/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10889254
>Do you think it's possible for SpaceX to accomplish its goal to colonize Mars or is Mars environment too hostile for human life?
Barring the ever-present meme of Jello Babies, what is necessary for Musk's vision is a political or semi-political or social movement to incentivize colonizing Mars. There are sound business reasons to want to have infrastructure and a work force there (it's really fucking easy to launch rockets from Mars, and it's less hostile than the Moon in several big ways), but nothing on the scale of what Musk is aiming for.
>What's the most realistic outcome of Elon Musk's attempts to colonize Mars?
Like I said, the missing piece is the driving political or social pressure to have people who want to go to his new city. If he can both get the technology working and find a way to spark Manifest Destiny on Mars, the rest will take care of itself.

It costs money to get to Mars and then, once you're there, you don't make any money.

That's the problem. Create a way to make money on Mars where the revenue is larger than the expenses of getting there.

By all accounts, life in the Americas was awful for colonists for a very long time. One of the reasons slavery was so encouraged was because it was basically the only way to lower costs enough to make a profit from products like sugar. If you weren't a slave, and you voluntarily went to the Americas, you were either a fur trader or you were a guy with some job so horrible that you probably just went back to Europe after your contract was up. It took a few generations to go from that to profitable agricultural societies that were largely self sufficient.

>>10889283
Upside: Mars probably still has surface veins of all of its metal types, ready to pick up off of the fucking ground. I would expect a series of lightweight sifting missions of small rovers sent to the sites of old rivers would be able to sort out potential significant gold deposits too.
Downside: there's still as much surface area as the landmasses of Earth to look through, and dedicating a human to look at something is going to be expensive as fuck for a century. That's even if Musk's city hits a population of 1 million before he dies (probably in the early to mid 2050s, barring unforeseen medical advancements).

>>10889289

There's no chance Musk will successfully colonize Mars. Making a science outpost with a greenhouse is about the best he'll accomplish, and maybe he'll do that several times. I don't think you realize the costs of the project vs his company's income.

There's no reason for there to be a million people on Mars, anon, that's the kind of point I'm trying to make. You need to create a revenue source first before that can happen.

If "well let's do it cause we can" was all it took, there'd be ten million people in Antarctica right now.

>>10889299
To be fair, Antarctica was partly held off by way of the threat of nuclear arms. Plus not knowing a good way to get through at least a kilometer of shifting ice to the goodies. While Mars is less hospitable than Antarctica, it is less variable in many important metrics.
That's why I think a political or social movement is the factor needed for mass-migration. Several of the early British colonies in North America were of this type, and their populations were vital feedstock for the few successful economic colonial projects in the works (like Jamestown's tobacco industry).

>>10889299
These things always depend upon public will. All it takes is for people to become inspired.

>>10889311
You'd be surprised about how many people want to live on Mars. Remember MarsOne? Over 200,000 people signed up for that shit.

>>10889314

Up above I gave the example of the Americas being colonized. That wasn't public will. The story that people emigrated en masse to the Americas for religious freedom and the like is barely true. Most people emigrated there for simple economic reasons and nothing else, and did so a century or two or three or four after colonization began, that's the part you're talking about.

What you need is some tycoons who are willing to intelligently take reasonable risks to create conditions and build infrastructure to make those economic opportunities. Then those tycoons are rewarded by what would probably be the biggest cash bonanza awarded to any small group of people in human history.

Musk is only solving the rocket problem, there's still too many problems otherwise and it's not cynical to say Musk can't solve all of them by himself.

>>10889320
Most of them would probably even let musk dress in leather and whip them like slaves in some quasi socialist empire.

But he strikes me as too loyal of a capitalist.

>>10889320

Anon, it takes considerably more effort to drive to work than it took to sign up for MarsOne, of course people would sign up for laughs. Even most of the people that think they'd like to go to Mars someday wouldn't want to if they knew the conditions that that will actually entail.

Colonizing Mars is something unrealistic. The environment is non permissible and it’s like trying to colonize mt. Everest. Much easier to try and colonize the moon.

