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Elon Musk’s Plan to Send a Million Colonists to Mars by 2050 Is Pure Delusion

14 points by iancmceachern 4y ago

ipspam 4y ago
Don't care about mars. Astroid mining is the key to saving earth. Unlimited metals. Unlimited batteries for storage. Hell, make and charge the batteries in space than then drop them to earth
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  My Alma Mater is "kind of a big deal" in the Mining, Petroleum and Geophysics professions - The Colorado School of Mines. They have a whole program that'd been ongoing for decades now dedicated to the exploration and Mining of space for minerals, etc. https://space.mines.edu/ https://space.mines.edu/
  - ipspam 4y ago
    Can you give some input I why I don't here more about this? I've always said the first "Trillionaire" (excluding inflation) will be from space mining. Yet it seems like everyone is keeping their space mining plans pretty tight, or they aren't very excited about it. What am I missing? I know heavy elements "sink", and terrestrial impacts shoot these dense metals into space, so space mining should be pretty profitable. Fun fact: the average density of rocks on earth's surface are about 2600kg/M3. The average of the entire earth is 5800kg/M3. That's some dense stuff hanging out in the core!
Cheyana 4y ago
They'll figure out the food, air, and bathroom situation when they get there. I'm sure it will be glorious.
firebaze 4y ago
To me, if there's one thing Elon must succeed in it's Space-X. They have the people, the technology, the theory and most importantly the reality of refuellable, reusable rockets going to space. With an in-orbit delta-v budget to make it realistically to Mars, even considering shielding. And the plan to source Methane on Mars to get back is also scientifically backed, as far as I can judge that. If there's one hope to make it to another planet in my lifetime, it's Space-X. So could we dump the hate on other stuff he does, but still admire the Mars goal?
LinuxBender 4y ago
Please first consider testing this in Death Valley or some other low resource desert maybe in Texas near SpaceX. Better yet, make that the proving grounds. After a person passes their extensive psychological evaluation and sign all their legal waivers then they spend one year in the desert in a space suit. If at any point they take their suit off outside of the environmentally controlled pod they are out of the program. If anyone damages a pod everyone in that pod not in their suit is out of the program. I assume SpaceX must have reviewed all the previous biodome / biosphere [1] experiments and learned from all their lessons, failures and successes. [2][3] Consider also using the participants psychological evaluations and personality tests to group people together correctly so that they inter-operate well together in most aspects. Team up with the DoD and find some marines or army special forces that want to earn some special duty hazard pay. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2 # see additional links at the bottom of the page. [2] - https://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/biosphere-2-what-really-happened https://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/biosphere-2-wha... [3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yAcD3wuY2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yAcD3wuY2Q [video]
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  They've done this for real (spaceship earth) and in movies and TV several times (biodome, and my personal favorite "moon base 8" with John C Riley)
Ekaros 4y ago
28 years to go. So starting today it is only 35 thousand a year... And with the launch window being 26 month apart... Some people will have fun sitting in orbit for quite a while waiting for their go ahead... I hope they get chance to reconsider after first week.
Zigurd 4y ago
Elon Musk is in several businesses where hype and showmanship are part of the job. His competitors in those businesses also create unrealistic narratives around their products and their companies' intentions and capabilities. So, for example, calling out hypocrisy about government contracts and subsidies is particularly useless. Everybody does it. This means it is hard to tell where sensible strategies, like Elons tweets providing real value in the form of zero ad spend at Tesla, ends and delusion begins. I am not a space-colonization optimist. I agree with the article author that humans will not live off Earth for more than a few months in space stations or maybe on the Moon until they are post-human. But can Elon put humans back on the Moon? Maybe. And maybe that's enough to get enough government contracts for his rockets. Closer to home, Musk is taking full advantage of the fact that customers, at least in the US, hate their ISPs with a hot passion, often for good reasons, and want to believe in a literal deus ex machina. Does he have a viable business model? So far, it only has to be viable enough to appeal to investors with stars in their eyes. Or, maybe, like entrepreneurial showmen before Musk have often done, he gets the idea that "enlarging the problem" can scale-up to any size and not fail.

