daylight; I don't see that as a show-stopper. If we can find some nice lava tubes that can be sealed and pressurized, it might make for some rather spacious dwellings. But yes, I expect the first Martians to effectively be mole people. I imagine living on Mars would be a lot like living in a place like Whittier Alaska [1] (a town where everyone lives in the same building). Not for everyone, but some people might like it. [1] http://www.npr.org/2015/01/18/378162264/welcome-to-whittier-alaska-a-community-under-one-roof http://www.npr.org/2015/01/18/378162264/welcome-to-whittier-...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
marze 10y ago
People have lived in zero g for a year at a time, without significant health impact. The SpaceX proposed transit of three months is a quarter of that. These year long stays were on the space station, which has similar or less shielding. The Earth's magnetic field helps, but really, by the time you get to your Mars habitat with unlimited shielding mass available, your total dose is not that high.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  There's all sorts of concerns after a year in space. http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/1/11138102/scott-kelly-year-in-space-health-effects-return-to-earth http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/1/11138102/scott-kelly-year-i... I guess they aren't well characterized yet.
  - marze 10y ago
    Risks are relative. Early travelers will face very significant risks. Radiation and zero g are indeed risks, but a minor compared to the other risks.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Risks are relative. is a very different calculation than People have lived in zero g for a year at a time, without significant health impact.
      - marze 10y ago
        Different, but both true. If you have a 5% of dying in transit or at Mars due to equipment failure, as well as a 2% increased chance of getting cancer at some time in the future, the first obviously is the one to worry about.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        It's going to be dangerous enough on Mars, without adding those factors in. Worse, it's going to be difficult if the person who dies is in a critical position. You would have some redundancy in personnel, but that's costly in terms of Delta-v too, for them, and for everything it takes to keep them alive.
fizixer 10y ago
see my response to marze: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12766618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12766618
hammock 10y ago
Would make a great TV series, a la Terra Nova. You might have a society where the average lifespan is cut in half, predominant diseases are space-related and accidents are a daily or weekly part of life. It wouldn't be like living on Earth, but it would be something.
- chucksmash 10y ago
  You might enjoy The Expanse book series! There are several world-building tangents that delve into exactly this area. I'm thinking (no spoilers) specifically of how Ceres, having been spun up to provide artificial gravity, becomes a destination for expecting mothers trying to avoid complications associated with low-G.
  - Pinckney 10y ago
    Surely Ceres would just fling itself apart?
    - snrplfth 10y ago
      It sure would. Not that you could spin up something so large.
  - SolarNet 10y ago
    I also like how the only sci-fi conceit the book asks for (besides the antagonist aliens obviously) are the engines which are right on the edge of the theoretical maximum.
  - drakonandor 10y ago
    That TV show is great.

marze 10y ago

The SpaceX Mars architecture: it is the answer to an unknown question, an artifact from the future time traveling back to the present. The objectives and constraints that were used in the design process are not revealed. It is like Phouchg and Loonquawl getting the answer 42 from Deep Thought. People generally have no clue what to make of it. I'd guess that if the objectives and constraints used in the design process were revealed, it would all make complete sense. Elon has a track record of making technical and business decisions that turn out to be 100% correct in retrospect. The epic size of the vehicles are a feature, not a bug, for instance.

fizixer 10y ago
Ok I'll mention the elephant in the room. Musk has been surprisingly silent (or has seriously downplayed) on the radiation question, which is a pretty big deal for travel beyond earth's magnetosphere. But here's the thing, IMO: Musk is offering ITS as a transport facility, nothing more, nothing less. If you have payload (a living human) that is fragile (sensitive to radiation) you bring your own extra styrofoam (you include weight of shielding water or lead or what have you as part of the payload). But if he says that out loud, it'll hurt the momentum of the movement. So there you have it.
- mrfusion 10y ago
  Why would it hurt the momentum?
  - blackguardx 10y ago
    Because it wouldn't be as sensational if he said it cost $10 million to go vs $200k.
    - snrplfth 10y ago
      The idea of the $200K ticket price is only once the system is mature and well-tested. The early trips will have to cost a lot more. Probably a lot more than $10 million a seat.

exBarrelSpoiler 10y ago

Robert Zubrin has been planning for Martian colonization for decades. He's like the Kurzweil for the movement, his Mars Society has been on a quixotic quest. Hopefully SpaceX hires him on as a consultant.

