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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday January 18 2020, @05:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-are-here dept.

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.
...
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.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by turgid on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:58PM (7 children)

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:58PM (#945103) Journal

    I would be angry if this were serious.

    What is it with the greedy people who think they can go wherever they like and take whatever they want? Why should Musk get Mars?

    We the human race need to think hard about what we want to be. Mars is still a relatively pristine natural object. We need to study it thoroughly, and do so before we start soiling it and exploiting it.

    There's a very good chance there may once have been life on Mars. We mustn't blunder in and ruin precious specimens. I'm actually willing to bet money that there are fossils on Mars.

    More importantly, there is still a remote possibility that life still exists on Mars. The more we find out about Mars and the history of our Solar System, the less silly that seems. We really shouldn't go barging in, accidentally killing any precious organisms or contaminating Mars with our Earth stuff.

    Musk's plan isn't entirely serious. He wants to go to Mars right enough and he might get there, but I doubt he could realistically amass the resources required to develop and build the technology to send a million people and to sustain them there for any length of time. He still hasn't solved the problem of radiation shielding for the journey. And what about muscle and bone decay on the way?

    Yes, I'm jealous. I wish I had that sort of money, and if I did my priorities would be different. But that's why I don't have that sort of money.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @10:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @10:26PM (#945115)

    Fuck that. I'm not with leaving humanity stuck on one rock to inevitably die out because some precious space fossils might get damaged. Why is this myopic self-hating shit in style nowadays?

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @11:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @11:38PM (#945129)

    Ha, straight out of Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson predicted this response years ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy [wikipedia.org]

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by isostatic on Sunday January 19 2020, @12:35AM

    by isostatic (365) on Sunday January 19 2020, @12:35AM (#945143) Journal

    You know how we’re going to find those fossils? A million people digging around

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Sunday January 19 2020, @02:41PM (3 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday January 19 2020, @02:41PM (#945288) Homepage
    Yeah, but mars is a future story - what about the violations of non-contamination treaties that are being broken right now? https://bgr.com/2019/08/06/tardigrades-moon-lander-beresheet/

    Jokes about certain countries and their willingness to ignore international treaties, and populate areas that are not their sovereign territory, I will leave to EtOH-Fueled, as it doesn't really matter who did the above, what matters is that it was allowed to happen at all.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 19 2020, @03:28PM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 19 2020, @03:28PM (#945313) Journal

      Yeah, but mars is a future story - what about the violations of non-contamination treaties that are being broken right now?

      That tells us how dumb such treaties are (since there's nothing on the Moon which would be harmed by such contamination). Keep in mind both the US and Israel aren't parties/signatories to the ill-thought Moon Treaty, for example, so they don't have to care that the treaty exists.

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday January 19 2020, @05:44PM (1 child)

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday January 19 2020, @05:44PM (#945397) Homepage
        False: https://sma.nasa.gov/sma-disciplines/planetary-protection/
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday January 19 2020, @06:06PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 19 2020, @06:06PM (#945405) Journal
          Read your link. First, this is a policy by NASA concerning its own missions. It's not a treaty. As to the actual treaties, NASA has the following [nasa.gov] to say:

          2.2.1.3 These activities shall be performed consistent with US obligations under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

          2.2.2 NASA shall provide hardware, services, data, funding, and other resources to non-NASA missions (including but not limited to resources provided through international agreements, contracts, Space Act agreements, grants, and cooperative agreements) only if the recipient organization(s), whether governmental or private entity, demonstrate adherence to appropriate policies, regulations, and laws regarding planetary protection that are generally consistent with the COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy and Guidelines.

          So what are the US obligations [berkeley.edu] (pg 1) under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty?

          States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter, and where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose. (UN 1967)

          The key is "harmful contamination". Sorry, landing tardigrades on the Moon doesn't count because there's nothing there to harm. Moving on, the same link describes the COSPAR policies on contamination. Long story short, the Moon falls in Category 1 for out-going missions where contamination neither impacts other biological research missions nor has potential to harm existing organisms. But it does fall into Category 5 for protecting Earth from contamination by returning spacecraft, which might carry harmful organisms (and create the need for a quarantine process between Earth and Moon).