>>10889321
>the example of the Americas being colonized
Have you ever noticed that the strain of puritan thought has never left American politics?
Of the colonists who landed at Plymouth off of the Mayflower, only 24 of the male colonists had children who survived. Today, over 35 million US citizens can trace their ancestry to those 24 male colonists. What's more, the ideological traces of those founders are still humming and alive four hundred years later.
That's the political argument: create one of the first livable colonies, and shape the future of mankind for centuries through the social aspects of the founder effect.

>>10889335

America isn't Puritan and there's nothing special about American genetics. What you ascribe as Puritan is pretty naive.

>>10889345
>America isn't Puritan
rolmao
Not in the historic sense, but the moralistic sense has been a northern star in its culture basically FOREVER.

>>10889349

Being moralistic doesn't mean being Puritan.

Congrats, you read some memes and saw some Puritans on a TV show, while being completely ignorant of US history.

>>10889254
If those are the two options "possible" or "not possible because danger", then the answer is definitely possible. The reasons we haven't are economic and political/social, not because its the challenges Mars poses to colonization are impossible.
A Mars city is expensive to build and populate, even if it is ultimately self sustaining, with little to no return on investment and no political drive to do so, nobody has invested the required funds.
>>10889333
>Moon Is easier
Hardly. Even lower gravity, even worse radiation, more abrasive regolith, 15 day nights, no atmosphere at all, fewer resources, sparse fissionables, far less water. Yeah its closer but if anything goes seriously wrong, both colonies are just as dead.

>>10889335
this

>>10889335
interesting take, but I don't think the puritan ethic is genetic, at least in modern America.

>>10889254
Yes. Most of the martian city will start off underground. Once population exceeds labour demands glass and steel will be refined and manufactured into a series of overlapping geodesic glass domes. This will create a microclimate and prevent dust. The perchlorates can be washed from the soil and used as a commodity. With a little moisture mosses, lichens and algaes would grow. In time a unique ecosystem will form.

Something like this.

>>10889254
>What's the most realistic outcome of Elon Musk's attempts to colonize Mars?
No result but a fucktons of advertisement and the guaranty that every President who want to "be the one bringing American human on Mars" will pay his fine American-Enterprise to do so instead of increasing NASA budget or other nonsense like working with other countries for mutual benefit.

Musk is scientifically illiterate and take the glory for others' works. The engineers doing the actual job simply won't say no to a rich brat paying them money to make badass spaceship that will still be useful to reach orbit. As all American raised with the New Frontier myth he probably believe he only need a space-conestoga wagon to settle it. The truth is that none of the resources that allowed the colonization of American will be at the reach of even a hundred of such ship.
We should be studying human body in orbit for decade first and building the infrastructure with separate spaceship to reach orbit, travel orbit to orbit, and land on planet. IMO we shouldn't care about the memes of colonizing planet as living and building space colony would be far more efficient.

Best thing that could happen for Mankind is for SpaceX to fail, go bankrupt and desperately cling to National Space Agency to salvage their launchers, setting up spacedock for real spaceship, which would require studying human life in space-station to lessen the cost and actual preparatory work to be done first.

>>10889572
t. oldspace

>>10889574
Don't forget to take your redpill before going to bed

>>10889254
Here's what you need to colonize Mars.

> restart the magnetic field by heating the core, this way you can create a stable atmosphere
> pump out CO2 into the atmosphere and grow plants to produce O2 with that CO2
> produce water, you will need to bring hydrogen
> Grow more plants for suistanable food
> our bodies deteriorate on different gravities, so we have to find a way to make our bodies more resistant to Mars gravity

We don't have the technology to do any of this, and it will require centuries. The most that we will see in our lifetimes is establishing a temporary colony that becomes unsustainable in a year, even less.

>>10889585
That's fullscale terraforming not colonisation.

It's much easier.