novalis78 10y ago
Absolutely. An even closer cooperation between the Mars Society and Spacex would be great. I am pretty sure though his critique will be studied quite closely by Spacex.
100ideas 10y ago
I would hire Kim Stanley Robinson first :)
- exBarrelSpoiler 10y ago
  Hire both!
- T-A 10y ago
  For Mars? I doubt it: "It’s important to say that the idea of Mars as a lifeboat is wrong, in both a practical and a moral sense." ... "My feeling now is that faced with the extreme expense, technical challenge, and danger of going to Mars, interest is going to shift to the moon as a destination that can actually be reached and occupied during some of our lifetimes." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-17/why-elon-musk-s-mars-vision-needs-some-real-imagination http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-17/why-elon-m...
  - snrplfth 10y ago
    Ah, Kim Stanley Robinson. Smart guy. If only he understood any economics, at all.
    - 100ideas 10y ago
      Hydrazine is the new gold standard.

nabla9 10y ago

I don't understand the economics of colonization. >Following the example of colonial America, let’s pick as the affordability criterion the property liquidation of a middle-class household, or seven years’ pay for a working man (say about $300,000 in today’s equivalent terms), a criterion with which Musk roughly concurs. Most middle-class householders would prefer to get to Mars in six months at the cost equivalent to one house instead of getting to Mars in four months at a cost equivalent to three houses. Colonization of America was extractive. You send colonists and they survive on their own and even pay taxes and you get products back. That's not what would happen on Mars. There is nothing so valuable that it would be worth carrying back to Earth. At the same time it would take huge amount of money to support high-tech colony in Mars until it can support itself. I imagine that the cost of moving people would be insignificant compared to the "colonization kit" that would enable the colony to become self sufficient. Developing that kit would probably cost more than all technology needed to move people to Mars. Just imagine the amount of technology transfer needed to build and maintain maintain systems for breathable air (air tanks, seals, valves, inspection equipment, instrumentation, automation electronics) without help from the Earth. Until Mars settlers can build things in-house, they need constant economic support from the earth. ps. We don't even know how to sustain biosphere in closed environment yet.

Meegul 10y ago
I believe in the use of Mars as a sort of space-hub. It's better fit for this purpose than Earth, in many ways. It has less atmosphere, allowing for easier launches. Additionally, with around 1/3 the gravity, launches and landings are even easier. It's also closer to the asteroid belt, potentially making it useful as a sort of space mining hub and providing an economic incentive other than resources found on the planet. That said, I am also doubtful. I don't foresee a trade-hub attracting 1 million people - if there are really a million people who want to go. Who the hell wants to risk their life and net worth just for the privilege of living on a rock less hospitable than Antarctica?
- narag 10y ago
  Ceres is a much better hub for mining asteroids or as an intermediate step to gas giants. Martian atmosphere is a b as the sad yesterday news show. Also less gravity. If you're going to need living in an underground bubble, look for the practical arrangements, not for the planet status.

haalcion3 10y ago

> SpaceX has no prospect of being able to afford the very large investment — at least $10 billion — required to develop a launch vehicle of this scale. Adjusted for inflation, US gov't spent the equivalent of $65 billion/yr in the 1960's to get a man to the moon: http://www.popsci.com/real-cost-nasa-missions http://www.popsci.com/real-cost-nasa-missions

qaq 10y ago
I remember Musk sayin the primary purpose of accumulating wealth for him was so he can fund this project.
marze 10y ago
Isn't SpaceX founder Musk's stake in Tesla already worth more than $10B? Obviously, that'd be backup to backup plan for funding.

pixie_ 10y ago

Musk said 5% of SpaceX is working on the project and that number will increase over time. That's already 250 of the smartest engineers in the world working full-time on the Mars project. They've already test fired the Raptor engine for the rocket and produced a full scale tank of the fuselage for testing. These guys aren't going for 'exploration' like Zubrin wants, they're going for full scale colonization. Every ship produced is a new member of the fleet that continually moves between both planets. Opening up an interplanetary transportation corridor. If you're someone with the spirit of a colonist, an explorer, an adventure seeker (there are many in the world with that attitude) then Mars is going to be the place you want to prove yourself on. It is romantic, risky, badass, and there are no shortage of people who are going to take the challenge. An ever increasing number of ships leave every 2 years, and you always have the option to come back. I can easily see people doing fundraisers to go, universities offering scholarships, governments setting up stations to claim some land, companies sponsoring infrastructure projects to say they have a presence on Mars, etc..

