
Elon Musk argues that putting a million people on Mars ensures humanity's future - todayiamme
http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/the-elon-musk-interview-on-mars/
======
chc
All this talk of sending people to Mars seems like putting the cart before the
horse. If you have the technogy to not die on Mars, why not start with, say,
underwater cities on Earth? At least there you'd have a ready supply of
several life-supporting elements that would be absent on Mars. As it is, we've
never tried to ensure anybody's long-term survival under conditions anywhere
near as harsh as Mars — no air, no nitrogen, no readily available water, no
indigenous animals to hunt, no fossil fuels, no geothermal energy, no hydro or
windmills.

I never see plans to get around this with real-world technology — it's always
just hand-waved as something we'll figure out. But it seems like the "letting
people live natural lives under utterly inhospitable conditions" part has a
lot more to do with ensuring humanity's survival than the Mars part.

~~~
danielweber
_why not start with, say, underwater cities on Earth?_

Because they don't want to live on underwater cities on Earth. They want to
live on Mars.

~~~
philwelch
Who wants to live on Mars?

~~~
kibwen
This is a legitimate question, so I don't think downvotes are warranted. Elon
Musk may want to live on Mars (and in fact I have at least one friend who
would abandon everything and take a one-way ticket to Mars in a heartbeat),
but the sentiment expressed here of using a Martian population as insurance
against an Earthborne cataclysm requires a functioning, self-sufficient
civilization composed of more than just a cadre of explorers and thrill-
seekers.

You'll need to find a way entice doctors, farmers, miners, and other
specialized professions to leave everything behind and consign themselves to
death on a dark and barren rock. Historically, colonists have been motivated
to such lengths for religious and political reasons. For example, perhaps
libertarians will flock to Mars for freedom from oppressive governments. (Hey
Bioshock developers: hint hint.)

~~~
philwelch
The relative unpopularity of colonizing places like Alaska says a lot though.
If you don't want to be hassled over your political or religious beliefs and
are willing to go a year between supply runs, there are entire towns in Alaska
that are perfect for you, or you could found your own. Curiously, few people
do this.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Alaska isn't another planet, and therefore lacks the allure that living on
another planet has for many people.

It really is that simple.

~~~
nemo
Alaska is relatively inhospitable, cold, distant from main human cultural
centers. Mars is vastly more so. While science fiction might give an imaginary
fantasy of life on Mars appeal, if there were somehow a fact rather than a
fantasy of some kind of habitation being possible there, the reality wouldn't
be pretty. I'd imagine we'd use the planet as a penal colony for the dregs of
society if it were a reality rather than a fantasy.

Also, I wonder how your version of "many people" compares to the population of
Alaska.

~~~
waterlesscloud
So people only think they'd like to live on Mars, but you know they really
don't?

~~~
nemo
No, I don't know, just imagine it would be different than how they imagine it.
I don't see living there through the lens of science fiction so much as
biology.

------
kibwen
Every time that this argument is made, I can't help but wonder if the mere
existence of a sustainable off-world colony would cause humans on Earth to
give even less of a damn about maintaining a habitable planet. A sort of moral
hazard
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard))
on an interplanetary scale. Which is to ask, could colonizing other worlds
actually accelerate the destruction of human civilization, rather than ensure
it?

As an alternative to possibly engendering environmental apathy, imagine a
scenario akin to the Cold War, except that one of the superpowers has a
million citizens on Mars, and the other doesn't. Does MAD still apply, or does
the interplanetary superpower suddenly becoming all the more willing to watch
the world burn?

~~~
jerf
Are you personally currently environmentally apathetic because you know China
is shoving as much burned coal into the air as they can?

Are you personally currently environmentally apathetic because you know
somewhere there are some unspoiled mountain lakes that are still hardly
touched by the hand of man?

Are you personally unconcerned about the possibility of your home being nuked
because thank goodness Alaska will probably survive?

You hypothesize a very bizarrely precise self-interest that very suddenly
gives way to complete wild suicidal abandon at a very precise point. I'm not
at all convinced what you've ordered up here can exist.

~~~
pessimizer
>Are you personally currently environmentally apathetic because you know China
is shoving as much burned coal into the air as they can?

Tons of CO2 emitted per capita:

United States 16.4

China 7.1

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#List_of_countries_by_2012_emissions_estimates)

I feel like China can do a lot more.

~~~
Aldo_MX
Countries by population:

    
    
      China         1,367,030,000
      United States   318,827,000
    

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population)

They do a lot more, you just saw a piece of the information.

~~~
arjie
It doesn't make sense to look at total emissions, though. Because then you can
create arbitrary groups and demand that they scale down. Should Europe cut
emissions because they're so high or is it okay for Germany to stay at current
levels because they're so low? Either per unit land area or per capita are
better measures.

The point is that if the Chinese had the standard of living that Americans
have, everything would shoot through the roof. And considering that they
don't, there's great potential for it to go wrong.

The whole "China shoving CO2 into the atmosphere" could just as well be stated
"Americans driving large SUVs that dump CO2 into the atmosphere". It doesn't
matter, we've all got to do our part.

