The I.s.s. is in L.e.o. Different radiation environment. There is at least one study comparing health risks of Apollo astronauts who went on lunar missions with health risks of other astronauts, to get a better idea of the radiation risks of deep space.
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A lot of the fundamental problems for a self-sustaining colony are things we haven’t even managed to figure out on Earth yet.
Again, I’d be a lot more convinced about the viability of a long-term, self-sustaining colony on Mars if we could build a proof-of-concept in Antarctica first. We couldn’t even figure out how to make Biosphere 2 work in Arizona, and that project was orders of magnitude bigger and more complicated than anything we could hope to build on Mars in the foreseeable future.
I hope to see robots bring rock samples back from Mars some time soon. I’d love to see humans visit Mars. I have very little expectation of seeing a permanent, self-sustaining (or even partially self-sustaining) colony in my lifetime though.
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I’m not suggesting all space exploration should be replaced with manned missions, obviously observatories and the likes have little need for direct human involvement. The rovers on mars have done a hell of a job so far, but imagine if there had been a person around to wipe the dust off them, you’d expand their lifetimes ten-fold, it’s unforeseen circumstances like that which require our presence out there.
[quote=“pjcamp, post:139, topic:86374”]
When you say “far too obsessed with safety,” I assume you mean it should be less obsessed? Then you’re talking about an experimental venture, not a commercial one.[/quote]
The initial missions would be very risky, there’s no doubting that, but that’s no different from any other human exploratory endeavour thoughout history. It’s an investment in the future, there wouldn’t be any immediate pay-off, that’s not why we would want, or should want, to do it though.
I didn’t say there was no water ice at the polls [sic]. There is water ice, but not at both poles.
No, both poles are predominantly water ice, with the north polar cap only forming a relatively thin layer of CO2 ice in the winter, and south polar cap has a permanent dry ice cap on top of the water ice.
There’s no need to go too near the poles to get your water though, there’s abundant water in the soil, and you’ll want to be in the region with the most sunlight and no dust storms anyway.
I question the economics.
There are no serious economic considerations when it comes to the fuel generation, it’s little more than a spec in the overall budget (I think the fuel requirement for the return journey is 7% of the outward journey).
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I am part of the apparent 0.001% who is enthusiastically for heading to Mars. It’s important to do crazy things that don’t seem possible and which most people think are loony so we can prove that we can achieve things that, well, don’t seem possible. Quite literally, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
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LEO is in the magnetosphere, but not the atmosphere, on the Martian surface the thin atmosphere provides around the same protection as the magnetosphere does in LEO. So they’re at similar levels. Interstellar space is much higher than LEO, and more vulnerable to solar flares and the likes. I don’t think the rovers have experienced any solar flare activity directly, so it’s a bit speculative as to what the surface would see in that situation, but I think a couple of meters of dirt shielding would be enough to get a similar level of protection from them as from the Earth’s atmosphere. You wouldn’t need to shield everything, just the sleeping quarters and maybe the odd shielding area here and there.
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Well, this is going nowhere so I’ll make a bet.
I’ll bet a jelly doughnut that in 20 years a Martian colony will be no
closer than it is today, and that humans in space will still not have
produced any useful knowledge beyond how to keep humans alive in space.
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I suspect that’s wildly untrue. Solar and wind can’t easily replace the petrol in your car. Even if you had the money to replace all the world’s transport fleet with electric cars it’d take years just to retool all the factories, source the materials, prepare infrastructure, draw up buyback and replacement schemes for combustion-based vehicles, argue over various regulatory issues and exactly which car manufacturers are to receive exactly how much money. As far as I’m aware electric engines aren’t yet a viable replacement for heavy-lifting diesel engines used in freight vehicles, so I don’t think we could go cold-turkey off fossil fuels in five years without massive economic and supply-chain disruptions.
So I’d say there are a lot of things that can’t be done just by throwing enough money at them. And even if they could be done for want of money, the question then becomes why haven’t we? As I said, the problems are often about politics and international cooperation, and they aren’t the sort of things that a philanthropist billionaire can solve by wading in and throwing cash around.