14 points by iancmceachern 4y ago

Don't care about mars. Astroid mining is the key to saving earth. Unlimited metals. Unlimited batteries for storage. Hell, make and charge the batteries in space than then drop them to earth

iancmceachern 4y ago
My Alma Mater is "kind of a big deal" in the Mining, Petroleum and Geophysics professions - The Colorado School of Mines. They have a whole program that'd been ongoing for decades now dedicated to the exploration and Mining of space for minerals, etc. https://space.mines.edu/ https://space.mines.edu/
- ipspam 4y ago
  Can you give some input I why I don't here more about this? I've always said the first "Trillionaire" (excluding inflation) will be from space mining. Yet it seems like everyone is keeping their space mining plans pretty tight, or they aren't very excited about it. What am I missing? I know heavy elements "sink", and terrestrial impacts shoot these dense metals into space, so space mining should be pretty profitable. Fun fact: the average density of rocks on earth's surface are about 2600kg/M3. The average of the entire earth is 5800kg/M3. That's some dense stuff hanging out in the core!

Cheyana 4y ago

They'll figure out the food, air, and bathroom situation when they get there. I'm sure it will be glorious.

firebaze 4y ago

To me, if there's one thing Elon must succeed in it's Space-X. They have the people, the technology, the theory and most importantly the reality of refuellable, reusable rockets going to space. With an in-orbit delta-v budget to make it realistically to Mars, even considering shielding. And the plan to source Methane on Mars to get back is also scientifically backed, as far as I can judge that. If there's one hope to make it to another planet in my lifetime, it's Space-X. So could we dump the hate on other stuff he does, but still admire the Mars goal?

LinuxBender 4y ago

Please first consider testing this in Death Valley or some other low resource desert maybe in Texas near SpaceX. Better yet, make that the proving grounds. After a person passes their extensive psychological evaluation and sign all their legal waivers then they spend one year in the desert in a space suit. If at any point they take their suit off outside of the environmentally controlled pod they are out of the program. If anyone damages a pod everyone in that pod not in their suit is out of the program. I assume SpaceX must have reviewed all the previous biodome / biosphere [1] experiments and learned from all their lessons, failures and successes. [2][3] Consider also using the participants psychological evaluations and personality tests to group people together correctly so that they inter-operate well together in most aspects. Team up with the DoD and find some marines or army special forces that want to earn some special duty hazard pay. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2 # see additional links at the bottom of the page. [2] - https://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/biosphere-2-what-really-happened https://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/biosphere-2-wha... [3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yAcD3wuY2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yAcD3wuY2Q [video]

iancmceachern 4y ago
They've done this for real (spaceship earth) and in movies and TV several times (biodome, and my personal favorite "moon base 8" with John C Riley)

Ekaros 4y ago

28 years to go. So starting today it is only 35 thousand a year... And with the launch window being 26 month apart... Some people will have fun sitting in orbit for quite a while waiting for their go ahead... I hope they get chance to reconsider after first week.

Zigurd 4y ago

Elon Musk is in several businesses where hype and showmanship are part of the job. His competitors in those businesses also create unrealistic narratives around their products and their companies' intentions and capabilities. So, for example, calling out hypocrisy about government contracts and subsidies is particularly useless. Everybody does it. This means it is hard to tell where sensible strategies, like Elons tweets providing real value in the form of zero ad spend at Tesla, ends and delusion begins. I am not a space-colonization optimist. I agree with the article author that humans will not live off Earth for more than a few months in space stations or maybe on the Moon until they are post-human. But can Elon put humans back on the Moon? Maybe. And maybe that's enough to get enough government contracts for his rockets. Closer to home, Musk is taking full advantage of the fact that customers, at least in the US, hate their ISPs with a hot passion, often for good reasons, and want to believe in a literal deus ex machina. Does he have a viable business model? So far, it only has to be viable enough to appeal to investors with stars in their eyes. Or, maybe, like entrepreneurial showmen before Musk have often done, he gets the idea that "enlarging the problem" can scale-up to any size and not fail.