Elon Musk Unveiling Mars Spacecraft Later This Year

Megalith

Megalith

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How long do you think it’ll take for us to ruin Mars once we begin settling there?

Musk said space travel to Mars is part of a larger vision of one day establishing a city on the Red Planet – partly to ensure the survival of the human race but also “because it would be an incredible adventure, the greatest adventure ever. It would be exciting and inspiring. There need to be things that excite and inspire people.”
 
Sending people off to die on a world with no food or resources and a few months away from any help.

Sounds "exciting and inspiring" to me. Has Mr Musk forgotten why Apollo launches were stopped? Because after got there and billions of USD were spent doing so...there just wasn't anything there to justify the expense.
 
In order to 'terraform' Mars the greenhouse gases etc. are just what the doctor ordered for. Too bad the handful of explorers won't make a dent to it.

The human race must expand to other planets or face inevitable extinction.
 
Skripka said:
Sending people off to die on a world with no food or resources and a few months away from any help.

Sounds "exciting and inspiring" to me. Has Mr Musk forgotten why Apollo launches were stopped? Because after got there and billions of USD were spent doing so...there just wasn't anything there to justify the expense.
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Not necessarily sending them off to die, but sure it will be tough, think early pioneers, how many of them broke a wagon wheel and died of dysentery? :D

And yes the Moon landings stopped because there wasn't anything to justify the expense when the sole driving factor was "We gotta beat the Reds!!!!" and that doesn't quite hold the same in today's political climate "Need to beat ISIS to Mars!!" yeah .. .no. Plus the extent of the Moon landings was bringing back samples, well they don't need many missions to do that. If they had some other long term plan, like establish a base (although I would think it would go the direction of Alcatraz and become too expensive to ship stuff), or mining facility (assuming there was anything worth mining), then they probably would continue to go. But we beat the Reds, and then NASA was like "so what else can we do?"
 
sfsuphysics said:
Not necessarily sending them off to die, but sure it will be tough, think early pioneers, how many of them broke a wagon wheel and died of dysentery? :D

And yes the Moon landings stopped because there wasn't anything to justify the expense when the sole driving factor was "We gotta beat the Reds!!!!" and that doesn't quite hold the same in today's political climate "Need to beat ISIS to Mars!!" yeah .. .no. Plus the extent of the Moon landings was bringing back samples, well they don't need many missions to do that. If they had some other long term plan, like establish a base (although I would think it would go the direction of Alcatraz and become too expensive to ship stuff), or mining facility (assuming there was anything worth mining), then they probably would continue to go. But we beat the Reds, and then NASA was like "so what else can we do?"
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Yea...with the pioneers settling the USA...they had land to live off of to eat and make tools and shelter. Mars is a dead rock with not even handy drinkable water. Those colonists are going to die a pretty terrible death. No resources like food, not even breathable air, as soon as something breaks there's no fixing it for months.

Mining what? Anything they find is more plentiful here and cheaper and more immediate. Anything they do find in plentitude and bring back that is worth the effort will crash the economy of that material here on Earth (see what happened when Columbus brought gold back from the New World to Europe).
 
When? We're already dumping junk all over Mars, some of the junk is radioactive too. :D
 
Skripka said:
Has Mr Musk forgotten why Apollo launches were stopped? Because after got there and billions of USD were spent doing so...there just wasn't anything there to justify the expense.
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The Apollo missions were about demonstrating our superiority over the USSR. After we'd won the race to put a man on the moon, it began to become clear that the USSR's aspirations for space exploration had been greatly tempered. In turn, we lost the political will to continue funding further Apollo missions.
 
B00nie said:
In order to 'terraform' Mars the greenhouse gases etc. are just what the doctor ordered for. Too bad the handful of explorers won't make a dent to it.

The human race must expand to other planets or face inevitable extinction.
Click to expand...

Spoiler: The universe ends in heat death and the human race inevitably goes extinct anyway.

At least, that's what any atheist should believe.
 
Talyrius said:
That'll happen in about a googol years (10 to the 100th power). We'll be long gone by then.
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What difference does it make if it would happen in 500, 1,000, 10,000 or a googol years from now? It would be inevitable regardless of how long it takes and it's just kicking the can down the road. What makes people 500 years from now any more or less special than a googol years from now?
 
variant said:
What difference does it make if it would happen in 500, 1,000, 10,000 or a googol years from now? It would be inevitable regardless of how long it takes and it's just kicking the can down the road. What makes people 500 years from now any more or less special than a googol years from now?
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Have you lost the will to live—to get out of bed in the morning? No? I guess we'll keep kicking that can.
 
Talyrius said:
The Apollo missions were about demonstrating our superiority over the USSR. After we'd won the race to put a man on the moon, it began to become clear that the USSR's aspirations for space exploration had been greatly tempered. In turn, we lost the political will to continue funding further Apollo missions.
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That and by the time Apollo 17 rolled around, the public had grown fatigued of moon landings.

Had we launched another one in the 90's (different generation), I think it would have been a ratings hit. Mars will be the same way. First and second time will be huge news. The rest will just slowly get buried behind what Kim Kardashian had for lunch. The only way they sustain momentum is if they aren't simply scientific missions, but have a capitalism angle for companies to want to continue.

Now, I will say, the advancement in video tech by the time a mission happens should make for some awesoem reality TV documentary footage.
 
Mars is already ruined. Besides the point, no one is getting there, except maybe on a sound stage.
 
I think we need to send more rovers there first, perhaps ones that can be used in order to start the terraforming process - or see if it's even possible with the resources that are there. We can't just depend on resources from Earth, it needs to be done in a self sustainable way, or we may as well just be building a large space station closer to Earth to accomplish the same thing.
 
It has already been proven there is not much out there for us, and not much use. Also, if we are doing it purely for research or discovery, it has been shown rovers and robots do a far better job and take up far less space. They can also live/function there for much longer and do not need a return flight.

I love space and exploring, but I really see no need (at this point) to send humans.

Humans need to bring along, air, water, food, waste processing, living space, medical supplies, space suits the list goes on and on, the cost and space of launch vehicle needed for a manned mission would cover the space and cost of many rover missions that could do far more tests over a longer period of time.
 
Skripka said:
Sending people off to die on a world with no food or resources and a few months away from any help.

Sounds "exciting and inspiring" to me. Has Mr Musk forgotten why Apollo launches were stopped? Because after got there and billions of USD were spent doing so...there just wasn't anything there to justify the expense.
Click to expand...

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was brutal and the average person of the time saw no direct benefit at all. President Jefferson was opposed to government spending, but he understood the value of research and exploration.

In the long-term the US has economic and defensive reasons for learning to manipulate and mine asteroids. Flying to near-Earth asteroids and establishing a fuel depot at a Lunar L2 point are doable if they can get a set annual budget. SLS was on schedule for 2017 until the cutbacks of the last 2 years.
 
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