Elon Musk is a nice chap

[james_s]

A working colony on the moon is vastly easier because of the distance, and most likely financially viable through tourism.
A sustainable colony on Mars is a pipe dream, and I'm a huge proponent of going to mars.

I find the idea of an Enterprise-like massive self contained "starship" that cruises around a lot more appealing than a base on a dusty dead planet or moon. Unfortunately without the sci-fi warp drive there is not really anywhere you can go in any sort of reasonable period of time. I just can't get excited about Mars though, and I don't really find the moon very interesting either. It's pretty cool that we can send rovers out there to have a look around, but I see little value in sending any additional rovers to Mars. What can we really hope to learn from it that we won't learn from those that have already gone? We already know there's nothing much there, any other part of Mars is pretty likely going to look an awful lot like the parts we have already explored. Putting men on the moon was pretty cool and certainly an exemplary technological feat but we've been there and done that, I see little value in going back. It would be cool to send a rover to check out what remains of the Apollo landings though.

[duckduck]

I think that it would be neat to see people living on Mars. That being said, I do not think that it's time to spend that kind of money yet. Send robots. Much cheaper, no body bags.

Also, a point that gets missed frequently: it is many times cheaper and easier to colonize Antarctica or the bottom of the Pacific Ocean than it is to colonize space stations in orbit around the Earth, or on the Moon's surface, or on Mars. Please don't use over-population as your argument to colonize "space".

Mining is another argument that doesn't make sense: the moon could be made of pure gold, and it wouldn't be economically worthwhile to bring any of it back to Earth. Not a gram.

EDIT:

I think that we should definitely colonize other planets (so all of our eggs are not in one basket) but I think we have a long way to go before we are ready to support humans living on Mars. Send more robots. There was liquid water on Mars for a long time, maybe millions of years. Did life develop there during that time? Sure would be nice to know if life is some amazing unique thing, or just something that happens when the conditions are right. I think that is worth some more robots.

[EEVblog]

And, I think most people are missing Musk's point and objectives.
Does he say what he says because he is delusional, or because it's the only way of getting enough funds for his projects?
We probably have to ask ourselves who is really being delusional here. As he failed to get those funds so far? Not really.

His mars plans have had zero impact on contracts the company has won. It's because he has cheap-ish rockets.
The latest moon contract SpaceX won was because their bid was half price of the competitors.

[Red Squirrel]

While I do agree it's delusional, back in the day when they were talking about going to the moon people thought the same thing, I think that's where the word "lunatic" comes from.   

So honestly I'm willing to give him the chance and see if he can really make it happen.  I don't think it will happen any time soon but I think we will live to see it.

Most of the issues are readily knowable, there is little mystery in terms of how stupidly hard it is make a colony happen if you actually look at the logistics and engineering instead of the dream.
Simple basic things like calculating food requirements alone for a small colony make you throw your hands up.
I could happen through shear brute force of sending so much stuff and supplies from earth, but no one is going to pay for that, not even Elon.
No bucks, no Buck Rogers.


A working colony on the moon is vastly easier because of the distance, and most likely financially viable through tourism.
A sustainable colony on Mars is a pipe dream, and I'm a huge proponent of going to mars.

Oh for sure it's an insane feat.  My guess is they would need to send several Starships worth of supplies before they even send anyone, and the actual starship carrying humans would need to have enough supplies to last the trip. (I forget how long, several months I think at least?)

Before they even think of sending anyone they need to make sure it's possible to grow stuff on Mars, as well as create oxygen, and have tools etc to be able to do anything like dig, mine, process minerals etc...  it only makes sense to send people if they can eventually be self sufficient.  How do you make advanced things like chips or solar cells from scratch for example.

And going back to sending supplies, not only do they need to be sent, they need to land in roughly the same location, and also be conditioned so they last.  Ex: food.

