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Elon Musk Says There's a '70 Percent' Chance He'll Move to Mars:
Elon Musk has talked about personally heading to Mars before, but how likely is he to make the trip, really? Well, he just put a number on it. In an interview for the Axios on HBO documentary series, Musk said there was a "70 percent" chance he'll go to Mars. There have been a "recent number of breakthroughs" that have made it possible, he said. And as he hinted before, it'd likely be a one-way trip -- he expects to "move there."
The executive also rejected the idea that traveling to Mars could be an "escape hatch for the rich" in its current form. He noted that an ad for going to Mars would be "like Shackleton's ad for going to the Antarctic," which (though likely not real) made clear how dangerous and the South Pole journey was. Even if you make it to Mars, you'll spend all your time building the base and struggling to survive harsh conditions, Musk said. And while it might be possible to come back, it's far from guaranteed. As with climbing Everest, Musk believes it's all about the "challenge."
The interview is available on YouTube.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 27 2018, @07:03AM (4 children)
The New World is more than just the US. For example, Christopher Columbus founded a colony in the Caribbean that turned out to be a mess as well. And the Vikings had their own problems including failed settlements in Greenland and Nova Scotia, and some serious tribulations in Iceland.
And funny how I can mention concrete historical examples, and yet, you "don't see why"?
You're already answered why, because there is internal strife.
And humans often don't employ those better ways.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Blymie on Tuesday November 27 2018, @12:30PM (3 children)
I think the real problem will be living space.
If people can just leave, and form their own community? For example, if people could just go out into the wild and start their own farm? Things get much easier. It helps reduce friction, enables dissidents to leave for a 'new place' that's 'better', even if it's only in their mind.
Another thing is, external strife. The more the environment is trying to kill you, the more closely a community will huddle and protect each others. Conversely, I think the less likely people are to tolerate slackers in such situations.
It might be best to look at say... Canada, when it was first colonized. Not in cities, but in smaller communities.
For example, I read a newspaper that every week places articles from their archives, going back 125+ years. You'll see that they were literally stranded, there was no rail here, and of course no motorized equipment, the snow was too high for horses to get through, and so you'd really only have snowshoes to get through to the next settlement.
And 50+ miles of trek through the snow, back before antibiotics, with wolves, bobcats, coyotes, and other such .. and with NO way for ANYONE to ever ever rescue you? People obviously didn't like the idea.
In these articles, they all seemed to have a local family doctor. And they stored up supplies for the entire winter. They were quite literally stuck in that village for 5+ months, and you could see the rejoice as they finally cleared the path to the next town in Spring. Many of those older articles talked about all the chocolate, and other such things they'd buy as the men finally cleared the road and were getting their horses ready for a trip to the 'big town'.
What's my point in all this? Well, that little village surely handled things differently than other places during those cold spell. There was no rescue, there was no communication with the outside world, no way to call for help.
Really, it's the closest to what being on Mars might be like -- that life 125+ years ago. No rescue. No external help. 100% internal reliance, etc.
So this is what might be a good thing to look for.
Another (sorry for being so verbose), is that NASA has 1/2 a century of picking people, psychologically, that are 'easy going', in that they are able to tolerate others amicably, don't tend to pester/annoy others.. and while they "get the job done", are low maintenance/high performance/high tolerance personalities.
I suspect that any colony for Mars will be similarly picked and vetted. This isn't perfect of course, but is many, many times better than random chance.
Point is.. research into these things, and using existing data (like NASA and other space agencies use and collect) can help dramatically for a new colony.
(Score: 2) by Blymie on Tuesday November 27 2018, @12:36PM (1 child)
Hmm... just to add here.
On the whole "other village" thing, a lot of research can be put into 'vertical tech', as in.. technology that all stems from easily built components. There is this:
https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/ [opensourceecology.org]
Part of the premise is this:
"The current practical implementation of the GVCS is a life size LEGO set of powerful, self-replicating production tools for distributed production."
Essentially, all of their open source machinery has a goal of all using interchangeable, easily manufactured parts. They share the same engines too, at least last time I looked in depth.
My point here is that, if you can locate mineable materials, you're much of the way there. What Mars really needs, is to have:
- raw materials on Mars
- enough "stuff" to bootstrap local production
- a core set of technology that is simple, enables survival, but requires as low tech as possible to build
The tech can be worked out here.
I'm not saying "this is simple", but what I am saying is "this is a solvable problem".
And I think that with people going to the Moon, SOME of this might be a good beta test for the tech in question.
Anyhow.....
(Score: 2) by Blymie on Tuesday November 27 2018, @12:41PM
And I suspect a response to the above will be "But.. but... it's impossible to be non-dependant upon Earth!"
Well, this obviously isn't true. But it is true in the short term.
However? The goal here is to reduce that dependence to key things. For example, if you can mine local materials, you don't need to import circuit boards. Support beams and metal for structures. Parts for motors. On and on.
If you can get 'required goods' down to tiny things, like sending high-end CPUs/RAM/chips and components, things like that? Then you take a small thing (a CPU) and can turn it into a big thing (a computer) with local materials.
That's goal #1. Goal #2 is to make your own CPUs, which of course is easy to do...
(You don't need the best of the best for CPUs/RAMs to start.)
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Tuesday November 27 2018, @03:29PM
I once asked my PO when I was doing contract work at Nokia: why didn't Finland ever send astronauts to the ISS? His reply was that there's no sauna there. Duh. However. He also added that his country is very socialist because, basically, when in the winter it's minus 20 and you can't afford the heating cost: you are dead a few days later. So they need socialism to sustain their population, basically. That, and that this minus 20 is the reason for the sauna's: if everything is broken in your house, you can still spend the night in your sauna and survive.
I guess it's similar to your Canada-example.