
A Serious Conversation about the Future in Space - adventured
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-24/elon-musk-first-martian-a-serious-conversation-about-the-future-in-space
======
ryandvm
I'm incredibly optimistic about the disruption Elon Musk is bringing to the
automotive and battery industries and the commercialization of space
transport. Amazing guy.

That said, I'm starting to think that Mars is going to be his Spruce Goose
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules)).
It's crazy, it's expensive, and at this point, it's an unnecessary moonshot
that makes literal moonshots seem reasonable.

While I agree with the principle that humanity needs to be a multi-planet
species if we're going to make it past all the Great Filters, I honestly don't
think we're ready as a species. Technologically or organizationally. We can't
even get half our population to admit that the climate is warming, but somehow
we're supposed to get our shit together enough to colonize an entire planet?

And from a technological perspective, I'm continually amazed that the same
people that fret and wring their hands about climate change seriously believe
colonization of Mars is not going to be the most painful thing humanity has
ever done. It will be fraught with death, expense, and replete with economic
and social chaos. Ending all wars, enacting global healthcare and welfare
policies, and rolling back climate change on Earth would be a cakewalk
compared to building self-sufficient colonies on a planet that:

* Has no breathable atmosphere

* Has little usable water

* Is bombarded with deadly radiation

* Has no economic justification for colonization

The only reason to be going to Mars is that, statistically, in the next couple
dozen million years the Earth might get a flat tire. I don't know - from what
I've seen so far, I'm not sure humanity deserves to be the species that
settles the Milky Way...

~~~
frank-weindel
Looks like someone has lost all hope for humanity and at that we should just
accept our "inevitable" self-destruction.

Even if the dream of colonizing mars is farfetched beyond fixing all of the
problems we currently have on earth, it doesn't mean its not worth striving
for. Goals like this drive people to do their best work and come up with
creative solutions to problems that would otherwise never have been thought
of. This is the exact kind of drive we need if we are to even have the chance
at becoming interplanetary. Maybe we end up just getting to Mars and setting
up an "antarctic" like lab that is occupied by teams for months at a time?
That's fine. The innovation that got us even there would have been amazing.
Maybe the goal then shifts to self-sustaining interplanetary spacecraft.
Humanity isn't done yet, and not shooting for the far reaches of the galaxy is
a waste of time that we cannot spare.

Musk Co. isn't just focused on that interplanetary goal. There's a lot that is
also being done to make this planet better and prolong its life. These are
honorable and not nearly as farfetched goals. Musk's drive to solve these
problems is a real inspiration to many and may be our only chance in hell to
pass through the Great Filters.

~~~
david-given
!Mars != !Space.

Mars is a dusty, barren deathtrap of a rock that's at the bottom of a very
deep hole. The only thing to do on Mars is to _be_ on Mars. It's not
(plausibly) terraformable, sustaining life there will obvious continuous and
hugely expensive technical input, there are no resources there worth going
there for, and once you've gone there, to get back you have to climb out of a
hugely deep hole.

Meanwhile the solar system is full of places that are easier to get to, more
hospitable, more profitable, and which you can get away from. Asteroids.
Comets. Ceres. The moon, even. Further afield, the rings of Jupiter and Saturn
--- the radiation's a bit rough, but if you can survive there, you've got it
made. Hell, if you're into planets, Venus is a better option. Did you know
that there are parts of Venus which are a shirt-sleeve (and breathing mask)
environment?

Mars is fascinating, and there should absolutely be a science station there
eventually, but it's not colonisation material. I certainly don't think it
should be a priority right at this moment. With our current state of the art,
I believe the Moon to be a much better choice.

~~~
lisper
> Did you know that there are parts of Venus which are a shirt-sleeve (and
> breathing mask) environment?

Nope, that's news to me. According to:

[http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/eoc/special_topics/teach/sp_clima...](http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/eoc/special_topics/teach/sp_climate_change/p_planet_temp.html)

the minimum temperature on Venus is 870F, well above the melting point of
lead. Do you know something that UCSD doesn't?

~~~
monk_e_boy
[http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-wants-establish-
floatin...](http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-wants-establish-floating-
cloud-city-study-venus)

~~~
lisper
We're talking about colonization here, not exploration. That's not even a
practical plan to make more living space here on earth, let alone on Venus.

~~~
yellowapple
It's actually not all that impractical. Venus' atmosphere is much more dense
than Earth's; floating in it should be quite a bit easier.

~~~
lisper
> Venus' atmosphere is much more dense than Earth's

Won't help:

"The ships would float 50 kilometers (31 miles) above the planet’s surface.
Here, there would be only one atmosphere of pressure, and the temperature
would be a reasonable 75"C."

75 C is 160 F. Granted that's cool enough to keep water from boiling, but
unless you're a tubeworm you're probably not going to be happy living there
without air conditioning.

