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Comment by scottmwinters | Hacker News Reader

Was I the only one extremely disappointed that wasn't actually much related to Musk, nor a serious conversation about the future? It was an interview of a fiction novelist, nothing more.

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Possibly. Have you read The Martian? The author has put a ton of research into what it would take to get people to Mars. I'm sure he has a lot of relevant stuff to say about Musks ambitions for Mars travel.

I highly recommend reading the book.

the book is highly fascinating and similar to another favorite of mine; Red Mars; involves sending and confirming arrival of support missions before manned missions are sent.

other than "we did it" I am still trying to understand the value in sending man to Mars. Oh I am all for it, just how do we sell it to the public to the point politicians cannot forever turn it down by laying claim to the money better served elsewhere?

So while the author thinks it has to be government, private individuals would have less restrictions spending the money and more reasons to find ways to get the costs down to minimal levels without losing sight of the safety required

I red the KSR Mars trilogy and then pretty much developed a love affair with Mars and the idea of colonization - I'm also very fond of "The Case for Mars":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars

NB I'm clear this is an emotional thing for me (hence "love affair") but I wonder to what extent all migrations in human history have been driven by a degree of wanderlust rather than cold logic.

Anyway - I'm off to watch Erik Wernquist's Wanderers again:

https://vimeo.com/108650530

The Martian had some very odd ethics. I recall at one point of the book there was a 30% chance of failure for a mission that would save one astronauts life. Failure would result in the death of six additional astronauts. Of course the fellow who pointed out it was obviously not worth the risk was a portrayed as a coward, as I guess coherently valuing lives is a cowardly act.

I think he was responding to the HN headline, it read "A Serious Conversation with Elon Musk about the Future in Space" before being edited (it isn't a conversation with Musk).

> How do you have a spinning part and a non-spinning part? Because you're going to want your solar cells pointed at the sun.

Isn't that completely wrong? The full station could just be spinning as a rigid-body, while always the same side (with solar cells) can be oriented towards the sun. It is no problem if the solar cells are rotating around an axis, if that axis would be perpendicular to the solar panel and pointing towards the sun, right?

So I am doubtful that he did a lot of research into this. But I am really not an expert, so please correct me if I am wrong...

This is a submarine piece for the upcoming movie.

Seeing this title on HN makes me sad. I don't care if that's the article's title - when a title says "A serious conversation about the Future in Space", I'm expecting a serious conversation, not an advertisement.

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