7 ms·

The complexity of getting to Mars is nothing compared to the complexity of creating a social unit that can survive and thrive on another planet. Specifically,

by jpxxx 14y ago

The complexity of getting to Mars is nothing compared to the complexity of creating a social unit that can survive and thrive on another planet. Specifically, an Antarctic planet covered in chlorinated brominated rusty dust with essentially no air pressure or atmospheric water, a dim sun, rotten weather, two ugly little moons, and 57,600,000 millisecond ping times. No chance to ever feel fresh air on your face, no chance to go swimming, never meeting a stranger until they're suddenly your neighbors for life, no chance to ever get away and start anew, and no chance to go back to Earth. In a box, on a dead planet, for life.

eru 14y ago
Exciting, isn't it?
- jpxxx 14y ago
  Honestly, yes. :3 I remember drawing habitations as a kid. But morally I feel this would have to be a two-way street: Mars cannot be a prison for either the first settlers or the native generations.
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    Or, as Lawrence Krauss suggested[0], just send older astronauts first, who can then live the rest of their lives on Mars, building the first habitat and thus paving the way for further generations to - maybe - travel both ways. [0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay#cite_ref-krauss_25-0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay#cite_ref-krauss_25...
mbrubeck 14y ago
Why "for life"? Even if a permanent base is established, what would stop people from traveling there to work for a year or so and then returning home? I know health concerns related to radiation and gravity may impose some constraints, but would a round-trip journey be out of the question? Musk's explicit goal is to make and use fully-reusable rockets, so obviously he intends them to travel both directions. If you're talking about an eventual permanent colony, it will definitely need some brave souls willing to make a one-way trip -- but so have many colonies in Earth history. And the colonists needn't be as cut off as you say if they could have visitors from Earth coming and going regularly. The round-trip radio delay between Mars and Earth is anywhere from 7 minutes to 45 minutes (I think your "ping time" was off by an order of magnitute or two), which is far shorter than the delay for, say, European colonists in 18th-century America or Africa to write to their friends back home. By the time we are thinking about raising children on another planet, we might even be able to build them an indoor swimming pool. :)
- jpxxx 14y ago
  Yes! The idea of 0.38G water is fascinating. It must look "wrong" when it ripples or pours.
  - sbierwagen 14y ago
    I prefer 0.16G water.
    - Willwhatley 14y ago
      Lunacy!
- robotresearcher 14y ago
  > what would stop people from traveling there to work for a year or so and then returning home? It might be cheaper and easier to deliver sustainable life support to Mars than the fuel, oxidizer and engines to return (or the machinery needed to harvest it in situ).
ricardobeat 14y ago
Or you're a space explorer, at the very edge of civilization and technology, pushing the human race forward and signing your name in history for the next thousand years.
- anonymouz 14y ago
  I am all for people being motivated by a higher calling and trying to be explorers, but you'd better forget about the "signing your name into history" bit. Unless you're one of the very first or do something very special, very few people will remember you. Could you, off the top of your head, recount the names of all the Apollo astronauts? Could you list, even with some research, say, the first 100 people from Europe that settled in North America? People should do that stuff because they love to do it, not out of a misguided hope of becoming famous for future generations.
  - javert 14y ago
    "Signing your name into history" does not have to equate to "having your name remembered." In other words, it would be great to make history (in such an important way as this), whether you are remembered or not.
  - mdonahoe 14y ago
    I don't remember apollo astronauts, but Wikipedia does. Hopefully our records will be better preserved than those from the Mayflower.
    - tjic 14y ago
      > Hopefully our records will be better preserved than those from the Mayflower. I dunno. They Mayflower records are pretty decent. And online. http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/images/MayflowerCompact.gif http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/images/MayflowerCompact.gif
  - btown 14y ago
    Even if you don't remember their names, though, you can recall the fact that there existed Apollo astronauts, men who were brave enough to go on those pioneering missions. DHH put it very eloquently in an essay 4 years ago: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1437-put-a-dent-in-the-universe http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1437-put-a-dent-in-the-univer... - "The key is that your efforts would be missed, your customers would have a sense of loss, if you stopped doing what you’re doing." Imagine if history said this about Apollo: "The technology was there, but in the end, we lacked people brave enough to risk the voyage. So the project stagnated, the rockets languished on the launching pads. And America moved on, a president's promise forgotten." I'd say the nameless astronaut makes a pretty big dent.
zacharycohn 14y ago
That problem seems like Step 2, where Step 1 is getting to the point where that's a problem.
forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
"Men wanted for a hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success." More than 5000 applications followed. Not everybody is made for adventure though.
- martincmartin 14y ago
