Starship and a Human city on Mars

[Stive Pesley]

2 minutes ago, richinspain said:

Because whoever controls those 238855 miles controls the next infinite number of light years of space, obviously! 

I'm going to have to ask to see your workings on this one 😂

[richinspain]

1 hour ago, Stive Pesley said:

I'm going to have to ask to see your workings on this one 😂

[Day]

6 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

Remind me why we care what nationality the next person on the moon is? 

The achievement is the interesting and important part for science surely? It's not a sport

It’s not a sport, however you must surely see why it would be important to get there first?

We have countries fighting over boundary lines, who owns what land on the planet we live now. 

Getting there first would be a big deal in claiming rights to areas or even full planets.

If any of this looks remotely possible though, ignoring Elon’s wildly optimistic timescales, I can see a large scale, if not nuclear war targeting other countries space centres.

I don’t see Russia and China sitting back watching US led missions populate other planets, nor can I see any agreements being made given the current issues in play.

[Highgate]

32 minutes ago, Day said:

It’s not a sport, however you must surely see why it would be important to get there first?

We have countries fighting over boundary lines, who owns what land on the planet we live now. 

Getting there first would be a big deal in claiming rights to areas or even full planets.

If any of this looks remotely possible though, ignoring Elon’s wildly optimistic timescales, I can see a large scale, if not nuclear war targeting other countries space centres.

I don’t see Russia and China sitting back watching US led missions populate other planets, nor can I see any agreements being made given the current issues in play.

That's quite a pessimistic view. I'm not saying it's wrong, just bleak.  

If space exploration is ever to be a success, then humanity is really going to have to learn how to work together.  There are promising signs like the ISS collaboration and so on.  The idea of China, Russia and US etc, fighting over space real estate is truly depressing. 

Elon's timescales are far too optimistic, no argument there, so we do have some time to mature before we branch out into the solar system.  Hopefully that's possible, or our exploration of space could be short lived.  

Of course much of the exploration will be done by private enterprises, but surely their activities will be regulated by international laws (rather than national laws). I would hope so anyway.

The idea of humanity developing the technology that destroys us, such as nuclear weapons, has always struck me as one of the possible explanations of the Fermi Paradox (why is there no good evidence of any other advanced alien species existing in the Galaxy).  Maybe that's always happens in the end. Now it's my turn to be pessimistic..!!

[Comrade 86]

8 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

Remind me why we care what nationality the next person on the moon is? 

That country secures all the cheese mining rights. They'd effectively corner the market.

[richinspain]

3 hours ago, Comrade 86 said:

That country secures all the cheese mining rights. They'd effectively corner the market.

I heard that the Chinese don't eat cheese. Perhaps their plan is simply to prevent the western world eating it!

[uttoxram75]

5 hours ago, Highgate said:

Of course much of the exploration will be done by private enterprises, but surely their activities will be regulated by international laws (rather than national laws). I would hope so anyway.

Unfortunately Highgate, its private enterprises that make international law.

[Highgate]

39 minutes ago, uttoxram75 said:

Unfortunately Highgate, its private enterprises that make international law.

They are too powerful for sure, but I don't quite agree that they are that omnipotent yet, or maybe I'm just naive. 

If they do make the laws, why have Apple ended up with a 15 billion Euro fine from the EU for example? 

[uttoxram75]

2 minutes ago, Highgate said:

They are too powerful for sure, but I don't quite agree that they are that omnipotent yet, or maybe I'm just naive. 

If they do make the laws, why have Apple ended up with a 15 billion Euro fine from the EU for example? 

We will never know if Apple actually pay that fine. Have a look into the Freezones/Enterprise zones etc that are planned for all over the UK, all private enterprises that will be outside the governments laws and regulations.

Not questioning your naivety mate, I'm probably too cynical !!!

[TigerTedd]

15 hours ago, Highgate said:

That's quite a pessimistic view. I'm not saying it's wrong, just bleak.  

If space exploration is ever to be a success, then humanity is really going to have to learn how to work together.  There are promising signs like the ISS collaboration and so on.  The idea of China, Russia and US etc, fighting over space real estate is truly depressing. 

Elon's timescales are far too optimistic, no argument there, so we do have some time to mature before we branch out into the solar system.  Hopefully that's possible, or our exploration of space could be short lived.  

Of course much of the exploration will be done by private enterprises, but surely their activities will be regulated by international laws (rather than national laws). I would hope so anyway.

The idea of humanity developing the technology that destroys us, such as nuclear weapons, has always struck me as one of the possible explanations of the Fermi Paradox (why is there no good evidence of any other advanced alien species existing in the Galaxy).  Maybe that's always happens in the end. Now it's my turn to be pessimistic..!!

The sad thing is that the scientists don’t care who they work with, they just want to collaborate with the brightest minds and discover new advancements. If the politicians could stop politicking, no one else really cares. Wouldn’t it be nice if the first person who lands on mars plants some sort of international flag?

