Hold on a sec. This article basically says that we need to wait until a plan makes sense. Well a trip to Mars will never make sense financially and it's easy to find fault in all plans. Planning a trip to the Mojave desert makes better sense. It's cheaper, no one will die and we know there's life there.
A trip to Mars is a stretch goal that we need to start as a species. We know that our lifetime as a species is limited on earth so the sooner we start figuring out how to get off the planet the better. Yes, we might fail but then we'll have to try again and again.
Musk has made himself the spokesman for that task. No one else seems to want the job. Yes, he's a dreamer and might be overselling the task but that's what we need. We need to start. I can tell you that if we never try it will never happen.
My hope is that he becomes so rich that he owns all of Mar's resources. Yes, he'll own them for a bit but it means mankind has made a large step forward. Go Musk!
Ownership of resources/land on another planet is an interesting legal question I've never considered. If SpaceX colonizes Mars first, can they claim the entire planet is theirs? Under whose jurisdiction does Mars lie?
Outerspace is not under any law, that's how some secret services tried to be legal.
I can remember a comment from one of my country (germany)'s spokesman of the bnd gave a stupid comment that if they share data over satellite, it's legal since actually the space is not within the law of any country. Can't find it tough at least not in english.
Under the terms of the Outer Space Treaty, outer space - including Mars - is under no jurisdiction, but objects and people launched into space are under the jurisdiction of the country they launched from.
The OST prohibits a signatory to the treaty from claiming any celestial body. In practical terms, a base on Mars would, unless it was exclusively built with components launched from the same country, be a patchwork of jurisdictions. This is in fact the situation with the ISS, which is (probably) the only place in the Universe where the territories of USA, Canada, Japan, Russia and Europe are only seconds apart.
Of course there is always the possibility of a New Boston Tea Party. International convention is that a seceding state isn't bound by the treaties of the original state, so if a Martian government were recognized by Earth's governments they could try to claim Mars.
The more practical concern is what it would mean for SpaceX to "claim Mars". I could claim Mars right now, but it wouldn't benefit me at all unless my claim was respected by other states. If the US, or anyone else, could steamroll in and take control of a SpaceX-founded colony that was purporting to be independent, then the claim would be worthless.
Mars is like Antarctica or Sahara, but much worse, why would people want to live their lives there? I can understand scientists or perhaps adventurers living there for a 2 year shift. But why would anyone want to spend time there if it's a worse place to live than Earth in almost every regard?
By the way, I'm a big SpaceX fan and I hope there will be an outpost on Mars, but a self-sustaining city is just unrealistic, sadly.
I see your point. It's not necessarily a matter of living there. People would hate it and it's unrealistic with current technology. Right now, it's a matter of developing the technology to be able to travel and live outside our planet. We're really talking about technology that will take hundreds of years to develop - if at all.
If it's ever going to happen we need to move forward. Going to the moon was great but we've stalled since then.
We talk about jobs ending. We'll space research and development is a fertile ground for new jobs.
> But why would anyone want to spend time there if it's a worse place to live than Earth in almost every regard?
People who don't agree with you about it being a worse place to live than Earth in almost every regard might want to live there. I don't think Mars is a "worse" place to live than Earth in general, though it's certainly more challenging to live there. On Earth, humans have lived everywhere it's possible to live, not just where it was easy.
Antarctica was uninhabited until comparatively recently not because it isn't a nice place to live, but because without modern technology it's basically impossible to live there. The Sahara has been inhabited for thousands of years.
The Andes and Tibet are places which are so hard for humans to live in that the populations there have genetic adaptations to help them survive the low-oxygen environment. I mention that not to suggest that Martians might evolve the ability to breathe Martian are, but that humans haven't allowed mere inhospitability to stop them living in a place: history tells us that if it's possible to live somewhere, people will live there.
I certainly hope there will be a lot of (rich) people who'd find life on Mars appealing, but I'm extremely sceptical there will be many people like that.
Depends which parts of Sahara, some are certainly livable.
Mars is a lifeless desert and you'd be mostly stuck inside anyway to avoid radiation. But maybe the goal of building a self-sustaining colony would give the people a clear purpose that would offset the discomfort.
With the way things are going with climate change etc our world will become a harsher place to live in. And all tech that helps us live and colonise Mars will also help us survive on Earth.
I had the same reaction and then started looking into the viability of terraforming Mars. I'd hardly call any of it conclusive, but the challenges and proposed solutions are endlessly fascinating. Highly recommended nerd deep dive.
> A SpaceX rocket goes boom, and you're not quite sure why? Time to announce the plan to colonize Mars.
This is just plain wrong, the Mars announcement was planned for a long time.
Also, Mars colonization was the reason he founded SpaceX.
However, the article raises a good point, colony on Mars is unlikely, because Earth is a much better place to live. Same reason why there's no big city in Antarctica or under the ocean - it's just a very shitty place to live. And Mars is much, much worse, plus it's hard to get there or back.
So, although I really enjoy the idea of a self-sufficient city on Mars, it just seems extremely unlikely.
