Elon Musk: "I would like to die on Mars"
businessweek.com
businessweek.com
The estimated cost projections for the bullet train project keep getting bigger. I've seen estimates as high as $68 billion: and that is for construction alone (not including maintenance, etc). If Elon Musk can come up with a better idea, I hope we can remove enough of the red tape (that incidentally makes endeavors like this so expensive) to at least let him try.
In theory, I'm a huge fan of high speed rail. But the California project is going to end up costing over $100 billion, and everyone knows it. It's going to take decades to complete. If, indeed, it's ever completed. It's routed to go places no one wants to go. And, as Mr. Musk says, it' not actually going to be very fast. It's pretty much a classic textbook boondoggle.
I wish they'd cancel it and start over again from scratch in 10 years. It could still be finished faster.
Big. Red. Flag.
The Minneapolis light rail uses the same equipment as Houston's light rail. The big difference is that the Minneapolis light rail goes between the airport, downtown, and the Mall of America. People can immediately see its value. Houston's light rail doesn't go to either of Houston's airports, even though it's sorely needed.
Basically, light rail to the airports means game over to the opponents of light rail. Short of that, there's still a chance to convince a majority of people that it's only a boondoggle.
http://marketurbanism.com/2012/07/10/what-i-learned-today-ab...
Wait until it starts, it will at least double the initial projections. It sure makes you wonder if it's just payback to certain groups or spending to create (very expensive) jobs for a while.
If he would like to get a taste of realistic Martian colonization here on Earth, may I suggest living underground in a windowless tank, surrounded by a partial vacuum, next to a nuclear reactor.
You know, like they've done since the invention of fire and the construction of lean-tos.
I'll take Mr. Sunshine's pressurized, nuclear-powered, underground bunker.
Lots of explorers of yore could have met with the similar arguments. Some people can stay behind and man/woman? the home front, others can go off to explore and expand our existence. Not that there's no cost to it, but let's hope, that overall, it's a net plus.
As a species we have wanderlust built-in, perhaps.
Don't get me wrong--Mars should be explored, and we will find some truly breathtaking things. And if we find life on Mars, the scientific paydirt will be huge.
However, the great finds and exploration of Mars will be done by robots. Sending humans to Mars (or colonizing Mars) is a lot like sending humans to the Sahara desert. Colonize the Sahara? But it's so... dull. And not fun. That's not very romantic. Ultimately that is the reality of 99.9% of Mars.
If people are going to die on Mars, they should know that they are not doing it in the name of science and exploration--that task is best left to the robots--but rather in the name of vanity and human tourism. Until Mars can be terraformed to the point where it has 100% of Earth's gravity (I don't even want to contemplate the effects of 1/3 of Earth's gravity on a developing fetus, for example), and a breathable atmosphere, it will be visited only by tourists and robots.
Imagine a life where you as a native Martian never get to go outside, never get to feel fresh air, never get to meet a stranger, never get to storm off, never get the chance to live truly alone, never get to punch a wall, and never get a chance to see another world. No streams, no swimming, no oceans, no forests, nothing.
The footprints you make will still be there a hundred million years later. Mars is a one-way trip to a terribly cold and lonely place.
I think the disconnect here is that there are in fact people who have considered such things and still want to go. It's the pioneer spirit. Hardship is part of the appeal.
However, I think these people should know that they might actually be dying in vain, because only a smattering of people will actually end up living on Mars, IMHO. Mars has a reputation as being a real planet but really it's a barren rock that's not practically habitable. Not excited about living on the Moon? Than likely you won't be excited about living on Mars.
There is a good argument to be made that humans should live on Mars if only as insurance against some apocalypse on Earth. IMHO, we'd be better off investing in spinning colonies in space (a.k.a. Ringworld) where it's easier to construct something that provides artificial gravity, sunlight, and radiation shielding via artificial iron cores, perhaps mined from asteroids.
.... I want us to go to mars. I want us to become an interplanetary species. I want us to travel to the stars, hollow out asteroids, wack nuclear engines on them, and get them up to relativistic speeds. Because if we don't, what is the point of.... All of this? Anyway I'm a dreamer, but I'm also a scientist, and I suppose the two go together fairly often.
Experiments with rats indicate that zero-g is not a good environment to have babies, but also that it is possible. In any case we could just create artificial gravity.
My best hope for humanity is transhuman: to adapt ourselves to our environment. Think the ousters in Hyperion.
Really? I suspect that if you offered a million one way tickets to mars and advertised it as almost certain death, they would sell out in less than an hour.
Who is sending folks to Mars against their will? More to the point, how do I provoke someone to do it to me?
Actually, that's a big plus. Single Stage to Orbit and the simplified logistics would make access to the rest of the Solar System much, much easier. Heck, we could even build a Space Elevator on Mars with today's technology, if we really wanted to.
> If he would like to get a taste of realistic Martian colonization here on Earth, may I suggest living underground in a windowless tank, surrounded by a partial vacuum, next to a nuclear reactor.