~~~
Aldo_MX
What matters to the planet are the totals, I agree with your point that
Americans have standards of living that needs to be improved, but I don't buy
the argument that measures should be per unit land or per capita, because this
is not the case.

A large SUV won't dump as much CO2 as industrial manufacturing, for example.

~~~
arjie
Naturally what matters to the planet are the totals, but not going per-capita
or per-unit-area is asking a disproportionate share from different people. And
you can frame the problem using different groups in different ways so it is no
longer well defined. Observe:

1\. Members of the OECD must cut down on CO2 emissions. They far exceed
China's emissions. Totals are what matter, and the OECD certainly has a higher
total than China. China can't do anything so long as the OECD keeps pumping
CO2 freely into the atmosphere.

2\. North America must cut down on CO2 emissions. They far exceed that of
South Asia.

We can think of it this way. A certain standard of living requires some degree
of pollution + cost. It is not productive to ask the other guy to endure a
poorer standard of living while you live large just because he, as an
individual, lives in a place with more individuals. You can ask for that, but
it isn't going to happen.

------
jimktrains2
To the nay-sayers here:

“What if Columbus had been told, ‘Chris, baby, don’t go now. Wait until we’ve
solved our number one priorities — war and famine; poverty and crime;
pollution and disease; illieracy and racial hatred—and Queen Isabella’s own
personal brand of ‘interal security’‘” – W.I.E. Gates

Humans are capable of doing multiple things at once. Some people working on
space travel doesn't preclude others from working to slow (can we even reverse
at this point) climate change.

~~~
lukeschlather
He might not have started Europe on a 3-century adventure in genocide and
enslavement of other peoples?

~~~
s_q_b
That most likely would have happened anyway. Even without Columbus's voyage,
the existence of ships capable of intercontinental travel would have led to an
an encounter that would have played out much the same way: decimation of the
population by foreign pathogens from a society with strong immunity due to
high population density, ensuing collapse the native states that may have been
able to organize resistance, looting of mass quantities of gold and silver,
and mass agricultural slavery. The only difference would have been a slightly
greater technological edge for the invaders.

Also, there's nothing special about Europeans. If the explorers had been from
China via the eastern region, the scenario would likely have played out the
same way. Up until modern times, most warfare was either about power, e.g.
preventing a rising rival or conquering a falling power, or extraction, where
the goal was to remove as much wealth as possible in as short a period of time
as feasible. Given human history, extractive warfare against the native
population by militarily superior Eurasian invaders would be the expected
outcome.

So no, I doubt the lack of Columbus's voyage would have done more than set
back the timetable a bit, or changed the players. Societies in Eurasia just
had too much of a biological (germs from city density), technological, and
organizational advantage.

That said, what's unique about the Mars colonization idea is that we may have
a limited time window in which to try it. Given that our chief sources of
energy are non-renewable, we are living in a golden age of cheap production.
We haven't so polluted space for Kessler syndrome to lock us in. We even have
precociously advanced space technology due to the huge boost from the USA-USSR
space race.

Right now we're watching our space programs atrophy. There may be a limited
amount of time to get a viable off-world colony going.

Sure, right now we're talking about an Antarctica-style bunker mission, the
Martian equivalent of Apollo. But to get to a true space colony you have to
start somewhere.

~~~
ufmace
Mostly agreed, but having a truly independent Martian colony will surely
require millions of people to be transported there, and millions of tons of
material. If non-renewable fuels or Kessler syndrome are ever going to be a
problem, then any colony we found today is doomed to die waiting for the next
shipment of stuff from Earth.

~~~
s_q_b
Agreed. Colonization must include a very high degree of self-sufficiency.
Occupation is a prerequisite for colonization, and the window to do the work
necessary to complete the task of a true colony may not be that large.

------
api
This is an example of an actual "first world problem."

Other first world problems include:

* Decarbonizing energy and achieving a sustainable energy and transportation infrastructure. (Not coincidentally Elon's also doing work in that area.)

* Curing the diseases of aging and achieving significant life extension.

* Augmenting and enhancing human intelligence.

* Closing natural resource cycles to achieve a much higher rate of recycling and lower overall resource consumption.

* Discovering new positive-sum solutions to the conflict between economic liberty and economic fairness / wealth distribution. These problems are probably game theoretic in nature and will probably require thinking at that level.

* Unifying quantum mechanics with general relativity and unlocking a comprehensive and coherent understanding of ultimate physical reality.

* Achieving a true holistic comprehension of the language of genetics and inheritance that goes far beyond "a gene for X" correlation-fishing.

------
AndrewKemendo
This is one of the only articles I have read that keeps Musk's Mars vision in
check with doses of reality throughout:

 _On Mars, the best we can expect is a crude habitat, erected by robots...US
colonies from Roanoke to Jamestown suffered similar social breakdowns, in
environments that were Edenic by comparison...For all we know, revolutions in
energy, artificial intelligence and materials science could be imminent. Any
one of them would make human spaceflight a much easier affair._

The only thing that makes me feel better is that Musk seems to not be thinking
through it all the way...and I mean that in the best way possible. At this
point, from what I can tell he's still an evangelist and isn't putting
resources to solving the minutiae of how to live on Mars.

He is so laser focused on the logistics that he likely wants to leave
practicalities of the biology problem to someone else.

