
Making Human Settlement of Space a Reality - jwfxpr
http://blogs.nasa.gov/bolden/2016/10/11/makinghumansettlementofspacereality/
======
nickff
This is a very optimistic view of the president's space exploration legacy.
Cancelling George W. Bush's 'Vision for Space Exploration' may have been a
wise political move, but doing so delayed the project by 8 years, with
relatively little technical gain. We are now looking at spending 25 billion
dollars for development, and 2 billion more per additional launch, with the
aim of reaching an asteroid in the mid-2020s, and Mars in ~2040.

I will be shocked if the Space Launch System (A.K.A. SLS, Senate Launch
System) takes humans to the moon, and I will be dumbstruck if anyone uses it
to go to Mars. The system is simply too expensive, and the projected launch
rate is too low for it to be useful. In addition, the system is too
politically vulnerable, as the program would have to survive more than 20
years for someone to use it to go to Mars. Much like the current president
cancelled his predecessor's plan, a future president will cancel this one.

~~~
gedmark
Strongly disagree. Under the previous plan, Ares I was NASA's vehicle for
taking astronauts to low Earth orbit. Ares I was over budget by 10's of
billions of dollars, leaving no money left over for commercial crew services.
(Which was seen under Bush's NASA as a nice to have, not a must have.)

Because Obama cancelled Ares I and re-directed that money to commercial crew
contracts, SpaceX has been able to accelerate/do a lot more than they would
have done otherwise. And the technical gains by SpaceX alone have been... non-
trivial.

~~~
shasheene
To clarify the history:

SpaceX only entered the Commercial Crew Development [1] program by winning
funding as part of CCDev 2 funding in April 2011, allowing it to develop the
Dragon 2 launch abort system. They later won funding form both phases of
CCiCap (Commercial Crew integrated Capability) funding in December 2012. (I
believe that's in-flight abort testing etc).

The technical gains (especially reusable rockets) was moved along more by the
help funding Falcon 9 initially through the commercial _cargo_ development
(COTS) and International Space Station resupply (CRS) contracts (which ensured
the survival of SpaceX for a few more years). [2]

Commercial Cargo was actually a George W. Bush era policy - part of his 2004
plan [3], and the CRS contract was awarded before Obama was even inaugurated!

So far, Bush's Space Shuttle cancellation did more for SpaceX than Obama's
Constellation Program cancellation (though that may changes once MCT/ICT is up
and running and causes SLS to be potentially cancelled)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Development)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportation_Services#Awards)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_for_Space_Exploration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_for_Space_Exploration)

~~~
will_hughes
Spacex were pretty clear that they can't fund the full development/deployment
of ITS (MCT) on their own. That's what the whole "stealing underpants /
kickstarter" joke slide was about in the presentation.

They need public and/or private organisations to pre-purchase a lot of tickets
to Mars before they can outright build it themselves, or they'd need to
partner with the likes of NASA.

~~~
adwn
> _They need public and /or private organisations to pre-purchase a lot of
> tickets to Mars before they can outright build it themselves, or they'd need
> to partner with the likes of NASA._

