
Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species - arikr
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/space.2017.29009.emu
======
Eerie
Funny how there are people with much more money than Musk, who do absolutely
nothing useful with it, but Musk draws criticism for details. Oh, why Mars,
why not Moon, or Ceres, or O'Neill cylinders, or lets colonize the Sahara
desert first, or lets solve world hunger and poverty (which is a 100%
political problem, not technological, BTW) blah, blah, blah, blah...

Musk is doing SOMETHING, at least. The technology that SpaceX develops can and
will be used for much more than just Elon's particular vision of Mars colony.

~~~
adekok
> Musk is doing SOMETHING, at least.

Me sitting in a corner and drinking is doing something. Me burning down my
house is doing something. Neither actions are productive.

Is Elon doing something productive? With cheap rockets, arguably yes. With
colonizing Mars... it's less clear.

> The technology that SpaceX develops can and will be used for much more than
> just Elon's particular vision of Mars colony.

Like what?

> Oh, why Mars, why not Moon, or Ceres, or O'Neill cylinders, or lets colonize
> the Sahara desert first, or lets solve world hunger and poverty (which is a
> 100% political problem, not technological, BTW)

It's hard to solve political problems, because everyone knows how bad people
can be. It's easy to dream about solving engineering problems. People have
been doing it for millenia. We just build a bigger / better / faster / cooler
thing than what we have right now! See? It's easy!

I find it instructive that most of the "pro" arguments are based on dreams and
hope. Most of the "con" arguments are "Have you seen how freaking difficult it
is?"

Dreams won't feed you in the cold, dark, airless, nights on Mars.

~~~
headcanon
Charles strauss wrote about other cool applications of the Mars rocket booster
here:

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/09/what-
els...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/09/what-else-can-you-
do-with-a-bi.html)

And If your reaction to that is "cool, but let's just build it for those
reasons", you're missing the point. Mars is basically a platform for tech
development and civilization building. In order to survive and thrive out
there they are going to have to develop tech that will undoubtedly benefit us
at home. Not just in spacecraft but in materials science, biology, computers,
you name it.

We wouldnt have GPS, communications, or satellite imagery without the space
programs by the time it becomes obvious what benefit it has for us, it will
already have been done. Think of what terraforming will teach us about climate
change and how to mitigate it's effects on Earth.

This is on top of the reason in which you have a small number of highly
educated, highly skilled people allowed to make a new society on a different
planet. How much faster do you think they will be able to operate without the
ineffiencies of the world today? If a facist religious dictatorship ends up
forbidding all technology and destroys the planet and us with it, I'd be glad
that we at least have something else continuing the species. In a sense it
would actually prevent that scenario from happening because of geopolitics. If
your adversary is on a different planet, you better keep up with their tech or
they will end up owning you.

~~~
adekok
So... I said cheap rockets are a good idea, and your best counter-argument is
to say "No, cheap rockets are a good idea" ?

> you have a small number of highly educated, highly skilled people allowed to
> make a new society on a different planet. How much faster do you think they
> will be able to operate without the ineffiencies of the world today?

How much slower will they work when they don't have quick access to a modern
industrial civilization?

> If a facist religious dictatorship ends up forbidding all technology and
> destroys the planet and us with it, I'd be glad that we at least have
> something else continuing the species.

I don't really have a rational counter-argument, because that isn't much of a
rational position.

~~~
headcanon
My understanding of your position was that we don't need the whole Mars thing
in order to accomplish more domestic goals (cheap rockets), and my position is
that a Mars program will force us to develop much more advanced tech that will
benefit us here than we would have otherwise.

> How much slower will they work when they don't have quick access to a modern
> industrial civilization?

Give it a couple centuries :) Civilization building is not a short term plan.
And the fact that they won't have (easy) access to the rest of the species is
part of what will force them to create innovative, home-grown solutions.

------
spodek
This community is so fast to say Mars is possible. Mention any problem and it
will start with the belief it's solvable and figure out how: "We can do it!"

Mention the idea of lowering the population on Earth to allow more resources
per person or consuming less to pollute less and it's "It's against human
nature" and "Absolutely impossible" and "Fusion or fission will make that
unnecessary, we should grow forever."

