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>We have momentum, private industry that is not tied to taxpayer whims, and a half a century of technology and advancement. That's a pipe dream. For private i

by tsotha 14y ago

>We have momentum, private industry that is not tied to taxpayer whims, and a half a century of technology and advancement. That's a pipe dream. For private industry to do this there has to be a profit motive, and in this case there isn't. There's no way you can make money going to Mars, and getting sponsored by Red Bull isn't going to defray the costs much. When Elon Musk says Mars is the goal, he means he's intent on providing a capability the rest of us will be expected to pay for. >Yes, Mars is tougher than the Moon - but not that much tougher. Space travel just isn't as expensive as you think it is. Not anymore. There's a hell of a lot more to a Mars mission than getting everything to Mars. We couldn't do it today even if the rocket was free. And it won't be. Even beyond the obvious engineering problems there are still a lot of things we just don't know how to do in the constraints of the vessel. We have no practical way of protecting the crew from the radiation they'll be exposed to, for example. We don't know how to build an environmental system that guaranteed (more or less) to work for five years. We don't know how to keep astronauts in good physical and mental condition over those kinds of time frames. The list is endless. Mars is like Apollo in the same way an Everest ascent is like camping in your back yard. You are grossly underestimating the difficulty of what you're proposing, which is why you find your tiny cost estimate credible.

cryptoz 14y ago
> That's a pipe dream. For private industry to do this there has to be a profit motive, and in this case there isn't. A ridiculous proposition. Anyone who can not think of a potential profit motive for going to Mars isn't thinking very big or very long. Making a list is left as an exercise to the reader. > When Elon Musk says Mars is the goal, he means he's intent on providing a capability the rest of us will be expected to pay for. For colonization, yes. But that's fair - and it ties to a profit motive ("Live on Mars, for the price of a middle-class home!" the ad campaigns may go). But for the initial trip, whereby he proves his company and technology? Surely not. > Even beyond the obvious engineering problems there are still a lot of things we just don't know how to do in the constraints of the vessel. We have no practical way of protecting the crew from the radiation they'll be exposed to, for example. We don't know how to build an environmental system that guaranteed (more or less) to work for five years. We don't know how to keep astronauts in good physical and mental condition over those kinds of time frames. The list is endless. That's what the $50 billion and more-than-a-decade is for. > Mars is like Apollo in the same way an Everest ascent is like camping in your back yard. I'm not going to even answer that. So absurd. > You are grossly underestimating the difficulty of what you're proposing, which is why you find your tiny cost estimate credible. You are the only one on the planet who I have heard of who suggests the cost would approach anything near $1T. It is you who is way off the mark when compared to professional estimates.
- 001sky 14y ago
  A ridiculous proposition. Anyone who can not think of a potential profit motive for going to Mars isn't thinking very big or very long. Um, do you have any experience in scientific exploration, or even terrestrial expeditions of any kind? This reads like too much like armchair warrior, sorry....
  - cryptoz 14y ago
    Do you expect only astronauts to speak about travelling to other planets? Be real. I've been to as many different countries and places on Earth as I can afford (on the order of maybe 15 or so). Regardless, obviously when it comes to space exploration I have little to no experience (I have been through many interviews at SpaceX but do not yet have a job there). Shouldn't we be encouraging people to speculate about profit in the planets and the stars, rather than belittling them with the idea that we are "armchair warrior"s? As for scientific exploration: I have collected more than ten million individual measurements of atmospheric pressure across the whole globe over the last year. I intend to use this data to learn more about short-term weather patterns and to generally improve humanity's understanding of the atmosphere. So there's some physical exploration of Earth in my past, and some scientific exploration of Earth in my present, while working my ass off to attain the goal of space exploration in my future. Call me what you like, I guess.
    - 001sky 14y ago
      It is not so much an as-hominem attack as a reality check on the level of abstraction. The rocks that came back from the moon are (for insurance purposes) "priceless", but yet the moon was not a for-profit expedition. On the contrary, why not sell some "priceless" rocks for an infinite sum and alleviate world hunger? But somewhere in-between what sounds logical and what is reasonable to expect there intervenes some other considerations. Why do so many founders build things no one wants? Because they begin by trying to think of startup ideas. That m.o. is doubly dangerous: it doesn't merely yield few good ideas; it yields bad ideas that sound plausible enough to fool you into working on them. At YC we call these "made-up" or "sitcom" startup ideas. Imagine one of the characters on a TV show was starting a startup. The writers would have to invent something for it to do. But coming up with good startup ideas is hard. It's not something you can do for the asking. So (unless they got amazingly lucky) the writers would come up with an idea that sounded plausible, but was actually bad. None of this is to discourage. Its more to get the dialogue on a track where what is actually hard is actually at least given some respect.
jlgreco 14y ago
What you are describing are "problems with manned spaceflight to Mars", but not "problems with manned spaceflight to Mars.. that would be solved by political involvement, and could only be solved with political involvement."
- tsotha 14y ago
  Actually, the political involvement makes the engineering much more difficult. That's why the shuttle turned out so badly. But the taxpayers are where the money comes from for projects that don't make any sense from an economic standpoint, so you're pretty much stuck with the politics.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

