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Starlink? But these companies (well, at least SpaceX) have their focus on making orbit cheap and sustainable, and pushing towards Mars colonization and asteroi

Starlink? But these companies (well, at least SpaceX) have their focus on making orbit cheap and sustainable, and pushing towards Mars colonization and asteroid mining. Those are engineering and logistics problems more than science problems, but I think they're very important.

tsimionescu 5y ago
Those are all ways to squander the Earth's limited resources while sounding forward thinking. Colonizing Mars will likely never happen, there is simply no upside: huge challenges, with no interesting resources. The Earth has plenty of space, we're limited by resources, and there are no interesting resources on Mars. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that we'll have a colony outside the solar system before a colony on Mars. Asteroid mining is more plausible, but still extremely unlikely given our current technology. There are massive hurdles, and few things that would massively improve life on Earth - it's much more interesting from a profit perspective than a future of humanity perspective.
- __d 5y ago
  Musk's motivation, which he has expressed repeatedly, is to make humanity resilient to an event that makes Earth uninhabitable. Whatever that event might be (asteroid impact, nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, plague, whatever), I think the idea of having a second site of human habitation is not an unreasonable goal. Which is not, as has sometimes been stated, "giving up on Earth and the rich moving to Mars" -- it's just an insurance policy. The resources expended to achieve this are tiny. It's not a lot of money, and the consumables are ... literally drops in the ocean. That's not to say that there aren't other problems that could be addressed using that money, but it's not really a question of either/or: humanity could very easily do both, should it choose to do so. It's just that Musk chooses to focus on this problem, and its solution. We're all certainly free to make a different choice ...
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    Mars is already uninhabitable, so what would we gain from moving to Mars? The Earth is not going to become as bad as Mars with any possible disaster smaller than a planetary collision. Also, a Mars colony that could survive indefinitely if the Earth is wiped out is almost certainly impossible, given the extreme conditions on Mars' surface. We don't even know if there is enough water ice on Mars today to sustain a human city, nevermind the huge network of cities that would be required to produce all high tech products on Mars. Also, with no fossil fuels, it's very unlikely that you could launch rockets from a Mars colony entirely cut off from the Earth. Then, you'll also be missing nitrogen, and probably a lot of other nutrients. Oxygen will be in short supply, as will Helium. And remember, every time you leak water or other gases into the atmosphere, you've likely lost them forever, since there is no closed cycle of water on Mars, and solar winds are constantly stripping away Mars' atmosphere. Also, the cost of building a self sustaining colony on Mars is well above the GDP of the world many times over. It would be many times easier to establish a second global trade network on Earth, completely isolated from any existing trade hub. Imagine building chip fabs and growing enough crops for food and bioplastics in Antarctica, and now remeber that on Mars it's much colder, there is virtually no air, and you have to dig tunnels everwhere, since any sort of prolonged exposure to the surface would irradiate you. Oh, and make sure you do this without any dependence on fossil fuels, except perhaps a few tons every few months.
    - skissane 5y ago