So yeah the more you start to think of all the logistics involved the more crazy it really gets.   But somehow, I think it's still going to happen.  I think it will be a return mission though.  They'll send people there for a couple months and then they will come back. The logistics of that seem slightly simpler than actually leaving them there.

And yeah I feel they would want to do the moon first as a pilot project.   I wonder if that is the next step after they retire the ISS.

Come to think of it the feasibility of this whole thing could make a great video. 

[EEVblog]

How do you make advanced things like chips or solar cells from scratch for example.

You can't even make basic stuff required to keep a civilisatiosn going, let alone advanced stuff.
People extoling this self sustaining colony stuff have not given one through to the insanely complex supply chain structure we have on earth to produce even basic stuff, let alone advanced materials and engineering.
I've put a figure on this before on The Amp Hour, and it was something like 500 years before we have a colony even cabale of surviving on it's own should something happen to earth or transport.
i.e. a figure so large that it basically means you can't predict when such a thing would exist.

[EEVblog]

So yeah the more you start to think of all the logistics involved the more crazy it really gets.   But somehow, I think it's still going to happen.  I think it will be a return mission though.  They'll send people there for a couple months and then they will come back. The logistics of that seem slightly simpler than actually leaving them there.

Gettign humans to Mars and back is completely doable, and there is good chance it will hapen in the next 20 years say. But yeah, the permanent colony stuff is pipe dream, no one is going to pay for it.

And yeah I feel they would want to do the moon first as a pilot project.   I wonder if that is the next step after they retire the ISS.
Come to think of it the feasibility of this whole thing could make a great video. 

I've said this many times before and I'll say it again, once the first adventure tourists go to the moon and send back an Instagram photo of themselves blotting out the earth with their thumb, and it's proven decent reliable and safe enough, you will have to beat off people with a stick that want to spend a chunk of their life's saving on a several week long moon trip.
Andy Weir's Artemis book is pretty close to a future reality.

But Mars, no one, and I mean practially no one is going to pay to spend a miserable 6 months in space to get to Mars, be mostly bored shitless for several months once the novelty wears off, and then another 6 miserable month back to earth. When a much more exiting trip to the moon with a vastly greater visual experince (seeing the earth from the surface, bouncing around etc) can be had on a moon trip that takes a week there and back. No contest. You won't be able to fund Mars.

I've done a live show rant on it:

[BrianHG]

     Before we can make portable machines which can generate power ICs and mid range processors and memory, manufactured from local materials sourced on Mars, I mean the entire chain from mining, refining to printing, including the ability to manufacture the machinery to do so, there will not be a true separate self-sufficient Mars colony.

     We are a few centuries away from being able to properly achieve this.

[rdl]

Don't be too pessimistic. Once the transportation framework is in place, I'd estimate 100-150 years for Mars to be mostly self-sufficient. If things don't go so well at first, maybe add another hundred years.

[Psi]

It doesn't really matter if his long term goal is delusional or not.

He is actually taking action to try and make it happen.
He has already made reusable rockets and is making excellent progress on starship.
He has a source of funding through Telsa and Starlink to pay for more rockets and mars missions.

Whatever happens, he has inspired others to follow and if he does not succeed someone else will eventually.


To make mars truly self sufficient would require an extremely large infrastructure to manufacture all goods needed for the civilization to continue to survive with zero contact from earth.
Currently that seems almost impossible given the volume and range of raw materials and processes that would need to exist on mars.
That said, we don't know what new technology is just around the corner.
Perhaps something is coming in the next 100 years that will solve most of the issues that seem insurmountable currently.

[joseph nicholas]

The station attendant in NYC transit system who I talk with is a reasonably intelligent non reader.  He is frequently called on to serve on juries.  He hold Musk in good esteem.   He tells me he would consider buying a Tesla if they make suv.  (They do but that's beside the point.)  He thinks going to Mars is a good idea and terraforming  is a distinct possibility. He couldn't factor an simple equation if his life depend upon it.

