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> Sure, as an interim step to making humanity interplanetary. Are you suggesting that he could find commercial success without taking those intermediate steps?

> Sure, as an interim step to making humanity interplanetary. Are you suggesting that he could find commercial success without taking those intermediate steps? My point is that the rockets are the easiest part of settling Mars. We already had rockets, and scaling that up was never a huge unknown. The real problems with settling Mars are the things that Musk is spending nothing on - building safe self-sustaining habitats in extreme conditions. Until we have a 10000+ self-sustaining city underground in the Arctic, there is 0 reason to send more than a handful of people to Mars (like we did to the Moon). So, if you actually care about that, you should be investing in the Arctic city, not Mars. > I suspect he also recognizes that America is a car culture and that that won't change anytime soon. We can try to guess what he believes, or we can look at his actions and their results - and in the latter case, he has repeatedly spoken and acted against public transport (in most hyper-loop and Boring Company presentations at least).

naasking 4y ago
> We already had rockets, and scaling that up was never a huge unknown. Then why did NASA never create cost-effective reusable launch vehicles? > The real problems with settling Mars are the things that Musk is spending nothing on - building safe self-sustaining habitats in extreme conditions. I'm not sure how this refutes the claim that this is one of his ultimate goals. He's not going to invest in the kind of research you describe until it's necessary or will plausibly create a return. He has to keep a business focus to continue funding these efforts because governments have been seriously falling short. > We can try to guess what he believes, or we can look at his actions and their results - and in the latter case, he has repeatedly spoken and acted against public transport (in most hyper-loop and Boring Company presentations at least). OK, I still don't see why that's problem. Public mass transit is not going to save the planet on its own. Personal transport is something like only 20% of global emissions. EVs can get that down to below 5%, and public transit might make another single digit difference over that. It's just not a big change.
- simiones 4y ago
  > Then why did NASA never create cost-effective reusable launch vehicles? Because NASA was usually about pushing the limits of science and engineering, not making money on space launches. Also, it has often been severely mismanaged. > I'm not sure how this refutes the claim that this is one of his ultimate goals. He's not going to invest in the kind of research you describe until it's necessary or will plausibly create a return. He has to keep a business focus to continue funding these efforts because governments have been seriously falling short. You're the one claiming SpaceX was created to address an existential crisis. I'm telling you SpaceX is not bringing us any closer to being an interplanetary species, and if Musk cared about this goal, he wouldn't have invested in SpaceX to begin with. >OK, I still don't see why that's problem. Public mass transit is not going to save the planet on its own. Personal transport is something like only 20% of global emissions. EVs can get that down to below 5%, and public transit might make another single digit difference over that. It's just not a big change. No, they can't. Replacing all ICEs with EVs would basically require doubling the electricity grid in the USA for example, and that is simply not a realistic possibility - especially given that the grid is already far too dirty and we need to replace a huge amount of it with green tech to reach CO2 emissions goals even without the extra pressure from EVs. So, the realistic goal is to significantly expand the much much more efficient public transport (trains, buses, trams, metro) to significantly reduce the amount of cars (which will also do wonders for reducing congestion), and convert just the remaining cars to EVs, at a rate that can be supported by the grid while also shutting down existing coal, oil and gas power production.
