Elon Musk admits 'a bunch of people will probably die' during SpaceX's initial voyages to Mars...

Elon Musk admits 'a bunch of people will probably die' during SpaceX's initial voyages to Mars - but insists it will be a 'glorious adventure and amazing experience'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...robably-die-SpaceXs-initial-voyages-Mars.html

This article apparently is based on an interview with Musk held last Thursday,

Elon Musk has some impressive accomplishments. He's kinda like the Steve Jobs of electric cars, rockets, and batteries. Tesla has single-handedly built* the largest number of electric car charging stations in the US and its Tesla branded home solar power systems seem likely to gain a decent share of that market as well as commercial property solar. (*I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think it's correct as of today)

As a brief aside, I also think for those muppets that are true Ayn Rand believers you finally have your answer to "who is John Galt". Except the cigarette with a dollar sign is just a spliff as it turns out. Apologies, I digress.

However, afaik, humans can't live for years in zero g. Our bones literally begin to dissolve. This is marginally mitigated in low g environments. Mars has 38% of the gravity we have evolved to live in. The Moon has 17% of Earth's gravity. Additionally, there are significant long term detrimental health effects due to much greater amounts of radiation in space that are not fully mitigated by current shielding technologies.



Resistance training has proven to significantly reduce some of these loses.
This link provides a very detailed introduction to the subject of identifying and mitigating bone loss in low and zero g:

https://digital.lib.washington.edu/...le/1773/24168/Wilt_washington_0250O_11965.pdf

I personally am pretty skeptical of the value of manned space endeavors. I'd rather see the money spent elsewhere. I'd rather see it spent on basic physics research that is pretty much the only path to attaining better technical solutions for realistically allowing humans to establish life beyond the Earth.

For example the Pentagon has recently confirmed that data regarding the flight movements of several UFO incidents are actual events - not fringe, not a conspiracy. Ok, let's figure out how to fly like that then! Elon! Elon! Elon! Hahaha...

For the moment since I've exceeded any hope of having anyone read this post, I think I'll skip getting into my thoughts about the value of "the $100M XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition" other than to mention that it is appropriate that it coincides with an article describing colonizing Mars.

I think there are better places to spend public funds.
Between Musk and Bezos there are plenty of funds to cover completely privatized manned space missions. MuskBezos - kind of has a catchy dystopian sci-fi futuristic feel to it, doesn't it? Think Elysium....

 

Bunches of people die each year trying to climb Mount Everest. Therefore, I doubt there will be a shortage of people signing up for those missions to Mars. Some people would do anything to be the first, even if it cost them their lives.

 

Yes, certainly. Many folks would do it without compensation other than being allowed to go on the mission. Probably even some qualified folks would do it just for the opportunity. I wish them the best of luck and admire their commitment.

I don't have an interest in the validity or value of the enterprise as long as there's no portion of my share of interest in public policy being used to fund any of it. But, since they are public policies setting the funding levels for these expeditions of little to no value I think it's long past time to find better places to spend the money rather than to revisit spending levels once spent so that we could play golf on the Moon.

 

Exploration has always been costly. It's a product of expanding into unknown realms which in just about every case, brought new technologies and science along the way. Exploration is a good thing.

 

Funny you mention Mars. I was watching a video just last night where they claim the rover and other equipment have found radioactive isotopes on Mars. That leads to a lot of questions about how that could be possible. But I would have to agree with some of your post. Other than just local exploration, whats the point if we can't eventually live there.

Unless we develop the USS Enterprise and explore new worlds with artificial gravity on board. I was also wondering, do we really want to send out satellites confirming our existence to possible other alien life? Kind of like Forrest Gumps box of chocolates.

 

And why? Look at what we are doing with robotics at a fraction of the cost in dollars and projected lives? I have yet to hear a good argument as to why send humans to Mars. It usually gets down to the old "because it's there". Yea I read every year about people dying trying to climb some mountain somewhere just because it's there and have to shake my head with the "how stupid and what a waste of lives". And yes the early explorers risked their lives exploring THIS planet but they did it for viable reasons, trade mostly. You could actually cross the ocean get some resources and bring them back cost effectively.

I see we just sent another group of humans to the ISS. Can someone post the three greatest achievements by the ISS in 2020? What are we getting for the money being spent to send them up and keep them alive up there?

And I grew up during the earliest manned space missions and as a kid dreamed about being an astronaut and have read all the books and watched all the movies and doc's and even enjoy Si-Fi movies. But on a practable level why are we doing it?

 

This is a pretty good read on the benefits of ISS. That I happen to agree with.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/15_ways_iss_benefits_earth

But I do see your point. We know less about the ocean than we do about the moon.