[nctnico]

     Before we can make portable machines which can generate power ICs and mid range processors and memory, manufactured from local materials sourced on Mars, I mean the entire chain from mining, refining to printing, including the ability to manufacture the machinery to do so, there will not be a true separate self-sufficient Mars colony.

     We are a few centuries away from being able to properly achieve this.

I agree. I estimate you'd need around 1 billion people living on Mars for a high-tech society to be sustainable on an economic level. Nobody can afford using chips which aren't made by the millions.

Another problem is that Mars doesn't have an atmosphere and the magnetic field to protect the atmosphere. Living there and growing crops is going to be very hard. Mars just isn't like earth. The way I see it, it is mighty interesting to have boots on the ground on Mars in order to research if and what kind of life is/was there and a self-sustaining bio-dome is a good (probably the only) way to keep people alive but it will always be tethered to earth.

[2N3055]

     Before we can make portable machines which can generate power ICs and mid range processors and memory, manufactured from local materials sourced on Mars, I mean the entire chain from mining, refining to printing, including the ability to manufacture the machinery to do so, there will not be a true separate self-sufficient Mars colony.

     We are a few centuries away from being able to properly achieve this.

I agree. I estimate you'd need around 1 billion people living on Mars for a high-tech society to be sustainable on an economic level. Nobody can afford using chips which aren't made by the millions.

Another problem is that Mars doesn't have an atmosphere and the magnetic field to protect the atmosphere. Living there and growing crops is going to be very hard. Mars just isn't like earth. The way I see it, it is mighty interesting to have boots on the ground on Mars in order to research if and what kind of life is/was there and a self-sustaining bio-dome is a good (probably the only) way to keep people alive but it will always be tethered to earth.

Not to mention that people got crazy when their life outside was partially limited with corona quaranteens.
Imagine asking people to live in closed, small, cramped habitats for the rest of their lives. Huge domes and force fields that create atmosphere bubbles over the whole city from SciFi movies are not real.
Creating structures that are sizes of sport fields or large sport halls that are hermetic and Mars proof is not very realistic, especially with no infrastructure in place.
Comparison of living arrangements would be close to submarine crews, and those people are specially chosen to have proper mental profile and attitude to be able to cope with that. And their deployments are long but not for life.. And still they suffer huge mental stress from it..

[EEVblog]

Creating structures that are sizes of sport fields or large sport halls that are hermetic and Mars proof is not very realistic, especially with no infrastructure in place.

Lava tubes are probably the best bet.

[M0HZH]

...
But Mars, no one, and I mean practially no one is going to pay to spend a miserable 6 months in space to get to Mars, be mostly bored shitless for several months once the novelty wears off, and then another 6 miserable month back to earth. When a much more exiting trip to the moon with a vastly greater visual experince (seeing the earth from the surface, bouncing around etc) can be had on a moon trip that takes a week there and back. No contest. You won't be able to fund Mars.
...

An attempt to climb Mt. Everest costs roughly US$50,000 (but can go over US$100,000) per person and most people don't do it on the first attempt. Add to that another US$100,000 in experience-gathering climbs (Kilimanjaro, Mt. Blanc, Elbrus, Aconcagua, various Base Camps etc) plus years of physical training / eating right / maintaining excellent health. The whole thing takes 2-3 months. Still, more than 1000 people do it every year.

I'd bet there would be enough people up for a Mars trip. In-flight entertainment might be necessary :|.

[james_s]

An attempt to climb Mt. Everest costs roughly US$50,000 (but can go over US$100,000) per person and most people don't do it on the first attempt. Add to that another US$100,000 in experience-gathering climbs (Kilimanjaro, Mt. Blanc, Elbrus, Aconcagua, various Base Camps etc) plus years of physical training / eating right / maintaining excellent health. The whole thing takes 2-3 months. Still, more than 1000 people do it every year.