      > Also, a Mars colony that could survive indefinitely if the Earth is wiped out is almost certainly impossible, given the extreme conditions on Mars' surface. Let's say you have a Martian colony of 100,000 people. It is self-sufficient in basic goods but still relies on imports from Earth for many advanced goods. Something terrible happens, and imports from Earth are no longer possible. Those 100,000 people have a choice – find a way to make do with what they have, or die. I don't think we should underestimate human ingenuity in such circumstances. They'll lose access to a lot of highly advanced goods – for example, they probably won't have their own leading-edge semiconductor fabs – but they may be able to survive without them, using more basic goods to take their place. > Then, you'll also be missing nitrogen The atmosphere of Mars is around 2.8% nitrogen. There are likely to also be nitrate minerals in the Martian soil and rock. > Oxygen will be in short supply Mars' atmosphere is 95% CO2. You can extract oxygen from CO2 by electrolysis. The MOXIE experiment on Perseverance has demonstrated this. > and solar winds are constantly stripping away Mars' atmosphere On human timescales (decades to millennia), Martian atmosphere lost to space isn't significant. > Also, the cost of building a self sustaining colony on Mars is well above the GDP of the world many times over I think Musk is going to try to establish a settlement on Mars, initially with tens of people, then hundreds, then thousands. And becoming fully self-sustaining is going to be their long-term goal. But I don't think actual full self-sustaining status is going to be achieved for several centuries.
- relativ575 5y ago
  > The Earth has plenty of space, we're limited by resources, and there are no interesting resources on Mars There are new discoveries on Earth even today, after hundreds of thousands year of mankind history. What make you think we have known all we need to know about Mars? > I wouldn't be surprised to find out that we'll have a colony outside the solar system before a colony on Mars. Mars is a 8 month journey. Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, is a 296,000 year journey using the current propulsion technology. We'll have colonized every single colonizable planets in the Solar System before then. > it's much more interesting from a profit perspective than a future of humanity perspective. Future of humanity depends on advance in science. Space exploration has always been a major force that drives science forward, asteroid mining included. So many examples to list, but just to pick one: https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2019/06/how-do-scientists-determine-the-chemical-compositions-of-the-planets-and-stars https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2019/06/how-do-scie...
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    > Mars is a 8 month journey. Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, is a 296,000 year journey using the current propulsion technology. We'll have colonized every single colonizable planets in the Solar System before then. Sure, but there is nothing on Mars. We have no reason to colonize places that lack even the basic resources necessary for life, or some precious resources that are scarce on Earth. At least with a different star system, you can imagine that in some far flung future we may need to escape the expansion of the Sun (though assuming humanity survives for some billions of years is indeed unlikely). > Future of humanity depends on advance in science. Space exploration has always been a major force that drives science forward, asteroid mining included. So many examples to list, but just to pick one: I'm not sure what the article was supposed to show, is spectroscopy a technology invented as part of the space program? It's true that a product of the spave program are advanced materials and other factors that can be re-used on the Earth. But this is more a question of the vast resources which were invested in the space race, which could as well have been invested in Earth programs and would have likely yielded similar results. Teh most valuable results of the space programs have been communications satellites and things like the hubble space telescope - which has done far more for scientific space exploration than the entire Apollo program, as have the Voyager probes, Mars rover etc. Manned space exploration may still serve an inspirational purpose, though. I absolutely admit that the social and inspirational impact of seeing a human on the Moon/Mars/in outer space is hard to beat.
tayo42 5y ago
How is star link moving the world forward. A small amount of rural people get faster internet is not a big deal. Satellite based internet already exists, it's not ground breaking. It's also at the expense of polluting the orobit around the earth. It's also just profit motivated, the intent isn't to make the world better, just sell more crap to more people
- tigershark 5y ago
  No. There is a potential user base of millions of people that have no access whatsoever to broadband. And you can’t be serious in trying to compare starlink with the awful current geostationary satellite Internet offering.

