Elon Musk says people will die going to Mars!

[Trailrider #896]

Well, what would you expect?  A trip to Mars is not only inherently risky, but will take around 9 months oneway.  Once there, there will be added risks in a hostile environment.  But what about crossing the Atlantic Ocean on a fragile sailing ship, then landing on the East Coast and enduring all sorts of hardships.  Oh, the Mars explorers/settlers won't have to face hostile Indians...unless it is hostile Chinese!  Travelling west, and ignoring the danger of Native Americans and grizzly bears, there was the potential for accidents, disease, lack of water, too much water (floods), running out of food, etc.  The number of unmarked graves along the Oregon Trail probably exceeds a thousand!  That didn't stop others from following.  So the New Martians will plan carefully, take precautions...will take their chances, as all explorers/pioneers have.  Would I go? Sure, if I was forty or fifty years younger, and there was a reasonable chance of returning to Earth.

To the Moon! To Mars! To the Stars!

[Subdeacon Joe]

Non est ad astra mollis e terris via.

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

It usta take 9 months to sail from England to Australia ................ I'm kinda glad that they did it .....

 

 ............ 'course some didn't have a choice ............

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

When the settlers came to America, they found air, water, plants, and animals, and all of the features that had allowed them and their forbears to live for millenia. They traded cramped quarters for the open spaces.

 

A somewhat different situation, you might say.

[Trailrider #896]

24 minutes ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

When the settlers came to America, they found air, water, plants, and animals, and all of the features that had allowed them and their forbears to live for millenia. They traded cramped quarters for the open spaces.

 

A somewhat different situation, you might say.

The challenges will be great, no question.  But who knows in, say, three or four hundred years what will be possible on Mars...and beyond.  Getting from England to Australia today takes a lot less time with just a subsonic aircraft. Elon Musk simply does not want Humanity to be a one-planet species. It will probably take more time than Musk predicts, but I have no doubt he will do it!  NASA at least thinks SpaceX is the ONE to transport astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back again.  When I was a kid, the sci-fi show, "Tom Corbett Space Cadet" showed rockets backing back down on their own exhaust plumes to land.  "Of course" we knew that wasn't reality...couldn't be done, right?  Well, SpaceX had done it about 78 times, most recently after launching the Dragon II spacecraft to the International Space Station...with four astronauts aboard!  Oh, yes, four experimental test articles have failed to land after a short flight...crashed, blew up, etc.  But it will be done, and soon, followed by flights to Low Earth Orbit, and beyond.  

To the Moon! To Mars! To the Stars!

Stay well and safe!

[Rye Miles #13621]

If I make it to 99, then I'll go to Mars and have my 100th birthday there!

[Utah Bob #35998]

+1 What Trailrider said.

 Exploration and discovery have always been inherently hazardous. But with great risk comes great reward. 
The encouraging thing is that Private enterprise is finally involved, because we all know the attitude of the American public when it comes to risk these days. They would demand a shutdown of any government program that lost personnel. We would not be able to withstand another Challenger disaster in our present climate. Congress would speechify, posture, investigate, convolute, finger point and eventually shut exploration down in the public interest.

[Widder, SASS #59054]

I'll help pay for a few politicians to make the trip..... one way!

 

..........Widder

 

[bgavin]

Here in the PRK, folks die going to the 7-11

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

I see the scientific value, and of course the intellectual interest. I've been a science fiction fan since youth, though quite a bit less in recent years. The 'humanity to the stars' and 'humanity not a single-planet species' sorts of concepts no longer hold much appeal for me, though they certainly did in their time. Or, perhaps, in my time.

 

It's going to take very unusual people to inhabit small spaceship quarters for months and years, then nearly as small quarters in a wholly hostile environment for more months and years-- and then return under the same constraints.

 

It's not going to be pilgrims and gentleman adventurers and seekers after land and wealth.....

 

To me the reason to do it is simply that others will do if we don't. Probably a sufficient reason.

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

3 hours ago, Widder, SASS #59054 said:

I'll help pay for a few politicians to make the trip..... one way!

 

..........Widder

 

 

 

  ................... what did Mars ever do to you ?   

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

I never left anything on Mars or the moon or any place else outside our atmosphere.  I see no reason to go back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Waxahachie Kid #17017 L]

Exposure to radiation, on the trip there, and also on the planet's surface, in the thin atmosphere, will be fatal. It's a one-way trip, unless they can come up with some quantum-leap technology, before we all self-destruct. 

 

 

[Trailrider #896]

10 hours ago, Waxahachie Kid #17017 L said:

Exposure to radiation, on the trip there, and also on the planet's surface, in the thin atmosphere, will be fatal. It's a one-way trip, unless they can come up with some quantum-leap technology, before we all self-destruct. 

 

 

Cosmic radiation is the major source of problems beyond Low Earth Orbit.  There is research ongoing on ways to counteract the effects during the trip.  One thing that would help would be to shorten the trip time.  Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has just let a contract to General Atomics Corporation to develop a nuclear thermal rocket engine (NTR), which would double the efficiency of liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen engines.  (You have a nuclear reactor that creates heat. You pump liquid hydrogen around the reactor, vaporizing the H2 and shooting it out a nozzle, cooling the reactor at the same time.  Tests on such systems were conducted in the 1950's until the test ban treaties stopped them.)  Once you get to Mars, you can burrow into the surface for protection.  For oxygen, you just do what the Mars rover just did, only on a much larger scale...converting the Martian CO2 into O2.

