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Making life multiplanetary seems like one of the least important issues of our times to me: either we figure out how to make life on earth sustainable in the me

Making life multiplanetary seems like one of the least important issues of our times to me: either we figure out how to make life on earth sustainable in the medium term (next 50-100 years) or we do not have enough time to become multiplanetary anyway (since that will take centuries, and we will likely never leave the solar system anyway). So it seems a bit premature to concern yourself with interplanetary ambitions before we are even sure if we can maintain our own planet (which is, and will remain for an extremely long time, the only place for autonomous life in space that humanity has). Then again, maybe I'm nitpicking since it's not like Musk demands the whole world to commit its resources to his ideas. If he wants to play around with adventurous Mars trips that's fine. Edit: Of course I'm also aware that Musk is still using his money better than many other wealthy people, so more power to him. This comment was mostly about space exploration vs. sustainable life on earth, all other things being equal.

DavidSJ 9y ago
We may always face existential risks. We now know of some concerning the next 50-100 years, but in 100 years we may know of different ones. Planetary redundancy conceivably aids our chances with those risks as well, so is a project best begun now, whatever the lead time. I don't want us always just solving the present crisis. We should think about the distant future too.
- Asdfbla 9y ago
  Maybe you're right, but I'm thinking more along the lines of "autonomous life outside of earth is impossible in the foreseeable future, so optimizing for existential crises that threaten life on earth is pointless". The only thing we can avoid is that we ourselves destroy earth. Basically, if an asteroid hits us or something it's over anyway.
  - DavidSJ 9y ago
    I think you may be overestimating the lead time to establish a self-sustaining colony. With the will, resources, expertise, and some luck, I think it could theoretically be done inside of 40 years. More likely it'll take quite a bit longer. But we don't need to be talking centuries.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
  If you ask me, focusing on colonizing planets is the completely wrong long term survival strategy anyway. What would be much better would be finding a way to survive in space, just orbiting a star in some kind of craft. I mean, if you can't grow food on it anyway than a planet is just a really big asteroid with an unreasonably large gravity well to deal with. If and when we eventually work out a way to viably travel interstellar distances (my money is on ditching biological bodies), every star would be a viable colonization target.
  - DavidSJ 9y ago
    There is the possibility of growing crops in Martian soil. [1] Nevertheless many agree with your conclusion that stations in deep space offer decisive advantages in their low-energy access to asteroid resources. [2] Regardless of which path we take, the immediate technological prerequisite is the same: an economical way to send Earth payloads to space, i.e. a fully and rapidly reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle. That's what SpaceX is developing. [1] https://phys.org/news/2016-06-dutch-crops-grown-mars-soil.html https://phys.org/news/2016-06-dutch-crops-grown-mars-soil.ht... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder
simonh 9y ago
I don’t understand why this argument gets made particularly concerning space exploration. Somehow it’s ok for humans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year on each one of entertaining movies, going on holidays, playing computer games, sports events, etc but a few tens of billions of dollars spent on space will imperil the long term survival of the human species and leave millions of people starving in Africa. That attitude seems crazily disproportionate.
- Asdfbla 9y ago
  Yeah, I'm aware of that. That's why I mentioned in the end that Musk is of course free to pursue his ambitions - in the grand scheme of things money is spent on much more pointless things, so him investing in science and space exploration is surely a comparatively good investment of his money.
  - jeresuikkila 9y ago
    I believe the innovations that come from such grand challenges such as becoming interplanetary will help solve other problems we face as well. I'm thinking of new materials, processes and technologies that can be applied in multiple contexts.
- rtpg 9y ago
  Places people don't want to live in: - a submarine - the middle of Death Valley - the middle of Antarctica - the (completely lifeless) top of mount Fuji Living in a Mars colony would be a combination of all these experiences. If you somehow have the magic sauce to make Mars enjoyable, you could offer this experience in the middle of the desert as well. You could tackle real habitation problems on this planet. Just building a couple school buses (ISS) to float around the Earth took hundreds of billions. And to the "what about nuclear war on Earth" argument: are you going to build a lightbulb factory on Mars? Semiconductor fab? Smelter? No Mars colony would be self sufficient for a realllllly long time EDIT: Earth 2 Earth is interesting, though I don't know how you solve the vomit problem. Or the "sometimes the rockets explode " problem.
  - 9y ago
shpx 9y ago
https://xkcd.com/1232/ https://xkcd.com/1232/
hyperpallium 9y ago
It's easier to colonize Mars than make life on Earth sustainable, because it involves convincing fewer people.
DrBazza 9y ago
> we do not have enough time to become multiplanetary anyway (since that will take centuries, and we will likely never leave the solar system anyway). Neither of these statements are true. It's only a question of money, and money spent appropriately. Musk is demonstrating both of these. As soon as we have a self-sustaining base on Mars, we're multi-planetary. There have been enough experiments to show that a man-made self-sustaining bio-sphere is possible. If Musk's timeline happens, this could be easily within a century, if not decades. To quote a phrase, 'necessity is the mother of invention'. It's likely that settling on Mars will drive the science and research that will solve these problems. As for interstellar travel, that's well documented elsewhere on the web. It's doable, now, with current technology, without humans, but is massively expensive. And we don't know where to go. Once we do, it's just an engineering challenge for Musk V2 to solve.
woodandsteel 9y ago
One thing Musk didn't mention (I don't know why) is that the BFR would make asteroid mining and outer-space manufacturing far more practical, and that could help save the environment.