Musk said during the presentation that they're _not_ going to pre-sell tickets
to finance development and production (the way Virgin Galactic did).

~~~
will_hughes
I think you only read the first part of that sentence.

e:

I mean that there's two types of funding models.

NASA (or some other government's space agency) can put out a call for bids to
provide a mission to Mars with certain capabilities (transport this many tons
of cargo, this many people, having this characteristics) - then ULA, BO,
SpaceX etc then work up bids for their various Mars capabilities to service
that bid. SpaceX can go "We can do this using our Interplanetary Transport
System".

This would be an ordinary commercial arrangement like the Commerical Crew and
Commercial Cargo that NASA already does.

In theory some large enough company could do a similar thing. Like SpaceX /
ULA do for Satellite launches today.

At the end of the mission after delivering the cargo/crew/etc SpaceX keeps the
hardware, and can sell tickets to whoever else wants to go.

The other approach is that NASA comes along and wants SpaceX to build a system
that meets certain capabilities but in a more integrated/directed fashion like
was done between NASA and Boeing/Rockwell/etc for the space shuttle, but NASA
owns the gear (since it was funding the development)

Both options end up with SpaceX building the ITS, but the way it's funded will
determine who owns it at the end of the mission.

------
Super_Jambo
It seems like a failure of imagination to me that the main plan is to start
off sending lots of people to Mars. People are heavy, they need heavy life
support, they're fragile & they require complex infrastructure to survive. If
any of that support infrastructure breaks or there's an interruption in
resupply missions the people die. Probably they fight to see who dies first
and waste valuable resources.

Yes people are very versatile but almost everything useful is going to be sent
from earth for decades. If the plan for building human supporting
infrastructure is well thought out we shouldn't need much versatility.

Why not send as few humans as you can possibly get away with and as much semi-
autonomous & remote operated machinery as possible. Get some of the 7 billion
people on earth to design it, drive it & continually improve how autonomous it
is (I imagine lag to mars will be a bitch).

This seems a far faster way to build a self sustaining mars backup civ. Bonus
in that at some point this leads to self replicating self directed robots at
which point send them to the asteroid belt & everyone can retire.

To that end anyone want to make a remote operated maker space? Buy some cheap
land or warehouse. Ship in raw materials and see if we can build a robot
factory by remote. Price of admission is sending a remote operated vehicle
guess we can wire it up and broadcast it to the web. Hopefully that can fund
someone to replace batteries when they inevitably run flat.

~~~
nickff
All the Mars programs have failed because they have lost momentum, not for
technical or financial reasons. Your 'proposal' is not all that different from
Lockheed's recent proposal, but neither would help humans get to Mars. Very
few people are willing to stick with a costly program for over 20 years in the
hopes that something may eventually happen; Apollo took less than 10, and it
almost got cancelled.

~~~
Super_Jambo
Right so we need to send some heroic looking astronaut types asap to hold the
world hostage for re-supply missions. I agree.

No doubt you also want an ever growing number of highly skilled people to
build things since they will doubtless be faster than remote operated stuff
from earth. Plus you may as well make use of the infrastructure you're
building.

But beyond that I don't see why you'd send people who will have a very real
chance of over-burdening your infrastructure and dying possibly taking down
others with them.

Plus building a remote operated robot factory on earth sounds like awesome
fun, surprised no one seems interested! I don't see what other open hardware &
software project could make a bigger difference to human space colonization.

~~~
nightski
We probably need less people throwing out answers and more people actually
trying to make them a reality.

~~~
pavs
To be fair, we need to be able to answer the hard questions before making
things a reality. Going to mars and making it habitable is not exactly
something we have a lot of experience in, so there are a lot of questions but
very little reasonable solutions.

I personally think we should go as soon as possible and I would love to see a
lot more competition in this area. Maybe if China starts making major progress
towards mars then probably the head will start rolling in the USA and maybe
even Europe.

------
ChuckMcM
As with similar NASA vision statements about space, this is heavy on the what
"Send people to Mars" and weak on the why, "What do we gain by being space
faring?"

As a result it will be constantly under pressure from earthly issues that need
money now. For example if you are a congress critter and asked to choose
between funding a $1B for Zika virus research/abatement and using that $1B for
1/5 the cost of developing a new space booster system, people always choose
the 'today' problem and delay the 'future' opportunity. No one wants to say
"Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but we
spent that money on a rocket."

This is why I am a huge fan of the Commercial Crew and other 'private'
industry programs. Let private industry develop the tools and techniques for
space and unshackle from them the cold war restrictions.

And yes, that is the elephant in this particular room. While the "west" wrings
its hands over the PRK developing an operational missile capability, have you
ever thought what a Falcon 9 looks like through that lens? As a military
weapon it could be considered the first Intercontinental Ballistic Bomber.
Think about that capability, a Falcon 9 with a payload capable of some re-
entry steering, launches from a base in the US, lets fly the payload, and then
flys back to base for the next payload. Ten of these sitting on pads in the
Dakotas could put 100 tons of conventional explosive on to any target in the
eastern hemisphere in about 45 minutes.

That is the kind capability that SpaceX could "market" to third parties. And
it isn't something nation states like private companies to have.