>>10889572
Almost everything you said was wrong. We've done plenty of studying people in orbit, and it means jack shit for partial gravity situations, space colonies are less efficient not more as you have to ship in literally everything, SpaceX driving down launch costs is a good thing for humanity and theres no reason to think it will fail in the near future, you even got plebtier knowledge wrong like how Musk 1) is self made 2) while not the supergenius the media pretends he is, isn't just a backer and does work as an engineer 3) isn't even American to be "raised with the New Frontier myth"
I'm going to guess you're a vatnik salty about Russia's ever-diminishing share of the launch market?

>>10889254
Colonize? I don't think SpaceX has the resources without a multi nation task force. I bet they could build an Antarctica style base though with a small team of astronauts.

>elon will never launch a rocket
>elon will never launch a satellite
>elon will never resupply the ISS
>elon will never land a reusable rocket
>elon will never test starhopper
you are here
>elon will never make a lunar flyby

it's rapidly getting close to the stage where the cynics ought to stfu. elon is making the meme reality. don't count out mars.

>>10889572
nice try, senator shillby

>>10889271
Can't you have orbiting stations to which accelerate centripetally around Mars at a rate which would be gravity on Earth? This way you could have a station for pregnant women and children so that they can develop normally. Hell, in the future we may even have cocoons/incubators for making CRISPR-engineered babies. Is this what they meant by Jello babies?

>>10889254

He should concentrate on orbital power plants instead.

>>10889254
They'll most likely setup an outpost with some development. Uncertain about human element being on mars by Spacex due to possibly strict NASA requirements. Maybe SpaceX will have their own private astronauts? Who knows.

As for the city in the picture, that's atleast 100 years away. However I can imagine a rudimentary level setup like roads/landing pads/pods and maybe even a large dome or underground tunnels.

>>10889299
I'm sure we can find 10000 people in this world willing and able to spend the money to go to mars if the ticket to mars was cheap enough (like buying a standard 250K house)

>>10889791

We surely can given all the idiots willing to buy one-way coffin ticked by Mars One.

>>10889254
>What's the most realistic outcome of Elon Musk's attempts to colonize Mars?
getting bankrupt of kicked out by shareholders for not being profitable

>>10889861
SpaceX isn't public

>>10889861
He'll never give up >50% of his share of SpaceX. Good luck trying to force his company out when he's a single majority owner of the company.

>>10889691
All the work we've done studying human biology is peanuts compared to what we will need and you don't seem to realize how little progress we've made in the technology we will need. You've read too many SF story where ISRU mean "self-sustaining magic factory". We don't even have the biotech to guaranty farm soil. And don't even need any human down there, remote controlling robot from Phobos/Deimos would do all the work typically attributed to "space pioneer".

If you truly cared about Colonizing Space the first step are large orbital colonies to study the best design quicker and then exploit asteroid instead of making inferior version down a gravity well for oldspace PR stunt. Just like the only rational solution to the egg basket problem should be building huge spacedock and sensors so we don't lose any eggs and accelerate the rate at which we can build space habitat to go at way better place in the solar system than the Red Memes, like the Jovian system, even the Moon is more interesting to settle than Mars on the long term.

SpaceX real engineers made a reusable rocket that might actually bring cost down, no contradiction on that.
But Musk is just your typical self-aggrandizing rich guy who happen to have papers giving him credits for the works of others. The only way to redeem him is if he actually lied about going to Mars to get funding and cared only for a reusable heavy lifter. It's not like he's going to do anything else if the life-support technology isn't ready anyway.
Plus that would still be more ethical than MARS ONE(way) plan to scam nations into sending infinite supply to keep their suicidal-population alive.

Go ahead and bring all your commies memes against me, you know I'm right.

>>10889861
They couldn't even kick him out of TESLA
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2166334/elon-musk-removed-tesla-chairman-will-remain-ceo

SpaceX is a huge fucking meme and it's going to crash and burn in spectacular fashion

>>10889767
This! And if the raw material comes from a chunk of a NEO, all the better

>>10889572
>IMO we shouldn't care about the memes of colonizing planet as living and building space colony would be far more efficient.

