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Ask HN: Are you convinced enough by Elon Musk's vision to go to Mars now? Why?

7 points by hedayet 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ggm 2y ago
No. Because it's bad science, and bad engineering. He's mistaken about scale, about logistics, about individual movations, legal structure, about closed and open cycle economies in energy, food and air. He's espousing a fantasy and sucking in money and time and labour which could be better used. It's a giant Ketamine fuelled boondoggle. LEO is making money and strategic sense. Mars is multiple decades off for a small group of scientists maintained at 10,000x the cost and effort of Antarctica. I love watching the rockets launch. Nothing about the actual space mechanics right now is awful. His sense of time, place, purpose and outcome is truly bad, by repute since like 99% of people here I know only his projected persona.
JojoFatsani 2y ago
He can go first.
orionblastar 2y ago
Tech isn't perfected for it yet. They are still blowing up rockets, and need better quality control.
sleepyguy 2y ago
Not anytime soon. Perhaps in the future, Tesla Robots/AI could be sent to build out some comfortable habitable infrastructure first.
nis0s 2y ago
The question is wrong. It’s not about going to Mars, it’s about having a long term plan for space colonization and exploration. The best time to start this was two decades ago, the next best time is now. It would make sense to pilot habitable zones on the Moon first, and send autonomous systems to Mars, or remotely build habitats. We can’t imagine going beyond Mars without faster travel.
- hedayet 2y ago
  > …it’s about having a long-term plan for space colonization and exploration. I see your point, and I'd appreciate it even more if you could elaborate further. If you could point me to some resources (articles, documentaries, books) that could excite me in a similar way, I’d love that. My understanding of this topic is limited—I can see the value in mining remote planets or other astronomical bodies for energy, precious metals, etc., but I’m not sure I fully grasp the hype around Musk’s vision of "occupying Mars." This could be because I haven’t been following him closely enough.
  - nis0s 2y ago
    I think this vision is more ancient, but I don’t want to influence anyone to think one way or another. I think this blog did a good job of trying to find different perspectives: https://dailynous.com/2021/02/22/philosophers-on-space-exploration/ https://dailynous.com/2021/02/22/philosophers-on-space-explo... There are others who believe space colonization and exploration are unethical pursuits: https://vce.usc.edu/volume-7-issue-3/space-colonization-and-why-humanity-is-better-off-not-pursuing-it/ https://vce.usc.edu/volume-7-issue-3/space-colonization-and-... Here is a recent text, but I’ve not read it: https://www.routledge.com/The-Philosophy-of-Outer-Space-Explorations-Controversies-Speculations/Garasic-DiPaola/p/book/9781032448893 https://www.routledge.com/The-Philosophy-of-Outer-Space-Expl... In all such discourse, there is a danger of being convinced by poorly-reasoned and incomplete arguments, but if one adheres to principles of parrhesia, the conversation becomes more manageable.
deadlinermusic 2y ago
[dead]
TheAlchemist 2y ago
Mars ? now ? Their Starship is barely going to the orbit and then blowing up, and people are seriously considering going to Mars now ? After all, people believed him when he said they solved FSD 10 YEARS ago. We are several decades away from flying humans to Mars. Maybe if it's a one way trip and they don't need to arrive there alive, we could go within 10 years. Maybe. The thing I really fear, is that Musk will manage to siphon effectively infinite amount of money from the US government for this project. Which is all this is about.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
almosthere 2y ago
https://yellowhammernews.com/did-von-braun-prophesize-elon-musk-colonizing-mars/ https://yellowhammernews.com/did-von-braun-prophesize-elon-m...
- rurban 2y ago
  The apparent problem in von Braun's prophecy > The Martian government was directed by 10 men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and had the title of “Elon.” is that nobody would elect Elon to Elon in secret and fair voting. He would just take this title and then you have political turmoil for the rest of this episode. So even if it would be technically possible, nobody would join him.
dsq 2y ago
The title is slightly ambiguous, not sure if it's asking whether one should go oneself, or if its generally a good thing.
- nis0s 2y ago
  Why wouldn’t it be a good thing? I am not being argumentative, but I am sincerely curious. To me “good” is letting human cognition seek out its limits, and to understand reality and fundamental truths. We cannot do that by confining ourselves to a singular region of the whole universe. We are the only intelligent and capable beings (that we know of) who are self-aware and can question the nature of reality. I would say that it’s a moral duty to be both stewards of truth and knowledge, and seek to understand what we know, and what we don’t know.
  - dsq 2y ago
    I meant that I'm for it, just not to go myself, haha (not that I'd have any chance of being chosen). It's likely to be a high risk, high adventure endeavour.
dsq 2y ago
These plans always seem fanciful or wasteful at first. Any mission of exploration has always been met with derision. Based on past history, it will indeed take a long time for space colonies to break even, not to mention self sustaining or profitable. Despite the caveats above, building a sustainable earth-to-orbit-to-various targets is probably the most significant thing that could happen in the next few decades.
Gud 2y ago
Nothing interesting about Mars. If the goal was Venus, or another cool(pun not intended) planet, sign me up! Also, don’t want to live in some off world fascist dictatorship. The whole thing should be run as a Swiss style democracy. Don’t want to get purged out of some airlock for wrong think.

