Elon Musk is a nice chap

[sandalcandal]

Fantasy land.

Most people have absolutely no clue about the massive manufacturing and supply chain infrastructure required for even the most basic products we take for granted, let alone the more complicated ones.
Mars would have to be terraformed before we'd even come close to being truly self sufficient there.

Although, that being said, the Nazi's did it on the moon.

I said biggest milestone, as in ultimate, final achievement after everything else has been done. I'm sure there will be bigger milestones by the time it happens, if it ever happens, since it is so long away from happening.
I didn't say it's the first thing they should be trying to do 

[Psi]

Most people have absolutely no clue about the massive manufacturing and supply chain infrastructure required for even the most basic products we take for granted, let alone the more complicated ones.
Mars would have to be terraformed before we'd even come close to being truly self sufficient there.

yeah, with current technology that is the case.
but you never know what is just around the corner that could make producing complex goods a more generalized task.

Like 3D printers have done. (or maybe it's better to say 'have started to do').

If you could 3D print any silicone chip you wanted using one device, even if they were at 100nm, it would solve the need for a missive supply chain for semiconductors.
The martian kids are not going to be playing Crysis on 100nm cpus, but the radios will work, doors will open and computers can control life support systems.

Of course for it really work, you would need to be able to use one of these machines to create all the semiconductors needed to make a second machine.
etc..
Generalized replication of technical goods is the key for a self sustaining society on mars.
When we will get that, who knows, but i'm sure we will.

[EEVblog]

Most people have absolutely no clue about the massive manufacturing and supply chain infrastructure required for even the most basic products we take for granted, let alone the more complicated ones.
Mars would have to be terraformed before we'd even come close to being truly self sufficient there.

yeah, with current technology that is the case.
but you never know what is just around the corner that could make producing complex goods a more generalized task.

Like 3D printers have done. (or maybe it's better to say 'have started to do').

If you could 3D print any silicone chip you wanted using one device, even if they were at 100nm, it would solve the need for a missive supply chain for semiconductors.
The martian kids are not going to be playing Crysis on 100nm cpus, but the radios will work, doors will open and computers can control life support systems.

Of course for it really work, you would need to be able to use one of these machines to create all the semiconductors needed to make a second machine.
etc..
Generalized replication of technical goods is the key for a self sustaining society on mars.
When we will get that, who knows, but i'm sure we will.

Ah, the 'ol chip printer. Been a running joke on the Amp Hour for the last decade. I bet Chris Gammell that they wouldn't be around within a decade and I was right. I since extended that for another decade and I'll be right again.
But once again, it's vastly more than just the chips even if you did have a magical chip printer.
It's vastly easier to simply send a lifetimes supply of spare chips.

I did enjoy that Scifi show Terra Nova that lasted a season that had a chip printer.

I think in one of my videos on mars I said that it'll be at least 500 years before any sort of decent self sustaining colony on mars. But I think I was wrong. I think it's an absolute requirement for terraforming first to make Earth 2.0

[Siwastaja]

I find it quite hilarious how people who look quite sensible and not stupid at all, at the same time think "3D printing" as a very high-level concept being able to just magically "print" anything, including food, IC wafers if not even drinking water from electrons, neutrons and protons, and they think that the sudden availability of plastic-extruding printers somehow is a "proof of concept" that proves the same revolution somehow will happen as easily on printing anything.

This is quite some magical thinking.

To me, it's completely clear that extruding some melted plastic with a few stepper motors is utterly trivial, that part was no problem in 1950's. What actually happened in 2000's were the quick advances in semiconductors, not forgetting software efforts, allowing a cheap home computer to run complex and capable 3D CAD programs and make them more user-friendly as well, so that proper models can be created and sliced for those utterly trivial 3D printers to print.

But the key is, plastic is easy to extrude. You can simulate it with a hot melt glue gun with only an order of magnitude inferior precision. ICs are not that easy to manufacture, and not even close. There simply is no connection from melting plastic to making chips.

[EEVblog]

What I'd love to see on mars is a few dozen robots building automated habbitat's out of the soil and whatever else they can find, that would be very cool.
Some machine makes the bricks or whatever, and the others stack'em.
or maybe one of those spinning "3D printers" that build large round huts.
Probably quite doable. Moon too.
Build a mini city before you even arrive.

EDIT: Ah, these:
https://www.cnet.com/pictures/this-3d-printed-mars-habitat-could-be-your-new-home-in-space-marsha-ai-spacefactory/4/

[EEVblog]

This is cool

[sandalcandal]

This stuff reminds me on the concepts people were dreaming up for space suits and other early space travel tech before we landed on the moon in the 1930s.

https://spacecentre.co.uk/blog-post/the-bis-lunar-spacesuit/

The British Interplanetary Society is reminiscent of the current Mars Society.

[Kjelt]

I find it quite hilarious how people who look quite sensible and not stupid at all, at the same time think "3D printing" as a very high-level concept being able to just magically "print" anything, including food

There are already DNA printers aka DNA synthesizers that can create any protein or DNA string you tell it to.
So in theory we can already synthesize biological chains.
Food: yes even beef for food as a hamburger has been grown in laboratories since 2013.