I wish people here looked at reducing growth and consumption here -- changing
mental models from growth to "enough" \-- as something as attainable as
terraforming another planet, or even with enthusiasm.

~~~
Anonymous107747
I think that you're missing the point. Your comment implies that you think
colonization efforts are solely to solve resource problems on Earth.

The most important point of colonization is that it ensures no single event
can wipe out humanity. Rather than encouraging lowering the population of
Earth, we want it to increase. The larger Earth's population, the more people
who will volunteer to join colonies. We need to spread humanity as far and
wide.

As for the attainability of colonization, I expect that it is a matter of
time. As is often brought up, it was once thought that flight was
unachievable; and now we send out thousands of flights every day.

For now, attempting to harvest near-Earth resources seems to be the best
approach to colonization. It requires many of the same advances while
providing a strong short-term incentive.

~~~
gehwartzen
Why is it so important to spread humanity far and wide? And why would it be
bad if humans went extinct sometime in the distant future?

~~~
hollerith
Well, a person can care about dozens of separate things. It does not take much
of a commitment to a thing to have conversations with others interested in the
thing or to write about it on the internet. (And over the years, a small
commitment to something can grow.)

If you meant to ask, "why should _I_ care . . .," then I hope you will excuse
me if I leave that one unanswered.

~~~
gehwartzen
I suppose I'm asking why should we, in general sense, should care; i.e what is
the philosophical argument. I agree human suffering is bad but if we are all
to die "instantly" (relative to out overall time in existence as a species)
I'm not sure I see the argument for why that would be bad. The other argument
I suppose is that the universe itself would somehow suffer if we were not in
it, but again I'm not sure I fully understand the rationale.

~~~
hollerith
Maybe this is a little glib, but I've learned to pay less attention to
arguments as to why a person should value X or Y and to pay more attention to
any information that would help me predict (and when I am feeling bold, to
influence) what people (and what groups of people working towards a common
goal) actually value, i.e., to what "ultimate" ends are they actually willing
to invest sustained effort and to sacrifice. (The purpose of the word
"ultimate" in that last sentence is to distinguish between ends or goals that
almost everyone has to work towards (which some call "instrumental" goals) and
ends that do not have that property (ultimate or "terminal" goals).

For example, at least in the U.S., almost everyone has to put in sustained
effort to produce an income and if they fail at that goal then they will
struggle to achieve any goal (good or evil). Consequently, in the terminology
I've just introduced, ensuring an adequate income would at least where I live
constitute an _instrumental_ rather than an _ultimate_ goal. It is people's
ultimate goals that I am the most interested learning about.

An internet manifesto with 10,000 signatures tends to matter less -- tends to
have less of an effect on reality -- IMHO than a few relatively rational
people willing to put in a few hours of effort every month towards an ultimate
goal (or some collection of values that includes an ultimate value) as long as
they can keep up the effort for long enough. By "effort" I mean effort
sufficient to keep a job that many other people want (doled out at a rate of a
few hours a month on average).

Also, people underestimate the importance of what (evil) things you (or I) are
_not_ willing to do and overestimate the importance of what good outcomes
(e.g., curing cancer or ending world hunger) a person or group is aiming to
achieve.

In other words, I believe that if the only thing you (or I) accomplish in the
world is never doing any harm to any person -- never to steal anything that
according to the generally-believed ethical standards of your society
rightfully belongs to them, never to lie to them (particular for personal
gain) -- then you (or I) will have done more _net_ good than the vast majority
of currently living human beings.

Since I started believing those last 2 paragraphs in 1992, however, I've met
very few (but not 0 or 1) _effective_ people who agree with them, so I will
backtrack somewhat to the position that it is at least worth studying whether
what I just asserted is as an important human cognitive bias.

------
Animats
The worst real estate on Earth is more habitable than the best real estate on
Mars.

~~~
candiodari
This is something I wonder about. The colonists will have children. I believe
the question "do I want to be in this situation" is an obvious and easy one
for 99.999% of the population at least, and therefore one should assume that
these children will be incredibly unhappy. And sadly, for good reason.

Those children will be born in a small room, surrounded by metal and aluminum,
maybe a blow-up shelter, and will never once in their life leave those
surroundings. They will never once breathe fresh air. They will live and die
in an area of a total size of perhaps a small football field, divided into
minimal rooms (so there'd be as many of them as possible), with minimal
energy.