by tsotha 14y ago

cryptoz 14y ago

> That's a pipe dream. For private industry to do this there has to be a profit motive, and in this case there isn't. A ridiculous proposition. Anyone who can not think of a potential profit motive for going to Mars isn't thinking very big or very long. Making a list is left as an exercise to the reader. > When Elon Musk says Mars is the goal, he means he's intent on providing a capability the rest of us will be expected to pay for. For colonization, yes. But that's fair - and it ties to a profit motive ("Live on Mars, for the price of a middle-class home!" the ad campaigns may go). But for the initial trip, whereby he proves his company and technology? Surely not. > Even beyond the obvious engineering problems there are still a lot of things we just don't know how to do in the constraints of the vessel. We have no practical way of protecting the crew from the radiation they'll be exposed to, for example. We don't know how to build an environmental system that guaranteed (more or less) to work for five years. We don't know how to keep astronauts in good physical and mental condition over those kinds of time frames. The list is endless. That's what the $50 billion and more-than-a-decade is for. > Mars is like Apollo in the same way an Everest ascent is like camping in your back yard. I'm not going to even answer that. So absurd. > You are grossly underestimating the difficulty of what you're proposing, which is why you find your tiny cost estimate credible. You are the only one on the planet who I have heard of who suggests the cost would approach anything near $1T. It is you who is way off the mark when compared to professional estimates.

001sky 14y ago
A ridiculous proposition. Anyone who can not think of a potential profit motive for going to Mars isn't thinking very big or very long. Um, do you have any experience in scientific exploration, or even terrestrial expeditions of any kind? This reads like too much like armchair warrior, sorry....
- cryptoz 14y ago
  Do you expect only astronauts to speak about travelling to other planets? Be real. I've been to as many different countries and places on Earth as I can afford (on the order of maybe 15 or so). Regardless, obviously when it comes to space exploration I have little to no experience (I have been through many interviews at SpaceX but do not yet have a job there). Shouldn't we be encouraging people to speculate about profit in the planets and the stars, rather than belittling them with the idea that we are "armchair warrior"s? As for scientific exploration: I have collected more than ten million individual measurements of atmospheric pressure across the whole globe over the last year. I intend to use this data to learn more about short-term weather patterns and to generally improve humanity's understanding of the atmosphere. So there's some physical exploration of Earth in my past, and some scientific exploration of Earth in my present, while working my ass off to attain the goal of space exploration in my future. Call me what you like, I guess.
  - 001sky 14y ago
    It is not so much an as-hominem attack as a reality check on the level of abstraction. The rocks that came back from the moon are (for insurance purposes) "priceless", but yet the moon was not a for-profit expedition. On the contrary, why not sell some "priceless" rocks for an infinite sum and alleviate world hunger? But somewhere in-between what sounds logical and what is reasonable to expect there intervenes some other considerations. Why do so many founders build things no one wants? Because they begin by trying to think of startup ideas. That m.o. is doubly dangerous: it doesn't merely yield few good ideas; it yields bad ideas that sound plausible enough to fool you into working on them. At YC we call these "made-up" or "sitcom" startup ideas. Imagine one of the characters on a TV show was starting a startup. The writers would have to invent something for it to do. But coming up with good startup ideas is hard. It's not something you can do for the asking. So (unless they got amazingly lucky) the writers would come up with an idea that sounded plausible, but was actually bad. None of this is to discourage. Its more to get the dialogue on a track where what is actually hard is actually at least given some respect.

jlgreco 14y ago

What you are describing are "problems with manned spaceflight to Mars", but not "problems with manned spaceflight to Mars.. that would be solved by political involvement, and could only be solved with political involvement."

tsotha 14y ago
Actually, the political involvement makes the engineering much more difficult. That's why the shuttle turned out so badly. But the taxpayers are where the money comes from for projects that don't make any sense from an economic standpoint, so you're pretty much stuck with the politics.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]