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CNet:
The first aren't even built yet, but [Elon Musk] already has big plans for his company's spacecraft, which includes turning humans into an interplanetary species with a presence on Mars. He crunched some of the numbers he has in mind on Twitter on Thursday.
Musk doesn't just want to launch a few intrepid souls to Mars, he wants to send a whole new nation. He tossed out a goal of building 100 Starships per year to send about 100,000 people from Earth to Mars every time the planets' orbits line up favorably.
A Twitter user ran the figures and checked if Musk planned to land a million humans on Mars by 2050. "Yes," . The SpaceX CEO has suggested this sort of . This new round of tweets give us some more insight into how it could be done, though "ambitious" doesn't do that timeline justice. Miraculous might be a more fitting description.
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fans, rejoice. there will be plenty of jobs on Mars. When asked how people would be selected for the Red Planet move, , "Needs to be such that anyone can go if they want, with loans available for those who don't have money." So perhaps you could pay off your SpaceX loans with a sweet terraforming gig.
Terraforming the planet should be easy if Quaid can get past Cohagen and start the reactor.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday January 18 2020, @06:35PM (4 children)
It's also a great idea for a science outpost, or tourism.
You can have your slick VR experience in a basement, one-room apartment, or Mars bunker. It's up to you.
Why would we expect Musk to design the Mars city when his main interest is the transportation infrastructure to and from Mars? Other people can come up with the designs. And no, some renderings and tweets do not constitute a design.
You watched too much sci-fi if you think you would get an interplanetary war, and the economy and politics of a Mars colony would be very different simply because of the challenges of living there. It would also be a chance to start fresh.
So you don't want to go to Mars, cool. Are you going to stop others from trying?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Saturday January 18 2020, @06:55PM (3 children)
I will argue with them not to do it, I would probably not think this issue warrants violence to stop as the violence it imposes and makes inevitable will be so indirect to be covert.
Yes, if it is a misuse of resources when there are real crisese which could be averted here.
Yes, if it is just goign to be for the rich.
Yes, if it is not going to be implemented with a new form of political economy.
Yes, if it is managed by the same oligarchs who have almost completely ruined this world.
There will be a honeymoon period, at best, before the tyranny, slavery, hierarchy, debt, and resource extraction sinks in.
A clean slate, wow you are starry eyed aren't you? That colony would be 1 trillion debt within the first year, even if it doesn't turn into a penal colony. Even the people getting away from their earth debts would make it a slave colony.
(Score: 4, Funny) by FatPhil on Sunday January 19 2020, @11:06AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Sunday January 19 2020, @02:32PM
I like the way you think, we could get along.
Sadly, this is well worn territory, Asimov's Daneel R. Olivaw had to travel once to another planet than earth and it was just rich people on vast manors surrounded by only robots because all human contact had become dirty and pedestrian to them. So when someone died by surprise it had to be a robot, so the robo pscyhologist was called in, whodunit.
Then there is Altered Carbon/Elsyium, to some extent Wall-E(or aliens vs predator comics...) where this kindof utopic garden of eden could be created in space or high altitude, but only for a handful of of oligarchs and their harems.
Needless to say this does not ever result in improvement for the 99% on earth.
I think Mark Passio is on to something with his order followers, the police and military have to learn the difference between protect and oppress, or any system turns into a shitshow.
In Bolivia, the miiltary just recently decided poorly. In Venezuela, they are so far demonstrating that to a man they understand what is at stake, which is badass. #
viva Chavismo! make sure they get this one, I think they'll like it:
https://archive.is/dmjdm [archive.is]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @01:57PM
Let me turn your ideas back to you. Given the state of the earth right now, do you really think humanity is on track to have workable solutions to our political and economic systems, our corruption, our oligarchy, within the next century? Within the next five centuries? I'm not optimistic.
So one could make an argument that it makes more sense to populate the solar system as soon as it's practical, because spreading out the species gives us more time to figure out how to not suck before we wipe ourselves out.
Don't get me wrong, I do share your frustration. The cost of Musk's Mars colonization plan could probably cure cancer world-wide and end poverty on a third of the globe. Sure, I would rather see that happen first and space colonization much later. But for example the United States net national wealth is above 50 trillion dollars and our annual GDP is above 15 trillion. We already have all the resources we need to cure every one of humanity's problems. The problem isn't a lack of resources, the problem is humanity itself.