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Looking at this, it seems the BB posters are almost 100% against this idea.
I don’t think we should go to Mars to plant flags. I don’t think we should go to Mars to save the Human Race. I don’t think we ought to go to beat the Chinese. I don’t think we ought to go for the promise of technological spin-offs. But I would like people to go to Mars.
Why? Because we can. Because it would be fun. We could give the same amount of money to end poverty or cure all known diseases, but we aren’t really doing that now. Maybe if we did something that made us, as a species, feel better about ourselves, then we would go on and fix the other things.
“We shall do these things, not because they are easy, not because they are hard, but purely for shits and giggles”.
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your still suit is ready
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We could give the same amount of money to end poverty or cure all known diseases, but we aren’t really doing that now.
It doesn’t even work that way, the future cannot be designed. We can’t just throw money at cancer research say and expect it to be cured, or try and come up with some utopian political ideal and think it’s going to magically solve poverty. We just have to keep doing whatever it is that seems like a good idea at the time and see where it leads us; we’ll fail, we’ll learn, we’ll try again and do better.
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It’s because the penis is the most perfect shape of course. If you’re going to pierce the heavens it’s not like a flying vagina would really work. /s
They also look a lot like tampon applicators really.
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Count me as on caze’s “Let’s fucking go to the Mars and the moon and do all the launches!” but too busy to get into it with all the Debbie Downers who think that going to the moon was a bad idea as they use microprocessors in their cellular phones to communicate wirelessly through the internet to people they’ve never met worldwide while microwaving a burrito while their dad comes in from his latest run in his velcro shoes talking about how nice it is to get back out after that CT scan this morning.
Going to Mars is going to have a shit ton of spinoffs we haven’t even imagined because we lack the understanding of what developments will come.
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I would argue that, much like most other space initiatives, the human race will get some technological advancement out of it, as well as answers to some unique thought experiments that may change the way we do things at home as well. One of the great things about endeavours like these is that the knowledge gained is very often vastly interdisciplinary and everyone stands to potentially benefit.
New ways to grow crops in inhospitable areas? Research on how to keep humans happy when faced with long stretches of isolation that don’t involve a stint on some military vessel? Optimized communications protocols that might help us use weaker radio signals more reliably on earth? Innovative uses for mining waste or energy production? Advancements in water and organics conservation?
That’s five just off the top of my head.
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Feel free to use the name “Donald Downers” as needed.
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Nice stealth edit.
I don’t feel bad about being practical.
Fixing the planet we actually live on right now is a bigger priority to me.
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Can’t we have both? You’re the gif lady.
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In an ideal world, sure we could.
Am I?
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I’m not against the idea of sending people to Mars. I’m refuting the idea that we are anywhere near ready to start a permanent human settlement. We don’t even know what we don’t know about the challenges involved yet.
Sending someone on a one-way trip to Mars with the tech we have now would be sending them to certain death. That’s not the kind of progress that leads to success, it’s the kind of failure that creates publicity bad enough to doom manned exploration of the solar system for decades to come.
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In my mind, you always will be.
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Nope. Design choices, yes. Design problems, not obviously.
" (how well will that launch being a top heavy )"
Very well, thank you.
All rockets are “top heavy.” In control theory speak, all rockets are "inverted pendulums. Think holding up a pencil from the tip of your finger
Elon’s design is a bigger version of that. quite doable.
“uneven blob”
The assymettry does make the launch tricker, but this is also an already mastered problem. The Space Shuttle was much more asymmetric at launch. Elon’s Mars transporter has the asymmetry for the same reason: atmospheric re-entry at the end of the mission.
Notice that the Mars landing sequence involves a very space-shuttle-esque descent through the Martian atmosphere.
I see many, many problems Elon’s vision, but rocket design is not one of them.
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