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Huge Mars Colony Eyed by SpaceX Founder Elon Musk
- mtgx 14y agoWhy haven't we solved the gravitation issue for these sort of spacecrafts yet? Can't we get gravitation if we do a spinning part around the ship like suggested here? http://youtu.be/3kuPkc7D35U?t=1m10s http://youtu.be/3kuPkc7D35U?t=1m10s How long would it take us to go to Mars at current speeds? A year? What would be the ideal travel time till there so we don't get affected by space radiation too much?
- relix 14y agoWe don't need to solve the gravitation issue. People are spending long term time in the ISS and with proper training it's not bad.
- klearvue 14y agoThe long-term effects of zero or low gravity on human health are very serious - muscle, bone and eyesight loss and a host of other problems. Current mechanisms of dealing with the problem (exercise and special suits) do not cater adequately to long-term space journeys.
- ceejayoz 14y agoThey're doing 6-12 month missions on the ISS these days, which would be roughly similar to a Mars transit.
- hazov 14y agoThe gravitational field in the low earth orbit is quite large compared to what you would encounter in outer space. The ISS is at a distance less than 5% the distance between us and the moon.
- wololo 14y agoisn't the problem weightlessness, not zero gravity? ie, centrifugal acceleration canceling out low gravity in LEO
- hazov 14y agoNo, weight is just mass plus some sort of acceleration, if there's something to substitute gravity everything would be well, the main problem is with body fluids, we evolved to deal with earth surface level of gravity, in the interplanetary space I do not see how centrifugal acceleration is possible unless it's something that the spaceship do to generate it, from what I know this is hard and do not see solved in the foreseeable future. I would love to be wrong.
- Symmetry 14y agoThe gravitational field you're in doesn't matter if you're in free-fall.
- jlgreco 14y agoMy impression is that while emulating gravity with a rotating reference frame is certainly possible, the things holding that approach back are engineering realities. In order to minimize the "gravity" gradient felt over the length of a human standing up, the radius of your spacecraft needs to be quite large. If you are lifting that sort of mass already, your time is probably better spent lifting several tons or water that would be used to fill a double hull, providing protection from radiation. Then you can give your crew a few rubber bands and count on some minimal muscle loss. (We have kept people in space and reasonably healthy for the several months getting to Mars would take, but that is in LEO where radiation is much less of an issue).
- stcredzero 14y agoJust have two capsules separated by a tether. No need for a torus of huge radius.
- Symmetry 14y agoNASA has a deathly fear of tethers for some reason, but I suppose that wouldn't stop Musk.
- chad_oliver 14y agoOr even better, a rigid tunnel. That would allow people to travel between the two bodies, which would significantly improve their happiness.
- cryptoz 14y agoA trip to Mars at modern speeds is about 7-8 months, but this is quite variable. You could get there in about 2 months if you went really fast, but no such propulsion system currently exists to my knowledge. However, we are talking about propulsion systems as they will exist in 15-20 years, so perhaps something like 4-6 months is a reasonable estimate of trip duration. Edit: There's that famous "40 days to Mars" study from a while ago about theoretical new rockets: http://www.space.com/8009-rocket-engine-reach-mars-40-days.html http://www.space.com/8009-rocket-engine-reach-mars-40-days.h...
- sixQuarks 14y agoI love what Elon Musk is doing, and usually he makes pretty reasonable assumptions, but I think he's wrong when he says "most mid-40 somethings" can afford $500,000. Being able to afford a $500k house is different than having $500,000. Houses can be mortgaged for 30 years, but if you're going to Mars, you're not going to have an income and can't pay back that loan. I don't think a lot of 40 somethings have $500k laying around.
- chimere 14y agoWhen I've heard Elon talk about this before, his idea is that people interested in moving to Mars would actually sell their house and Earthly possessions in order to pay for the ride. They won't be needing all that junk anymore anyway. Once you're prepared to sell all of your assets, then having a net worth of $500k is essentially the same as being able to afford $500k.
- qbrass 14y agoYou're assuming nobody else wants to go to Mars, and you can actually offload all your junk before the market is flooded with the crap everyone else is trying to pawn off to leave this planet.
- rbanffy 14y agoI don't think the crowd willing to sell all their assets and buy a one-way ticket to a planet where the odds of dying of old age are astonishingly small is large enough to collapse an economy. Don't get me wrong - I'd love to go to Mars myself, but I wouldn't like to make such a long-term commitment without a good chance not to die there. And that doesn't even include my family.
- qbrass 14y agoI doubt it would collapse the economy, but it's worth keeping in mind that if you're actually planning to go, you might want to beat the rush when it comes to getting the money together.