~~~
cygx
_" Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but
we spent that money on a rocket."_

This kind of argument always gets to me. There's no inherent value in money,
it's just a means to the end of organizing society. If the financial system
prevents us from going to Mars and providing health care simultaneously, you
should not give up on either, but fix the broken system.

Sadly, we're apparently too greedy and stupid to do it...

~~~
boznz
"Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but we
spent that money on a rocket."

"Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but we
spent thousands of times that in wars over oil".

"Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but we
spent thousands of times that propping up dodgy financial institutions".

"Sorry, you're unborn child was killed by a virus we could have stopped but we
spent thousands of times that making Hollywood movies".

.. yawn

~~~
oliv__
Your

------
arcanus
Did Obama sign an executive order? Or is this a motivational announcement?

As a contrast, in my field (computational science) Obama signed an executive
order ([https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-
office/2015/07/29/execu...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-
office/2015/07/29/executive-order-creating-national-strategic-computing-
initiative)) to enable the rapid development of exascale (next generation)
supercomputers.

Funding is arguably even more critical for space exploration, and without
substantial action on this front I am skeptical this is going to have
meaningful impact.

~~~
nickff
This looks more like a 'legacy' statement, where the president is trying to
emphasize how much he has done in the arena of space exploration, and what his
contribution has been.

~~~
dexterdog
So it's just bluster.

~~~
sigmar
>Bluster: loud, aggressive, or indignant talk with little effect.

Uh, no.

~~~
dexterdog
You're right. He wasn't aggressive about it.

~~~
sigmar
Yup, yet I got downvoted heavily. I'll just take this to mean hackernews
people aren't very knowledgeable about vocabulary

~~~
abgawrv
There's an "or" in your definition, so...

~~~
sigmar
For the record, you think Obama was being "loud, aggressive, or indignant"?

------
nostromo
I'd love to see people on Mars in my lifetime.

But the biggest problem longterm is that Mars will be a pretty miserable place
to live.

Right now you can move to Antartica if you really wanted to. Do you? I don't.
And Antartica is a much more pleasant place to be than Mars for many reasons:
you can breath the air, it's got water, it's quite a bit warmer, and you get
almost twice as much sunlight.

~~~
jaredhansen
This is such a tired argument.

Yes, Antartica is less miserable than Mars. So what? Antartica is, crucially,
_part of Earth_. It is missing the main thing Mars has to make it desirable,
which is _being another planet_. If you don't get the point of ever leaving
Earth that's fine, but don't pretend that $random_inhospitable_place_on_Earth
is automatically better, _for 'being on other planets' purposes_, than another
planet is.

~~~
nostromo
Yes, if you're only solving for "not Earth" then Mars is good match. But if
your only goal is to leave Earth, why not move to the Moon? It's much more
practical.

Without a plan to make Mars more habitable for humans, Mars will be a lot like
ISS or Antartica: a place where a small number of lucky scientists go for a
few months before returning home.

~~~
kitsunesoba
The moon is only more practical in terms of distance/travel time. In every
other way, the moon is drastically more inhospitable than even the worst day
on Mars, so anything gained by the shorter distance is quickly nullified by
the difficulty of existing there.

If the issues surrounding transit can be addressed, Mars is by far a superior
target for colonization.

------
zipwitch
I've been following space news since I was a kid in the 70s, and now I'm to
the point where I find these repetitions of "Mars in ~25 years" to be more
pathetically sad than anything else.