~~~
kiba
_He is so laser focused on the logistics that he likely wants to leave
practicalities of the biology problem to someone else._

The only way we're going to start colonizing Mars is that someone focuses on
making rocket cheaper.

We can wait, but we had waited for several decades after the Apollo landing.
Since then, in some way, technology had stagnated.

~~~
Shivetya
It is not just the cost of rockets holding us back, if we are going to do it
right and safely we will be years in sending robots there to make it ready for
people. Being so far away the habitat needs to be guaranteed before launch of
the colonist. It would take some serious advancements in robotics,
construction, and understanding of Mars geology, to make it happen.

We cannot ship all of if there, we can send the building blocks then use those
to mine, process, and construct, what is needed. A viable colony must operated
independently and not rely on Earth for its survival

~~~
kiba
_It is not just the cost of rockets holding us back, if we are going to do it
right and safely we will be years in sending robots there to make it ready for
people._

With current limitation in AI and robotics, sending robots is not really good
use of resources. They are inflexible and if something broke, it may be
difficult to fix on the spot. Don't forget that teleoperation from Earth takes
minutes, and by then, situation would have changed entirely.

You're better off sending a shit ton of materials to Mars, with many
redundancies so that a colonist can survive for years without going home,
until the next resupply point.

Teleoperation with the colonist nearby is a good idea though.

~~~
greeneggs
To get anything started you are already talking 30+ years in the future. Why
would you plan based on current limitations in AI and robotics? Better is
coming.

~~~
kiba
_Why would you plan based on current limitations in AI and robotics? Better is
coming._

We assume too much about the future. Technological progress is not inevitable,
as we had seen with the space programs.

Besides, when the time come, it's not like the plan won't be revised.

------
throwaway_yy2Di
What sort of existential risk is this supposed to protect against? The
articles' examples are all wrong (these aren't Musk's examples):

    
    
        "A billion years will give us four more orbits of the Milky Way
        galaxy, any one of which could bring us into collision with
        another star, or a supernova shockwave, or the incinerating beam
        of a gamma ray burst. We could swing into the path of a rogue
        planet, one of the billions that roam our galaxy darkly, like
        cosmic wrecking balls. Planet Earth could be edging up to the end
        of an unusually fortunate run."
    

Rogue planets are categorically not a threat to earth [0] -- the "cosmic
wrecking ball" is pure fiction. And you get no risk reduction from supernovas
/ GRBs by spreading out across planets -- even collimated GRB "beams" are
several degrees wide [1], a spot size light-years across (inner solar system
is merely light-minutes across). Actually, those things aren't existential
risks to a very advanced earth: their strongest effect is severe damage to the
ozone layer [2], which other planets don't have in the first place..

(I'm not at all dismissing exotic existential risks. But is this a solution,
or is it "We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do
this.")

[0]
[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/05/19/ar...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/05/19/are-
we-in-danger-from-a-rogue-planet/)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-
ray_burst#Energetics_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-
ray_burst#Energetics_and_beaming)

[2] [http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.4710](http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.4710)

~~~
mrspeaker
Maybe Musk is convinced by the doomsday argument[0] (or unconvinced by the
rebuttals), and sees this as a way to skew the probabilities.

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

------
x1798DE
I think this is a good long-term goal, but one thing that's missing from this
analysis is the urgency of the thing. Right now, we've never even put _one_
person on Mars, and keeping any significant Martian population alive would be
a considerable expense. The cost in human labor and materials would certainly
have to be diverted from other enterprises, as is the case with all economic
actions.

Given that we are on an exponential growth curve both in terms of technology
and wealth, it seems likely to me that by the natural course of things 100
years from now maintaining an extraplanetary base on Mars would be much
cheaper and easier, and would disrupt our growth rates much less, if at all.
It may be that by acting now, it would take us 200 years to create a self-
sustaining population on Mars, whereas if we wait 100 years, we'll be able to
get something up and running in just an additional 50 years, thus better
insulating us from disaster (consider that until the Mars colony is completely
self-sufficient, it will likely be wiped out by _any_ disaster on Earth, even
disasters that aren't a real threat to our species, as long as we don't have
enough surplus wealth to sustain an expensive Mars colony).

~~~
tomp
The opposing viewpoint is that since we're decelerating our technological
progress and achieving new wealth by pursuing more and more trivial
enterprises (come on, it's a messaging app!), a new kind of space race that
inspires generations to come might exponentially accelerate our progress, just
like the last space race did!

~~~
damon_c
> decelerating our technological progress

Deceleration from what velocity? That of the 1800s? the 1900s? It seems
obvious to me this isn't the case.