~~~
yellowapple
Considering the temperature fluctuations faced routinely even in Earth's own
orbit, 75 degrees Celsius is actually _very_ reasonable. It's certainly no
less comfortable than Mars' rather frigid climate. If anything, the greater
hazard would be the toxic and corrosive clouds of sulfuric acid that blanket
the Venusian surface.

The density, however, more has to do with whether or not it's feasible to
build a permanent settlement in Venus' atmosphere. It turns out that it's
_very_ feasible; Venus' carbon-dioxide-based atmosphere would be thick enough
even at those altitudes to keep a "balloon" filled with an Earth-like
atmosphere (nitrogen, oxygen, trace CO2) afloat with little effort. This means
that such a ship or city wouldn't need separate balloon and living spaces; the
living space _itself_ would be buoyant.

~~~
lisper
You can handle extreme temperature fluctuations in Earth orbit because you can
dump excess heat into space with radiators. That won't work inside a hot,
dense CO2 atmosphere. Maybe there's some other solution to the cooling problem
that I have overlooked, but I don't see any way to keep from turning into a
sous-vide.

~~~
yellowapple
One such approach would be to use Sterling coolers, which (IIRC) is one of the
suggested approaches for _surface_ activities on Venus. Standard refrigeration
techniques should also work reasonably well.

Also, why wouldn't standard heat-dumping work well in a CO2 atmosphere? If
anything, it should work _better_ ; the vacuum of space is the best insulator
known to man, so literally anything else would be better for heat dissipation.

~~~
lisper
> Sterling coolers

Doesn't matter what technology you use, you are still bound by the second law
of thermodynamics. The excess heat has to go somewhere, and so unless you have
a cold sink, you have to add energy. And if you're going to colonize rather
than just explore then you have to add energy all the time forever. If the
power fails, you die, she dies, everybody dies.

> why wouldn't standard heat-dumping work well in a CO2 atmosphere

That depends on what you mean by "standard heat dumping". In space, you can
radiate heat into the cosmic background radiation, which is the ultimate cold
sink. It's about 3K, which is almost always colder than you want to be [1], so
in space you get cooling for free.

If you're inside a dense atmosphere, radiative cooling doesn't work. (There's
a reason they're called "greenhouse gasses"). You have to dump the heat into
the environment, which is _hotter_ than the temperature you want to maintain,
so you're fighting the second law, so you have to add energy. At the altitudes
we're talking about here, you're maintaining a gradient of 30-40C. That's
_huge_. It's not impossible (the artificial ski slope in Dubai maintains a
similar gradient) but it takes a tremendous amount of energy. Where are you
going to get it?

\---

[1] There are some cases where you need active cooling in space, for example,
if you're running an infrared sensor on a telescope. Those have to be actively
cooled, usually with a supply of liquid helium that is launched with the
spacecraft. But see:

[http://jwst.nasa.gov/sunshield.html](http://jwst.nasa.gov/sunshield.html)

for an example of what has to be done to keep an infrared telescope cool for a
long mission.

------
scottmwinters
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.

~~~
weavie
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.

~~~
Shivetya
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

~~~
arethuza
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](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](https://vimeo.com/108650530)

------
Bedon292
Does the interviewer, or anyone for that matter, actually think Elon Musk will
be the first person on Mars? Seems like a weird question to ask, I guess its
just for the headline. I think I remember him saying something like not
wanting to risk the fate of the company just for the experience of going. I
could be completely off on that though.

~~~
kraftman
Even the interviewer seems confused between whether he's saying Elon Musk has
the means to send someone to mars or the ingenuity of Mark Watney to survive
there.

------
outworlder
I love the fact that the explanation of what's Delta-V is linked to the Kerbal
Space Program forums.

------
adamtj
This is a conversation _with_ Andy Weir _about_ Elon Musk, among other topics.

------
kraftman
What an odd interview. The interviewer starts asking the author he's
interviewing about sections of the interviewers own book?

~~~
Bedon292
That is definitely odd, though it does make some sense in this case. Andy Weir
has done a huge amount of research about traveling to Mars, and asking for his
opinion about Elon's ideas is interesting. I would definitely prefer if they
did not mention the interviewer's book though.

------
bra-ket
Musk or not, our future in space is based on progress in nuclear propulsion.

Luckily some labs are working on it: [https://www.quora.com/Is-research-on-
nuclear-propulsion-syst...](https://www.quora.com/Is-research-on-nuclear-
propulsion-systems-for-space-being-currently-done-at-any-institute-or-
laboratory)

------
pzxc
The title should be changed. Elon Musk was not interviewed. A sci-fi author
was interviewed about his opinions of Elon Musk re: Mars. Title is very
misleading.

~~~
Bedon292
The title was previously the title of the article, not sure why someone
changed it.

~~~
adventured
OP here, no idea why it was changed to that either. It's not a conversation
with Elon Musk. The title needs to be changed back.

------
peter303
"E.M. want to go home!"