Maybe Musk and SpaceX will succeed, maybe not. But either way, he's not
playing the same tired tune I've heard my entire life.

~~~
MrZongle2
This is pretty much how I feel. At this point, I expect to see practical
implementations of general AI and fusion reactors before I see a man on Mars.
It's the same old lip service from the political arm of NASA and the Executive
Branch. Bah.

Musk is disrupting the status quo, thank God. I fear he'll end up more like
Preston Tucker than Henry Ford, but I'm glad he's charging ahead.

~~~
novalis78
I am starting to feel the same way about Thorium reactors. I really hope
thorconpower.com succeeds with their setup in Indonesia.

------
ryao
I would prefer it if we made human settlement of the oceans a reality first.
Human settlement of space has health problems that are not yet solved such as
vision damage from zero gravity environments and brain damage from cosmic
radiation.

[http://www.space.com/25392-manned-mars-mission-astronaut-
vis...](http://www.space.com/25392-manned-mars-mission-astronaut-vision.html)
[https://www.rt.com/document/57fc69bac46188c6758b4599/amp](https://www.rt.com/document/57fc69bac46188c6758b4599/amp)

Making underwater habitats is far more practical in the short term. Experience
in making closed environments for human habitation of the ocean would be
useful when the problems with space exploration are solved.

~~~
M_Grey
Underwater you have gravity, access to our biosphere, food, water, you can
make air and make fuel.

In space... well...

The issue though, is that people want what's out there, they want to mine
asteroids and somehow that laudable goal has been conflated with colonizing
another gravity well in some minds.

~~~
science4sail
One thing that I've always wondered is why space colonization focuses so much
on planets. It seems like orbital platforms would both fix the low-gravity
health issue (spin the platform) and provide easier access to lucrative
resources (you can hit asteroids without dealing with getting in/out of
gravity wells).

~~~
tonmoy
1\. It is much easier to land on/get into the orbit of a planet. For example,
transfer from low earth orbit to Mars requires a delta V of about 4.3 km/s.
Now to get into Mars' orbit, this needs to be reduced to about 3 km/s (rough
napkin-top calculation, take with a grain of salt). However if you want to
"stop" at a massless orbital platform/asteroid, you would have to reduce all
4.3 km/s (without any aerobrake assist).

2\. If we assume an orbital platform is like a ring (similar to Halo), and if
the diameter of this thing is 2km, then it would need to spin very fast
(70m/s). This is okay, until you realize, that so much speed means a lot of
difference in gravity from the floor to ceiling. For example, a man who is 2m
tall, would feel 1g on his feet and about 0.95g = 9.3m/s^2 on his head. The
difference in g would give rise to different health issues. You could make the
station bigger, but then it would be probably better to stick to a natural
body that is similar size instead

~~~
abecedarius
I thought delta-v from LEO to Mars was over 6km/s? There are near-Earth
asteroids at much lower delta-v.
[https://www.planetaryresources.com/2015/08/how-we-choose-
our...](https://www.planetaryresources.com/2015/08/how-we-choose-our-asteroid-
targets/) gets into some of this.

At the 1km radius you give, a 2m human would have head at 0.2% lesser
acceleration than feet. Am I miscalculating? Note that 1g is just one place in
the design space, though an attractive one for a big enough station.

~~~
tonmoy
I am probably wrong with the 4.3 number (compiled the first result from google
without double checking). And it won't be 0.2%, the head's speed would be 0.2%
of the feet, but since g=v^2/r, the gravity difference would be about 3%

~~~
abecedarius
No, g also equals omega^2 r. The angular velocity omega is the same for head
and feet, leaving only the change to r.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_motion#Formulas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_motion#Formulas)

(So what's wrong with g = v^2/r? Nothing -- both v and r change in that change
to g. To first order, they cancel out in the change to v/r, leaving only a
linear factor.)

~~~
tonmoy
You are right, I was had made a very ugly mistake I guess

~~~
abecedarius
No worries! It's a natural mistake.