~~~
tomp
That of the 1950/60/70s. The last space race and the cold war provided us with
plenty technologies (transistor, computers, GPS, internet) that are still the
main drivers of progress nowadays.

~~~
jl6
I think this point of view ignores all the boring, unsexy, non-headline-
grabbing progress that has developed 1950s inventions into what we have today.
Progress is the aggregate of millions of very small advances.

~~~
damon_c
Yes, and you could also argue that if our progress rate was sampled at a rate
proportional to the total duration of human progress, the period from the
1950's to today is really one sample and the curve at this moment is just
beginning to look like a hockey stick.

------
kokey
I'm somewhat taken by surprise by the negative comments on here. I couldn't
agree with him more.

------
macspoofing
Ok sure. Let's try tackling immediate issues that have huge implications on
our survival like climate change, before we make plans to send thousands of
people to a place more inhospitable than Antarctica.

Colonization is a pipe-dream in our immediate future.

~~~
bsbechtel
He's probably doing more to tackle climate change than anyone else on this
planet (Tesla). There is no 'we' making plans to colonize Mars, there is Elon
Musk making plans.

~~~
cwal37
No, he's not doing more to tackle climate change than anyone on this planet.
Let's say 25,000 sales in 2013 and 35,000 sales in 2014 [1]. That's 60,000
cars. Now let's take the numbers for electric GHG emissions vs. conventional
emissions from this 2006 paper[2]. This is more of a reference, I'm not trying
to say this paper is the unassailable truth. Also a disclaimer, these numbers
will obviously be rough, again, just trying to paint a picture.

These numbers have 3 scenarios, all fairly optimistic:

Conventional (gasoline) emissions are 19.9 kg GHG emissions per 100 km.

1\. Electricity is produced from renewables and nuclear

1a. Electric emissions are 0.343 kg/100km

2\. 50% electricity from renewables, and 50% from natural gas with a 40%
efficiency

2a. Electric emissions are 5.21 kg/100km

3\. All electricity from natural gas with a 40% efficiency

3a. Electric emissions are 10.1kg/100km

At this point, I should note that burning natural gas has roughly half the
emissions associated with burning coal in terms of CO2 equivalency.

Let's run with the middle scenario, which is still totally not representative
of the country as a whole[3]. And we need some mileage, thankfully there are
statistics on that. I'll use the 35-54 age group, which I'm guessing are the
most likely to own Teslas, so 15,291 miles a year[4], which becomes 24,608km.

Aright, so we have 60,000 electric cars that we're gonna assume are straight-
up replacing 60,000 conventional cars. Each car would replace 14.69 _(24608
/100) = 3614.9152kg/year_(60,000 cars) = 216,894,912kg. This is the annual
grossly simplified reduction in emissions of replacing 60k conventional cars
(using numbers from that paper for what a conventional car means) based on
that idealized generation mix.

In 2012, our emissions were 6,526 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent[5].
Scaled down to our kilograms, it becomes 6,526,000,000,000kg. That amount
displaced up above would account for 0.00332% of total emissions in 2012 based
on those numbers.

For some other perspective, Ford F-series sales have been up significantly the
past two years[6] post-ish recession, and 16 mpg seems like a reasonable
average for that line of vehicles[7].

More perspective, the MIT study "The Future of Coal"[8] pegged an average
500MW coal plant as producing 3 million tons of CO2 a year (although it ranged
up to 4.5 or so million tons in other literature). That presents a range of
2,722,000,000 - 4,082,000,000 kg. Although not all of that is necessarily
emitted in every case. So, displacing one 500MW coal plant with say, a large
wind farm, would displace 12.5x what those 60k cars would do annually.

Basically, what I'm getting at is that researchers and policy makers involved
with utilities, DOE initiatives, and state governments (via RPS, no
overarching federal clean energy policy[although the PTC obviously has a huge
effect]) are probably all doing more to tackle climate change than Elon Musk.
Not to crap on him, I would love to own a Tesla, I just like energy topics.

Links 2 and 8 are pdfs.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Motors#Model_S](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Motors#Model_S)
[2]
[https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~sabrash/110/Chem%20110%20...](https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~sabrash/110/Chem%20110%20Spring%202014%20Articles/Economic_and_environmental_comparison%20of%20conventional.pdf)
[3]
[http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/0?agg=2,...](http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/0?agg=2,0,1&fuel=vvg&geo=g&sec=g&linechart=ELEC.GEN.ALL-
US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.COW-US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.NG-US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.NUC-
US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.HYC-US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.AOR-US-99.M&columnchart=ELEC.GEN.ALL-
US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.COW-US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.NG-US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.NUC-
US-99.M~ELEC.GEN.HYC-US-99.M&map=ELEC.GEN.ALL-
US-99.M&freq=M&start=200101&end=201407&ctype=linechart&ltype=pin&rtype=s&pin=&rse=0&maptype=0)
[4]
[http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm](http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm)
[5]
[http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/sources.html](http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/sources.html)
[7]
[http://www.fuelly.com/car/ford/f-150](http://www.fuelly.com/car/ford/f-150)
[8]
[http://web.mit.edu/coal/The_Future_of_Coal.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/coal/The_Future_of_Coal.pdf)