And that's just the beginning. From what we've seen happening to astronauts it
is blatantly obvious that you do not want to subject a growing human body to
gravity even slightly different from earth surface, to do otherwise will at
the very least have serious consequences for their bones. It is likely in the
extreme that it'll have extreme medical consequences amounting to serious
physical handicaps, even if they are born on the surface of Mars. If they are
born in zero gravity, it seems unlikely that they'll ever even see adulthood.

But if they survive, it'll be in a small compound. Metal and stone around
them, all the time, everywhere, and not much of it. Accidents will be as
lethal as they are on a submarine and therefore they'll require the iron
discipline (including the rare to occasional decision to leave someone behind
to drown/suffocate when the situation requires it). They will be locked into
this situation by physics, with absolutely no way to fix it. Even if
terraforming ever works, it will take centuries. Dozens of generations. They
won't just be old when things change, they will never live long enough to see
children that will set a foot outside. They will see DVDs, and will get the
phenomenon we see in the third world. DVD players showing them the vast fjords
of Norway. The immense flats in middle America. And let's be realistic here:
spending a week in Death Valley will look like an incredibly attractive
prospect for them, but even dying of exposure there will be utterly out of
reach.

Let's face facts here: these people will have lives that solitary confined
prisoners would not trade place with.

We are the ones, along with their parents, who will have "done this" to them.
Their parents will be forgiven, as they have made a mistake, listening to the
misrepresentations of people like Elon Musk. We, however, "could fix this",
with incredibly massive energy expenditure to get a few thousand people back
from another planet, and we'll choose not to. Why not ? It'll make the Moon
landings look incredibly cheap, hell it'll make WWII look incredibly cheap,
and even if we do it, it'll take decades for the transport to actually happen.
Even if we choose to have a kid come back, the kid won't be back until (s)he's
in their forties at least.

We are probably a decade, maybe 2 or 3 removed from having built "general AI"
individuals, who would have no more trouble walking in robot bodies on Mars or
Venus than we do on earth. As in, a bit of planning would be required, and
you'd do well to have some basic preparations and shelter ready, but failing
that will be unpleasant, not deadly, and it would take weeks of exposure and
deprivation to kill them. Besides, such individuals would be programs walking
around in robot bodies. If they really got into trouble they could just
transmit themselves to safety.

Since these will easily colonize the solar system, and humans won't, not now,
not ever, even if we manage to get a tiny Mars colony going, why not just wait
? Bots, AIs, cylons, machines, or whatever we choose to call these individuals
will far outnumber people on Mars (Given the surface size, a Mars colony
should expand to about 6 billion people, but it will take a little under 1500
years to get to that point, so even if we start with 1000 individuals (100 is
more likely), machines will start to colonize Mars (and other planets) when
there's less than 10k humans)

~~~
shurcooL
Nice write up.

To answer your question at the end, I think it comes down to risk vs reward.

> why not just wait

We can wait, that's an option that's less costly, but more risky.

If something planet-scale happens while we wait on a single planet, the entire
species would not make it. If we don't wait and pay the extra price of going
to multiple planets sooner, the species has a better chance of survival in the
case of such an event.

~~~
grondilu
> If something planet-scale happens while we wait on a single planet, the
> entire species would not make it.

I suspect even Musk doesn't believe this. I've never read/heard him talk about
our species being wiped out. He usually prefers the much more vague concept of
end of our "technological civilization".

~~~
WillPostForFood
He often does speak of humans being wiped out as a reason to colonize Mars.

 _I think there is a strong humanitarian argument for making life multi-
planetary in order to safeguard the existence of humanity in the event that
something catastrophic were to happen, in which case being poor or having a
disease would be irrelevant, because humanity would be extinct._

 _I think there are really two fundamental paths. History is going to
bifurcate along two directions. One path is we stay on Earth forever, and then
there will be some eventual extinction event. I do not have an immediate
doomsday prophecy, but eventually, history suggests, there will be some
doomsday event. The alternative is to become a space-bearing civilization and
a multi-planetary species, which I hope you would agree is the right way to
go._

 _Either we spread Earth to other planets, or we risk going extinct. An
extinction event is inevitable and we’re increasingly doing ourselves in._

~~~
posterboy
> _eventually, history suggests, there will be some doomsday event_

... along the timescale of _millions_ of years. Dinosaurs lived for over 100
million years. What a load of rubbish.