You cannot colonize vacuum, retard. Any space colony must either be on a planet or in orbit around an asteroid.

>>10889885
>If you truly cared about Colonizing Space the first step are large orbital colonies to study the best design quicker and then exploit asteroid

By far the most accessible asteroids are Phobos and Deimos. The other near-Earth asteroids are tiny rocks baked dry by the Sun, and with no atmosphere to utilize for aerobraking.

The path to colonizing the solar system goes through Mars no matter what.

>>10889887
they have been saying that since day one, yet doubters like you continue to get massively btfo on a near-monthly basis. seethe harder, shelbyspace fgt

>>10889254
The most realistic positive outcome is that Mars becomes Antarctica 2.0 with few research stations here and there. It's simply not economical enough yet so if you want to settle some places it's probably better to do so on earth, there is plenty of empty land here.

>>10889254
It's just PR for his internet satellites, high altitude travel and other space related business.

>>10889885
> exploit asteroid instead of making inferior version down a gravity well for oldspace PR stunt.
Yeah why would we ever go to a place that has a larger quantity and variety of resources that are more easily accessible, while also more than halving our radiation shielding requirements, providing gravity, and far far far easier transportation?
Totally inferior.

>>10889254
LOL

I'd go live on Mars, not bullshitting at all. I've got a pretty nice job and family etc but would give it all to go live there.

>>10889767
There are too many people on earth. Face it. You boomers are getting deported to mars. Prepare your anus.

Threadly reminder that Forge World Mars is the only economically viable use of the red planet. Everything else is just a pipe dream. Terraforming is never going to happen.

>>10890006
That's not what DeltaV map say. Near Earth asteroid would be easier to reach and leave than going to Mars, on the long term it would be cheaper to redirect and colonize asteroids -plural- than keep Mars colonies supplied with all the stuff they didn't know they needed.

>>10890102
That's bullshit of the same level as "alien want to steal the water of Earth".

There's enough resources in one average asteroid to supply the entirety of mankind for years and you aren't bothered by gravity unless you will it. Any free mass is going to be radiation shielding, you get to chose the position and orientation of your shield and move everything of value in a single piece. There's no wear and tear to speak of, this isn't TV where micro-asteroid storm happen as often as rain.
Done right you can expand your infrastructure indefinitely with low cost magnetic/tether launch, protecting and optimizing our civilization just moving factories or colonies. That's also what make airless moon more interesting.
Aerobraking is for primitive who don't have infrastructure, once you have proper space colonies you are halfway to anywhere.

Your "martian resources" are only going to be what you can dig out of the tiny crust of a cold highly irradiated hell with only water at the poles. Your resources are going to be thousand kilometers apart with none of the luxury Earth pioneer enjoyed. You'll be fighting the gravity well, dust storm and cold at all time, living underground as Mars only have shielding during the night and wasting energy just fighting the planet.

Set a surface colonies on Mars and you are just digging another overpopulated shithole who resent the free belters who enjoy custom paradise.
So stop clinging to oldspace memes and embrace the future of mankind as a true spacefaring civilization.

Should we nuke Mars?

Well the first few missions to mars will be a death trip until we can have a rocket than can take humans there and back, also i think it would be possible for us to live on mars, as basically everyone else on this thread have said, its basically the 13 colonies but with no source of income and no life on the planet.

>>10889254
They will not colinoze Mars until they don't build a space lift on Earth. Without space lift they can't supply Mars colonisation economically.

>>10892288
>That's not what DeltaV map say. Near Earth asteroid would be easier to reach and leave than going to Mars, on the long term it would be cheaper to redirect and colonize asteroids -plural- than keep Mars colonies supplied with all the stuff they didn't know they needed.

Wrong. All near Earth asteroids are tiny and baked by the Sun (by the virtua of being near Earth orbit), so no volatiles. The closest somewhat colonizable asteroids are Phobos and Deimos. Then it is Ceres and friends in asteroid belt. Also, redirecting asteroids? What bullshit.