------
tslug
If you take the work involved in keeping a closed, armored, pressurized
habitat viable on Mars and instead direct it to create a closed, armored,
pressurized habitat viable underwater or underground on Earth, you should get
the same insurance policy at a considerably lower cost.

~~~
lotsofmangos
We've done that. It's called a nuclear bunker.

------
oskarth
To all the naysayers and party poopers in this thread, I would like to bring
to your attention the following excerpt:

 _Calling multi-planetary life an insurance policy “for life as we know it,”
the 40-year-old physicist /entrepreneur/inventor warned that catastrophic
natural or man-made disasters -- such as the planetoid collision that wiped
out the dinosaurs eons ago or nuclear holocaust or climate change -- could
someday wipe out humankind.

Space exploration “is the next natural step” in the 3.8-billion year evolution
of life on earth, he said.

Musk suggested that .25% of the nation's gross domestic product would be an
“appropriate” expenditure by the United States on space exploration, which he
said is roughly the percentage an individual spends on life insurance. Space
exploration spending, he said, should be "much less than we spend on health
care, but maybe more than we spend on lipstick."_ ([http://press.org/news-
multimedia/news/space-exploration-crit...](http://press.org/news-
multimedia/news/space-exploration-critical-human-survival-spacex-entrepreneur-
elon-musk-says))

Now, before you start complaining about climate change, gamma rays and
comparing him to a disillusioned clown, answer the question: is it reasonable
for us to spend more money on space exploration than lipstick?

EDIT: Talk about people missing the point. Keep on hating, just let Musk and
people like him do their thing. Luckily, online comments have very little
influence on the world.

~~~
bikamonki
It is more reasonable to spend on AI research, wich can be done from comfy
Earth, and truly is THE NEXT logical evolution for bilogical life. Why would
we want to carry this perishable resource-needy bodies into space
colonization/exploration if we can go in semi-indestructible digital form?

~~~
valarauca1
God creates humans, humans kills God.

Humans create AI, AI kills Humans.

The problem with creating something, is how do we know how it will judge its
creator? The thought of creating another form of sentience scares me on a very
deep philosophical level.

~~~
bikamonki
Backtrack a little to "God creates humans" and take another path: life
happened then evolved, digital life may be the next step. Do you still feel
scared down this new path?

~~~
valarauca1
This was a bit of play of words from Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum's speech
about dinosaurs. It wasn't meant to convent a theist view point, if anything
it nearly quotes Nietzsche about Man killing God.

My point is when life evolves, what it evolves from is destroyed in the
process. As I represent the lower step, yes I am afraid. Natural Selection is
nature selecting the more competitive life form. Nature isn't kind about this
if earthquakes, asteroids, super novi, volcanoes taught you nothing.

Have you ever wonder why there is only one member of Homo genius on earth? We
killed them all. Our species raped and murdered its way to dominance. We were
faster, smarter, and better looking. We out hunted their lands until they
starved, we stole any member we found attractive, and we killed them over
berry patches and watering holes.

The difference is 5, 10 million years ago. Spears, Rocks, Fists, Feets were
simple weapons. Today, we nerve gas, weaponized smallpox, atomic bombs. The
best part is, most of those things will barely harm silicon based AI.

I have no reason to believe any other step in evolution would be any less
violent then every single step before it. And as I represent the old, I know
the point of that step will be rid nature of me.

------
CPLX
Did he mention anything about telephone sanitizers and account executives?

~~~
aruggirello
Well, before boarding the ship, make sure they have enough lemon-soaked paper
napkins aboard, or expect a delay...

------
scottjad
Hi, my name is Elon, and I have a great idea! We should tax Americans $42
billion/year indefinitely and pay much of that money to my company SpaceX.
We'll build something on Mars, eventually, if possible.

Let's have the US Congress fund this because as we all know they, like me,
have no conflicts of interest, make decisions based purely on the science,
have a very low time preference, are good stewards and very wise spenders, and
plan for the future. And if Congress funds it then Americans must be willing
to pay for it because, ta da, democracy!

I'm pleased to announce that I have made a personal and very generous
contribution of $10 million to increase public awareness about the need for
this project.

You're welcome humanity.

~~~
random28345
> We should tax Americans $42 billion/year indefinitely and pay much of that
> money to my company SpaceX.

Sounds like a better use of taxpayer dollars than spending trillions to bomb
brown people on the other side of the planet. And it will cost me less
personally to fund a trip to Mars than I pay for a trip to Starbucks, so it's
quite the bargain.

~~~
scottjad
Almost no one who advocates for government spending makes it conditional on
eliminating other government spending. This would be in addition to the
current military spending.