- gambiting 14y agoAnd no mention how would he solve the problem of radiation for these people living there. On Earth we get an equivalent of one chest x-ray per year just from cosmic rays. On Mars it's more like 80 x-rays per year. Survivable for a 2-3 years long expedition,but for permanent settlement?
- cygwin98 14y agoVery likely, it will be an underground world first. That will shield most of the radiation there.
- ceejayoz 14y agoI think your numbers are significantly off. A flight from NYC to London gives the passengers roughly a chest x-ray worth of exposure, meaning the pilots get 100-200 a year worth. Settlements would likely involve radiation shielding - buildings underground, teleoperation, etc.
- vitno 14y agoRadiation dangers on Mars missions are often exaggerated. In Mars orbit, we have data that indicates approx. 22 milirads a day. It should be a fair bit less on the surface. That gives the colonists about 3 years of unshielded radiation exposure till they hit the radiation max that NASA recommends (remember, they should be shielded somewhat though) There is also a decent amount of recent evidence that chronic radiation exposure in this quantity is no where as near as dangerous as a concentrated burst.
- indiecore 14y agoDidn't Curiosity recently show that radiation on Mars was pretty much the same as on the ISS because the atmosphere of Mars thickens during the day?
- stcredzero 14y agoWe already know that we can make bricks out of Martian soil. Build arched and domed buildings out of those and bury them with lots of Martian soil. This gives you radiation-proof buildings that can also be pressurized. Combine this with local teleoperation, you can stretch the 2-3 year long habitation span to a 15 to 20 year working span, followed by retirement to indoor underground habitations.
- adambard 14y ago"I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact."
- stcredzero 14y agoIf that we're a wish, it would be in adequately specified. For example, it includes being tossed broken from the wreckage in a torn spacesuit and dying while your dissolved gasses boil your blood.
- adambard 14y agoElon said it, not me.
- stcredzero 14y agoKeep that man away from djinn!
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- deadlysyntax 14y agoIf Elon Musk achieves everything he has set out to do, his name will surely be etched into the history books. And, it seems, those history books will be read by humans further into the future than perhaps otherwise, BECAUSE his name is in them.
- carterac 14y agoI worked at a lab that studied the effects of non-standard gravities on early development, and the results were not encouraging. Has anyone encountered research on how we might be able to have children in non-standard gravity environments?
- fudged71 14y agoHow does one study the effect of non-standard gravities on early development? What effects did you discover?
- hazov 14y agoI do not understand why not a lunar base first. It's closer to us, will lead to much more complicated problems to solve that we can get on Mars> - dealing with plants in greenhouses with the much reduced gravity of the Moon compared to Mars - no atmosphere, although this means no weather, which makes things more predictable compared to Mars. For me there's no way a space colony grow to be huge without addressing ways of dealing with food production and stand alone survival of the colony, if we have ways to study this without spending months travelling, reducing risk and cost, then it's better, it would sum us more knowledge.
- btilly 14y agoHe addressed that in a recent interview. The Moon has far less water than Mars. No CO2. And it has a 28 day rotation cycle, which makes growing plants much more difficult. Mars has water, plentiful CO2, and a day that's only about 40 minutes longer than Earth's. This makes growing plants on Mars much, much easier.
- Lambdanaut 14y agoNot to mention the extra gravity. We'll need all of the gravity we can get if we want to stave off muscle and bone degeneration. It's possible that Mars' light gravity (40% of Earth's) isn't even enough to keep us healthy without excessive exercise.
- fudged71 14y agoIf a baby were born on mars, I am curious how their growth would be affected by the difference in gravity. Would their muscle/bone development be cause problems due to evolutionary effects, or would they grow to match the physics of this planet, and therefore be physically fine. Perhaps the only issue would be growing up on one planet and moving to another.
- diminish 14y agoRather than a base moon or mars or any planet, why not a space colony with pluggable units using a standard plug-in architecture to exchange energy, supplies etc. (Similar to an API). There is no main unit, similar to a P2P structure, and units can be stacked together to make huge colonies. Each cluster of units may move in an upfront known trajectory in the habitable zone of the Sun. The whole idea is that space startups may create newer units based on new ideas; and that way we may explore the space quicker.
- btilly 14y agoA significant detail that is not in the article. He's asking a half million each to go there. But the return trip is free. Why? He's got to get the spacecraft back anyways, and the cost of that dwarfs the cost of adding passengers. There may be a lot more people who are willing to go when they know that, if it does not work for them, they can come back to Earth for free.
- nickhalfasleep 14y agoIt's much harder to colonize when you don't have locals to oppress. I'm surprised Musk isn't targeting all the pretty rich universities that would pay tens of millions to put grad students down on the red planet scraping up research material.