I'd bet there would be enough people up for a Mars trip. In-flight entertainment might be necessary :|.

The whole climbing Mount Everest thing kind of ticks me off frankly. I can understand why the first few people did it, it was a great achievement at the time, but now it is routine. It is extremely expensive, wasteful, dangerous, and is turning a beautiful natural environment into a high altitude garbage dump littered with trash, abandoned gear and corpses. There is absolutely no point in climbing up there anymore, it has been done by enough people that it is not any sort of great achievement.

[floobydust]

We're at the point of figuring out what kind of rocks are on Mars. Sedimentary (like sandstone) or igneous (volcanic). Perseverance looking into it.

"Perseverance rover is projected to cost $2.7 billion dollars, of which $2.2 billion was for spacecraft development, $243 million for launch services, and approximately $300 million for operations and scientific analysis for its 2-year primary mission. The Ingenuity helicopter cost an additional $80 million to build and $5 million to operate during its 1-month mission."
https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-perseverance

Thinking we have the cash and technology to get people to Mars - seems delusional. There's no gold there, that we know of.

[james_s]

I'm curious how they managed to spend $80 Million on a toy helicopter, I mean that's about 80 times the price of a brand new full-scale Bell Jet Ranger helicopter. I know anything space related is expensive, but I'm shocked they managed to spend more than a million on it and even that sounds outlandish to me.

[SiliconWizard]

And, I think most people are missing Musk's point and objectives.
Does he say what he says because he is delusional, or because it's the only way of getting enough funds for his projects?
We probably have to ask ourselves who is really being delusional here. As he failed to get those funds so far? Not really.

His mars plans have had zero impact on contracts the company has won. It's because he has cheap-ish rockets.
The latest moon contract SpaceX won was because their bid was half price of the competitors.

There's little relationship between the contracts they won and the overall funding they got (there is of course in a way, because that shows investors they can get results). SpaceX could not invest as much money as they already have if they just relied on selling services.

https://craft.co/spacex/funding-rounds

To get that much funding, you need to know how to, and whatever one may think about Musk, he clearly knows.

[nctnico]

     Before we can make portable machines which can generate power ICs and mid range processors and memory, manufactured from local materials sourced on Mars, I mean the entire chain from mining, refining to printing, including the ability to manufacture the machinery to do so, there will not be a true separate self-sufficient Mars colony.

     We are a few centuries away from being able to properly achieve this.

I agree. I estimate you'd need around 1 billion people living on Mars for a high-tech society to be sustainable on an economic level. Nobody can afford using chips which aren't made by the millions.

Another problem is that Mars doesn't have an atmosphere and the magnetic field to protect the atmosphere. Living there and growing crops is going to be very hard. Mars just isn't like earth. The way I see it, it is mighty interesting to have boots on the ground on Mars in order to research if and what kind of life is/was there and a self-sustaining bio-dome is a good (probably the only) way to keep people alive but it will always be tethered to earth.

Not to mention that people got crazy when their life outside was partially limited with corona quaranteens.
Imagine asking people to live in closed, small, cramped habitats for the rest of their lives. Huge domes and force fields that create atmosphere bubbles over the whole city from SciFi movies are not real.
Creating structures that are sizes of sport fields or large sport halls that are hermetic and Mars proof is not very realistic, especially with no infrastructure in place.

By far most of the surface area needed would be for growing crops. This can be done in tents / light weight green houses at a low pressure. How low the pressure can be depends on the kind of crops. A quick google tells me that the pressure can be as low as 0.1 bar for plants to grow.

I'd bet there would be enough people up for a Mars trip. In-flight entertainment might be necessary :|.

You can already book boat cruises which last many months so I guess people who are not easely bored do exist.

[floobydust]

I'm curious how they managed to spend $80 Million on a toy helicopter, I mean that's about 80 times the price of a brand new full-scale Bell Jet Ranger helicopter. I know anything space related is expensive, but I'm shocked they managed to spend more than a million on it and even that sounds outlandish to me.