DavidSJ 9y ago

We may always face existential risks. We now know of some concerning the next 50-100 years, but in 100 years we may know of different ones. Planetary redundancy conceivably aids our chances with those risks as well, so is a project best begun now, whatever the lead time. I don't want us always just solving the present crisis. We should think about the distant future too.

Asdfbla 9y ago
Maybe you're right, but I'm thinking more along the lines of "autonomous life outside of earth is impossible in the foreseeable future, so optimizing for existential crises that threaten life on earth is pointless". The only thing we can avoid is that we ourselves destroy earth. Basically, if an asteroid hits us or something it's over anyway.
- DavidSJ 9y ago
  I think you may be overestimating the lead time to establish a self-sustaining colony. With the will, resources, expertise, and some luck, I think it could theoretically be done inside of 40 years. More likely it'll take quite a bit longer. But we don't need to be talking centuries.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
If you ask me, focusing on colonizing planets is the completely wrong long term survival strategy anyway. What would be much better would be finding a way to survive in space, just orbiting a star in some kind of craft. I mean, if you can't grow food on it anyway than a planet is just a really big asteroid with an unreasonably large gravity well to deal with. If and when we eventually work out a way to viably travel interstellar distances (my money is on ditching biological bodies), every star would be a viable colonization target.
- DavidSJ 9y ago
  There is the possibility of growing crops in Martian soil. [1] Nevertheless many agree with your conclusion that stations in deep space offer decisive advantages in their low-energy access to asteroid resources. [2] Regardless of which path we take, the immediate technological prerequisite is the same: an economical way to send Earth payloads to space, i.e. a fully and rapidly reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle. That's what SpaceX is developing. [1] https://phys.org/news/2016-06-dutch-crops-grown-mars-soil.html https://phys.org/news/2016-06-dutch-crops-grown-mars-soil.ht... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder

simonh 9y ago

I don’t understand why this argument gets made particularly concerning space exploration. Somehow it’s ok for humans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year on each one of entertaining movies, going on holidays, playing computer games, sports events, etc but a few tens of billions of dollars spent on space will imperil the long term survival of the human species and leave millions of people starving in Africa. That attitude seems crazily disproportionate.

Asdfbla 9y ago
Yeah, I'm aware of that. That's why I mentioned in the end that Musk is of course free to pursue his ambitions - in the grand scheme of things money is spent on much more pointless things, so him investing in science and space exploration is surely a comparatively good investment of his money.
- jeresuikkila 9y ago
  I believe the innovations that come from such grand challenges such as becoming interplanetary will help solve other problems we face as well. I'm thinking of new materials, processes and technologies that can be applied in multiple contexts.
rtpg 9y ago
Places people don't want to live in: - a submarine - the middle of Death Valley - the middle of Antarctica - the (completely lifeless) top of mount Fuji Living in a Mars colony would be a combination of all these experiences. If you somehow have the magic sauce to make Mars enjoyable, you could offer this experience in the middle of the desert as well. You could tackle real habitation problems on this planet. Just building a couple school buses (ISS) to float around the Earth took hundreds of billions. And to the "what about nuclear war on Earth" argument: are you going to build a lightbulb factory on Mars? Semiconductor fab? Smelter? No Mars colony would be self sufficient for a realllllly long time EDIT: Earth 2 Earth is interesting, though I don't know how you solve the vomit problem. Or the "sometimes the rockets explode " problem.
- 9y ago

shpx 9y ago

https://xkcd.com/1232/ https://xkcd.com/1232/

hyperpallium 9y ago

It's easier to colonize Mars than make life on Earth sustainable, because it involves convincing fewer people.

DrBazza 9y ago

> we do not have enough time to become multiplanetary anyway (since that will take centuries, and we will likely never leave the solar system anyway). Neither of these statements are true. It's only a question of money, and money spent appropriately. Musk is demonstrating both of these. As soon as we have a self-sustaining base on Mars, we're multi-planetary. There have been enough experiments to show that a man-made self-sustaining bio-sphere is possible. If Musk's timeline happens, this could be easily within a century, if not decades. To quote a phrase, 'necessity is the mother of invention'. It's likely that settling on Mars will drive the science and research that will solve these problems. As for interstellar travel, that's well documented elsewhere on the web. It's doable, now, with current technology, without humans, but is massively expensive. And we don't know where to go. Once we do, it's just an engineering challenge for Musk V2 to solve.

woodandsteel 9y ago

One thing Musk didn't mention (I don't know why) is that the BFR would make asteroid mining and outer-space manufacturing far more practical, and that could help save the environment.