  - naasking 4y ago
    > Because NASA was usually about pushing the limits of science and engineering, not making money on space launches. Pushing science and engineering requires using money wisely, and creating a reusable launch vehicle is an obvious way to do that. In fact NASA did have multiple efforts that ultimately stalled, and literally none of them looked like what SpaceX did. You simply have no basis upon which to claim that SpaceX's reusable launch vehicles were not innovative. > You're the one claiming SpaceX was created to address an existential crisis. I'm telling you SpaceX is not bringing us any closer to being an interplanetary species, and if Musk cared about this goal, he wouldn't have invested in SpaceX to begin with. I honestly have no idea how you can conclude this. We're taking our first baby steps into space and you're saying baby steps are meaningless because they're far from running marathons. This argument is incredibly unconvincing. > No, they can't. Replacing all ICEs with EVs would basically require doubling the electricity grid in the USA for example, and that is simply not a realistic possibility The grid needs to expand anyway to handle renewable intermittency. You're also assuming that EVs would be powered from the grid. Tesla has the powerwall and solar roof tiles to address distributed power generation rather than reliance on the grid for everything. > So, the realistic goal is to significantly expand the much much more efficient public transport (trains, buses, trams, metro) to significantly reduce the amount of cars (which will also do wonders for reducing congestion), and convert just the remaining cars to EVs, at a rate that can be supported by the grid while also shutting down existing coal, oil and gas power production. What I'm reading here is that Musk's Tesla is addressing the existential risk of climate change, just not in the way you personally think it should be addressed. Seems beside the point frankly.
somenameforme 4y ago
You mean Antarctica, not the Artic. The Arctic refers to regions/countries along the Artic Ocean which includes Canada, USA, and Scandinavia. The reason Antarctica is not developed is because of an series of treaties known as the Antarctic Treaty System [1]. It's an agreed upon 'pristine environment' for research. Development is prohibited and there are extreme measures to maintain its relatively pureness. For one fun example - poop cannot be disposed of on premises. It needs to be bagged up and shipped back home to be disposed of. Rocketry is a similar story. Rockets, since the 60s, have gradually become less capable and more expensive. For instance Boeing/Lockheed have been granted defacto unlimited taxpayer money to develop a basic functional 'homegrown' rocket system - the SLS. The goal was achieve little more than we did in the 60s. They started work 11 years ago, have received more than $30 billion, and and have yet to manage to get off the ground. Stay tuned for their latest failure - they will [fail to] launch on November 14th! For reference, we went from nothing to putting a man on the moon in 9 years in the 60s. If it ever manages to be fit for duty, the SLS is estimated to cost an average of $2 billion per flight, and is completely incapable of landing massive-load cargo on Mars, let alone transiting things back. It's completely and absolutely unfit for duty. Most of everything Musk has done with SpaceX was being mocked as literally impossible by Boeing et al (by Tory Bruno) while he was struggling to achieve rapid reuse among various other technologies which have completely revolutionized the industry. We would not be getting to Mars had SpaceX (or a similar company) not emerged. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System
- simiones 4y ago
  I was actually referring to the Arctic (North Pole), though I did forget how little land is actually there. Regardless, a self-sustaining habitat is a research project, and it will not be successful without political/diplomatic agreement. Note that outer space is anyway in the same situation - you can't just settle outer space and claim it's your own - especially Mars, which is still a pristine environment that could even possibly harbor signs of life.

