Musk: $9 million to Mars?

[halman]

spayss,<br /><br />Thank you for the compliment!<br /><br />It really tears me up to watch the divisive arguments regarding the immediate goals of space exploration, because, more than anything else, I think, these arguments have set back the entire process. Those who only dimly understand the nature of the Solar System, the requirements of human spaceflight, and the engineering challenges they pose, are looking to the enthusiasts of space exploration to give them guidance. I include many members of Congress in the group who only dimly understand.<br /><br />When these enthusiasts choose up sides and fight pitched battles concerning what should be done next, it leaves the uninformed with the idea that we are not advanced enough to know what to do. Otherwise, there would be clear, distinct calls for making the next step. But the issue of Mars has been very confusing, as some people claim that we are ready at this moment to send humans there to live, and other people talk about exploratory missions to the Moon. Isn't the Moon supposed to be closer than Mars? If so, why would we bypass it in our outward expansion? Supposedly, there are valuable resources on the Moon, which could be harvested for industrial use. Yet, the proposals for going to Mars don't say much about exploiting resources for the whole human race to use. Is spaceflight just a bunch of romantic kooks who want to get away from the rest of humanity? If so, why should the rest of humanity give them money to take their knowledge and abilities out of the struggle for survival? <br /><br />To my eyes, the debate seems to come down to mining versus colonization. Colonization will always be more attractive to the general population, but mining will always be more attractive to potential investors. Holding Mars up as our next goal will always win the hearts of imaginative and idealistic people, especially young ones. Choosing the Moon as our next destination will probably win the pocketbooks of those with <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[spacester]

Halman,<br /><br />I was very encouraged by your lament on the lack of unity. And then I read your second paragraph where you seem to seek to discredit the Marsophiles because you are a Moonaphile. All I can do is roll my eyes. Like this:<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /><br /><br />Let me introduce a concept to you: "Both"<br />*<br />The mining vs. colonization thing (which I see as another false choice between a set of options which for some reason always must total two) can be defused if we shift from a focus on "Colonization" to the much more near-term and achievable goal of "Settlement". If you do not know the difference by now in my usage of the terms, then I give up.<br /><br />I sure wish everyone would be more careful about their use of the term self-sufficiency. It is a false goal. We are not going to be making advanced integrated circuits elsewhere than Earth any time soon. But so what? Do we need to make them on Mars before we can Settle Mars?<br /><br />If you want to discredit Mars fans, then keep talking about colonies and self-sufficiency. If you want to quit being a part of the space enthusiast culture which you lament as being so divisive then you should start talking about Settlements and in-situ resource extraction to the extent that it is practical. Talk about economically viable trade goods and services. Talk about a logical progression as the Settlement increases its prowess from mere survival to creating exports. Pick your orb and make positive statements about how it could be done. Quit spending your energies ripping into the dreams of others.<br /><br /><b>A Martian or Lunar Settlement does not need to be self-sufficient.</b> What it needs to do is create enough economic value to justify its continued existence. <br /><br />You're a student of history, correct? Let me ask you this: how long did it take for the Old World's investment in Colonies to pay off? I just read one historian who made a very cogent case that the answer is over 350 ye <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spacester]

I am no expert on microbiology but it is my assumption that food-producing plants on Mars will be grown in a shelter of some sort using hydroponics and that can be expected to work just fine assuming the people who set it up are not complete idiots. The radiation and toxic soil issues need not hold us back.<br /><br />I agree with the assessment than human genetic engineering is not the technology of choice for at least the initial phases of Martian Settlement, and quite possibly as close to never as to be irrelevant to planning those phases. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Pardon me, Spayss, but when I speak of Lichens and Mosses, it <i>is</i> after some neccessary terraforming to raise the global atmospheric pressure, although raising the average global temperature isn't quite as important (Lichens and Mosses are found growing in the Arctic and Antarctic). I would have thought you'd assume we meant that. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[yoda9999]

spacester:<br />Let me ask you this: how long did it take for the Old World's investment in Colonies to pay off? I just read one historian who made a very cogent case that the answer is over 350 years: not until the Old World needed the New World to bail it out of WWII did the investment really pay off. <br /><br />Me:<br />How did this historian calculate the "Old World's investment" and "pay off"? Can you give me his name and publication? It would be interesting to know what he meant. Is he saying that almost everyone in the Old World died broke because of their investments in the Colonies (which ones?) never paid off in their lifetime?