Also, he wants 0.25% of US GDP indefinitely, so ignoring all the complexities
of taxes maybe an approximation would be 0.25% of your gross income, every
year for the rest of your working life, or like, maybe 10,000 times the the
cost of a trip to Starbucks.

------
diydsp
As humans, we tend to see things through our own lenses.

I happen to believe that if everyone played music together once a week,
humanity's future would be preserved through the effects of mutual
cooperation, trust and survival information communicated through music.

Clowns probably believe humanity's future is ensured through everyone laughing
at squirting flowers and Bill Gates probably believes curing malaria will
ensure our future.

These are all overly-biased, myopic views which when stretched to the point of
determining the fate of the entire human race become equally absurd. They're
little more than attention-seeking plays.

~~~
kiba
_These are all overly-biased, myopic views which when stretched to the point
of determining the fate of the entire human race become equally absurd. They
're little more than attention-seeking plays._

No offense, it sounds like "deep" bullshit. You had yet to explain why Musk's
views are myopic.

And curing malaria ensuring our future? Do you really expect Bill Gates to
believe that? It seems far more likely that he see malaria as unnecessary harm
and sought to eliminate it.

~~~
keenerd
Gates actually has stated what he feels is needed to ensure our future.
Eliminate all CO2 production as soon as possible. To that end he's funding
TerraPower's traveling wave reactor research. (Personally I feel this has a
50/50 chance of being a boondoggle, probably because it's an IV company.)

------
cyphunk
How I read this: Man argues that because we cant get away from the competitive
nature of the male dominance that pushes society into its gluttony for growth
("Get that GDP up!") we have no alternate but to find new sources to exploit
for growth.

While I admire Musk for his accomplishments this is no reason for us to follow
his lead in ignoring the core of the problem. I'm all for absurdity masked as
"vision" except when it distracts from serious problems. This is not really a
critique of musk. His push for electric cars shows clearly he's both concerned
as much with saving this environment as he is with leaving it. I'm just not
sure great attention from the public to this idea of Mars inspires that same
balance.

Finally, to entertain the idea of a colony on Mars is pretty much tantamount
acknowledging you're lineage is going to die off. You do notice he said 1
million people. So I ask the proponents, are you really worried about the
survival of humanity or does this issue touch some other motives? Perhaps just
the novelty of it. Perhaps the relief it gives you from not having to waste as
many neurons on thinking about ecological complexity and the economic
complexity it carries.

In the same manner that Musk would say "fuck Earth" why can't we just say
"fuck civilisation". I'm certain microbes and life on earth will continue
onward long after we are gone.

~~~
cyphunk
here is a better idea, develop self sufficient AI that will miss us enough
when we all die out on earth that they will make sure the development of life
here eventually produces new human friends a billion years later after earth
heals from our mess. what do we call this?

------
bilalhusain
server is throwing a 500

Here's link to Google cache:
[http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http://aeon.co/magazine...](http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/the-
elon-musk-interview-on-mars/)

------
rottyguy
I find an interesting intersection with his Tesla efforts (and perhaps more
grand, the battery plant in Nevada)that can potentially provide mechanical
autonoma on said colony without the need for fossil fuels and their high
initial investment costs. Is he picking his earth bound investments in a
manner that could carry forward into space?

------
dxbydt
I asked my wife "do you want to go to Mars?" She was in the other room with my
noisy kid and she yelled back "No let's go in April"

Took me a while to process that:) The comments here seem to have the same sort
of disconnect from what Mr. Musk is actually proposing. One gentleman suggests
the only thing that's holding him back is the lack of a suitable Martian
school district. Forget Martian teachers, or even a single Martian school - he
wants an entire Martian district of schools so he can A/B test his way to the
best one for his kid. Well, more power to him! At this rate, forget Mars,
going to Mountain View for the 90 day yc gig seems a formidable exploration -
what are you going to do about the school district there?

------
whiteshadow
They say things like, “Nature is so wonderful; things are always better in the
countryside where there are no people around.” They imply that humanity and
civilisation are less good than their absence. But I’m not in that school,’ he
said. ‘I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness, to make
sure it continues into the future.’

Agreed that humanity can have a more positive impact of the world/universe,
but this seemed to be a statement that humanity is above all things, including
nature. Nature should be respected and we should have our boundaries. It is
dangerous to think that human can play god, or have some kind of superior
ownership of the universe.

------
mNemoN
Well, this is phantasmagory. The mars has actually very low magnetic shield
and almost no atmosphere. The core of mars, which should generate this kind of
field, as earth do, is burned out. There is no way how to create and sustain a
sufficient atmosphere to colonize this planet. What worse the earth come to
this point soon or later and solar wind flush all atmosphere and vegetation
and there will be another mars on solar orbit. Humankind should focus to leave
this world and transcend to another form of life :))))

~~~
keenerd
> There is no way how to create and sustain a sufficient atmosphere to
> colonize this planet.