naasking 4y ago

> We already had rockets, and scaling that up was never a huge unknown. Then why did NASA never create cost-effective reusable launch vehicles? > The real problems with settling Mars are the things that Musk is spending nothing on - building safe self-sustaining habitats in extreme conditions. I'm not sure how this refutes the claim that this is one of his ultimate goals. He's not going to invest in the kind of research you describe until it's necessary or will plausibly create a return. He has to keep a business focus to continue funding these efforts because governments have been seriously falling short. > We can try to guess what he believes, or we can look at his actions and their results - and in the latter case, he has repeatedly spoken and acted against public transport (in most hyper-loop and Boring Company presentations at least). OK, I still don't see why that's problem. Public mass transit is not going to save the planet on its own. Personal transport is something like only 20% of global emissions. EVs can get that down to below 5%, and public transit might make another single digit difference over that. It's just not a big change.

simiones 4y ago
> Then why did NASA never create cost-effective reusable launch vehicles? Because NASA was usually about pushing the limits of science and engineering, not making money on space launches. Also, it has often been severely mismanaged. > I'm not sure how this refutes the claim that this is one of his ultimate goals. He's not going to invest in the kind of research you describe until it's necessary or will plausibly create a return. He has to keep a business focus to continue funding these efforts because governments have been seriously falling short. You're the one claiming SpaceX was created to address an existential crisis. I'm telling you SpaceX is not bringing us any closer to being an interplanetary species, and if Musk cared about this goal, he wouldn't have invested in SpaceX to begin with. >OK, I still don't see why that's problem. Public mass transit is not going to save the planet on its own. Personal transport is something like only 20% of global emissions. EVs can get that down to below 5%, and public transit might make another single digit difference over that. It's just not a big change. No, they can't. Replacing all ICEs with EVs would basically require doubling the electricity grid in the USA for example, and that is simply not a realistic possibility - especially given that the grid is already far too dirty and we need to replace a huge amount of it with green tech to reach CO2 emissions goals even without the extra pressure from EVs. So, the realistic goal is to significantly expand the much much more efficient public transport (trains, buses, trams, metro) to significantly reduce the amount of cars (which will also do wonders for reducing congestion), and convert just the remaining cars to EVs, at a rate that can be supported by the grid while also shutting down existing coal, oil and gas power production.
- naasking 4y ago
  > Because NASA was usually about pushing the limits of science and engineering, not making money on space launches. Pushing science and engineering requires using money wisely, and creating a reusable launch vehicle is an obvious way to do that. In fact NASA did have multiple efforts that ultimately stalled, and literally none of them looked like what SpaceX did. You simply have no basis upon which to claim that SpaceX's reusable launch vehicles were not innovative. > You're the one claiming SpaceX was created to address an existential crisis. I'm telling you SpaceX is not bringing us any closer to being an interplanetary species, and if Musk cared about this goal, he wouldn't have invested in SpaceX to begin with. I honestly have no idea how you can conclude this. We're taking our first baby steps into space and you're saying baby steps are meaningless because they're far from running marathons. This argument is incredibly unconvincing. > No, they can't. Replacing all ICEs with EVs would basically require doubling the electricity grid in the USA for example, and that is simply not a realistic possibility The grid needs to expand anyway to handle renewable intermittency. You're also assuming that EVs would be powered from the grid. Tesla has the powerwall and solar roof tiles to address distributed power generation rather than reliance on the grid for everything. > So, the realistic goal is to significantly expand the much much more efficient public transport (trains, buses, trams, metro) to significantly reduce the amount of cars (which will also do wonders for reducing congestion), and convert just the remaining cars to EVs, at a rate that can be supported by the grid while also shutting down existing coal, oil and gas power production. What I'm reading here is that Musk's Tesla is addressing the existential risk of climate change, just not in the way you personally think it should be addressed. Seems beside the point frankly.

somenameforme 4y ago

You mean Antarctica, not the Artic. The Arctic refers to regions/countries along the Artic Ocean which includes Canada, USA, and Scandinavia. The reason Antarctica is not developed is because of an series of treaties known as the Antarctic Treaty System [1]. It's an agreed upon 'pristine environment' for research. Development is prohibited and there are extreme measures to maintain its relatively pureness. For one fun example - poop cannot be disposed of on premises. It needs to be bagged up and shipped back home to be disposed of. Rocketry is a similar story. Rockets, since the 60s, have gradually become less capable and more expensive. For instance Boeing/Lockheed have been granted defacto unlimited taxpayer money to develop a basic functional 'homegrown' rocket system - the SLS. The goal was achieve little more than we did in the 60s. They started work 11 years ago, have received more than $30 billion, and and have yet to manage to get off the ground. Stay tuned for their latest failure - they will [fail to] launch on November 14th! For reference, we went from nothing to putting a man on the moon in 9 years in the 60s. If it ever manages to be fit for duty, the SLS is estimated to cost an average of $2 billion per flight, and is completely incapable of landing massive-load cargo on Mars, let alone transiting things back. It's completely and absolutely unfit for duty. Most of everything Musk has done with SpaceX was being mocked as literally impossible by Boeing et al (by Tory Bruno) while he was struggling to achieve rapid reuse among various other technologies which have completely revolutionized the industry. We would not be getting to Mars had SpaceX (or a similar company) not emerged. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System

simiones 4y ago
I was actually referring to the Arctic (North Pole), though I did forget how little land is actually there. Regardless, a self-sustaining habitat is a research project, and it will not be successful without political/diplomatic agreement. Note that outer space is anyway in the same situation - you can't just settle outer space and claim it's your own - especially Mars, which is still a pristine environment that could even possibly harbor signs of life.