  This was the ad that Shackleton placed in the paper to find a crew for his most famous expedition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedi...
  - jpxxx 14y ago
    If anyone here hasn't, Ernest Shackleton's 'South' is basically mandatory reading. It's his own book about his own experiences, it's dispassionate and yet wildly exciting, and even though you know how it ends, you're on the edge of your seat. Superb adventure. http://www.amazon.com/South-Endurance-Expedition-Ernest-Shackleton/dp/0451198808 http://www.amazon.com/South-Endurance-Expedition-Ernest-Shac...
    - desas 14y ago
      I thought it was fantastic. Project Gutenburg has also made it available.
  - jpatokal 14y ago
    ...but unfortunately actually didn't. Still a great quote though! http://conversation.cipr.co.uk/posts/andy.green/the-myth-of-sir-ernest-shackletons-ad--an-example-of-truthiness http://conversation.cipr.co.uk/posts/andy.green/the-myth-of-...
marvin 14y ago
Seriously, are dismissive and pessimistic remarks like this the top-voted comment on _every single_ Hacker News post these days? Elon Musk has built a fucking space rocket company and is defeating Boeing, Lockheed Martin and MDD in a business they've dominated for the last 40 years. I think this is an incredibly impressive accomplishment, and SpaceX's ambitions to make it possible to do manned missions to Mars is exactly what we need to bring humanity forward. Just from the science side alone, having actual people on Mars would be of tremendous value. If you think of what we know about Mars, think about how much more we would know if we were able to do more complex experiments there. Whether you personally think it's a good idea to settle down on Mars or not isn't very relevant. You're pointing at some very relevant issues, but why not phrase it in a more constructive tone? I'm sorry for the negativity, but it pisses me off when grand ideas and accomplishments are dismissed so offhandedly. Getting to Mars is not nearly "nothing", even compared to _anything_ that humans have ever done.
- Retric 14y ago
  There competing and making money, but they are still a tiny player so I don't know if you can say there winning. The space industry is much like the healthcare industry in that once your a large player you can't really grow much and there are a lot of perverse incentives to be less efficient.
- damoncali 14y ago
  I think you're being a bit hyperbolic. Musk built a small aerospace company. He's not exactly crushing Boeing.
  - trafficlight 14y ago
    Not crushing, but he's competing with them and that's impressive.
- jpxxx 14y ago
  Sure. Elon Musk is a heroic man. His car company is a marvel, and his space program is spectacular. His unfettered ability to speak without a mouth full of funder's cock or a PR minder sitting in the room is refreshing. His visions are grounded in technical and physical reality, his powers of observation are keen, and he has the personality and resources it takes to organize people in service of great accomplishments. Sanely priced two-way trips to Mars will change the course of humanity by enabling us to colonize the solar system and perhaps ensure a longer story for all mankind. This is the most interesting thing I've read all day, and he deserves every bit of attention. Now back to your regularly scheduled pessimism: Humanity has a long way to go, and a change of scenery isn't going to do all that much for her. The United States of America with her vast resources and impeccable pedigree in advancing Enlightenment is operating a torture camp for political prisoners in a subtropical shithole. What exactly happens when we send a thousand of our best and brightest and edgiest and most ambitious to live in what is essentially an submarine entombed underground for a decade? Do they live up to the Star Trek ideal? Or do they do what people in confined spaces tend to do? Can we provide a reasonable quality of life for colonists? Beyond maintaining air pressure and food, can we provide for them spiritually and emotionally? Can we provide a -life-? Geology only gets you so far. Even on Earth it's kind of an obscure trade, and geology is about all there is to -do- on Mars. What does a day to day life look like there? Do the children go to school? How is conflict handled? Who participates in what activities? What if there is too much to do? What if there isn't enough to do? How do you settle transplanetary custody battles when it means mommy or daddy taking the kid on a potentially lethal trip to another planet? How do you handle disease when everyone's in a thousand foot wide sphere? How do you bury people on an igneous planet? What does suicide mean for a Martian civilization? There are a billion things to consider, and Elon has the first five thousand handled. I am delighted that we get to think about the rest now.
dbaupp 14y ago
I think you are just imagining a worst case scenario. Why is any point of this true: No chance to ever feel fresh air on your face, no chance to go swimming, never meeting a stranger until they're suddenly your neighbors for life, no chance to ever get away and start anew, and no chance to go back to Earth. The fresh air one maybe, but there's no particular reason the chemical and physical make-up of Earth air can't be recreated. Swimming can happen in a swimming pool and fake/indoor beaches exist. You can move with people you already know; anyway, isn't "never meeting a stranger until you're living next to them" the standard procedure for moving house on Earth? There's no reason that one can't move around, even back to Earth. They did get to Mars/other planet in the first place.
tjic 14y ago
> The complexity of getting to Mars is nothing compared to the complexity of creating a social unit that can survive and thrive on another planet. What's so complicated about "a family" ?