tsimionescu 5y ago

Those are all ways to squander the Earth's limited resources while sounding forward thinking. Colonizing Mars will likely never happen, there is simply no upside: huge challenges, with no interesting resources. The Earth has plenty of space, we're limited by resources, and there are no interesting resources on Mars. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that we'll have a colony outside the solar system before a colony on Mars. Asteroid mining is more plausible, but still extremely unlikely given our current technology. There are massive hurdles, and few things that would massively improve life on Earth - it's much more interesting from a profit perspective than a future of humanity perspective.

__d 5y ago
Musk's motivation, which he has expressed repeatedly, is to make humanity resilient to an event that makes Earth uninhabitable. Whatever that event might be (asteroid impact, nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, plague, whatever), I think the idea of having a second site of human habitation is not an unreasonable goal. Which is not, as has sometimes been stated, "giving up on Earth and the rich moving to Mars" -- it's just an insurance policy. The resources expended to achieve this are tiny. It's not a lot of money, and the consumables are ... literally drops in the ocean. That's not to say that there aren't other problems that could be addressed using that money, but it's not really a question of either/or: humanity could very easily do both, should it choose to do so. It's just that Musk chooses to focus on this problem, and its solution. We're all certainly free to make a different choice ...
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Mars is already uninhabitable, so what would we gain from moving to Mars? The Earth is not going to become as bad as Mars with any possible disaster smaller than a planetary collision. Also, a Mars colony that could survive indefinitely if the Earth is wiped out is almost certainly impossible, given the extreme conditions on Mars' surface. We don't even know if there is enough water ice on Mars today to sustain a human city, nevermind the huge network of cities that would be required to produce all high tech products on Mars. Also, with no fossil fuels, it's very unlikely that you could launch rockets from a Mars colony entirely cut off from the Earth. Then, you'll also be missing nitrogen, and probably a lot of other nutrients. Oxygen will be in short supply, as will Helium. And remember, every time you leak water or other gases into the atmosphere, you've likely lost them forever, since there is no closed cycle of water on Mars, and solar winds are constantly stripping away Mars' atmosphere. Also, the cost of building a self sustaining colony on Mars is well above the GDP of the world many times over. It would be many times easier to establish a second global trade network on Earth, completely isolated from any existing trade hub. Imagine building chip fabs and growing enough crops for food and bioplastics in Antarctica, and now remeber that on Mars it's much colder, there is virtually no air, and you have to dig tunnels everwhere, since any sort of prolonged exposure to the surface would irradiate you. Oh, and make sure you do this without any dependence on fossil fuels, except perhaps a few tons every few months.
  - skissane 5y ago
    > Also, a Mars colony that could survive indefinitely if the Earth is wiped out is almost certainly impossible, given the extreme conditions on Mars' surface. Let's say you have a Martian colony of 100,000 people. It is self-sufficient in basic goods but still relies on imports from Earth for many advanced goods. Something terrible happens, and imports from Earth are no longer possible. Those 100,000 people have a choice – find a way to make do with what they have, or die. I don't think we should underestimate human ingenuity in such circumstances. They'll lose access to a lot of highly advanced goods – for example, they probably won't have their own leading-edge semiconductor fabs – but they may be able to survive without them, using more basic goods to take their place. > Then, you'll also be missing nitrogen The atmosphere of Mars is around 2.8% nitrogen. There are likely to also be nitrate minerals in the Martian soil and rock. > Oxygen will be in short supply Mars' atmosphere is 95% CO2. You can extract oxygen from CO2 by electrolysis. The MOXIE experiment on Perseverance has demonstrated this. > and solar winds are constantly stripping away Mars' atmosphere On human timescales (decades to millennia), Martian atmosphere lost to space isn't significant. > Also, the cost of building a self sustaining colony on Mars is well above the GDP of the world many times over I think Musk is going to try to establish a settlement on Mars, initially with tens of people, then hundreds, then thousands. And becoming fully self-sustaining is going to be their long-term goal. But I don't think actual full self-sustaining status is going to be achieved for several centuries.
relativ575 5y ago
> The Earth has plenty of space, we're limited by resources, and there are no interesting resources on Mars There are new discoveries on Earth even today, after hundreds of thousands year of mankind history. What make you think we have known all we need to know about Mars? > I wouldn't be surprised to find out that we'll have a colony outside the solar system before a colony on Mars. Mars is a 8 month journey. Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, is a 296,000 year journey using the current propulsion technology. We'll have colonized every single colonizable planets in the Solar System before then. > it's much more interesting from a profit perspective than a future of humanity perspective. Future of humanity depends on advance in science. Space exploration has always been a major force that drives science forward, asteroid mining included. So many examples to list, but just to pick one: https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2019/06/how-do-scientists-determine-the-chemical-compositions-of-the-planets-and-stars https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2019/06/how-do-scie...
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > Mars is a 8 month journey. Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, is a 296,000 year journey using the current propulsion technology. We'll have colonized every single colonizable planets in the Solar System before then. Sure, but there is nothing on Mars. We have no reason to colonize places that lack even the basic resources necessary for life, or some precious resources that are scarce on Earth. At least with a different star system, you can imagine that in some far flung future we may need to escape the expansion of the Sun (though assuming humanity survives for some billions of years is indeed unlikely). > Future of humanity depends on advance in science. Space exploration has always been a major force that drives science forward, asteroid mining included. So many examples to list, but just to pick one: I'm not sure what the article was supposed to show, is spectroscopy a technology invented as part of the space program? It's true that a product of the spave program are advanced materials and other factors that can be re-used on the Earth. But this is more a question of the vast resources which were invested in the space race, which could as well have been invested in Earth programs and would have likely yielded similar results. Teh most valuable results of the space programs have been communications satellites and things like the hubble space telescope - which has done far more for scientific space exploration than the entire Apollo program, as have the Voyager probes, Mars rover etc. Manned space exploration may still serve an inspirational purpose, though. I absolutely admit that the social and inspirational impact of seeing a human on the Moon/Mars/in outer space is hard to beat.

tayo42 5y ago

How is star link moving the world forward. A small amount of rural people get faster internet is not a big deal. Satellite based internet already exists, it's not ground breaking. It's also at the expense of polluting the orobit around the earth. It's also just profit motivated, the intent isn't to make the world better, just sell more crap to more people

tigershark 5y ago
No. There is a potential user base of millions of people that have no access whatsoever to broadband. And you can’t be serious in trying to compare starlink with the awful current geostationary satellite Internet offering.