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> We are one asteroid strike away from losing all human life on earth. We're one asteroid strike from losing all human life in the solar system even if you had

> We are one asteroid strike away from losing all human life on earth. We're one asteroid strike from losing all human life in the solar system even if you had a bunch of people living on Mars. It would take a very long time to get even a single Mars colony self sufficient. Without resources of Earth supporting the colony it would die out the first time the air conditioner broke. Putting people on Mars isn't putting our eggs in a second basket. It's putting an egg in a wet napkin on a mouse trap positioned under a precariously balanced boulder.

mchusma 5y ago
Musk says basically this in his presentation. Very very hard.
dotnet00 5y ago
You have to start building the basket at some point. If you never start working on the colony you'll always have an excuse ("it'll take a long time!", "it'll be too expensive!", "the technology doesn't exist" and so on). The technology to be self-sustaining won't exist without demand for it, and starting to setup a colony creates a lot of demand.
irrational 5y ago
By that logic we will never leave Earth. Let’s say it takes 200 years to get a fully self sufficient colony on Mars. If we start now, it could be self-sufficient by around 2222. But, according to your logic, we shouldn’t start since the colony won’t be immediately self-sufficient. Instead we should wait until… until when? Assuming it will always take 200 years to make the colony self-sufficient, do we wait until 2222 to start so that it is self-sufficient by 2422?
- giantrobot 5y ago
  A 200 year timeline is likely far too short. There's nowhere on the planet a human (or any multicellular Earth life) can survive without an active life support system. Every square meter of living and farming space needs to be enclosed with powered life support. There's no lubricants, easily accessed water, or even raw materials for heavy industry. Even if Starship was ready to go tomorrow zero percent of any of the infrastructure needed to keep humans alive on Mars exists. The infrastructure needed to let some Martians be self sufficient only exists in artist renderings. Getting a hundred tons of crap to Mars is the easiest part of the problem. Building a reliable toilet that won't clog and kill everyone or an air filter that never breaks is hard. Having enough food and medical supplies to keep people alive after a crop fails is hard. Building a factory that doesn't need a huge supply of oil-based lubricants is hard. Crowing crops in shitty soil is hard. Shit just building a big sealed structure is hard. I don't find any claims of colonizing Mars believable because there's only lip service paid to boring infrastructure. Infrastructure can't just be patched in later.
  - irrational 5y ago
    So… give up and don’t even bother trying, because failure is probable but not certain. Got it.
    - giantrobot 5y ago
      That's not what I said. I do not find any claims of "colonization" believable because there's absolutely zero interest in solving or even realistically addressing the Hard Problems involved. There's little interest in solving the easier but boring problems. If the toilets on a Starship get clogged [0] the crew can't wear diapers for a year and a half on their way to Mars. In space a clogged toilet has the fun side effect of aerosolizing feces that the crew will then breathe in, likely killing them. Big talk about colonizing Mars is just talk without any actual movement on important infrastructure. A big rocket is only the first tiny step on a very very long road and itself is not really all that useful. If you want to make pithy statements about not trying, direct your energy towards everyone fantasizing about Mars colonies with zero intent to tackle any of the Hard Problems involved. [0] https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-tourist-toilet-alarm https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-tourist-toilet-alarm

mchusma 5y ago

Musk says basically this in his presentation. Very very hard.

dotnet00 5y ago

You have to start building the basket at some point. If you never start working on the colony you'll always have an excuse ("it'll take a long time!", "it'll be too expensive!", "the technology doesn't exist" and so on). The technology to be self-sustaining won't exist without demand for it, and starting to setup a colony creates a lot of demand.

irrational 5y ago

By that logic we will never leave Earth. Let’s say it takes 200 years to get a fully self sufficient colony on Mars. If we start now, it could be self-sufficient by around 2222. But, according to your logic, we shouldn’t start since the colony won’t be immediately self-sufficient. Instead we should wait until… until when? Assuming it will always take 200 years to make the colony self-sufficient, do we wait until 2222 to start so that it is self-sufficient by 2422?

giantrobot 5y ago
A 200 year timeline is likely far too short. There's nowhere on the planet a human (or any multicellular Earth life) can survive without an active life support system. Every square meter of living and farming space needs to be enclosed with powered life support. There's no lubricants, easily accessed water, or even raw materials for heavy industry. Even if Starship was ready to go tomorrow zero percent of any of the infrastructure needed to keep humans alive on Mars exists. The infrastructure needed to let some Martians be self sufficient only exists in artist renderings. Getting a hundred tons of crap to Mars is the easiest part of the problem. Building a reliable toilet that won't clog and kill everyone or an air filter that never breaks is hard. Having enough food and medical supplies to keep people alive after a crop fails is hard. Building a factory that doesn't need a huge supply of oil-based lubricants is hard. Crowing crops in shitty soil is hard. Shit just building a big sealed structure is hard. I don't find any claims of colonizing Mars believable because there's only lip service paid to boring infrastructure. Infrastructure can't just be patched in later.
- irrational 5y ago
  So… give up and don’t even bother trying, because failure is probable but not certain. Got it.
  - giantrobot 5y ago
    That's not what I said. I do not find any claims of "colonization" believable because there's absolutely zero interest in solving or even realistically addressing the Hard Problems involved. There's little interest in solving the easier but boring problems. If the toilets on a Starship get clogged [0] the crew can't wear diapers for a year and a half on their way to Mars. In space a clogged toilet has the fun side effect of aerosolizing feces that the crew will then breathe in, likely killing them. Big talk about colonizing Mars is just talk without any actual movement on important infrastructure. A big rocket is only the first tiny step on a very very long road and itself is not really all that useful. If you want to make pithy statements about not trying, direct your energy towards everyone fantasizing about Mars colonies with zero intent to tackle any of the Hard Problems involved. [0] https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-tourist-toilet-alarm https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-tourist-toilet-alarm