by jpxxx 14y ago

eru 14y ago

Exciting, isn't it?

jpxxx 14y ago
Honestly, yes. :3 I remember drawing habitations as a kid. But morally I feel this would have to be a two-way street: Mars cannot be a prison for either the first settlers or the native generations.
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  Or, as Lawrence Krauss suggested[0], just send older astronauts first, who can then live the rest of their lives on Mars, building the first habitat and thus paving the way for further generations to - maybe - travel both ways. [0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay#cite_ref-krauss_25-0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay#cite_ref-krauss_25...

mbrubeck 14y ago

Why "for life"? Even if a permanent base is established, what would stop people from traveling there to work for a year or so and then returning home? I know health concerns related to radiation and gravity may impose some constraints, but would a round-trip journey be out of the question? Musk's explicit goal is to make and use fully-reusable rockets, so obviously he intends them to travel both directions. If you're talking about an eventual permanent colony, it will definitely need some brave souls willing to make a one-way trip -- but so have many colonies in Earth history. And the colonists needn't be as cut off as you say if they could have visitors from Earth coming and going regularly. The round-trip radio delay between Mars and Earth is anywhere from 7 minutes to 45 minutes (I think your "ping time" was off by an order of magnitute or two), which is far shorter than the delay for, say, European colonists in 18th-century America or Africa to write to their friends back home. By the time we are thinking about raising children on another planet, we might even be able to build them an indoor swimming pool. :)

jpxxx 14y ago
Yes! The idea of 0.38G water is fascinating. It must look "wrong" when it ripples or pours.
- sbierwagen 14y ago
  I prefer 0.16G water.
  - Willwhatley 14y ago
    Lunacy!
robotresearcher 14y ago
> what would stop people from traveling there to work for a year or so and then returning home? It might be cheaper and easier to deliver sustainable life support to Mars than the fuel, oxidizer and engines to return (or the machinery needed to harvest it in situ).

ricardobeat 14y ago

Or you're a space explorer, at the very edge of civilization and technology, pushing the human race forward and signing your name in history for the next thousand years.

anonymouz 14y ago
I am all for people being motivated by a higher calling and trying to be explorers, but you'd better forget about the "signing your name into history" bit. Unless you're one of the very first or do something very special, very few people will remember you. Could you, off the top of your head, recount the names of all the Apollo astronauts? Could you list, even with some research, say, the first 100 people from Europe that settled in North America? People should do that stuff because they love to do it, not out of a misguided hope of becoming famous for future generations.
- javert 14y ago
  "Signing your name into history" does not have to equate to "having your name remembered." In other words, it would be great to make history (in such an important way as this), whether you are remembered or not.
- mdonahoe 14y ago
  I don't remember apollo astronauts, but Wikipedia does. Hopefully our records will be better preserved than those from the Mayflower.
  - tjic 14y ago
    > Hopefully our records will be better preserved than those from the Mayflower. I dunno. They Mayflower records are pretty decent. And online. http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/images/MayflowerCompact.gif http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/images/MayflowerCompact.gif
- btown 14y ago
  Even if you don't remember their names, though, you can recall the fact that there existed Apollo astronauts, men who were brave enough to go on those pioneering missions. DHH put it very eloquently in an essay 4 years ago: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1437-put-a-dent-in-the-universe http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1437-put-a-dent-in-the-univer... - "The key is that your efforts would be missed, your customers would have a sense of loss, if you stopped doing what you’re doing." Imagine if history said this about Apollo: "The technology was there, but in the end, we lacked people brave enough to risk the voyage. So the project stagnated, the rockets languished on the launching pads. And America moved on, a president's promise forgotten." I'd say the nameless astronaut makes a pretty big dent.

zacharycohn 14y ago

That problem seems like Step 2, where Step 1 is getting to the point where that's a problem.

forgottenpaswrd 14y ago

"Men wanted for a hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success." More than 5000 applications followed. Not everybody is made for adventure though.

