Musk: Goal is 80K people to travel to Mars togeher, repeatedly, in 243 days by the mid 2030's (light, life)
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Facts to the contrary Columbus sailed off the edge of the world.
Insanity! to sail across the Atlantic expecting to find anything.
Sanity is, apparently, just sitting on Earth until we completely ruin the planet and quietly die off. Or perhaps in a nuclear holocaust as the remains of humanity fight over what little resources are left.
We are fast (I think faster than most realize) reaching a point of requiring a population off Earth that is self sustaining.
Facts to the contrary Columbus sailed off the edge of the world.
Insanity! to sail across the Atlantic expecting to find anything.
Nobody thought Columbus would sail off the edge of the earth because nobody, except possibly peasants, thought the earth was flat.
Simple ignorance is why Columbus expected to find something (Asia) by sailing across the Atlantic. He thought the earth was about 15000 miles in circumference.
The Portuguese would not finance his voyage because they knew the circumference was about 25000 miles and that Asia was too far for the maritime technology of the time. (The Greek mathematician Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth more than 2000 years ago with amazing, considering the technology of the time, accuracy.)
Columbus was lucky that the previously unknown “New World” existed or he would have perished. In his ignorance he thought he had reached Asia, that's why the natives of the Americas are named after India.
Even if humans “ruin” the planet Earth it will be far less hostile than the planet Mars. It would be far easier to rehabilitate Earth than to relocate the population to a place, Mars, that is effectively uninhabitable and somehow make it inhabitable.
I don't doubt that we will send a man to Mars at some point. But it's our own human limitations that make it an impossibility at this time. We won't commit the money, and a lot of it. The world is so different now than the 1950's and 1960's. Budgets are tighter, and people are harder to motivate for this. Sure, a few sci-fi fans are, and some military types would go for it. But US Government? Nope. Russia with it's oil financing issues?
It's going to be an insane amount of money. I almost think humans have to evolve past financial concerns or energy concerns before we can do it. It won't be done in a hurry, and it won't be done quickly. I'm not just talking about the trip there. It's one way. It's permanent. we need a convoy of vehicles going, following each other by possibly a week at a time of launch, to ensure the trip there goes unimpeded. And plenty of materials for protection and the growth of our "brand" on another planet.
However, could I name the convoys the Nina, Santa Maria, and the Pinta?
Nobody thought Columbus would sail off the edge of the earth because nobody, except possibly peasants, thought the earth was flat.
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Even if humans “ruin” the planet Earth it will be far less hostile than the planet Mars. It would be far easier to rehabilitate Earth than to relocate the population to a place, Mars, that is effectively uninhabitable and somehow make it inhabitable.
Learn to recognize sarcasm on the Internet. It's tougher than face to face.
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I'm not sure it would be easier to rehabilitate the Earth. On Mars you are rebuilding an atmosphere, getting plants to grow, etc. On Earth the same will need to be done.
The difference is a few billion people fighting over what's left versus a few (hundred?) thousand working together.
I don't doubt that we will send a man to Mars at some point. But it's our own human limitations that make it an impossibility at this time. We won't commit the money, and a lot of it. The world is so different now than the 1950's and 1960's. Budgets are tighter, and people are harder to motivate for this. Sure, a few sci-fi fans are, and some military types would go for it. But US Government? Nope. Russia with it's oil financing issues?
It's going to be an insane amount of money. I almost think humans have to evolve past financial concerns or energy concerns before we can do it. It won't be done in a hurry, and it won't be done quickly. I'm not just talking about the trip there. It's one way. It's permanent. we need a convoy of vehicles going, following each other by possibly a week at a time of launch, to ensure the trip there goes unimpeded. And plenty of materials for protection and the growth of our "brand" on another planet.
However, could I name the convoys the Nina, Santa Maria, and the Pinta?
It's been suggested that Helium-3 may have a market value more than 100 times the value per unit weight of gold. The mining of this material could pay for a lunar colony.
There is the potential that Helium-3 would produce 10 times more electricity than fossil fuels, and there may be enough on the moon to meet the Earth's power requirements for 10,000 years.
Seems like it makes more sense to colonize the moon than Mars.
Well, at lease it makes much more sense to colonize the moon decades ahead of colonizing Mars. If you had 80K people living on the moon, with police force, industry, marriages, and births and deaths, evacuations, media, tourism, etc.
The idea of sending 80K people to Mars and watching satellite images of all of them dying would be very traumatic.
I think an expeditionary round trip to Mars is a good goal for Musk to set for the 30's decade.
However any permanent, one-way, mass colonization is premature at best. Beyond initial exploratory round trips, similar to our trips to the moon decades ago, Musk and others would be better advised to research and develop ways of terraforming and generating a magnetic field, rather than seeking to establish permanent, ecapsuled cities that would remain dependent on assistance and resources from earth.
Even if it is successfully terraformed the gravity may render it unhealthy for very long term habitation and reproduction for large earth fauna. It could nontheless become a planet covered in vegatation and could support many thousands of humans residing there even if they are only temporary residents there for vacation, educational and scientific research purposes
It's been suggested that Helium-3 may have a market value more than 100 times the value per unit weight of gold. The mining of this material could pay for a lunar colony.
There is the potential that Helium-3 would produce 10 times more electricity than fossil fuels, and there may be enough on the moon to meet the Earth's power requirements for 10,000 years.
The He-3 problem is twofold:
We don't currently have any use for He-3 in energy production. The technology isn't there. It has been "a few decades away" for at least 50 years.
We don't have technology to mine anything on the Moon. Much less to do isotope separation. The presence of He-3 is measured in parts-per-billion.
The Moon is pretty much a dead-end. A base could work as a technology demonstrator and R&D facility, but as part of a Mars project, it's just not that interesting.
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