
Elon Musk provides new details on his ‘mind blowing’ mission to Mars - ghosh
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/10/elon-musk-provides-new-details-on-his-mind-blowing-mission-to-mars/
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sago
Other than PR, what would a Mars manned mission provide that a moon-base and
'cargo flights to the moon' wouldn't?

If the aim is to perfect human survival off-earth, then surely the moon is a
better goal. I know we've been to the moon, but only for a few hours. We're
nowhere near the tech/cargo transfer needed to put a manned base on it.

Are we going to put a few people on Mars, lose interest in that right away,
wait another 40 years and then aim for Europa?

[edit: Thank you all for the responses.]

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gpm
Musk is very clear that his plan is to establish a self sustaining colony, not
another 'footprints' mission, and not a colony that needs to be sustained via
continuous resupply.

Mars has several advantages, you can pretty much google this and get better
arguments then I'm able to make here. But here are a few key points.

\- Earth like day period, 39 minutes longer versus almost a month longer than
earth.

\- More stable day-night temperature

\- More gravity

\- A weak atmosphere (versus none), and the capability to retain a earth like
atmosphere.

\- Easy access to Water, and CO2. Important for growing plants and making
rocket fuel amongst other things.

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ianai
Are we sure the water's easy to access? From what I've seen, it evaporates
really fast and the atmosphere is being stripped from the planet.

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gpm
Well, easy compared to anywhere else we can go.

We aren't really looking for liquid water [0], as you say that evaporates
pretty much instantaneously. Rather we are looking for ice, the pheonix lander
confirmed the that this exists naturally on mars [1]. In the worst case water
bound to the soil that can be baked out [2].

As for the atmosphere being stripped away, that's not really a concern on time
scales humans care about. Though I've heard people talk about setting up a
artificial magnet field to reduce the amount of radiation you receive, which
should also prevent this.

[0] Well we are, but as a scientific curiosity not as a way to sustain a
colony.

[1]
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080620.html)

[2] [http://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-
ro...](http://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-rover.html)

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phkahler
I keep thinking the colonists should have tunnel boring machines. They can
then "build" more living and working space as they need it without more supply
missions. Of course there's the job of reinforcing and sealing those new
tunnels. Tunnels would offer decent protection and a more consistent thermal
environment. Heating could be provided from waste heat off a nuclear reactor,
or just spent nuclear fuel encased in concrete or something ;-)

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Pica_soO
In the absence of tea, this colonists will sink a Tesla in the Vale Marinaris
to declare independence?

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fovc
Without extreme religious persecution at home or the prospect of being
extremely wealthy "abroad", will there be that many people interested in going
to Mars?

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jrv
In the end, you just need to be able to find enough people who want to go
(there are plenty) and who have the money to pay for the trip (Elon hopes to
bring down the cost to such a level that someone selling their home on Earth
could afford it in many cases - like $500,000 to move to Mars).

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copx
$500,000, or even four times that amount is nothing in our current economy.

Remember how crowdfunding raised over 100 million dollars for Star Citizen - a
video game!

I am amazed Musk or even NASA itself has not tried crowdfunding the
colonization of Mars..

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thu
Have you heard about Mars One ?

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martythemaniak
A lot of people don't seem to get what he's on about, but the entire history
of humans is one of moving around, exploring and settling new places. It would
actually be very weird and novel to _not_ settle Mars. The last major
settlement was the Americas after Columbus, and that will likely be what
happens here, minus the genocide. Things do improve a bit over the years.

The next question is, why Mars in particular? And the simple answer is, it's
the closest thing to Earth in the Solar system. The moon is close by, but it's
harsh, desolate and resource-poor. Weak gravity, terrible 'days', no
atmosphere etc. Proximity is the only thing it has going for it. Mars, on the
other hand, is more like the most extreme places on earth - a combination of
Antarctica and Atacama - very hard but doable. Once you have regular, not-
super-expensive transport, proximity is not such a problem.

The next question is, how would you get there? And this is where all the fun
technical talk is happening. You'll need Big Freaking Rockets to escape the
Earth's gravity, but then there's a lot of ways it can go after that, for
example, can they make a self-fueling MAV in time for 2024? Or it is easier,
though more expensive, to just shoot more BFRs then?

Then the question is where will the money for all this come from? Well, I
don't imagine SpaceX will be doing this alone. Space agencies spend a bit of
money on this, SpaceX makes a profit from their launch business and Musk has
said SpaceX will go public in order to fund their Mars colony. Several hundred
billion is a lot of money, but spread out over decades and amongst space
agencies and companies is doable.

The final question, and one Musk hasn't answered very well IMO is why would
millions of people go to Mars? What are the economics of it? Getting a couple
of hundred (or thousand) pioneers is not a problem, you'll find tons of people
willing to risk everything for far less, but how would you get million person
cities up there? The best answer I have is, people will go there because it
will be the only place where new things are possible. I think we're starting
to see a backlash against "disruption" and it's somewhat justified. Living
peacefully with 10 billion humans on one place is hard enough without some of
those people rocking the boat. I'm talking about things like AI, human genetic
modification, but also just plain old politics, traditions, power structures,
etc. Mars would be new wide-open place where you can set up shop and do
anything, whether founding new societies or doing dangerous engineering. This
would also work very well economically, as Earth would be able to outsource a
lot of experimentation and risky activities and there would be a profitable
information (not resource) based planetary trade.