------
dathmar
More of the same from government promising Mars in X years. This will just be
killed off by the next president. If this was serious it would have been
announced at the beginning of his 8 years. We could have even put some of the
~550 billion spent on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. We
probably would have gotten more bang for our buck.

I also wonder how much of this was brought about just to point out that the US
will not be supporting SpaceX's hopes of a Mars mission.

~~~
greglindahl
SpaceNews.com said that this announcement "largely reiterated the space policy
[Obama] announced in an April 2010 speech at NASA's Kennedy Space Center..."

[http://spacenews.com/nasa-to-move-ahead-with-plans-to-
offer-...](http://spacenews.com/nasa-to-move-ahead-with-plans-to-offer-iss-
docking-port-for-private-modules/)

------
Animats
If this happens, it's going to be because Lockheed Martin gets their fusion
plant going. Back in 2014, Lockheed Martin announced that their Skunk Works
unit was working on building a fusion reactor.[1] Last May, the head of the
Skunk Works announced quietly that they'd achieved initial plasma and were
investing more money in the project.[2]

The Skunk Works produced the U-2, the SR-71, and the first stealth fighter.
They're really good at building things. They have money. They have very good
people. If anybody can make this work, it's them.

[1] [http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-
fusion.htm...](http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html)
[2]
[http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/innovation/2016/05/...](http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/innovation/2016/05/03/lockheed-
nuclear-fusion-generator-investment/83870398/)

------
simonh
> And that brings us to the first thing we’re excited to discuss today. NASA
> has already begun laying the groundwork for these deep space missions. In
> 2014 we issued....

And then spends the next paragraph talking about something they did in 2014.
The whole page is like that.

------
danblick
Question: it seems there is a lot of overlap between the technology required
for space exploration and the technology needed for ICBMs. To what extent was
space exploration in the Mercury-Apollo missions a way to make a huge
investment in ICBM technology palatable to the public? Does anyone know good
documentaries that discuss this?

(Put it another way: how important was R&D done in the name of human space
exploration to the development of ICBM capabilities?)

~~~
exDM69
> how important was R&D done in the name of human space exploration to the
> development of ICBM capabilities?

Not very important. By the time of the Gemini program, ICBMs had reached the
capabilities needed. All the human rated launch vehicles after that were
developed for manned spaceflight exclusively (unlike Mercury and Gemini
programs which used missiles) and didn't have a lot of overlap with ICBM
development.

There might be other areas of military interest that overlap manned space
flight efforts, though.

------
maverick_iceman
I wonder why there aren't any realistic plans for using nuclear propulsion.
Chemical rockets simply produce too low thrust. Using nuclear pulse/fission
fragment rockets the solar system can be explored in a matter of months,
rather than the years/decades that we're currently forced to endure. Project
Orion was supposed to be feasible with 60s technology. Why aren't we trying to
make similar technologies work?

~~~
gene-h
For one, nuclear pulse rockets violate several international treaties. Fission
fragment rockets, while the performance is impressive on paper, have yet to be
demonstrated in the lab.

Nuclear thermal propulsion has been demonstrated on Earth[0] and Nuclear
electric propulsion has been flight proven[1].

NASA had a serious effort to develop and flight prove a high power(200 KWe)
nuclear reactor[2]. This would have been used to power the Jupiter Icy Moons
Orbiter[3] which would have explored Europa, Ganymeade, Callisto, and Io if
things were favorable. The reactor enabled high power electric propulsion,
high bandwidth communication(10Mbit/s), and even a full scale ice penetrating
radar. This much power is hard to come by as far out as Jupiter.

The entire effort lasted about two years before it got canceled because NASA
needed to free up money for the (now canceled) Constellation Program. The
thing I would like to emphasize here is that this was a serious effort with
money on the table and a mission in place. The nuclear propulsion work NASA is
currently working on is either a concept study, that is just investigating
whether an idea can work at all, or not very well funded.

The issue is getting the funding to develop the hardware and actually
following through

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA)
[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_1867](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_1867)
[2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Prometheus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Prometheus)
[3][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Orbiter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Orbiter)

~~~
maverick_iceman
I'm aware of the fact that nuclear pulse rockets will violate atmospheric test
ban treaties. However I think if some major countries were serious about it
then an exception for pulse propulsion could have been added to those
treaties. (Yes, I understand the potential for abuse but in my mind the
upsides and an effective monitoring system far outweigh the risks.)

