Colonizing Mars: A Critique of the SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System

100 点作者 huragok超过 8 年前

10 条评论

nabla9超过 8 年前

I don't understand the economics of colonization.>Following the example of colonial America, let’s pick as the affordability criterion the property liquidation of a middle-class household, or seven years’ pay for a working man (say about $300,000 in today’s equivalent terms), a criterion with which Musk roughly concurs. Most middle-class householders would prefer to get to Mars in six months at the cost equivalent to one house instead of getting to Mars in four months at a cost equivalent to three houses.Colonization of America was extractive. You send colonists and they survive on their own and even pay taxes and you get products back. That's not what would happen on Mars. There is nothing so valuable that it would be worth carrying back to Earth. At the same time it would take huge amount of money to support high-tech colony in Mars until it can support itself.I imagine that the cost of moving people would be insignificant compared to the "colonization kit" that would enable the colony to become self sufficient. Developing that kit would probably cost more than all technology needed to move people to Mars. Just imagine the amount of technology transfer needed to build and maintain maintain systems for breathable air (air tanks, seals, valves, inspection equipment, instrumentation, automation electronics) without help from the Earth. Until Mars settlers can build things in-house, they need constant economic support from the earth.ps. We don't even know how to sustain biosphere in closed environment yet.

评论 #12766890 未加载

评论 #12766761 未加载

评论 #12766748 未加载

评论 #12766701 未加载

评论 #12766706 未加载

评论 #12769241 未加载

评论 #12767559 未加载

评论 #12766798 未加载

haalcion3超过 8 年前

> SpaceX has no prospect of being able to afford the very large investment — at least $10 billion — required to develop a launch vehicle of this scale.Adjusted for inflation, US gov't spent the equivalent of $65 billion/yr in the 1960's to get a man to the moon:<a href="http://www.popsci.com/real-cost-nasa-missions" rel="nofollow">http://www.popsci.com/real-cost-nasa-missions</a>

评论 #12766795 未加载

评论 #12766799 未加载

marze超过 8 年前

The SpaceX Mars architecture: it is the answer to an unknown question, an artifact from the future time traveling back to the present. The objectives and constraints that were used in the design process are not revealed. It is like Phouchg and Loonquawl getting the answer 42 from Deep Thought. People generally have no clue what to make of it.I'd guess that if the objectives and constraints used in the design process were revealed, it would all make complete sense. Elon has a track record of making technical and business decisions that turn out to be 100% correct in retrospect. The epic size of the vehicles are a feature, not a bug, for instance.

评论 #12766618 未加载

M_Grey超过 8 年前

To be honest, I'm still hung up on the lack of viable radiation shielding, a way to protect people from the harmful effects of microgravity, and micrometeorite impacts. I don't doubt that given time and experience, payloads can be sent to Mars, I just doubt that functional, healthy humans can be under this kind of scheme.

评论 #12766482 未加载

评论 #12766557 未加载

评论 #12766812 未加载

评论 #12766630 未加载

exBarrelSpoiler超过 8 年前

Robert Zubrin has been planning for Martian colonization for decades. He's like the Kurzweil for the movement, his Mars Society has been on a quixotic quest. Hopefully SpaceX hires him on as a consultant.

评论 #12766791 未加载

评论 #12766617 未加载

DennisP超过 8 年前

It's interesting to see that water on Mars has 6x the deuterium concentration of water on Earth.It's unlikely to be a worthwhile export though. One in 2500 hydrogen atoms in Earth's oceans is deuterium. There's enough in your morning shower to provide all your energy needs for a year, and enough overall to run civilization until the sun goes out.Isolating the deuterium takes some effort, but it's not terrible, and certainly easier than transporting it from Mars, even if isolating it on Mars were free.

elihu超过 8 年前

I'm glad Zubrin brings up the economics of Mars colonization, since that's easy to neglect. Once you're there, how do you make money?Mining might be lucrative if Mars has gold or platinum or some valuable mineral that's easy to extract and worth more than its shipping cost back to Earth.I'm skeptical that patents are going to be a major export. Inhabitants of Mars presumably will have better uses of their time than filing patents, and they would be competing against Earth-bound innovators against whom they don't have any particular advantage other than necessity. (Ideally, Mars wouldn't itself even be subject to patent law.)Space Tourism will be a thing unless there's some explicit policy to prevent wealthy thrill-seekers from going to Mars if they don't plan on doing any actual work while they're there.Science and exploration might be valuable professions. Like, if people on Earth put bids on locations, saying "I'll give you a thousand dollars if you drive your rover out to this location and take a few pictures and pick up some rock samples". Mining companies might be especially interested, but so would Earth-bound scientists who just want to know more about Mars.Real-estate speculation might be another cottage industry. Developers are going to want to establish homesteads in valuable locations, and then they can sell adjacent lots to newcomers. (This assumes some kind of sane framework for land ownership. Hopefully such a thing will strike a sensible balance between being able to claim "dibs" on entire landscapes vs not having property rights at all.) As long as the population of Mars is growing, this could be a lucrative profession.

pmoriarty超过 8 年前

One serious danger I haven't heard anyone mention mention in regards to the Mars colonization project (though it was considered to some extent in Arthur C Clarke's "Contact" and probably some other science fiction) is the possibility of terrorism against either the fragile spacecraft or colony.Musk has said there will be no screening of the Mars colonists, and that anyone could go. That means someone who's mentally unstable and/or wants to make a name for himself (ala Herostratus[1] or any number of modern publicity-seeking terrorists and murderers) could go and attempt to harm the spacecraft or colony, both of which would be incredibly vulnerable to such intentional attempts at destruction and are guaranteed to get massive publicity were they to be destroyed or even merely attacked.This could become even more likely if living on Mars long-term actually becomes viable, and people wind up spending decades on there. Some people will likely go stir-crazy and attempt to harm themselves and/or others.People who are allowed to go live in Antarctica or out in to space are currently screened very carefully to be compatible with each other and able to psychologically withstand the rigors of life there, and the relative isolation. But there will be no such screening for the Mars colonists, according to Musk, and the isolation and danger on Mars will be even worse than it is in Antarctica.The isolation and danger will be hugely stressful and difficult to deal with over the decades people will live on Mars. I've read that even in Antarctica, people are rotated out within a year or so because of the psychological difficulties of living there, and no one's been in space for much more than a year.[1] - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus</a>

sssilver超过 8 年前

If humanity somehow managed to build a self-sustaining long-term colony on Mars, it'd be fascinating to watch how the martian humans would evolve over the next million years.

评论 #12767417 未加载

pixie_超过 8 年前

Musk said 5% of SpaceX is working on the project and that number will increase over time. That's already 250 of the smartest engineers in the world working full-time on the Mars project. They've already test fired the Raptor engine for the rocket and produced a full scale tank of the fuselage for testing. These guys aren't going for 'exploration' like Zubrin wants, they're going for full scale colonization.Every ship produced is a new member of the fleet that continually moves between both planets. Opening up an interplanetary transportation corridor. If you're someone with the spirit of a colonist, an explorer, an adventure seeker (there are many in the world with that attitude) then Mars is going to be the place you want to prove yourself on. It is romantic, risky, badass, and there are no shortage of people who are going to take the challenge.An ever increasing number of ships leave every 2 years, and you always have the option to come back. I can easily see people doing fundraisers to go, universities offering scholarships, governments setting up stations to claim some land, companies sponsoring infrastructure projects to say they have a presence on Mars, etc..

评论 #12767442 未加载