pmoriarty 10y ago
"Musk said 5% of SpaceX is working on the project and that number will increase over time. That's already 250 of the smartest engineers in the world working full-time on the Mars project." Correction: some of the smartest engineers in the US, maybe. But US laws don't allow SpaceX to hire anyone from outside the US.
- Inconel 10y ago
  It is actually possible to get ITAR exceptions for candidates who aren't US Persons. I know there are engineers at SpaceX from the UK, Canada, and I'm pretty sure Australia as well. It is a pretty long and expensive process from what I understand so it is used only for those with very specific skills or knowledge. I'm sure it would also be quite a bit harder or impossible for candidates from China/Russia or less "friendly" nations. This of course isn't to imply that SpaceX has a monopoly on talented engineers, I'm sure they exist all over the world.

sssilver 10y ago

If humanity somehow managed to build a self-sustaining long-term colony on Mars, it'd be fascinating to watch how the martian humans would evolve over the next million years.

Hondor 10y ago
Probably no more fascinating than what we've seen of human evolution on Earth already. If you were living that far in the future, the differences between Earth people and Mars people would be mundane common sense to you already, just as we're not fascinated by how different chimpanzees are to humans.

pmoriarty 10y ago

One serious danger I haven't heard anyone mention mention in regards to the Mars colonization project (though it was considered to some extent in Arthur C Clarke's "Contact" and probably some other science fiction) is the possibility of terrorism against either the fragile spacecraft or colony. Musk has said there will be no screening of the Mars colonists, and that anyone could go. That means someone who's mentally unstable and/or wants to make a name for himself (ala Herostratus[1] or any number of modern publicity-seeking terrorists and murderers) could go and attempt to harm the spacecraft or colony, both of which would be incredibly vulnerable to such intentional attempts at destruction and are guaranteed to get massive publicity were they to be destroyed or even merely attacked. This could become even more likely if living on Mars long-term actually becomes viable, and people wind up spending decades on there. Some people will likely go stir-crazy and attempt to harm themselves and/or others. People who are allowed to go live in Antarctica or out in to space are currently screened very carefully to be compatible with each other and able to psychologically withstand the rigors of life there, and the relative isolation. But there will be no such screening for the Mars colonists, according to Musk, and the isolation and danger on Mars will be even worse than it is in Antarctica. The isolation and danger will be hugely stressful and difficult to deal with over the decades people will live on Mars. I've read that even in Antarctica, people are rotated out within a year or so because of the psychological difficulties of living there, and no one's been in space for much more than a year. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus

elihu 10y ago

I'm glad Zubrin brings up the economics of Mars colonization, since that's easy to neglect. Once you're there, how do you make money? Mining might be lucrative if Mars has gold or platinum or some valuable mineral that's easy to extract and worth more than its shipping cost back to Earth. I'm skeptical that patents are going to be a major export. Inhabitants of Mars presumably will have better uses of their time than filing patents, and they would be competing against Earth-bound innovators against whom they don't have any particular advantage other than necessity. (Ideally, Mars wouldn't itself even be subject to patent law.) Space Tourism will be a thing unless there's some explicit policy to prevent wealthy thrill-seekers from going to Mars if they don't plan on doing any actual work while they're there. Science and exploration might be valuable professions. Like, if people on Earth put bids on locations, saying "I'll give you a thousand dollars if you drive your rover out to this location and take a few pictures and pick up some rock samples". Mining companies might be especially interested, but so would Earth-bound scientists who just want to know more about Mars. Real-estate speculation might be another cottage industry. Developers are going to want to establish homesteads in valuable locations, and then they can sell adjacent lots to newcomers. (This assumes some kind of sane framework for land ownership. Hopefully such a thing will strike a sensible balance between being able to claim "dibs" on entire landscapes vs not having property rights at all.) As long as the population of Mars is growing, this could be a lucrative profession.

DennisP 10y ago

It's interesting to see that water on Mars has 6x the deuterium concentration of water on Earth. It's unlikely to be a worthwhile export though. One in 2500 hydrogen atoms in Earth's oceans is deuterium. There's enough in your morning shower to provide all your energy needs for a year, and enough overall to run civilization until the sun goes out. Isolating the deuterium takes some effort, but it's not terrible, and certainly easier than transporting it from Mars, even if isolating it on Mars were free.