One of the rising stars of coal consumption and carbon emissions is India. They wanted to start their own domestic solar industry, but it was scuppered due to free trade agreements with the USA. So, with vast swaths of their populace still without power India is turning to coal, and dirty coal at that. How is Elon Musk going to resolve complications due to free trade agreements by throwing money at the problem? Are more bribes, lobbyists and interested parties really what’s required here?
It’s worth pointing out that if Musk’s Tesla gamble pays off in the long run then he may have done more than any individual since Genghis Kahn to reduce humanity’s environmental impact. I think it’s pretty ballsy for any armchair commentators here to accuse him of just fucking around.
The lessons learned in maintaining the systems needed to keep them alive are a product in themselves. They will be invaluable in taking the next step, and the lessons learned in taking the next step will be invaluable in taking the one after. Nansen’s Fisk expedition was bloody stupid idea but we learned from it that eating fresh game can prevent scurvy, a lesson that helped us get to the South Pole (they ate their dogs 
), another seemingly pointless act that nonetheless helped us to establish a base there, that helped us to do science, that may yet help us to save us from ourselves. We will do many seemingly pointless fuckabout things on our way to Mars and beyond but if we can push it far enough we may open up the entire asteroid belt for mineral exploitation.
How? In what direction does one throw money to fix such a problem? How many dollars do I have to pay to make sure that what I’m doing isn’t eugenics?
On April 1, 1994 a severe dispute within the management team led to the ousting of the on-site management by federal marshals serving a restraining order, leaving management of the mission to the Bannon & Co. team from Beverly Hills, California.
At 3 am on April 5, 1994, Abigail Alling and Mark Van Thillo, members of the first crew, allegedly vandalized the project from outside, opening one double-airlock door and three single door emergency exits, leaving them open for approximately fifteen minutes. Five panes of glass were also broken.
It’s an interesting case study but I don’t know that it’s conclusive proof of anything, at least some of its failures being political and decidedly amateurish. Some of the things they accomplished were pretty promising, and show that while permanent self-sustenance is hard, a 26 month resupply period is within the realms of feasibility.
For many centuries any human being who tried to fly was going to kill himself or die trying. Then one fine day, somebody pulled it off. Now the whole world is different. Twenty years is nothing, and with the present state of things it’s not likely to be easier later anyway. It’s worth a shot, but your negativity is noted and not unreasonable.
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It’s true that Biosphere 2’s failure isn’t proof that the problem is insurmountable, just that it’s a problem as-yet unsurmounted.
ETA: I do have a hunch that if it was remotely near our current capability to build a sealed, self-sustaining biome on Mars then we would have been able to build one on Earth by now. It’s been decades since Biosphere 2, and it seems that most of the lessons learned from the project boil down to “shit, this is more complicated than we thought.”
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I’d rather eat a jelly donut as I watch people with far more constructive, positive, aspirational goals than yours try to achieve the impossible.
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Well, none of it would be easy. It’d be at least half as hard and costly as the War on Terror, for example. So you are absolutely right on a very important point. It would be necessary to muster the will to do it, which is a very significant challenge.
That caveat being said:
Solar and wind can’t easily replace the petrol in your car.
It is currently possible to create biogasoline that you can use in any gasolline engine using sustainable carbon-neutral inputs, including solar energy directly from the sun. If it weren’t for intellectual property regimes and human greed, this would be cheaply available to you already.
Even if you had the money to replace all the world’s transport fleet with electric cars it’d take years just to retool all the factories, source the materials, prepare infrastructure, draw up buyback and replacement schemes for combustion-based vehicles, argue over various regulatory issues and exactly which car manufacturers are to receive exactly how much money.
Don’t have to do any of that. Sustainable agriculturally derived liquid fuels can be created today using solar and wind for energy inputs. And as Tesla Motors technology gradually replaces gas cars (which is pretty much inevitable at this point) the production infrastructure is being gradually built out for pure electrics.
As far as I’m aware electric engines aren’t yet a viable replacement for heavy-lifting diesel engines used in freight vehicles,
This is the only place where you were actually unequivocally wrong. Electric motors develop 100% torque from a dead stop, unlike internal combustion engines. They are dramatically better pullers and lifters than diesels, which is why freight trains use diesel generators to create electricity to run electric motors. My electric tractor outperforms gas tractors pretty significantly.