I simply don't care how realistic some pundit thinks Musk's plans are ... Musk seems to find a way to accomplish his goals and also makes it clear those goals are intended to better society in some way. Naysayers have an easy job since they can pooh-pooh an idea and if they're wrong, they're simply forgotten. I bet the authors record for predicting success is far less impressive than Musk's record of actually accomplishing hard things.
And when it comes down to it, I for one am happy to see someone (Musk in this case but everyone else is welcome to step up) promoting visionary goals with this kind of passion. Watching the Apollo missions as a youngster led me towards a career in engineering but I have to admit most of todays focus on "disruptive applications" leaves me jaded. Will the next revolutionary to-do list really cause the transcendence of mankind? Musk estimates it will cost $10bn but if the VCs had any long-term vision there would be twenty times that promised towards this goal.
Note: if politician's in the U.S. had any vision they'd earmark half the defense budget towards science and medicine goals - We choose to go to mars in this decade and do the other things - not because they are easy but because they are hard.
I agreed, people laughed at him when he went to Russia to spend his paypal money to buy rockets. Everyone counted him out and he almost did lose everything in 2008. They were really lean, and down to their last buck til the last minute NASA deal was landed, and the rest is history as they say. He's a genius and has a sense of perseverance that we haven't seen since the Wright Brothers -- two other people who were laughed at and ridiculed. I could imagine the author of this blog post writing the same thing about their stupid flying contraption.
Korolev would probably get a Nobel prize if he wouldn't be shielded behind Soviet secrecy around his rocket program.
Korolev however had a mighty state backing his plans which he skillfully played. Musk does approximately similar things on the commercial playing field. His pace of achievements and the range of his programs shouldn't be underestimated.
Really colonization/terraforming would be nice, but if that never happens -- think of all the technologies like CAT Scans that will be developed while we 'try' to terraform Mars. As global warming gets worst we might even discover a cure for issues with our own planet by looking for solutions into making Mars more livable.
Scientific discovery whether it fails or succeeds will never hurt us or set us back, it's failure to keep momentum going that will. Space tech hasn't really evolved like other industries in the past 40 years because interest has dried up. It's now starting to see a revival, and I for one am excited, and would like to take a space trip on the ITS around the solar system which may be a possibility.
If I can't go to mars, I'd still love a chance to go see the rings of Saturn from a space hotel. That would be worth every dollar, and crashed rocket.
That's an excellent point, one I think is often overlooked.
I cannot know how many discoveries were founded on the backs of some other line of research, but what I do know is that things are discovered during the course of research.
Imagine the kind of applications the research into a livable Mars might yield. Our own infrastructure, agriculture and more could stand to benefit quite a bit here at home from the cash we invest looking towards the Red planet.
And yet, roughly 40,000 people make the trip to Everest Base Camp each year -- another desolate and inhospitable place with no tangible economy. An economist might say this is done for 'tourism', but I prefer Mallory's famous insight that people go 'because it's there'.
Ever since we came down from the trees, humans have been setting out on reckless and suicidal journeys for which there is no hope of return. Humanity spread over nearly the entire planet and found its way to countless isolated pacific islands before recorded history even began.
When the price and the science finally line up, there will be no shortage of wealthy old kooks happy to pony up the funds, accept the risk, and set off for the solar system's most exotic retirement.
No one, including Musk, says that colonizing Mars is a "good" idea economically or practically. This guy's arguments are fundamentally missing the point.
But here's one advantage Mars does have- it's far from other humans. And humans, not asteroid strikes or supervolcanoes, are the most worrying potential source of the catastrophic events we want to protect our civilization from.
This is the kind of miserable critic who asks "yes but what's the practical use of it ?" when confronted with an exciting new scientific discovery. A fun-squashing, party-pooping, 1-dimensional, monochromatic-minded coin.
Humans are born for adventure. It's who we are. We explore and we discover and we don't need to have practical reasons. Often it's only in retrospect that the utility of an adventure becomes evident, you simply can't know everything in advance and it would be no fun if you could. This is exactly the sort of (informed and calculated) leap of faith our species needs right now, poised as it is on the verge of possible armageddon.
Article fails to define "worthwhile", thus rendering its many value judgments moot.
Article refutes "existential risk to human life" with "billions of years of supporting life", which is a non-sequitur. "Thousands of years of supporting human life" isn't quite so convincing...
24 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 52.0 ms ] threadA trip to Mars is a stretch goal that we need to start as a species. We know that our lifetime as a species is limited on earth so the sooner we start figuring out how to get off the planet the better. Yes, we might fail but then we'll have to try again and again.
Musk has made himself the spokesman for that task. No one else seems to want the job. Yes, he's a dreamer and might be overselling the task but that's what we need. We need to start. I can tell you that if we never try it will never happen.
My hope is that he becomes so rich that he owns all of Mar's resources. Yes, he'll own them for a bit but it means mankind has made a large step forward. Go Musk!
And no, you don't get to claim the entire planet by planting the first colony.