A magnetic field is not necessary for an atmosphere. Venus also has no
magnetic field, four times the solar wind pressure and somehow ends up with
90x more atmosphere than Earth.

True, any atmosphere we put on Mars will slowly bleed away but we'll be able
to top it off faster than it leaks out.

edit: It also depends on the gas. For example, Earth's CO2 levels are only 4x
higher than Mars's. It is possible that very hardy (probably engineered)
plants could grow in an unpressurized greenhouse.

------
mironathetin
Colonizing Mars is a cool project, no doubt. But in order to let humanity
survive, I personally would focus on earth. We must develop ways to live in
balance with nature. And we should have started yesterday.

WWF just released its annual report. Shocking.
[http://www.worldwildlife.org/publications](http://www.worldwildlife.org/publications)

~~~
maneesh
Have you flown a plane in the last year? Because then you've used up more than
your CO2 share as a human being.

It's almost impossible to live in balance with nature in today's society

~~~
user24
> It's almost impossible to live in balance with nature in today's society

To me, that is an indication that we need to change today's society, not a
justification for doing nothing.

~~~
simonh
Even our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn't live in balance with nature. They
laid waste to continent sized forests (mostly using fire strip hunting - set
fires to force game into a kill zone), wiped out hundreds of species of mega-
fauna with over-hunting, created deserts through over-grazing. Even retreating
into the wilderness and living off the land just makes a big artificial farm-
shaped hole in the wilderness.

~~~
lutusp
> Even our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn't live in balance with nature.

That depends on how one defines "balance with nature". We're just a species
competing for resources with other species. To argue that what we do is
anything but a normal survival strategy is to buy into a supernatural role for
human beings on planet Earth. In fact we're a natural species, and we follow
entirely predictable patterns of natural selection.

> Even retreating into the wilderness and living off the land just makes a big
> artificial farm-shaped hole in the wilderness.

And? Is a farm distinct from an anthill, or is it a natural variation? We may
see ourselves as exceptional, as separate from nature, but nature certainly
doesn't see us that way.

~~~
simonh
I completely agree, we are natural creatures. That doesn't mean that wiping
out species and destroying ecosystems by our activities is OK.

In many cases it has long term detrimental consequences far in excess of the
short term benefit of the economic activity causing the damage. Personally,
I'm an advocate of factoring in the environmental costs of our economic
activities and taking those costs into account. However the idea that we can
live in balance without having an impact on the world around us is a fantasy.

------
bayesianhorse
The money/resources necessary to put one million people on Mars with a self-
sustainable industrial base would be better spent trying to stave off disaster
on our home world. It's easier, cheaper and faster to detect and deflect
asteroids than building that colony...

Not that building colonies in space wouldn't be a good idea for other reasons.

------
al2o3cr
Technically, I suspect we could improve humanity's chances by launching a
million-person mission to the _Sun_. The tricky bit is figuring out which
million people to put in the rocket...

~~~
nabla9
>The tricky bit is figuring out which million people to put in the rocket.

Humanity attempts to answer this question using trial and error method. From
the previous attempts we now know that the correct answer is not:

\- the proletariat,

\- Jews,

\- Circassians

\- Armenians

\- American Indians or indigenous peoples in general.

------
jabberwock
It seems like we have a long way to go when we're still struggling with
servers that can handle a few hundred requests per second.

Edit: Drats, I spoke too soon. The server seems to up now.

~~~
Igglyboo
Really i/o bandwith probably isn't the issue here, latency will be an issue
for communications between mars and earth but as far as getting to the colony
and sustaining it will be a lot of hard math problems and impressive
calculations.

Oh and node can easily do millions of connections and lighttpd beat the 10k
problem a long time ago.

~~~
jabberwock
My comment was made in jest, the site was initially returning 500 status
codes. To their credit they got it back up within half an hour.

------
thirdtruck
Yes. All of the digital backups in the world won't help the species after a
global catastrophe unless we have some human operators backed up somewhere
offsite.

------
ilitirit
The site is down, but does he mention why thought ought to be 1 million is
enough? Why not 100000? Why not 5000?

~~~
seanflyon
People cannot survive (self sufficiently) on Mars without an industrial base
and we don't have that clear of an idea how many people that will take. It has
never been done with anywhere near as few as 1 million, but we are getting
better at it so maybe we could reduce that number even further.

------
Vadoff
Or we could just limit people to having 2 kids, and most of our
population/environmental problems are gone.

------
dosh
After reading this and "the everything store," I wonder what Jeff Bezos & Blue
Origin (which started in 2000) would feel about Elon's recent endeavors with
SpaceX (started in 2002), considering his highly competitive character.

~~~
SuperChihuahua
They are not competitors. I don't know what Bezos said about it, but Elon Musk
said:

"Every time I see Jeff, I ask him why he's not doing more in space."

