Perhaps because quantum gravity is a theory attempting to explain gravitation using quantum mechanics. It is not a proven effect or even demonstrated to be a useful model for anything other than an attempt to reconcile quantum mechanics with relativity.
A model for the theoretical explanation of gravity at the quantum level doesn’t seem to have any relation to anything outside the sub atomic level. Your statement makes no rational sense.
I provided 3 sources. How many do you need?
I apologise that the good people at NASA have not made it easy to find how they arrived at those numbers. Perhaps you should take it up with them.
Considering your nonsensical word salad in your point #1, that’s a bold claim. And yet I never attacked your character only your arguments. But I’m rude. Sell me another one Slick.
Before proving it through just doing it, perhaps it would make sense to start with a proof on paper. A convincing argument for the “should” (let alone the “need”) seems to be a pretty important adjunct to that. After all, it’s too big for any one person or company so a lot of people are going to have to pay – investors, the public, probably both – and that’s not going to happen if the Yeas can’t convince a significant number of Nays.
I do understand that the idea is not to launch a million people into space in one go, so sure, maybe a modest start will provide at least the beginnings of a concrete argument for the feasibility of the grand, longer-term plan. I’m skeptical, however, that that would be sufficient. Now is the time for solid, well-reasoned advocacy/evangelism, not vague pronouncements and demands that skeptics prove the “why not?”
From my perspective this entire exchange boils down to this: advocates of this project are proposing something unprecedented and extraordinary, and therefore the burden is on them to offer compelling arguments to get people on board. I don’t see that happening at this point. Maybe it’s coming, but if it’s here now, I don’t see it.
As for decorum… in my opinion, you lowered the tone in your first reply to me, I let it slide, and then you lowered it further with your “kiddo” jab. But if I irritated you somehow before that, please accept my apology.
I don’t need any particular number. I requested the methodology so that I could understand what the number means instead of just using it as a bumper sticker slogan. There is a difference between understanding something and blindly believing it.
This is a rude way to respond to someone asking for more details to corroborate your argument:
Gosh, I didn’t mean to use the internet in a way you don’t like. I had assumed you were capable of typing due to all those words on my screen.
It doesn’t attack my argument at all. It does attack my character by implying that I’m lazy. In reality, it’s lazy of you not to provide the details for your own argument.
Ok, I hereby propose my loose conceptual framework of proof.
Item 1: Rockets and spacecraft have demonstrated the capability to travel and land successfully on Mars.
Item 2: Rockets and spacecraft have demonstrated the capability to carry people in to space and successfully land on extra planetary bodies.
Item 3: In about 500,000 years Hipparcos 85605 will come close enough to our solar system that there is a 90% chance of effecting the oort cloud which may end life on this planet.
Item 4: The Eden Project as well as other biome projects have demonstrated that with work it may be possible to create a contained biome for supporting human life.
Given these 4 facts, we have demonstrated the technical capability to move people to Mars and a reason for doing so.
As far as getting other companies and people on board, well that’s a requirement of yours and not one that necessarily needs to take place.
Maybe so, with something so populous, but I would argue anybody who actually hoped to colonize Mars would be sensible to try a self-contained settlement in Antarctica first.
Antarctica is a whole continent, so it really does have room for a few attempts without too much damage. Something self-contained wouldn’t need to be anywhere vulnerable; it really should go where there is little but rock anyway.
A successful attempt could actually be useful, as a research station in a part of the world we don’t know much about. It might even be one with a lower footprint than what we do anyway, depending on just how it gets by in its own.
A failed attempt says you really aren’t ready to colonize other planets, and you found out without subjecting people to a year of high-radiation cabin fever before they even had a chance to make the attempt.
If your goal is to expand the long-term ability of the human race to live and study in more places, this would seem a much better place to start. If your goal is the glory of visiting a rock that happens to be separate from the earth, I can see it wouldn’t have much appeal, but it’s always easier to walk before running.
One-upsmanship is only part of the the story, and the dullest part of it at that. The specific reason it was important to out-do the russians, was to keep either country from putting nuclear payloads in orbit. much cheaper and easier than going to the moon, and much more dangerous. (Once you put a payload in low orbit, it needs fuel to stay there. Run out of fuel, it’s awfully tempting to use it or lose it.)
Without understanding this crucial motivator, the space race seems like the expression of some dick-waving atavistism on the part of our leaders. The genius of that scheme, was to create another category of status above the “nuclear club” that ambitious nations could strive toward.
All these trekkies and L5 enthusiasts seem to take footprint t missions for granted, like it’s an inevitable development. But ‘man on the moon’ was a unique, irreproducable historical moment, rigjt up there with sending dirty laundry from Hawaii to San Francisco by clipper ship.
None of which is to suggest that it’s a bad idea to send probes into space. Just that if you plan on shaping future history, it’s essential to take past history into account. I hear far more wishful thinking than real planning.
I like to take that idea one step further: Antarctica represents a dowry, an investment in a future in space. Develop that continent in a way that doesn’t disgust future grandkids, and you’re a long way farther up the ladder out of this gravity well.
Earth’s seasons teach us little about the kind of long term planning that space demands. Antarctica is a really good halfway point, from a cultural and technological perspective.
Then who would pay? Do you agree that this project, if fully realized, would cost an enormous amount of money and/or resources? Where will it come from? I ballparked $2 trillion just to get a million people and their gear into orbit. Is that a reasonable figure for discussion purposes? That alone is a massive, massive project (even on the understanding that they’re not all going at once), too big for any single entity.
Great, then if I were you I would not support the project. Since Musk doesn’t seem to be relying on your donations, can we all just proceed without you?
Since they aren’t all going at once, the cost is spread over time. No one is going to be on the hook for a $2 trillion bill. Let’s say Exxon wanted in on this and decided to pay for it. Without dipping in to operating expenses, they could pay for the project in 125 years in exchange for mineral rights. Let’s say Apple wanted exclusive rights for tech on Mars, they could pay for the whole thing in 117 years. Together, without Musk or his money, they could do it in 62 years without effecting operating budget.
This evokes that awful line from Interstellar, “We come from a long line of explorers and adventurers, not caretakers”, and conveniently sidesteps the connection between not taking care of things, and the need to expand territory in order to stay alive.
The missing item here, is economic motivation. Subsidy from below is sufficient to keep a south pole mission indefinitely, a six-shot sprint to the moon, a decades long oil war… but it’s not enough to put humans on mars. There needs to be a widely understood economic motivator for people to exert the political support for this kind of program, at least as compelling as the nuclear threat. That we are unable to muster this kind of will to push back against the causes of global warming, bodes ill for this kind of ambition.