martincmartin 14y ago
This was the ad that Shackleton placed in the paper to find a crew for his most famous expedition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedi...
- jpxxx 14y ago
  If anyone here hasn't, Ernest Shackleton's 'South' is basically mandatory reading. It's his own book about his own experiences, it's dispassionate and yet wildly exciting, and even though you know how it ends, you're on the edge of your seat. Superb adventure. http://www.amazon.com/South-Endurance-Expedition-Ernest-Shackleton/dp/0451198808 http://www.amazon.com/South-Endurance-Expedition-Ernest-Shac...
  - desas 14y ago
    I thought it was fantastic. Project Gutenburg has also made it available.
- jpatokal 14y ago
  ...but unfortunately actually didn't. Still a great quote though! http://conversation.cipr.co.uk/posts/andy.green/the-myth-of-sir-ernest-shackletons-ad--an-example-of-truthiness http://conversation.cipr.co.uk/posts/andy.green/the-myth-of-...

marvin 14y ago

Seriously, are dismissive and pessimistic remarks like this the top-voted comment on _every single_ Hacker News post these days? Elon Musk has built a fucking space rocket company and is defeating Boeing, Lockheed Martin and MDD in a business they've dominated for the last 40 years. I think this is an incredibly impressive accomplishment, and SpaceX's ambitions to make it possible to do manned missions to Mars is exactly what we need to bring humanity forward. Just from the science side alone, having actual people on Mars would be of tremendous value. If you think of what we know about Mars, think about how much more we would know if we were able to do more complex experiments there. Whether you personally think it's a good idea to settle down on Mars or not isn't very relevant. You're pointing at some very relevant issues, but why not phrase it in a more constructive tone? I'm sorry for the negativity, but it pisses me off when grand ideas and accomplishments are dismissed so offhandedly. Getting to Mars is not nearly "nothing", even compared to _anything_ that humans have ever done.

Retric 14y ago
There competing and making money, but they are still a tiny player so I don't know if you can say there winning. The space industry is much like the healthcare industry in that once your a large player you can't really grow much and there are a lot of perverse incentives to be less efficient.
damoncali 14y ago
I think you're being a bit hyperbolic. Musk built a small aerospace company. He's not exactly crushing Boeing.
- trafficlight 14y ago
  Not crushing, but he's competing with them and that's impressive.
jpxxx 14y ago
Sure. Elon Musk is a heroic man. His car company is a marvel, and his space program is spectacular. His unfettered ability to speak without a mouth full of funder's cock or a PR minder sitting in the room is refreshing. His visions are grounded in technical and physical reality, his powers of observation are keen, and he has the personality and resources it takes to organize people in service of great accomplishments. Sanely priced two-way trips to Mars will change the course of humanity by enabling us to colonize the solar system and perhaps ensure a longer story for all mankind. This is the most interesting thing I've read all day, and he deserves every bit of attention. Now back to your regularly scheduled pessimism: Humanity has a long way to go, and a change of scenery isn't going to do all that much for her. The United States of America with her vast resources and impeccable pedigree in advancing Enlightenment is operating a torture camp for political prisoners in a subtropical shithole. What exactly happens when we send a thousand of our best and brightest and edgiest and most ambitious to live in what is essentially an submarine entombed underground for a decade? Do they live up to the Star Trek ideal? Or do they do what people in confined spaces tend to do? Can we provide a reasonable quality of life for colonists? Beyond maintaining air pressure and food, can we provide for them spiritually and emotionally? Can we provide a -life-? Geology only gets you so far. Even on Earth it's kind of an obscure trade, and geology is about all there is to -do- on Mars. What does a day to day life look like there? Do the children go to school? How is conflict handled? Who participates in what activities? What if there is too much to do? What if there isn't enough to do? How do you settle transplanetary custody battles when it means mommy or daddy taking the kid on a potentially lethal trip to another planet? How do you handle disease when everyone's in a thousand foot wide sphere? How do you bury people on an igneous planet? What does suicide mean for a Martian civilization? There are a billion things to consider, and Elon has the first five thousand handled. I am delighted that we get to think about the rest now.

dbaupp 14y ago

I think you are just imagining a worst case scenario. Why is any point of this true: No chance to ever feel fresh air on your face, no chance to go swimming, never meeting a stranger until they're suddenly your neighbors for life, no chance to ever get away and start anew, and no chance to go back to Earth. The fresh air one maybe, but there's no particular reason the chemical and physical make-up of Earth air can't be recreated. Swimming can happen in a swimming pool and fake/indoor beaches exist. You can move with people you already know; anyway, isn't "never meeting a stranger until you're living next to them" the standard procedure for moving house on Earth? There's no reason that one can't move around, even back to Earth. They did get to Mars/other planet in the first place.

tjic 14y ago

> The complexity of getting to Mars is nothing compared to the complexity of creating a social unit that can survive and thrive on another planet. What's so complicated about "a family" ?