------
AdamTReineke
This is a paper version of his talk [0] from International Astronautical
Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico on Sept. 27, 2016.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9olSzNOh8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9olSzNOh8s)

He teased on Twitter [1,2] that there are major updates coming to the plan,
especially around funding the project.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/875770056323420160](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/875770056323420160)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/875913504451985411](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/875913504451985411)

------
humanfromearth
I don't get the fascination with this barren gravity well called Mars. Other
than scientific curiosity there is nothing there of value that is not 1
billion times more abundant in the belt. I genuinely don't understand why
there is this need to be multi-planetery species and not just space-fairing
civ? the tech we need for either seems kind of the same to me, but the belt
has a much higher return so what am I missing?

~~~
dhruvarora013
I think you're mistaking Mars to be an end goal. Much like the Moon
exploration missions, it's only an extension of the frontier and another
rotation in the humanity progress wheel.

You're absolutely right in terms of absolute financial value the belt is a
better bet, but the goal is more of if we can, and starting the effort of
spreading humanity beyond Earth permanently.

Mars isn't the end goal. It's just the closest starting point.

~~~
babyrainbow
> It's just the closest starting point.

The closest starting point is right here on earth. Are we yet able to make it
work here? I don't think so.

~~~
TeMPOraL
We will while preparing for making Moon or Mars work. Actually we already are,
though there isn't much effort going into it as it is still driven by non-
economic reasons.

------
valuearb
He makes two mistakes.

1) Nuckear thermal rockets are proven to be more than twice as efficient as
chemical rockets, and he doesn't consider them as options.

2) Asteroids are far more resource rich, provide better living habitats and
are immensely cheaper to reach than Mars. Even those in the belt are at least
10 Kilometres/Sec easier to reach than Mars.

Other than those quibbles, a fantastic read.

------
FrozenVoid
All of this speculation neglects that 1.Chemical rockets are still absurdly
expensive, slow and unreliable. 2a.Terraforming Mars requires megatons of new
materials/tools/robots, international/business cooperation(who owns mars?)
within the context of "wild west" on Mars. 2b.Creating populated domed
stations on Mars is a gimmick and lacks any cost/benefit analysis(a job better
dealt with robots). Its equivalent to Antarctic stations without air. 3.People
wouldn't move to Mars just because of novelty(which would wear off in a few
year), there wouldn't be any tangible advantages(lower gravity=weaker
bones,muscles,weak magnetic field=more radiation, less stable/diluted
atmosphere) and the cost of moving or traveling to/from mars is high due #1.

In summary money is better spent on developing non-chemical spaceflight first.

------
baron816
A much more practical goal would be to colonize the bottom of the ocean. Not
that colonizing the bottom of the ocean would be very practical, just more
practical relative to Mars.

The ocean is much more accessible, has life already down there, there is some
oxygen, it's not radioactive, and it has a level of gravity that humans
evolved to over their entire existence. You'd also be able to get internet
access down there. Plus, it's probably much more interesting as there are far
more things left to discover down there. Mars is just a super shitty desert.
People only want to go there because no one's ever been, but once they go,
they won't care anymore.

~~~
dTal
Colonizing the bottom of the ocean would have many of the same practical
benefits of colonizing Mars, as well. It won't save the human race if the
entire planet is destroyed, but short of that it offers some protection from
most of the other existential threats (disease, nuclear war, asteroid strike).

That being said, it's not clear what would sustain an undersea colony. Only a
fully self-sufficient geothermal-powered setup would be properly effective as
species-insurance.

------
zucchini_head
Elon's Mars ideas has been a real hot topic on HN recently, and generally on
average the most upvoted comments seem to be those deriding his ambitions. I
think that's fair. They seem quite bonkers at times. Most of the reasons being
that it's "ridiculous", "pointless", "a waste of money", "impossible", and so
on and so on. Essentially the overriding HN opinion _seems_ to be that
something that sounds for the most part irrational, should never be attempted
until we have first completed every single possible "rational" incremental
step beforehand, so that eventually we've learnt enough to make the initially
irrational idea more plausible and therefore rational. For example, on HN i've
seen such steps being "colonising the Sahara Desert", "then colonising the
moon" , and so on.