"Our [SpaceX] competitors are not Paul Allen and Richard Branson, but Boeing,
Lockheed, and the big aerospace companies. I'm really glad to see all the
activity in entrepreneurial space and hopefully this heralds a new era of
space exploration with price and quality improvements similar to other
technology arenas."

~~~
dasmoth
Note that they're going to be competing a little more in the future. It was
announced a couple of weeks ago that Blue Origin will be supplying engines to
ULA (the joint venture of LockMart and Boeing that operates the Atlas V and
Delta IV rockets).

------
hughdbrown
You first. I am not relocating to Mars and trying to raise my kids in non-
existent school districts.

Or: Earth has a lot of advantages over Mars. Why would you totally diminish
your life's possibilities and leave?

~~~
danielweber
This isn't about moving everyone to Mars. This is about colonization, which
_always_ happens with an extremely small fraction of the original population.

~~~
hughdbrown
I'm not negating that proposition. I am saying that people have alternatives
in life and I can't imagine a life on Earth that is so bad that moving
somewhere that has no water, no atmosphere, no food, no anything would be
better.

Chance of dying -- high. Chance of having children -- low. This is not rocket
science, as they say.

~~~
lotsofmangos
Not many people become polar explorers either. For some people the challenge
is worth almost any risk, look at nutters like the wingsuit proximity flyers,
for instance. If there is a rocket to Mars you will have no problem filling
it. For certain people you will have problems sending them away. I suspect a
team of people may have to physically restrain Brian Blessed from invading the
launch site to try and stow away on board if he isn't among those selected.

------
Thiz
Plus another million on the moon. Just in case.

------
rcyn
I think it was Saramago who said "Either we are blind or we are mad," sending
people into space rather than fixing problems here. Humanity should face its
mistakes.

------
iand
Someone needs to introduce him to [http://www.mars-one.com/](http://www.mars-
one.com/)

------
davidy123
OK, he can go first.

~~~
danielweber
You say that like he's trying to shove you in the rocket.

------
Datsundere
its better to habitat earth like planets.

------
msoad
Elon Mask is really smart. He know how to keep his name in headlines all the
time. This kind of arguments are nothing but tools for gaining more publicity

~~~
general_failure
Totally. I am kind of surprised all this is generating so much discussion.
Saying this is semi-meaningless given we don't have the needed technology.
It's not even a nice vision. I don't know anyone how would want to live in
Mars.

------
UltraMagnus
So, Musk is doing PR for the new Chris Nolan movie, now? I don't remember
seeing it in the trailers for Interstellar, but did the rockets have the
SpaceX logo on them?

"to ensure humanity's future" This guy...unbelievable.

------
bikamonki
Define 'future'. A million years? What when the Sun has swallowed the Earth
and Mars? I don't think biological humans will colonize space, not even the
Moon, digital humans will. The Singularity is coming, hopefully within our
lifespan.

------
billiam
I hate to say it, but I am well and truly tired of this flim flam man. This
latest gambit is surely the most cynical plot of them all. He really is the
latest Steve Jobs, whose marketing genius was imagining a never-ending string
of products that define a superior class of people.

The Musk M.O:

1\. Identify industry with big inefficiencies that depends on huge government
subsidies. That's cars, commercial space vehicles, mass transit and now:
colonizing another planet with the 0.1%.

2\. Convince the media and envious government officials you are Tom Swift, boy
inventor. Have these governments fight over how many billions to give you to
build your space car factory.

2\. Use these taxpayer dollars and gigantic tax breaks to create iconic
products and services for the elite class, effectively transferring huge
dollars from the poor to the rich.

3\. Rinse and repeat.

I see no evidence at all that Musk cares any more about technologies to enable
several billion of us to live together without slaughtering each other than he
does about money

~~~
informatimago
I wonder. Elon Musk is not an idiot.

Then why did he say that to go to Alpha Century you needed 40 years? Why does
he participate to this world wide disinformation?

Since 1904, we know that to go to Alpha Century, if you can accelerate to a
non negligeable fraction of the speed of light, then you need a time that
below the distance, and non negligeably close to zero.

In clear terms, to go to a star that is 4 light years away, with a 1 g
constant accelleration, you need to travel for about 2 years.

If you put in space a nuclear reactor (that can produce energy for more than
ten years), and if you can use that energy to produce constantly a 1g
accelleration, then you can easily go to Alpha Century, in 2 years, spend 2
years there, and come back in 2 years, for a total travel of 6 years. Now tell
me we can't with the current technology build a space ship that can work
safely for 6 years!

Of course, when you come back to Earth, 82 years will have passed on Earth. I
hope you put your saving in a good investment fund.

Anyways, I'm wondering why Elon Musk, amongst all others, is propagating this
lie? It looks like quite a confirmation for a complot theorist...

~~~
lotsofmangos
You are massively overestimating the time dilation on that trip. You need to
be getting into the 90%c range before you start getting into decent amounts of
time dilation and then you start hitting into the increase in energy required
for the same acceleration, as your nuclear power plant or whatever has also
slowed down along with you, while you are increasing in effective mass.

edit - also, it is Alpha Centauri