 

[spayss]

Lichens and mosses are very sensitive to specific conditions. Most only grow in very specific ecosystems on Earth. There is more to them living than a particular air pressure, temperature, etc. Just as you and I need very specific requirements to meet every need of metabolism and reproduction..otherwise, a complete and complex ecosystem. Take the multitude of bacteria out of your gut and you die. Each of those bacteria, in turn, needs a specific condition for its life cycle.<br /><br /> The Arctic and Antarctic are not sterile environments any less compex in their own ways than any other ecosystem.<br /><br />

 

[yevaud]

Ok. I'll forget all of the experts who have queued up these exact organisms as one of the steps they would take if they were to terraform Mars. Clearly they all know nothing. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Tell you what. Here's a few links for you to peruse. Then make up your own mind.<br /><br />Pub Med Abstract<br /><br />PhysOrg Article<br /><br />AIAA Abstract on the ideal plants with which to assist Terraforming Mars <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Anyways, back on Topic, I also found a very good site on Regenerative Life Support, with a variety of links and sources.<br /><br />Oregon State <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[spayss]

Yevaud, why not give a hundred thousand links to alien abductions. Your ignorance of biology is appaling.

 

[yevaud]

(I was going to respond in kind, but on second thought, I won't buy into that)<br /><br />And after raising the overall global temperature and raising the atmospheric pressure, they will use <i>what</i> precisely as the first toehold of life? Petunias?<br /><br />Yes, exactly. You have no idea. <br /><br />(Oh, and by the way, I finished a 2-course sequence in Molecular and Evolutionary Biology at a nearby college just last year. Took it for the sheer fun of it - everything from how Ion Transport works, to Punctuated Equilibrium) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[spacester]

<font color="yellow">How did this historian. . . </font><br /><br />Well, please note that I never said he was a <i>conventional </i>historian. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br /><i>Millenuim</i> by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, ISBN 0-684-80361-5 copyright 1995. He was (is?) a member of the Modern History Faculty of Oxford University.<br /><br />All he tried to do was compile a comprehensive history of the entire world over the last thousand years within one volume. (!!!) The audaciousness of the task is what attracted me to the book. I'm not prepared to defend him as the best historian ever or anything, but I did buy it as background for these debates we always get into over how the past can be used as a guide for space development.<br /><br />His approach is not based on economics, because of the breadth and scope of the task the quality he focused on was <br /><br /><b>Initiative</b><br /><br />As soon as I read that, along with his assumed perspective as explained in the first sentence of his preface:<br /><i>I have a vision of some galactic museum of the distant future in which diet Coke cans will share with coats of chain mail a single small volume marked "Planet Earth, 1000-2000, Christian Era." </i><br />I knew I had to read it. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />I'm not able to find the section where he makes this particular statement, 700 pages and this was just a page at most; when I say the entire world, I mean every continent and culture. But the gist of it was that the countries themselves - the fortunes of individuals matter little to the galactic museum curators - were none the better for their investments. In fact, as their more initiative-minded people went to the new world, they were poorer for it. So from the perspective of the political entities, the investment didn't 'pay off' until the new world came to the rescue of Europe in WWII.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yoda9999]

OKay thanks. So he's a popular historian, like a Carl Sagan of history. Galactic curators huh?

 

[spacefire]

what about using aquifers, pumping nutrients in them obtained through artificial photosynthesis and growing algae? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Well, that all has to come well after some critical first steps. Releasing CFC's or Ammonia into the atmosphere to create a Greenhouse Effect, raising global temperatures (many problems there). Raising the atmospheric pressure via melting a substantial portion of the polar caps or perhaps by some heavy-duty bombardments of the planet with icy bodies (many further problems). <br /><br />Even (as some have suggested), attempting to use nukes to restart some volcanic activity (outgassing helping raise the pressure).<br /><br />The last doesn't sound like a very good idea. A higher, but mildly radioactive atmospheric pressure isn't a very good tradeoff, IMO.<br /><br />Once those two steps are taken, the range of temperatures will stabilize, perhaps even above the freezing point of H2O. <br /><br />At that point, then precursors such as those lichens and mosses may be released. They have been tentatively shown to be able to survive in a wide range of termperature extremes, and will go dormant but still viable below a certain temperature.<br /><br />Note: it's also possible they would have to seed the atmosphere with forms of anerobic bacteria to begin converting the atmosphere from toxic forms, prior to this step.<br /><br />In any event, this is still many decades or even centuries down the road. Regrettably. It would be very interesting to watch it as it began. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">it is my assumption that food-producing plants on Mars will be grown in a shelter of some sort using hydroponics </font>/i><br /><br />I will be curious to see what can be built using local resources. For example, if glass can be produced on Mars, and the bricks can be made from the local soil, then there is at least the possibility of making very large green houses (imagine columns of Mars generated bricks topped by Mars generated glass slabs).<br /><br />Once shelter, food, and water can be developed locally on Mars, then colonization can begin in earnest.</i>