 

That's the 2 ton fly in the ointment, we humans have evolved to exist on THIS planet, so unless we take it with us AND end up where it's similar, manned deep space exploration will remain a pipe dream. If PRIVATE entities, and I mean PRIVATE (as in funded) want to pursue it, fine by me.

 

So what were the top three accomplishments in 2020 for all the money we spend maintaining people up there that could not be done with robotic satellites?

 

I would say the most important would be medical experiments. 0 G gravity accelerates a lot of experiments.

The evolution of fluid physics research: The study of fluids in space has progressed from fundamental research into the testing of technology applications ranging from advanced medical devices to heat transfer systems.

3D printing in microgravity: The first item was 3D printed on the space station in 2014. Since then, we have explored 3D printing of human tissue.

Drug development using protein crystals: Protein crystal growth experiments conducted aboard the space station have provided insights into numerous disease treatments, from cancer to gum disease to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

You can find literally dozens of new developments in medical research alone credited to ISS.

 

Hope for's and we'll see's. Which required humans when we have such capable robots and automation? We've been hearing these things for decades what has been put to practible use and paid for itself in some manner.

 

Oh, I see. My mistake. I thought you were being serious about ISS.

 

Yes I am. In all the years and all the experiments what new products or drugs have been developed and put into practical use? Give me the top three from last year? Which REQIURED human beings being there?

And you know the ISS is not in zero gravity.

 

I listed 3. You ignored them. Why should I list more?
I provided you with links answering your questions.
You ignored those as well.
You think a robot can produce experiments and make decisions on applications?
I was under the impression you were looking for educational information. Instead, you just want to make your point.
You made it.

 

The federal government spends trillions of dollars every year. It's safe to say that there's a portion of that that virtually every American, if they examined the spending, would find objectionable / wasteful. We don't give all 330 million of us veto power, sorry. We all get to have some input to elect our own Senators and representative, and they get to collectively have some input on the budget bills, which are then overridden by whatever Pelosi and Biden decide to do in their backroom meetings. See, that's how our democracy works.

 

I read things they are experiments, trying to do, hoping for etc etc. And yes our robots which operate autonomously and under human control do LOTS of WONDERFUL things even on far off planets. I'm just asking what had we gotten for not just the money but the lives too and this just in near earth orbit. Expand that to sending human beings to another planet. What do we hope to get in return for sending people to Mars and putting colonies there? Why not put them out in the middle of desert here?

 

Elon Musk's stated goal is to make life "multi-planetary". Basically, he wants an off-site backup for humanity in case something cataclysmic wipes out humans on Earth.

 

I think if something cataclysmic wipes out life on earth it would then look like Mars. So why not just survive here?

 

Speaking of wiping out life on a planet, I just saw a broadcast that claims the rover on Mars and other equipment have detected radioactive isotopes in Mars atmosphere.
So the question is, who nuked Mars? Pretty interesting.

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2015/pdf/2660.pdf

 

Exploration of our planet is a good thing. Exploring extra terrestrial places that can't support human life is a bad thing.

 

There are infinite configurations a post-cataclysm Earth might take on. Some of those might be more hospitable than Mars, some might be significantly less hospitable than Mars currently is. Look, I'm not sure I'm totally sold on Elon's "multi-planetary" goal, but it is a rational justification for doing colonies on Mars rather than just the less-hospitable parts of Earth. Regardless of his reasoning, he's primarily spending private funds to pursue his goal, so there's not much for us to complain about. The money he's getting from NASA is in exchange for providing a useful (at least some in .gov thought it was useful) service to the government: cargo and crew delivery to ISS and (in a few years) the Moon. I don't think NASA is doing much to actually fund the Mars efforts.

 

"can't support human life" is kind of a gray area rather than black and white. There are parts of Earth that don't really support human life without significant artificial assistance (under the surface of the ocean, high on mountaintops, arctic / Antarctic regions, deserts, etc). Mars will also support human life with significant artificial assistance. If we agree that exploring places like Antarctica, the depths of the oceans, or high mountain peaks, are worthwhile, then why wouldn't exploring Mars also be worthwhile?

 

Fair enough. How many trips to Mars would be required to maintain a dozen people on the planet? Let's just say that it is impractical to have human life supported on Mars.

 

"NASA's budget in fiscal year (FY) 2020 is $22.629 billion which represents 0.48% of all U.S. government spending."
https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/nasas-fy-2020-budget

And of that, another small fraction would be for manned lunar or Mars missions. You're not going to miss those pennies.

 

It was impractical to support colonists in the New World at first, too. It was wildly expensive and many lost their lives in the effort.