It may take a while to establish colonies there.  Meantime, the pioneers will learn and make do.

To the Moon! To Mars! To the Stars!

[El CupAJoe]

one way trip, probably, chance to be that guy who got off this planet alive.. priceless, except the only people you have to chuckle about it are in the same boat you are

[Hendo]

To infinity and beyond! 

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

You guys are full of BS.  Haven't you seen The Martian with Matt Damon?

[Utah Bob #35998]

Think about exploration in the past few thousand years or so. How many died?  Now we’re down to an occasional tragedy that takes a few lives. 

[DeaconKC]

Just read some John Carter of Mars books!

[Sixgun Sheridan]

Personally I think it's ridiculous to think about sending people to Mars before we've even made it routine to go to the Moon.

[Bailey Creek,5759]

I keep wondering how come we haven't been back to the Moon in 45 yrs. 

Makes me wonder if we were ever there.

[Utah Bob #35998]

2 hours ago, Bailey Creek,5759 said:

I keep wondering how come we haven't been back to the Moon in 45 yrs. 

Makes me wonder if we were ever there.

We were there numerous times. The public became pretty jaded about moon missions. And with lack of public interest there comes lack of support from congress. Budgets get cut. Programs get cancelled etc. The only thing left to do on the moon was build a base. But the tech wasn’t up to it at the time and NASA had to concentrate on the shuttle program which ran from 72-2011. The next step was an interplanetary expedition. Mongo expensive though and again, lukewarm support.

It’s great that private enterprise is getting involved. The leaps in aviation in the 20th century were done by mostly American private corporations, not government. Hopefully they will take us forward into the future.

[Joeronimo Caffiend]

Just as a reminder for the "value" of Musk's pronouncements:

He also said genetically engineered cat-girls are possible......

 

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

24 minutes ago, Joeronimo Caffiend said:

Just as a reminder for the "value" of Musk's pronouncements:

He also said genetically engineered cat-girls are possible......

 

 

Cordwainer Smith beat him to it.

[PaleWolf Brunelle, #2495L]

 

[Snakejaw_Joe]

If we can terraform a barren wasteland devoid of atmosphere to reliably support human life, imagine what we can do to fix whatevers going on with Earth right now. Politics aside, whatever its caused by (nature or man), things are shifting in scary ways.

 

But theres little profit in repair... more profit in tossing out the old model and building a new model for MSRP. That, I suspect, is what Musk has his eyes on.

 

 

I'll bet a dollar you won't see him getting on that spacecraft and leading by example, risking his own life.

 

 

[Trailrider #896]

"I'll bet a dollar you won't see him getting on that spacecraft and leading by example, risking his own life."

I wouldn't take that bet.  Maybe not now, but I would suspect he would travel to Mars, possibly to return, but in the longrun...?

Stay well and safe!

To the Moon! To Mars! To the Stars!

 

 

[Sixgun Sheridan]

On 4/28/2021 at 1:15 PM, Bailey Creek,5759 said:

I keep wondering how come we haven't been back to the Moon in 45 yrs. 

Makes me wonder if we were ever there.

 

Unfortunately the general public has a very short attention span, and once we'd "done" the Moon too few people saw any reason to keep spending money to go back there. The entire space program is often very frustrating for the folks at NASA and elsewhere, because unless they can keep up the dog and pony show it's hard to keep the public sufficiently interested to allow continued funding. That's why they stuck that poor teacher Christa McAuliffe on the Space Shuttle, just to keep up the interest in the shuttle program (boy, did that work out well). Of course, even after the shuttle program resumed there were calls to cancel the program as the pinheads didn't see any benefit in sending up the shuttle over and over. The second disaster was the final nail in the coffin, and instead of replacing it with an improved shuttle we ended up with nothing but the Russians and Elon Musk to fall back on.

 

And yet they think we're ready to go to Mars. You don't risk people sending them into deep space in an experimental craft. You have to develop and perfect it first. Unfortunately that's too expensive and time-consuming, and nobody wants to invest in something that doesn't bring instant gratification.

[Chuck Steak]

People are going to die on their way to brunch.

Some folks will make it to brunch only to die on their way home from brunch.

Of COURSE people will die going to Mars - they are going to die on Mars and even on their way back from Mars. 

Some people are even going to die NOT going to Mars.

 

Elon Musk is a smart guy, but it seems like surrendering to the idea that "people will die" during any human endeavor is a bit narrow focused from a guy that has proven to be quite the innovator.  The possiblity of failure, no matter how high doesn't seem like a very broad vision to use as a reason why people should NOT do something.  People are going to stay in their house, wear two masks, and dutifully get vaccinated, AND still die from COVID because that is what people do - or we could all stay home where we will be "safe"

...but oh what a wonderful world it would be if bold men and women with hearty dispositions and determined souls emerged from their caves, felt the sun on their faces, and said, "fire up the rockets, I'm going for a ride"

 

That first pathetic little creature that crawled forth out of the primordial ooze some 4 billion years ago got sick and tired of just floating around in its happy little bowl of prebiotic soup and decided to make a go at it - and here we are.