 

[pathfinder_01]

“I will be curious to see what can be built using local resources. For example, if glass can be produced on Mars, and the bricks can be made from the local soil, then there is at least the possibility of making very large green houses (imagine columns of Mars generated bricks topped by Mars generated glass slabs).”<br /><br />In theory yes. In reality that could be a real long term thing as you need processes and procedures for creating the items and you probably want to test the procedures in a small scale on site. In addition there is very little knowledge of how those materials will behave under mars conditions or how to build a building under those conditions. <br /><br /> Then you need tools and labor to do so. I think it can and will be done, but I expect the first people on mars to live in pre-fabed units built on earth for a long time (maybe 5-10 years at the least??) before attempting to build anything more than a storage shed. <br /><br />In addition there is very little knowledge of how materials will behave under mars conditions. Will the bricks become brittle in 5 years time ect…Heck will the soil eat a hole into the walls of the pre-fabed unit sent from earth. It could take a while to gain confidence in our ability to build anything on mars.<br /><br />The other problem with the green house route is light. Due to the distance from the sun mars gets less intense sunlight than earth which will have an effect on the plants growing in the greenhouse and what about those planet wide dust storms. It might be easier to use light bulbs (of the correct type) than use sunlight. <br /><br />Or you could try a hybrid approach using lights for when sunlight isn’t available. That would allow power to be diverted from lighting to other activates. Another idea is to pipe sunlight in rather than have huge windows<br />

 

[pathfinder_01]

"Each of those bacteria, in turn, needs a specific condition for its life cycle. "<br /><br /> Yes, but not all bacteria are hard to please. For instance you CAN grow bacteria in a simple solution of sugar, water and some salts. And there are bacteria that use all sorts of photosynthisis and chemosynthisis to live. <br /><br />Now there are bacteria that can not be grown on a perti dish because we don't know how to create a proper media, and not all baceria are easy to please(in fact most are not).<br /><br /> However there are bacteria that given simple chemicals and an energy source can produce everything they need. <br />

 

[halman]

spacester,<br /><br />I will readily admit that I have a bias toward trying to utilize lunar resources before trying to utilize Martian resources. But that is all that I will admit.<br /><br />My second paragraph you seem to have mistaken for my personal views. No, I am trying to describe what I imagine are the reactions of those who do not have a great interest in space exploration to the arguments going round and round about which place to go first.<br /><br />As far as the concept of "both" goes, my reaction is "neither". Unless a huge increase in the amount of money, public AND private, being spent on developing launch vehicle technology occurs, humans are not likely to walk on the surface of another celestial body any time soon. The current levels of investment are not even adequate to get us regular flights to the Moon in anything less than 25 years, and there is little, if any, room in those amounts for developing a long duration life support system. I am not talking about a closed circut system, just one which will not crash after 6 or 7 months.<br /><br />By insisting that the space program have a plurality of goals at this stage of its development is, in my opinion, a guarantee of failure. I realize that the technical challenges in sending humans to Mars can be overcome, and I believe that they will be. But what I have seen in popular media is usually of the 'humans could be living on Mars in ten years' type stuff, which I find very hard to believe. But that is not the point. The point is that those kinds of stories or articles are confusing the dickens out of most of the average Americans, because they know that we can't even get to the Moon right now.<br /><br />I desperately want to see human space exploration continue, and to be successful. To my mind, that means taking small steps, and making sure that we do not backslide, like we have before. I believe that we have to prove that we can keep people alive in space for a year or so before we send anyon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[spacefire]

we don't need to emss with the atmosphere if we grow anaerobe algae in an aquifer. I'm not saying the plants we could grow exist yet, as first of all they would have to have a high nutritional value and be able to process the ...amidone? pumped in their pockets of water and relay on that and heat from a nuclear plant.<br />SO basically we need to have a large aquifer close enough to the surface and the human colony.<br />ANd I don't think we even know if aquifers exist on Mars. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[spacester]