7 points by hedayet 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ggm 2y ago

No. Because it's bad science, and bad engineering. He's mistaken about scale, about logistics, about individual movations, legal structure, about closed and open cycle economies in energy, food and air. He's espousing a fantasy and sucking in money and time and labour which could be better used. It's a giant Ketamine fuelled boondoggle. LEO is making money and strategic sense. Mars is multiple decades off for a small group of scientists maintained at 10,000x the cost and effort of Antarctica. I love watching the rockets launch. Nothing about the actual space mechanics right now is awful. His sense of time, place, purpose and outcome is truly bad, by repute since like 99% of people here I know only his projected persona.

JojoFatsani 2y ago

He can go first.

orionblastar 2y ago

Tech isn't perfected for it yet. They are still blowing up rockets, and need better quality control.

sleepyguy 2y ago

Not anytime soon. Perhaps in the future, Tesla Robots/AI could be sent to build out some comfortable habitable infrastructure first.

nis0s 2y ago

The question is wrong. It’s not about going to Mars, it’s about having a long term plan for space colonization and exploration. The best time to start this was two decades ago, the next best time is now. It would make sense to pilot habitable zones on the Moon first, and send autonomous systems to Mars, or remotely build habitats. We can’t imagine going beyond Mars without faster travel.

hedayet 2y ago
> …it’s about having a long-term plan for space colonization and exploration. I see your point, and I'd appreciate it even more if you could elaborate further. If you could point me to some resources (articles, documentaries, books) that could excite me in a similar way, I’d love that. My understanding of this topic is limited—I can see the value in mining remote planets or other astronomical bodies for energy, precious metals, etc., but I’m not sure I fully grasp the hype around Musk’s vision of "occupying Mars." This could be because I haven’t been following him closely enough.
- nis0s 2y ago
  I think this vision is more ancient, but I don’t want to influence anyone to think one way or another. I think this blog did a good job of trying to find different perspectives: https://dailynous.com/2021/02/22/philosophers-on-space-exploration/ https://dailynous.com/2021/02/22/philosophers-on-space-explo... There are others who believe space colonization and exploration are unethical pursuits: https://vce.usc.edu/volume-7-issue-3/space-colonization-and-why-humanity-is-better-off-not-pursuing-it/ https://vce.usc.edu/volume-7-issue-3/space-colonization-and-... Here is a recent text, but I’ve not read it: https://www.routledge.com/The-Philosophy-of-Outer-Space-Explorations-Controversies-Speculations/Garasic-DiPaola/p/book/9781032448893 https://www.routledge.com/The-Philosophy-of-Outer-Space-Expl... In all such discourse, there is a danger of being convinced by poorly-reasoned and incomplete arguments, but if one adheres to principles of parrhesia, the conversation becomes more manageable.

deadlinermusic 2y ago

[dead]

TheAlchemist 2y ago

Mars ? now ? Their Starship is barely going to the orbit and then blowing up, and people are seriously considering going to Mars now ? After all, people believed him when he said they solved FSD 10 YEARS ago. We are several decades away from flying humans to Mars. Maybe if it's a one way trip and they don't need to arrive there alive, we could go within 10 years. Maybe. The thing I really fear, is that Musk will manage to siphon effectively infinite amount of money from the US government for this project. Which is all this is about.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

almosthere 2y ago

https://yellowhammernews.com/did-von-braun-prophesize-elon-musk-colonizing-mars/ https://yellowhammernews.com/did-von-braun-prophesize-elon-m...

rurban 2y ago
The apparent problem in von Braun's prophecy > The Martian government was directed by 10 men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and had the title of “Elon.” is that nobody would elect Elon to Elon in secret and fair voting. He would just take this title and then you have political turmoil for the rest of this episode. So even if it would be technically possible, nobody would join him.

dsq 2y ago

The title is slightly ambiguous, not sure if it's asking whether one should go oneself, or if its generally a good thing.

nis0s 2y ago
Why wouldn’t it be a good thing? I am not being argumentative, but I am sincerely curious. To me “good” is letting human cognition seek out its limits, and to understand reality and fundamental truths. We cannot do that by confining ourselves to a singular region of the whole universe. We are the only intelligent and capable beings (that we know of) who are self-aware and can question the nature of reality. I would say that it’s a moral duty to be both stewards of truth and knowledge, and seek to understand what we know, and what we don’t know.
- dsq 2y ago
  I meant that I'm for it, just not to go myself, haha (not that I'd have any chance of being chosen). It's likely to be a high risk, high adventure endeavour.

dsq 2y ago

These plans always seem fanciful or wasteful at first. Any mission of exploration has always been met with derision. Based on past history, it will indeed take a long time for space colonies to break even, not to mention self sustaining or profitable. Despite the caveats above, building a sustainable earth-to-orbit-to-various targets is probably the most significant thing that could happen in the next few decades.

Gud 2y ago

Nothing interesting about Mars. If the goal was Venus, or another cool(pun not intended) planet, sign me up! Also, don’t want to live in some off world fascist dictatorship. The whole thing should be run as a Swiss style democracy. Don’t want to get purged out of some airlock for wrong think.