The OST prohibits a signatory to the treaty from claiming any celestial body. In practical terms, a base on Mars would, unless it was exclusively built with components launched from the same country, be a patchwork of jurisdictions. This is in fact the situation with the ISS, which is (probably) the only place in the Universe where the territories of USA, Canada, Japan, Russia and Europe are only seconds apart.
Of course there is always the possibility of a New Boston Tea Party. International convention is that a seceding state isn't bound by the treaties of the original state, so if a Martian government were recognized by Earth's governments they could try to claim Mars.
The more practical concern is what it would mean for SpaceX to "claim Mars". I could claim Mars right now, but it wouldn't benefit me at all unless my claim was respected by other states. If the US, or anyone else, could steamroll in and take control of a SpaceX-founded colony that was purporting to be independent, then the claim would be worthless.
By the way, I'm a big SpaceX fan and I hope there will be an outpost on Mars, but a self-sustaining city is just unrealistic, sadly.
If it's ever going to happen we need to move forward. Going to the moon was great but we've stalled since then.
We talk about jobs ending. We'll space research and development is a fertile ground for new jobs.
People who don't agree with you about it being a worse place to live than Earth in almost every regard might want to live there. I don't think Mars is a "worse" place to live than Earth in general, though it's certainly more challenging to live there. On Earth, humans have lived everywhere it's possible to live, not just where it was easy.
Antarctica was uninhabited until comparatively recently not because it isn't a nice place to live, but because without modern technology it's basically impossible to live there. The Sahara has been inhabited for thousands of years.
The Andes and Tibet are places which are so hard for humans to live in that the populations there have genetic adaptations to help them survive the low-oxygen environment. I mention that not to suggest that Martians might evolve the ability to breathe Martian are, but that humans haven't allowed mere inhospitability to stop them living in a place: history tells us that if it's possible to live somewhere, people will live there.
Depends which parts of Sahara, some are certainly livable.
Mars is a lifeless desert and you'd be mostly stuck inside anyway to avoid radiation. But maybe the goal of building a self-sustaining colony would give the people a clear purpose that would offset the discomfort.
This is just plain wrong, the Mars announcement was planned for a long time.
Also, Mars colonization was the reason he founded SpaceX.
However, the article raises a good point, colony on Mars is unlikely, because Earth is a much better place to live. Same reason why there's no big city in Antarctica or under the ocean - it's just a very shitty place to live. And Mars is much, much worse, plus it's hard to get there or back.
So, although I really enjoy the idea of a self-sufficient city on Mars, it just seems extremely unlikely.
Humans like distinction above their peers, even at the cost of security.
The dream of Mars is the dream to stake a rentier position in a growing social hiearchy.
And when it comes down to it, I for one am happy to see someone (Musk in this case but everyone else is welcome to step up) promoting visionary goals with this kind of passion. Watching the Apollo missions as a youngster led me towards a career in engineering but I have to admit most of todays focus on "disruptive applications" leaves me jaded. Will the next revolutionary to-do list really cause the transcendence of mankind? Musk estimates it will cost $10bn but if the VCs had any long-term vision there would be twenty times that promised towards this goal.
Note: if politician's in the U.S. had any vision they'd earmark half the defense budget towards science and medicine goals - We choose to go to mars in this decade and do the other things - not because they are easy but because they are hard.
Korolev however had a mighty state backing his plans which he skillfully played. Musk does approximately similar things on the commercial playing field. His pace of achievements and the range of his programs shouldn't be underestimated.
Scientific discovery whether it fails or succeeds will never hurt us or set us back, it's failure to keep momentum going that will. Space tech hasn't really evolved like other industries in the past 40 years because interest has dried up. It's now starting to see a revival, and I for one am excited, and would like to take a space trip on the ITS around the solar system which may be a possibility.
If I can't go to mars, I'd still love a chance to go see the rings of Saturn from a space hotel. That would be worth every dollar, and crashed rocket.
I cannot know how many discoveries were founded on the backs of some other line of research, but what I do know is that things are discovered during the course of research.
Imagine the kind of applications the research into a livable Mars might yield. Our own infrastructure, agriculture and more could stand to benefit quite a bit here at home from the cash we invest looking towards the Red planet.
Ever since we came down from the trees, humans have been setting out on reckless and suicidal journeys for which there is no hope of return. Humanity spread over nearly the entire planet and found its way to countless isolated pacific islands before recorded history even began.
When the price and the science finally line up, there will be no shortage of wealthy old kooks happy to pony up the funds, accept the risk, and set off for the solar system's most exotic retirement.
But here's one advantage Mars does have- it's far from other humans. And humans, not asteroid strikes or supervolcanoes, are the most worrying potential source of the catastrophic events we want to protect our civilization from.
Humans are born for adventure. It's who we are. We explore and we discover and we don't need to have practical reasons. Often it's only in retrospect that the utility of an adventure becomes evident, you simply can't know everything in advance and it would be no fun if you could. This is exactly the sort of (informed and calculated) leap of faith our species needs right now, poised as it is on the verge of possible armageddon.
Article refutes "existential risk to human life" with "billions of years of supporting life", which is a non-sequitur. "Thousands of years of supporting human life" isn't quite so convincing...