Colonizing Mars

[ponyo]

I think that I said that I would stop busting your balls about Tesla if they made the 35,000 Model 3 available in Q1 of 2019 with an actual Delivery Date of Q1 2019. Something tells me that if ordered one today (or even if I ordered it last week when it finally became available), it's not going to arrive by the end of this month. Hell, there are people on YouTube bitching that it's taking over 3 months to get the Used Teslas that they ordered delivered because their supply chain is so messed up right now.

I worry about someone who's that bad at logistics trying to plan a manned mission to Mars... that's not going to end well.

Whether Elon fails or is successful with his Mars mission, humanity will be better that he tried. Someone has to be the pioneer and try new things. We learn more from failures than successes. SpaceX had lot of failures and they learned from each of their failures. Falcon 1 blew up 3 times before they were finally successful putting the 4th one in orbit. But given what Musk and SpaceX have accomplished so far with extremely limited resources, I would never bet against them.

I think this quote by Larry Ellison applies here.

"This is all nonsense and who are you? This guy is landing rockets. He's landing rockets on robot drone rafts in the ocean, and you're saying he doesn't know what he's doing. Well, who else is landing a rocket? Have you ever landed a rocket on a robot drone? Who are you? I mean, okay, okay, you're telling me he's an idiot. You're telling me he's an idiot. just want to know who you are so I know why should I believe you as opposed to my friend, Elon who -- and we're out here watching this rocket land, which I think is really cool. You are there in front of your Apple Macintosh and typing up an article saying Elon is an idiot. Okay, all right. Have a good day."

 

[gorobei]

there is very little profit or future in colonizing the surface of mars.

the lower gravity makes it a one way trip if you stay for any extended period of time, the effects of microgravity are pretty nasty and take a while to recover from once back in 1g.

the perchlorate in the soil is likely too small to mine for fuel and toxic to humans and agriculture. so importing all your soil from earth becomes a massive weight penalty for any ship.

if you want the benefits of space(24/7 solar power for industrial use, asteroid mining, micro gravity for manufacturing, etc) you are much better off building O'neill cylinders in lagrange orbit. the money, resources, and time spent trying to make mars habitable are going to be way larger than just building something in space you know is viable and more importantly has 1g so that the occupants can return to earth without issue. where we get the materials for that first cylinder is the big hurdle.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

I can see Elon taking a one way trip to Mars in old age. Though I have doubts on whether or not that mission can materialize into a long-term settlement. Forget rocks, I wonder how much data mining on Mars will be worth...

 

[Thebobo]

Ok then that's fine. I'm not real invested in what date people stood on Mars in the Expanse universe it's just what I can see happening as far as people not living on earth in a few hundred years. At least that is what I hope for anyway.

Me to!