However, biodiesel really is a thing. Dr. Diesel designed his engine to run off 100% vegetable oil, and it was only slightly modified to allow it to run off the refinery waste we call “diesel fuel”. Home heating furnaces can burn biodiesel, too.
so I don’t think we could go cold-turkey off fossil fuels in five years without massive economic and supply-chain disruptions.
And you’re right. We would have to endure the level of economic disruption typically only experienced when a presidential election happens, or a minor war. People would lose their shirts if they bet on the wrong stocks &etc.
And that’s why we haven’t the willpower to do it.
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How? In what direction does one throw money to fix such a
problem? How many dollars do I have to pay to make sure that what I’m
doing isn’t eugenics?
Family planning and contraceptives. In contrast to Mars, this isn’t rocket science.
Everybody is the new Galileo. Or the new Wright Brothers. Or the new Union Pacific. But 99% of the New Galileos turn out to be just garden variety crackpots. Elon Musk just has a lot of other people’s money.
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You could be right, but if you turn out to be correct, my guess would be that it was because of political decisions rather than technical problems. There are three questions here:
- Can we do this?
- Should we do this?
- Will we do this?
I think there’s enough evidence to suggest the answer to the first two questions is a strong Yes, the third one is a lot less certain.
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To call Musk a crackpot after what he’s managed to achieve in the last 10 years or so since SpaceX was setup is frankly ridiculous. He may be wrong, he may fail utterly, but his basic ideas are sound.
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To bring us to n=2, it’s the same for my dad’s two trucks: the diesel one looks like the brawny one, but the electric one is actually much more powerful, by a significant margin. So much quieter, too!
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Another perspective:
TLDR:
So what’s the bottom line? Is this possible?
The answer is yes, it’s certainly possible. But is it doable?
That one I’m not sure about. I think it very well may be, but again fortune will have to smile down a lot on Musk and SpaceX.
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I am now aware that electric engines are a viable replacement for heavy-lifting engines. Should really have thought about trains, there. 
I’d like to know more about the viability of turning over large amounts of arable land to biofuel production but maybe that’s for another time.
No, it’s a mixture of a broad range of social sciences and economics. Further recommended reading:
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B007CI81IQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
“Family planning” requires education that is sensitive to the culture in which it is to be practised. What works in one place usually won’t generalise well, so throwing billions of dollars at multinational programs tends to be wasteful and ineffective. Widely available and acceptable contraception is, again, a political and also religious problem rather than a moneychucking problem. The state of affairs in the US seems like ample evidence of this.
Most aren’t but the point is that somebody was. You and I live amidst the fruits of their endeavours, so I feel like maybe you could show a little bit more enthusiasm when somebody has a go. Elon Musk may or may not be the next whoever, there is a chance that we’ll drown in our own exhaust fumes and there will be no Next Whoever, but I’m glad somebody’s taking a crack at it.
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How? In what direction does one throw money to fix such a problem?
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At education and civil rights for women and, paradoxically, medical care aimed at reducing infant mortality. Everywhere that we’ve done that, the birth rate rapidly reduces to about replacement level; no coercive eugenic bullshit necessary.
Unsurprisingly, when given the choice, most women don’t want to have endless pregnancies.
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I agree that those are the things, I’m just saying that they are political and social problems that don’t necessarily lend themselves well to solutions provided by an individual with a lot of money, so it seems weird to blame a lack of progress on these issue on Elon Musk playing spaceman.
Who would you trust to fix education, civil rights and medical care in America? A sensible, experienced politician, or a “philanthropist billionaire”?
Well, normally I’d say philanthropist billionaires have a much better record, but in this case - given the specific billionaire you’ve pictured - I’d have to say neither one.
And also I’d say if I had no other choice I’d settle for the politician, with absolutely zero confidence she’d make it better, but at least she’s unlikely to make any new problems.
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How can you be sure that eugenics isn’t how produce gets to your supermarket? Most people who are strongly for or against eugenics have a lot of ideological baggage tied up in it. It’s like being opposed to gene therapy on general principle because some proponent was a phrenologist. Making children by random accident is not any more moral than making building architecture or medicines by accident. The key is democratization instead of coercion. Make what children you think should exist, rather than what some racists, beancounters, or politicians specify.
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