[Stive Pesley]

1 hour ago, TigerTedd said:

The sad thing is that the scientists don’t care who they work with, they just want to collaborate with the brightest minds and discover new advancements. If the politicians could stop politicking, no one else really cares. Wouldn’t it be nice if the first person who lands on mars plants some sort of international flag?

Exactly my point. But "no one else cares"? Here we have the same person who started this thread by telling us colonising Mars was the key to securing the future of the human race, now also resorting to politicking over who gets there first and implying it would somehow be a bad thing is that were China and not the US. 

I'd say that the future of mankind will not be worth securing if we extend our petty politics and jingoistic rhetoric to other planets too

I thought the ISS had put all that behind us, as a collaborative endeavour based on shared scientific objectives, not political alignment.

 

[TigerTedd]

9 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

Exactly my point. But "no one else cares"? Here we have the same person who started this thread by telling us colonising Mars was the key to securing the future of the human race, now also resorting to politicking over who gets there first and implying it would somehow be a bad thing is that were China and not the US. 

I'd say that the future of mankind will not be worth securing if we extend our petty politics and jingoistic rhetoric to other planets too

I thought the ISS had put all that behind us, as a collaborative endeavour based on shared scientific objectives, not political alignment.

 

I get the point. If it were the Chinese government it could be bad for us in the West. If it’s America first, it would be bad for those in the East. We fall into the Western category. So it would be generally better for us personally if America got there first, given the choices. Much as I don’t like it, politics exist, and it would have ramifications if the Chinese or Russians were to get there first.  

But the ideal solution is that a completely multi national, privately funded project got their first. As much as Elon is a bit of a dick, he’s the only person with the means to achieve this on a mostly private basis. I’d honestly rather see a flag with the Tesla logo planted on the moon than an American flag. 

[Day]

21 minutes ago, TigerTedd said:

I get the point. If it were the Chinese government it could be bad for us in the West. If it’s America first, it would be bad for those in the East. We fall into the Western category. So it would be generally better for us personally if America got there first, given the choices. Much as I don’t like it, politics exist, and it would have ramifications if the Chinese or Russians were to get there first.  

But the ideal solution is that a completely multi national, privately funded project got their first. As much as Elon is a bit of a dick, he’s the only person with the means to achieve this on a mostly private basis. I’d honestly rather see a flag with the Tesla logo planted on the moon than an American flag. 

Just a shame we had to get ourselves into bed with the Americans. 

How nice would it be on this little island minding our own business and I’ll stop there as it does become political.

[TigerTedd]

Just now, Day said:

Just a shame we had to get ourselves into bed with the Americans. 

How nice would it be on this little island minding our own business and I’ll stop there as it does become political.

Careful now, you’ll have to ban yourself. 

 

[Stive Pesley]

https://defector.com/neither-elon-musk-nor-anybody-else-will-ever-colonize-mars

sorry to vinegar on your chips lads, but this is pretty much spot on.

I love the sci-fi fantasy of a human colony on Mars, but that's all it is. 

[AndyinLiverpool]

57 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

https://defector.com/neither-elon-musk-nor-anybody-else-will-ever-colonize-mars

sorry to vinegar on your chips lads, but this is pretty much spot on.

I love the sci-fi fantasy of a human colony on Mars, but that's all it is. 

I like vinegar on chips

[Eddie]

On 11/09/2024 at 20:49, richinspain said:

I heard that the Chinese don't eat cheese. Perhaps their plan is simply to prevent the western world eating it!

Well, I've had Nguri cheese. I think that's Chinese (may be Tibetan)

[Carl Sagan]

Here's a thread debunking the silly article... 

 

Edited Sunday at 00:39 by Carl Sagan

[TigerTedd]

8 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Here's a thread debunking the silly article... 

 

I’m sure 100 years ago there were probably many similar articles about men never setting foot on the moon. Or 150 years ago there’d be articles about men never flying at all.

We’ve got a motto at my company: ‘the answer is yes, now what’s the question.’ There’s nothing that can’t be overcome given time, resources and research. 

[Stive Pesley]

Enjoying the way he gleefully debunks the "9 months" Hohmann transfer window claim by saying it's only theoretical, but doesn't mention that even if (and that's a big IF)  we crack nuclear fusion propulsion, the flight time is still likely to be a couple of months minimum (longer if the planets are further apart in their orbital trajectories), so the point in the original article about the response times to emergencies being useless still stands

Also interesting how incredibly defensive he gets when eugenics is mentioned 🤐

I admire optimism, and I'm totally on-board with the idea that we can *try* and overcome all obstacles, but for me the original article makes two inarguable points (proven by the fact that Peter Hagues skips past them)

 

1) even if we had a global nuclear war, food-chain collapse or extermination-level pandemics, none of these present a scenario in which Earth all at once completely ceases having breathable oxygen, for example, or suddenly no longer enjoys a magnetosphere. In the aftermath of even the worst of these scenarios, if you were picking one of the two planets to engineer into habitability, the Earth would remain the infinitely superior option

2.  There is no scenario in which humans can try to colonize Mars and also survive on Earth long enough to go live in that colony