Some people think living in extreme environments to be fun: http://amzn.com/1590786076
The problem with your scenario, is that you wouldn't get to put on a space suit, step out of an airlock and walk on Mars.
You can do a lot more awesome engineering and science and exploration if you don't die after ~80 years.
Now to find a suitable Mr. & Mrs. Smith, if you grok me.
if you grok me.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8554766938711591377&...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0312367066
http://citywire.kuluvalley.com/view/E586AD51-418F-C8CE-442B-...
http://michaelgr.com/2011/10/24/aubrey-de-grey-on-the-diseas...
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2004/11/strategies-for-en...
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/aubrey-de-grey-on...
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2004/10/the-cost-of-sens....
Here is another place with high value per dollar:
Industrial Progress is a very important and practical cause, and this group has a very effective leader who is actually having some effect at persuading people (particularly people in industry) and providing them with better ideas. And it's cheap. SENS needs a billion. A few hundred thousand would be huge here.
Both SENS and CIP are hugely important ventures that people should look into in my book.
also see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1371037/
“I came to the conclusion that we should aspire to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.”
Steve isn't even near to the impact of what Elon will have on humanity.
(I am saying this as someone who has never taken LSD, so take my take on it with a grain of salt I guess.)
Young SJ was (from multiple sources) much less humble, less forgiving, and more B.O.
And also unlike Jobs, you can sense a certain humility in how Elon talks both about himself and about others.
When Neil Armstrong spoke against private space companies, Elon didn't come out and demonize him, I remember watching him cry on camera when asked about it, and said he wished he'd come to Space X to see the work they were doing.
You don't see Elon going "thermonuclear" on his competition and trying to bury them, even when they are huge mega-corporations like Boeing that used all their government connections and lobbying to try to bury him.
And don't get me wrong, I'm a space freak, I root for that guy as much as anyone.
Personal and mobile computing have lead to massive productivity increases that affect almost everything that we do on this planet.
I'd also argue that the desire to improve space and ground transportation aren't the result of an enlightened human consciousness that discovered the right questions to ask. Using less energy to move around isn't going to improve the persistent suffering humanity experiences.
Jobs appears to have understood this fact but was unfortunately resigned to it rather than determined to fight it:
What's the biggest surprise this technology will deliver?
The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't.
That's going to break people's hearts.
I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much - if at all.
"Visionaries" and "cool people" are in many ways good and bad, flawed and gifted, like you and me. It does not serve any good purpose to hold either Jobs or Elon up to the spotlight as if they are any sort of savior.
If anything good comes in the next 10-20 years, it will be because of not only Elon, but people like the rest of us that choose to do something, not wait on others to do something great for us. That said, there is nothing wrong (to say the least) with someone who can drum up the troops.
I liked this quote where the dude who worked for apple say he's finally working somewhere that's going to change the world... I like Elon better than Jobs(I've never really liked Jobs tbh, except for some genius quotes)
I never had a model or a 'hero' in my life, but I find it hard to deny Elon this role. He's kind of imposing himself to me.
For some parts, he pisses me off. He doing it removes me the feeling that my dreams were mine. On the other sides, my pride motivates me to accept his theft as a challenge to try at surpassing him.
Now I'm only 25, so I guess I still have the time required to get on par, if I keep working hard enough.
But I know your company does take interns and you guys are at a 5 mins walk from my campus. So on a short term side, I'm focused on building my skill set for an internship in your shop! (Sorry for the cheap plug!)
Unfortunately, yes. Google "ITAR aerospace" for why :\
Still, the American aerospace industry has a long and illustrious tradition of bringing in experts from around the world and getting them citizenship. Get an internship somewhere that isn't ITAR-restricted and get yourself on the fast track for a green card.
Yes, he's a great, fascinating man. I enjoy observing this stuff as much as the next guy. But Good God - stop slobbering on yourselves. This is marketing fluff of the highest order.
Where people with can dream up supersonic aircraft that are massively more efficient than the highly refined subsonic craft that have been built by thousands of very smart people over decades.
Where magic tubes will transport people near the speed of sound whenever they want for a mere $6B.
Where the realities of space flight are to be ignored because, well, the leader of the venture is a really good business man and has a lot of charisma.
Is this not the same hacker news where people get bent out of shape when Apple bends the truth on their iPhone marketing copy?
Fuck Mars. I'm going to Jupiter. In 2015.
The emperor has no clothes.
Er, no, it really isn't.
The implication here is that he is actually working on these things, having had a "breakthrough" over the summer. It could be absolute crap, yes. But he has a number of previous successes that indicate he is capable of delivering. The overall point is that he isn't just dreaming, he is clearly spending a lot of money on doing as well.
Furthermore, he is putting his money where his mouth is, by spending his own money.
He said he's going to send people to Mars in 15 years. Here is one question. How often do you get a chance to launch a rocket to Mars? (Hint: it's not often). How many opportunities to send test missions and support gear will there be in the next 15 years? How long will it take to build all that stuff? A year? Two years? More? You just lost another mission.