halman,<br /><br />Thank you! I get it, for the first time I understand your position. <br /><br />I'm not interested in changing your opinions, but I do invite you to expand your vision. What I see in your pespective is an assumption that progress must be linear, step-by-step. I am a parallel thinker. I admit that too much parallel thinking can also get in the way, but with all the folks in the opposite camp, I do what I feel I have to do to drive us all towards some reasonable middle ground.<br /><br />I would invite you to include in your thinking things like:<br />SpaceX<br />Bigelow<br />Space Dev<br />Dozens of other private concerns<br />Some guys in some garages somewhere<br />Russia<br />Europe<br />Other countries<br /><br />I invite you to include in your thinking the concepts of business plans and not just spending programs. <br /><br />Are you familiar with the concept of an abundance mentality?<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Sure, Anerobic bacteria would also be useful (and there are several varieties, so a mix of the types would probably be required). However, the aquifer would have to be huge to be able to produce any useful quantities of oxygen. Still, that's useful idea.<br /><br />I had always felt, regardless of locations of interest on Mars, the North polar cap would have to be the very first location for a self-sustaining colony attempt. The presence of all of that H20 ice for cracking into H and 0 (as well as simple water), as well as negating the need for the presence of an aquifer of any sort.<br /><br />Further colony attempts may take place at the South polar cap, or spread out from the initial colony. In fact, the transport and sale of H20 could be the first large commercial endeavor on Mars. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[pathfinder_01]

I am not a negativist. I am a realist. I do hope to see lunar colonies in my lifetime, but I do understand that it isn’t simple nor cheap. <br /><br />“The mining vs. colonization thing (which I see as another false choice between a set of options which for some reason always must total two) can be defused if we shift from a focus on "Colonization" to the much more near-term and achievable goal of "Settlement". If you do not know the difference by now in my usage of the terms, then I give up.”<br /><br />I don’t think there is a difference between mining and colonization, both actives will require people present and both will require life support. It is only a question of how much. And mind you a mine would be a great way to justify a colony. <br /><br /><br />The trouble with mining or any other industrial application in space or the moon is that so far we have found nothing of value that requires a manned presence to send home to earth. If we could find something on the moon or be able to make something there or in LEO orbit that is valuable and can not be more cheaply made on earth then it will happen. <br /><br />“I sure wish everyone would be more careful about their use of the term self-sufficiency. It is a false goal. We are not going to be making advanced integrated circuits elsewhere than Earth any time soon. But so what? Do we need to make them on Mars before we can Settle Mars?”<br /><br />I think that self sufficiency is a major issue. The more you can make in place the better. For instance without the water recycling abilities of the ISS a full crew on the ISS(7 or 8) would require a shuttle launch each month just to carry up enough water. <br /><br />I think the basics of food, water and oxygen need to be made on site. I agree advanced integrated circuits won’t likely be made off planet for some time but the less you have to send there the better. Sending fertilizer is much easier than sending food. <br /><br /><br />“You're a student of history, correct? Let me

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">In theory yes. In reality that could be a real long term thing as you need processes and procedures for creating the items and you probably want to test the procedures in a small scale on site. ...</font>/i><br /><br />I agree with all your points. I just think before colonization can happen on a wide scale (on Mars, the Moon, or elsewhere), serious in-situ resources are going to have to be exploited on a large scale.<br /><br />On a related note, I also think advances in genetics will help colonization as plants can be tuned to different environment and produce different results. For example, some organisims might be hardened for radiation exposure. Plants might be modified to support growing in lower gravity. Trees might be modified to grow super fast (but be short and broad to fit into green houses), so their wood could be harvested for making local furniture.<br /><br />On an unrelated note -- did anyone notice that these discussion boards cannot be reached from SDC's front page anymore? Are they being phased out?</i>

 

[radarredux]

>> <i>I just read one historian who made a very cogent case that the answer is over 350 years: not until the Old World needed the New World to bail it out of WWII did the investment really pay off.”</i><br /><br /> /> <font color="yellow"><i>Actually that is kind of a false view. The American colonies served as a place to dump criminals (Georgia). ...</i></font><br /><br />I read an interview where Griffin made the same 350 year reference...<br /><br />I would argue the potato was a major return on investment for Europe as it help feed the growing populations in 1500s and 1600s. Of course Europe looted an awful lot of Gold out of the New World. And the example of the United Stated democracy set the standard form of government which would eventually be embraced by all of Western Europe.