------
theothermkn
If the human settlement of space is to be made a reality, then the plans for
it need to be more measured and realistic.

First, it needs to be recognized that we don't know how human biology is going
to cope with the radiation and gravity environment encountered in space. More
precisely, we know that our biology copes poorly, and we don't know how to fix
that from a biological perspective. The only solutions we have in our grasp
are one, bring the gravity up to 1G with a rotating habitat, and two, shield
humans from the radiation experienced in space with magnets and mass. Any
reasonable plan to "settle" space must _begin_ by addressing these.

Second, Mars is just not the place to start, because it's too far away. People
are fond of pointing out that Mars's atmosphere makes landing there less
costly than landing on the Moon, but this ignores the fact that you have to
bring life support and food along for the 4- to 6-month long trip. (The
atmosphere is also very little help, for example, for Musk's plan.) It is more
accurate to say that it is slightly less costly to land on Mars _for a day_
than it is to _land an entire Lunar base and live on the Moon for 6 months._
Add to this the return trip time to Earth for emergencies (or the time it
takes to send emergency supplies and crew), and the Moon wins, hands down.
(Indeed, a better place to work out how to survive on Mars would be if you
could find places on the Moon where we couldn't land and had to rely on weeks
of overland travel from a landing site to get there.)

Third, the absolute first step should be an experimental, shielded, rotating
habitat (probably built from Lunar materials) in orbit either outside of
Earth's van Allen belts or around the Moon. This habitat should be of
sufficient size to address the effects of, at least, Moon-like (1/6) and Mars-
like (1/3) gravity on human subjects for multiple years. It needs to either be
able to spin up and down to these values, have separate sections for Mars and
Moon gravity, or we need to have a separate base on the Moon. We already know
that space kills us in many, many ways. Until we have characterized _how we
're even going to survive_ there, there is absolutely no sense in talking
about _settling_ there.

Any announcement that doesn't address these directly is just PR.

~~~
oldmanjay
No information of that sort was available in JFK's announcement about going to
the moon, either. You're right that this part is PR, but your expectation is
too unrealistic to take it very seriously. If you're trying to insinuate that
no one is considering these issues, I assure you, they are very aware.

~~~
theothermkn
The Moon trips were jaunts, not efforts at settlement. I'm not sure what
"expectation" you are referring to. Can you clarify?

~~~
oldmanjay
I was referring to the expectation that a political announcement would contain
satisfying technical details.

------
smoyer
This work aboard the space station is the heart and soul of the first stage of
NASA’s Journey to Mars; a stage we call “Earth Dependent.”

The ISS and shuttle are (or in the case of the shuttle "were") broadly
considered a waste. There was a recent article posted here that described how
they really only existed for each other ... and to give NASA a public facing
"expedition".

~~~
nickff
The Space Shuttle was originally called 'station shuttle', as it was meant to
service a large orbital space station (planned to be launched in the 1970s).
Unfortunately for NASA, its budget was cut during and after the Apollo
missions, and it decided to postpone the station, but keep the shuttle. The
MIT course on the Space Shuttle is very informative; you might find the
episode on the decision to build the shuttle particularly interesting.[1]

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOAyzURugaw&list=PL35721A60B...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOAyzURugaw&list=PL35721A60B7B57386&index=4)

~~~
smoyer
They also originally envisioned "Single-Stage-to-Orbit" and a turn-around time
more like that of an airplane.