I really disagree with this view as a whole. It's unsustainable and in the end
unproductive. It seems ridiculous to say, and maybe a touch over-zealous I
admit, but we as humans could still be simple hunter-gatherers like tens of
thousands of year ago, if it wasn't for that one guy who everybody laughed at
for mixing mud and water and burning it with fire - which initially seems
absolutely bonkers - but actually makes clay.

At the end of this ramble is maybe a little sense. Robert Zubrin and similar
people love to bash the ISS and the Space Shuttle as complete failures. After
all, it _appears_ that they are a step back from the "good old Apollo days",
and in some respects that is probably true. But if we didn't try new things,
try things that initially seem to have little benefit, then we'd go nowhere,
or at least excel much slower.

They called JFK mad for asking the US to go from never having sent a man above
a few ten thousand feet to over 1.2 billion feet to the moon in under a
decade.

I think we need a fair balance of rationalism and irrationalism (or at least
"optimistic ambition") in technology, since sometimes the best things in life
come from a witches-brew of the two. We keep the ambition irrational, the math
and science rational, as my Professor always said.

------
c-smile
Yeah, we'd better start ASAP.

Otherwise "the first woodpecker (asteroid large enough) that came along would
destroy civilization."

~~~
jondubois
How many billions of dollars will it cost to start a Mars colony? How many
people could be lifted out of poverty here on earth with that same money?

The only thing this project would really achieve is further inflate the ego of
a few billionaires.

It's such a messed up system of values. It makes me wonder if humanity is
actually worth saving.

~~~
binarytransform
Half a trillion dollars is spent every year in advertising to those poor
people to buy things. Trillions of dollars were spent on chasing jihadis
around the desert for 16 years. There is enough money floating around
currently spent on nonsense to achieve both yours and Musk's goals.

And if you do not see the potential for positive externalities created here on
Earth by arguably the most ambitious project mankind has ever endeavored to
undertake, your aperture on the world is quite narrow.

~~~
babyrainbow
>your aperture on the world is quite narrow.

May be that is why they can filter out the bullshit....

------
fallingfrog
The plan Elon has set out is for the transportation to mars- and its very
impressive. He hasn't made any attempt at a colonization plan, but at least
we've got an idea how the transportation might work. Colonization would be a
much much harder problem. Every person you send to mars needs food, water,
air, heat, and shelter from day one. If they're going to maintain their own
habitat then you're talking about mining equipment, metal foundries, glass
making, rubber for gaskets, fertilizer, etc etc etc. I don't think it's an
exaggeration to say that it might take a significant portion of the world GDP
to get that set up for a million colonists- a million dollars per colonist
seems very low and that's a trillion dollars altogether.

~~~
averagewall
So we can send and support a million people on Mars for the cost of the Iraq
war? Obviously affordable for a government or a large enough group of
motivated people. It's not going to bankrupt the world by any stretch. Perhaps
there are 1 million millionaires in the world willing to pay their own way.

Back in the days of colonizing countries, people did that. Even though their
destinations were closer and more habitable, they also had more primitive
technology so it was still a massive challenge by today's standards. No
fridges, cars, or radio communications. Travel time was several months between
countries compared to about a year to get to Mars. I wouldn't say it's
obviously unachievable at all.

~~~
jamesrcole
> Even though their destinations were closer and more habitable

I actually (genuinely) wonder about that those two.

Distance isn't the right metric - it's difficulty of making the journey. Ocean
travel is taken for granted these days. In the past it was a lot more
difficult and dangerous. How did those difficulties then compare to
interplanetary travel today? (I'm genuinely asking).

And similar applies to how habitable the destination was. I remember reading
about the initial English colonies in America, and all difficulties they had
with things like trying to grow crops. How do those difficulties compare to
the difficulties we'd face for Mars? (again, I don't know the answer, but I'm
curious as to what it might be).

------
Nomentatus
Kudos, Musk is willing to embarrass himself if necessary in a good cause.
Thanks. But I'm not overly fond of the paper.

No mention of asteroids when discussing other destinations, or re refueling.
No mention of refueling from lunar sources (oxygen - you could haul hydrogen
from Mars or Earth. Plus structural matter, solar cells, soil or even food.)
Transporters that actually land on Mars - a la the first lunar return trip
plans which landing everything on the moon that would return. It's surely more
likely that there will be dedicated Earth-Mars transporters for that distance
that don't land at either end. Way more economical.

But others have covered this in more detail:

[http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/case_for_moon_open_...](http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/case_for_moon_open_ended_positive_future_for_humans_based_on_planetary_protection_executive_summary-170088)

------
RichardHeart
I hope to read one day "Making Humans Multi-century individuals" one day.
Easier to get to Mars when you don't run out of time and die before you get
there.

------
infodroid
Please append [pdf] to the title.

------
hoodoof
I can see value in going to visit but the idea of colonization of any extra
terrestrial body is foolish.