The project dollar numbers are always exaggerated, like a shell game they are also moved around to make everything look rosy. Think of it as a subsidy for SpaceX lol.
The project was 3 years of work and with tons of grass roots research.
Fluid dynamics with the rotors, perhaps 10 aeromechanics researchers on that and every associated paper, made custom simulation software. 19 people on the paper just for the first pass at selecting a landing site.
Dozens of engineers and scientists- NASA seems to have a zillion people.

They tested in a thin Martian atmosphere chamber but not -50°C air temperature so after all that- still risky.
https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publications/files/Balaram_AIAA2018_0023.pdf

[james_s]

You can already book boat cruises which last many months so I guess people who are not easely bored do exist.

Typically not cramped into a tiny little capsule. Even sailing the open ocean in a modest sailboat you are free to sit out on the deck and enjoy the fresh air, you're not sealed into an enclosed ship, and if disaster strikes you are only a day or so from rescue by satellite distress beacon. Not only that, when you do finally get somewhere at the end of the trip, you're still on a planet where you can live outside of a sealed structure.

[Alex Eisenhut]

www.distancetomars.com

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/why-not-space/

[vk6zgo]

You can already book boat cruises which last many months so I guess people who are not easely bored do exist.

Typically not cramped into a tiny little capsule. Even sailing the open ocean in a modest sailboat you are free to sit out on the deck and enjoy the fresh air, you're not sealed into an enclosed ship, and if disaster strikes you are only a day or so from rescue by satellite distress beacon. Not only that, when you do finally get somewhere at the end of the trip, you're still on a planet where you can live outside of a sealed structure.

The early "ringbolt" passengers to Oz might have a dissenting vote.
They spent the trip in the hold, many only coming out if they passed away, & had to be buried at sea.

Scary old "New Holland" must have looked pretty good by comparison when they came ashore.

Passengers to Mars wouldn't even have that to look forward to, just something like the Gibson Desert, but with unbreathable atmosphere!
The up side of course, would be no shackles, or "enlightened penologists" with bullwhips!

[EEVblog]

An attempt to climb Mt. Everest costs roughly US$50,000 (but can go over US$100,000) per person and most people don't do it on the first attempt. Add to that another US$100,000 in experience-gathering climbs (Kilimanjaro, Mt. Blanc, Elbrus, Aconcagua, various Base Camps etc) plus years of physical training / eating right / maintaining excellent health. The whole thing takes 2-3 months. Still, more than 1000 people do it every year.
I'd bet there would be enough people up for a Mars trip. In-flight entertainment might be necessary :|.

You can't compare those, that's silly.
You are not stuck inside a small tube for 12 months with nothing to see or do, and then in an equally small habitat on the surface for 3 months when you train for Everest.
They will find people who want to go to mars for sure, but I guarantee you they will not find sifficient people willing to pay their own money to do it. The long term future on Mars is doomed due to financing.

[EEVblog]

And, I think most people are missing Musk's point and objectives.
Does he say what he says because he is delusional, or because it's the only way of getting enough funds for his projects?
We probably have to ask ourselves who is really being delusional here. As he failed to get those funds so far? Not really.

His mars plans have had zero impact on contracts the company has won. It's because he has cheap-ish rockets.
The latest moon contract SpaceX won was because their bid was half price of the competitors.

There's little relationship between the contracts they won and the overall funding they got (there is of course in a way, because that shows investors they can get results). SpaceX could not invest as much money as they already have if they just relied on selling services.

https://craft.co/spacex/funding-rounds

To get that much funding, you need to know how to, and whatever one may think about Musk, he clearly knows.

The other bidders on the contract have filed a formal complaint (which has stopped the funding), and in their written complaint  their argument is that SpaceX won because they underbid the contract, and they weren't given a chance to re-cost it.