~~~
nickff
I don't know of any shuttle study that envisioned it being SSTO. The original
shuttle configurations did contain a liquid-powered 'flyback booster', which
was a first stage with the ability to fly back to the launch site. Many of
these configurations also had retractable jet engines mounted on the shuttle
orbiter, as well as fuel and/or oxidizer tanks in the orbiter, but all these
options were nixed because of payload, cost, and schedule requirements. The
quick turn-around was originally viewed as desirable, but other things were
made higher priorities, and they gradually moved away from that objective.

------
frederikvs
from the article : 'the newly created Next Space Technologies for Exploration
Partnerships or “NextSTEP” program'

They might have just googled for their abbreviations first, so that they
wouldn't collide with an important historical operating system [0]. I get that
it's hard to find an unused three-letter acronym, but with 8 characters you
really should be able to find something unused.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP)

~~~
BinaryIdiot
To be fair as time goes on we're going to have collisions more and more to the
point where I think we'll either stop caring about collisions or we'll stop
caring about creating abbreviations / acronyms. I'm hoping for the latter :)

------
eddieh
Wow, so much naysaying here. When I hear about private plans vs government
plans I think back to what Neil deGrasse Tyson said:

> _Private enterprise will never lead a space frontier. In all the history of
> human conduct, it’s as clear to me as day follows night that private
> enterprise won’t do that, because it’s expensive. It’s dangerous. You have
> uncertainty and risks, because you’re dealing with things that haven’t been
> done before. That’s what it means to be on a frontier. [...] The government
> is better suited to these kinds of investments. They have a longer time
> horizon. They’re not shackled to quarterly reports like you see in a private
> enterprise._

I tend to agree with him. I'm betting on the government to get humans there
first. But I'll be happy to eat humble pie.

------
abalone
What about making human settlement of oceans a reality? Like, not just the
surface but the floors too. Seems like a suitably grand technology project
with massive potential benefits. I never hear about it though.. not sexy
enough? Doesn't capture the imagination?

~~~
greglindahl
Try:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_habitat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_habitat)

------
cydonian_monk
As nice as this is, it really is little more than an empty recap statement,
and leaves so many questions. When, exactly? There are seven or so decent
launch windows between now and "the 2030s," so what are we targeting? With
what money? It's nice that nextSTEP selected six firms, but aside from Space-X
(who is not on the list, mind you) I can't see others willingly donating
hardware and personnel without compensation. What steps are being taken to
insure this project won't be hacked to death by political whims?

More importantly: How can I (or any other individual) help? There's precious
little actionable data in this release.

~~~
savagej
Already taken:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP)
They really should have used a different name:
[https://www.nasa.gov/nextstep](https://www.nasa.gov/nextstep)

------
tdhz77
Does anybody know how one could get involved in Mars Settlement. I would like
to help out and go.

~~~
otabdeveloper1
We will settle Venus long before attempting Mars. Anybody talking about going
to Mars is spouting marketing vapor.

~~~
antisthenes
Even more likely than that - we'll turn Earth into Venus long before we send a
single person to another planet (if ever).

~~~
stale2002
You vastly overestimate the consequences our actions have on the planet.

The planet has been much different in the past.

No scientists at all, think that our effect on the planet is going to make it
literally unlivable.