~~~
andrewflnr
Visiting and colonization are points on a spectrum.

------
wuschel
SpaceX certainly makes interesting marketing publications regarding the
colonization of other planets. Unfortunately, that does not change that our
species of ape decendents is stripping and destroying its single, most
precious planetary habitat, creates great social divides, and behaves in a
most unsustainable way. That is one of the major problems for me.

Edit: Why the downvotes? Colonization of different planets will not solve some
of our systemic problems.

~~~
jamesrcole
I think colonizing other planets may be one of the most important means we
have for addressing systematic problems on earth:

Populating new places can enable a new start and experimentation with new
forms of social organisation. Escape from the momentum of tradition.

This isn't just speculation. We've already seen demonstrations of this, like
the founding of the United States and the democratic system they put in place
there.

This sort of thing could help us address the sort of problems you mention.
Like with the case of the US, successful new ideas can be transplanted back to
other places.

Also the fact that in the long term colonization may help with overpopulation
on Earth.

(I heard this viewpoint from reading Robert Zubrin's "The Case For Mars"
[https://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-
Planet/dp/14516...](https://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-
Planet/dp/145160811X))

~~~
babyrainbow
>a new start and experimentation with new forms of social organisation.

What options do we have? I mean, have anyone really thought up an alternative
social/economic system that could work, given the human nature?

~~~
jamesrcole
If you look at the way economies are currently run, they are, in a lot of
ways, at odds with what economists think are the best way to run them (I think
this can be easily explained by the fact that often what economists think are
good ideas are not politically very popular). A fresh start might enable some
of those things to be tested out.

In terms of social organisation, the thing is that we don't really know for
sure. You have to do experiments and see how things work. You can't say,
before the fact, that it definitely will or won't work. Being able to
experiment is really important for progress, but it's really hard to do within
established systems.

~~~
babyrainbow
>in a lot of ways, at odds with what economists think are the best way to run
them

Do you have a source for some of these?

> Being able to experiment is really important for progress, but it's really
> hard to do within established systems.

Sure, that would be a nice side effect, but not part of something that justify
something like this...

~~~
jamesrcole
No single source. Just things I've read and heard over the years. I'd say a
major one of those is listening to a lot of episodes of the Planet Money
podcast.

An example of what I'm talking about is tariffs.

------
Someone
I can see that we should want to into space, also think it should be on the
list of thing to work on _now_ (we are plenty rich enough to tackle other
problems in parallel), and trust this paper in its technical aspects (it
requires lots of work, but not to the extent that _I_ would say it is
unachievable).

However, I think this paper is glaring a bit over the psychological aspects.
The crew compartment of the spaceship is 17 meters diameter (max) and, judging
from figure 13, about 15 meters high. That's around 3000 cubic meters. A
hundred passengers would have about 30 cubic meters each, or the equivalent of
a 3 by 4 meter room; less personal space if, as promised, _" the crew
compartment or the occupant compartment is set up so that you can do zero-
gravity games—you can float around. There will be movies, lecture halls,
cabins, and a restaurant."_

There also would be a fair bit of noise and vibrations, I guess (I didn't read
about windows in the spaceship, but I hope there will be, as those likely will
be way better, psychologically, than cameras showing the same view)

On top of that, your companions would be self-selected among those wanting to
leave earth behind and, I expect, fairly anxious about the future.

So, I seriously doubt _" It will be really fun to go. You are going to have a
great time!"_

~~~
valuearb
It's not going to be a cruise ship. Assuming most of the crew was couples,
10-15 cubic meters is more than enough for two person bed + personal
area/storage. Communal bathrooms will work, say 200 cubic meters. Another 100
cubic meters for the control room. That leaves 1200 cubic meters for the
cafeteria/rec rooms/group areas. Or one huge 4 meter by 10 meter by 30 meter
room.

That should be plenty of room for a few months. I assume most people are just
going to pair of up for low gravity swinger's parties in each others rooms
anyways.