Have they figured out how to get food there? Have they figured out how to breathe there? Have they even designed the vehicle or even the thermal system (for one example out of many) required to keep a human at a survivable temperature for the trip? Have they done anything to solve the incredibly difficult problems that we face in this area? The results here are not 'fucking great', they're non-existant.
And the claim of a VTOL supersonic jet that is a breakthrough in efficiency over traditional jets? Where are the results? There are none. zero. It's fantasy.
The results have been great for Paypal, impressive for Tesla, and SpaceX has proven a great contribution to the existing aerospace industry. Great for Musk - he has accomplished much and history will remember him as an influential industrialist and visionary. But BS is BS, no matter who spews it.
EDIT: This thread has gotten lots of downvotes, but not one substantive comment on what Musk has done that would indicate that these stories are anything but puffery aimed at gaining publicity for his much more mundane (but still rather impressive) efforts. When is the first Mars launch again? What will be the payload? Tick tock - that deadline will be here before you know it. The time has past for vision - the timetable Musk has outlined requires action now. Action that is conspicuously absent.
As for launch windows, the energy required is at a minimum every 26 months, and there's a global min twice every ~17 years, the next two being in 12 and 14 years, so you'd have the easiest time then. [1] If they have a non-marginal plan, then maybe one of the relative minima would be sufficient.
What makes you say that action is absent? My impression is that SpaceX has actually been tackling a very aggressive timetable in general. I believe they're working on the Falcon Heavy and crew modules right now and they're proposing a launch for a Dragon capsule to Mars in 2018.
Just because Musk talks about early ideas that are extremely unlikely (like the VTOL jet) and may not pan out does not mean he's automatically a crackpot spewing marketing fluff. He's earned the right to espouse bold ideas.
Ps. You can launch to mars as often as you like, it's just going to cost more fuel. Even if it takes 30 years, that's still soon.
But he did. Why can't we do anything we put our minds to? And he has a brilliant mind and that industrial spirit that you see in all the great industrialists through history. Enough of the circle jerk.
I respect what the guy has done. But a vertical liftoff supersonic jet is going to be more difficult than anything he had encountered, including rockets.
Hopefully, they or some other organization, could move towards building a space elevator sometime in the next 50-100 years.
One could grow plants on Mars. It has close to a 24 hour day-night cycle, and enough sunlight. Growing plants on continental agricultural scales is infeasible with artificial light, but on Earth and Mars, you don't need that. All you need are pressurized greenhouses, and you could have full-blown agriculture on Mars. The industrial processes for creating polymer films from Martian resources on Mars to enable this have already been worked out.
With some genetic engineering, we might not even need the greenhouses.
So here is the entrepreneurial challenge, believe Elon, in that he will make it possible to go to Mars, and before that it will be a lot easier to send stuff to the Moon. What can you start researching today so that 10 years from now when everyone realizes that this is going to come to pass you'll be way ahead of the game and visionary?
Intelligent robotics as assistants and autonomous explorers etc. with a focus on space conditions.
Advanced space medicine (say, transhuman spaceflight), modifications for the body, brain-machine-interfaces etc., there are many non-trivial issues: gravity, temperature, light, acceleration, radiation, ...
Interested? ;)
There are some interesting papers on microwaving the regolith into a concrete like substance. Water generation or acquisition will be key of course so different water strategies are interesting. Water mining robots may be key.
All very neat stuff.
We're valuing crap, err FB, at $50 billion these days. Why is a company with actually something to offer to society getting valued at only $1.5bn ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-fried_Mars_bar
on another less serious note I believe the chap in this news item will beat him too it:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/573673/mars-addict-lives-on...
Most people want to die in peace, but when you have to go to another planet to get peace then you just know noise polution has got a little bit out of hand.McCoy: Don't pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull, and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait till you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles. See if you're still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding! Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.
Substitute Andorian shingles with just going crazy being cooped up in a tiny ship.
Easy, remember a few years ago when some guys at NASA proposed that the first guys to Mars should be in their early 60s?
That's because getting there is not the problem, the problem are the copious amounts of radiation you would absorb on the way which means that even if you make it back you probably wont live much more.
So what those guys proposed was sending old astronauts on a one-way trip.
How come "shut up and just do it" applies to everyone but Elon? Why does he only have to talk about doing something to be hailed a hero?
Start backing some of this stuff up with action Elon.
Not sure if sarcastic...
Elon Musk, as in: the guy who's company just ran a private reapply mission to /the international space station/.
Commercially operated: much less so (with exceptions, e.g. shuttle processing was kind-of commercial)
Commercially designed: nope.
The commercial resupply contracts may not quite meet everyone's idea of what "commercial" means (and there certainly was/is a lot of NASA scrutiny of the spacecraft -- rather less of the launch vehicle), but it's still a substantially different model from anything NASA has tried on a major project in the last half century.
We need to send lots and lots of larger seed probes out there first though - not the limited scope probes and landers we're using now, but general purpose, long life scouting probes with engineering, tooling and life support payloads.