Trillions of dollars in damages over the next century maybe. But trillions of
dollars in damages is just an Iraq War.

~~~
vkou
The planet have been different in the past.

Most of this past is incompatible with human civilization, as we know it.

For example, many scientists believe that the Permian extinction happened due
to a rapid release of greenhouse gases, and rise in temperatures - by ~6C. 95%
of the Earth's species were wiped out in a few years.

These kinds of events aren't trillions of dollars of damages. They are
billions of human deaths, as ecosystems collapse, as the tropics and
subtropics become uninhabitable.

Unfortunately for us, while CO2 may not cause such a drastic change in
temperatures over the next few decades, methane release very well might.

------
pascalxus
Before we spend the enormous amount money needed to settle humans on mars, I
really think we should be spending that money or effort to help people settle
Earth. Homelessness is still a big issue in cities. And last time I checked,
the vast majority of the middle class hasn't even paid off their own home, not
to mention property taxes. It doesn't make sense to build housing in outer-
space when we can't even do it affordably on our own planet. IMHO

Don't get me wrong. I think space is cool and fun, but that's what science
fiction movies are for, and the discovery channel/books, if you want non-
fiction.

~~~
logfromblammo
In contrast, I prefer to work on a problem that can be solved by technical
achievements in math, science, and engineering within my lifetime.

Don't get me wrong. I think utopian fantasy is cool and fun, but that's what
Star Trek television series are for, and the history channel/books, if you
want non-fiction.

Sociological problems are at least an order of magnitude more difficult than
space problems. When you send a robot to Mars, you don't have to worry about
how much power it will embezzle from the communications array, or whether it
will refuse to take its meds, or whether the value of the work it is doing is
enough to pay its mortgage. You could quite easily spend 100 times the cost of
a Mars colony on the people problems here on Earth, and achieve absolutely
zero visible results from it.

Besides that, unless you're going to force students into social work education
rather than aerospace engineering, there would be a lot of skilled laborers
leaving university with no useful jobs to do. You would be spending your money
on them sitting at home, uselessly dreaming about space, rather than spending
just a bit more for them to be actually working to advance technology.

------
prewett
So I suppose a Cassini-budget probe to Uranus or Neptune in my lifetime is
probably not going to happen with Mars sucking up all the funding?

Mars is cool, but I don't think a Mars colony is realistic. I'd rather pay to
see what the last two planetary systems look like.

------
sdegutis
> "We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America’s story in
> space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to
> Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended
> time."

Wait, why? Why do we _have to_?

~~~
jpindar
"because they are hard."

------
perseusprime11
Do we even need the govt in this anymore beyond just encouraging companies
like SpaceX?

------
fiatjaf
With your dollars we can do it!

------
once-in-a-while
I can't believe there's a serious discussion about this topic. Even if you
overcome the technical challenges (which I doubt), people would get depressed
on any planet other than Earth. All other planets are just insanely sad for
human life. Our soul would suffer to dead...

~~~
strictnein
People have lived in remote, desolate outposts on Earth for extended periods
of time for a wide variety of reasons (military, science, etc). And that was
without (basically) unlimited media to keep them from complete boredom.

------
hasbroslasher
Meanwhile a significant number of people starve to death globally.

Not to be the eternal downer, but I just can't understand how we haven't
figured out proper income distribution but think we'll be able to deal with
becoming extraterrestrials.

~~~
AgentME
You could say this about any other endeavor. We're creating iphones while a
significant number of people starve to death globally, etc.

(If someone's response is that it's okay specifically because Apple is a
private company, then well honestly I'd be a bit concerned about the
preconception that capitalism is automatically moral. If minimizing the number
of people starving was the goal that beat other goals, then taxes could be
raised on companies like Apple until society put more effort into reducing
starving than building iphones.)

~~~
hasbroslasher
Maybe it's just me, but if we suck at living on a super habitable planet then
I seriously doubt our fitness as a species to live in less hospitable corners
of the universe.

~~~
elsonrodriguez
There's 7 billion people on earth. I think we're pretty good at living here.

------
cowardlydragon
Just help fund SpaceX's plan

OR

Set up a moon base to help the plan

OR

Help nuclear pulse drives for the interplanetary trips.

------
anti_censor
Barack trying to steal Musk's thunder?

------
kfrat
Making Human Settlement of Space a Reality; So We Can Have a Nanotech Accident
and it Won't Affect Earth. Also see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo)

------
matchagaucho
... but Elon has better video simulations.