Don't underestimate how fast a development can go if some hurdle has been taken. It is not a linear process but compared to children tech development are staircases graphics. One a step has been accomplished many things previously not thought off spinn off from it.

One of the biggest steps that are hopefully taken within a century is AI that can creatively think for itself and do research at an elevated rate compared to human beings and whose knowledge gain will not be lost after a lifetime.

However I agree with Dave that it makes not much sense creating electronics on other planets, easier to ship spare parts. That way you also keep control 

[Siwastaja]

Yes human has done quite advanced things but calling everything a "3D printer" just makes you sound stupid.

[CatalinaWOW]

Part of this is recognizing different scales of possibility.  I am fairly sure we could build a "chip printer" today, given a couple of caveats (feedstocks of silicon wafers and various chemicals) as long as it had to print only 1960s level chips.  It would have painfully slow production rate and the product would be unmercifully expensive.   I can think of little purpose it would serve, and the same kind of distinction would apply 50 years from now. 

Mars isn't impossible, just very difficult.  The problem is ratio of difficulty to desire, and obviously the desire part varies wildly between individuals and societies.  Material need is highly unlikely to drive desire to the required level.  But just as in semi manufacturing, once the infrastructure is in place for any reason the difficulty goes dramatically down for many other users/applications.  So there is a chance that Musk's delusions will transform into reality.

[nctnico]

What I'd love to see on mars is a few dozen robots building automated habbitat's out of the soil and whatever else they can find, that would be very cool.
Some machine makes the bricks or whatever, and the others stack'em.
or maybe one of those spinning "3D printers" that build large round huts.

3D printing using 'concrete' is already being done for homes people live in.

[coppice]

Part of this is recognizing different scales of possibility.  I am fairly sure we could build a "chip printer" today, given a couple of caveats (feedstocks of silicon wafers and various chemicals) as long as it had to print only 1960s level chips.  It would have painfully slow production rate and the product would be unmercifully expensive.   I can think of little purpose it would serve, and the same kind of distinction would apply 50 years from now.

We can do better than that. In the 1980s we had chip printers printing 1 micron chips of high complexity, using steerable beams. They wouldn't go much below 1 micron, though, and disappeared from the market.

[EEVblog]

Mars isn't impossible, just very difficult. 

We could go to Mars right now if you just throw money at it and you don't care about some people dying.
Easier again if you having people willing to not return.
It's the staying and coming home without much ill effect parts that are really hard.

[EEVblog]

What I'd love to see on mars is a few dozen robots building automated habbitat's out of the soil and whatever else they can find, that would be very cool.
Some machine makes the bricks or whatever, and the others stack'em.
or maybe one of those spinning "3D printers" that build large round huts.

3D printing using 'concrete' is already being done for homes people live in.

Yes, hence why I mentiond it, it works. You just have to make it work with the material and resources on Mars.

[BrianHG]

Well, more Elon tunnels are coming...
Even though the title says that he wont successfully fix traffic anytime soon as he promised...

[Bud]

He is getting fat...

[BrianHG]

He is getting fat...

 

[wraper]

He is getting fat...

 

Is this some form of deep thoughts Canadian humor?

[BrianHG]

Ok, my response was a little uncalled for.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Ok, my response was a little uncalled for.

But you're not wrong, tho

[Jan Audio]

Conclusion : Elon Musk is delusional

[Jan Audio]

Dont Elon has that commercial on tv while he eating diner,
you see a starving afrikan kid crying from hunger,
for 3 euro you can save 1 life they claim.

Just saying as long as there is hunger, you dont shoot rockets for fun.

[wraper]

Dont Elon has that commercial on tv while he eating diner,
you see a starving afrikan kid crying from hunger,
for 3 euro you can save 1 life they claim.

Just saying as long as there is hunger, you dont shoot rockets for fun.

One of the dumbest arguments ever. Just because there is hunger somewhere in the world, does not mean people elsewhere shall become sore losers and not advance the technology. Also if you are concerned about useless stuff a lot of money is wasted on, you are looking in the wrong place. Not to say that if Elon wasn't doing what he's doing, he would not have the money anyway.

for 3 euro you can save 1 life they claim.

It does not work like that. You cannot just throw the money at some poor place and expect it will solve the problem. Also why don't you just become Mother Teresa yourself?

Conclusion : Elon Musk is delusional

After what you just  wrote, IMHO look in the mirror.

[Ed.Kloonk]

He's sure got a few dollars in the bank. I should like to be delusional like him.

[Psi]

I don't think you can state someone is delusional in the present, only time can decide if their statements were delusion or genius.

Calling someone delusions (or an idea delusion) carries the stigma of saying that they should give up or that the idea is imposable.
Because of that I do not put a time limit on progress. If someone says they will do X in 5 years but it in fact takes them 15 years I do not consider them or the idea "delusional". The fact that they achieved most of what they said is all that really matters, imho not how long it took.

You can only really call it delusional looking back once they have given up on the idea, or if so much time as past without any progress.

Elon says a lot of things, and "Elon Time" is wildly inaccurate, but he does have a track record of actually doing things where others don't even try.