66 replies to this topic

[Ru1138]

http://nextbigfuture...olation-of.html

 

 

"[Elon Musk] is hopeful that the first people could be taken to Mars in 10 to 12 years. Elon think it is certainly possible for that to occur. He says the thing that matters long term is to have a self-sustaining city on Mars, to make life multiplanetary.

Here I have combined various statements from Elon Musk with my own extrapolation of developments towards and eighty thousand person Mars City by 2040.

[MarcZ]

Why would we make human civilization multiplanetary if there is no economic incentive to do so. Saying we could have 80000 people there is nice, but we would need some type of resource that would push us to do so. Take a look at Antarctica. Nice big space but we don't put people there because we don't have economic reason to do so!

 

We should stick to colonizing the moon first, as it actually has some resources like Helium-3 that we might actually use and thus support some colonies. 

[TheAsianGuy_LOL]

Don't know, emotions reel in more than efficient thinking. Anyways, It is a good incentive. We might even find resources on Mars. Remember, we haven't dug holes in it yet lol.

[Ru1138]

Why would we make human civilization multiplanetary if there is no economic incentive to do so. Saying we could have 80000 people there is nice, but we would need some type of resource that would push us to do so. Take a look at Antarctica. Nice big space but we don't put people there because we don't have economic reason to do so!
 
We should stick to colonizing the moon first, as it actually has some resources like Helium-3 that we might actually use and thus support some colonies.

 
Aside from helium-3, there is no other reason to go to the moon. A quote from the Manifold series might be of importance here:
 

If you found the richest Lunar ore on Earth you would throw it out as slag.

There's no carbon or nitrogen on the surface, it would all have to be carted to the base there. That wouldn't give you something self-sustaining in an emergency as opposed to a colony on Mars.

And even if there's helium-3 there, so what? Current experimental reactors (including the upcoming Lockheed Martin reactor) tend not to need helium-3.

[OrbitalResonance]

Explore and Exploit Asteroids and Comets

 

(the economics will make it so, its getting there w/ cheaper transport tech)

[Unity]

I think musk is thinking about building a backup to terrestrial civilization.

[wjfox]

 

Why would we make human civilization multiplanetary if there is no economic incentive to do so. Saying we could have 80000 people there is nice, but we would need some type of resource that would push us to do so. Take a look at Antarctica. Nice big space but we don't put people there because we don't have economic reason to do so!
 
We should stick to colonizing the moon first, as it actually has some resources like Helium-3 that we might actually use and thus support some colonies.

 
Aside from helium-3, there is no other reason to go to the moon. A quote from the Manifold series might be of importance here:
 

If you found the richest Lunar ore on Earth you would throw it out as slag.

There's no carbon or nitrogen on the surface, it would all have to be carted to the base there. That wouldn't give you something self-sustaining in an emergency as opposed to a colony on Mars.

And even if there's helium-3 there, so what? Current experimental reactors (including the upcoming Lockheed Martin reactor) tend not to need helium-3.

 

 

 

The Moon could be a "beautiful" source of minerals and energy, a top Chinese scientist has told the BBC.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/25141597

 

[Jakob]

We can't get 80,000 people to Mars by 2040. Assuming that nobody will get there before 2020, we'd have to move 4000 people a year over there. We simply don't have that many sufficiently large spacecraft.

[kre8noys]

Won't happen, 10 perhaps? certainly not 80 000 there's no political drive to colonize mars, the cost would be enormous, the cheaper I've heard to send  humans  on mars is  30 billions if i remember correctly with the cargo and all. With the small spacecraft we have  we're talking about 8 person per crafts, 10 000 crafts will have to be sent at the cost of 300 000 000 000. 

 

Just can't see it happening.

[zEVerzan]

We can't get 80,000 people to Mars by 2040. Assuming that nobody will get there before 2020, we'd have to move 4000 people a year over there. We simply don't have that many sufficiently large spacecraft.

 

We don't have that many spacecraft now. In 40 years, who knows?

[Jakob]

 

We can't get 80,000 people to Mars by 2040. Assuming that nobody will get there before 2020, we'd have to move 4000 people a year over there. We simply don't have that many sufficiently large spacecraft.

 

We don't have that many spacecraft now. In 40 years, who knows?

 

25, you mean? Let's assume that every decade the maximum occupancy of spacecraft will increase tenfold every decade and we can average five launches per year between 2020 and 2040. Spacecraft can now carry about ten people, so the Mars colony would have at most 500 by 2030. Only a few thousand more will join them in the next decade at that rate. A colony of 80,000 on Mars would be something for the 2060s,  at least.

[PrimordialBeing]

I can only see about 10,000 people living on Mars by 2040. I think that once we get going with really sending people to colonise Mars and maybe the Moon, we'll have 80,000 on Mars by about 2060, or 2080 at the latest.

[FutureOfToday]

I think it's possible, except the 80,000 people part. No way will there be that many people on Mars so soon.

[FutureGuy]

I don't see this happening at all, not that soon.

[MarcZ]

Explore and Exploit Asteroids and Comets

 

(the economics will make it so, its getting there w/ cheaper transport tech)

 

The economics of getting metals from comets is still quite far off. There are still plentiful amounts of minerals on planet Earth, some of the minerals are found in low grades though and require higher mineral prices for us to find them profitable to extract. 

[Ru1138]

We don't have that many spacecraft now. In 40 years, who knows?

Exactly. Musk said he didn't plan on doing something this large scale alone.

[JCO]

 

Why would we make human civilization multiplanetary if there is no economic incentive to do so. Saying we could have 80000 people there is nice, but we would need some type of resource that would push us to do so. Take a look at Antarctica. Nice big space but we don't put people there because we don't have economic reason to do so!
 
We should stick to colonizing the moon first, as it actually has some resources like Helium-3 that we might actually use and thus support some colonies.

 
Aside from helium-3, there is no other reason to go to the moon. A quote from the Manifold series might be of importance here:
 

If you found the richest Lunar ore on Earth you would throw it out as slag.

There's no carbon or nitrogen on the surface, it would all have to be carted to the base there. That wouldn't give you something self-sustaining in an emergency as opposed to a colony on Mars.

And even if there's helium-3 there, so what? Current experimental reactors (including the upcoming Lockheed Martin reactor) tend not to need helium-3.

 

 

I agree that the H-3 argument is a poor one depending on technology that may not become useful. In the past I believed that most plans to mine the Moon would not prove viable. The reason was I could not see how you could get the ore mined to a place it was consumed cheaper than you could get from another source. This changed when I heard about a lunar space elevator.  A lunar SE would extend through L1 and continue over half the distance back to Earth. This would simplify getting the ore from the Moon back to Earth. All you would need to do is build a cheap single use lifting body on the Moon from the materials available, place the more valuable ores inside and transport it up the elevator. It would require very little attitude adjustment fuel if any to reach the Earth's atmosphere and as the cargo would just be ore all you would need to accomplish is a controlled crash to succeed.

 

As for carbon it would only need to be shipped in at first. Once a sustained mining operation was set up all the additional carbon needed could be recovered from the volatiles  present in the lunar regolith.

[TheCarlagas]

Well, the thing is, if we don't colonize other planets, the mankind will go extinct very soon.

[KaRdAsHeV~sCaLe]

I do not think that 80,000 people will be on Mars this century. Probably next century

[Jakob]

Well, the thing is, if we don't colonize other planets, the mankind will go extinct very soon.

No. Even in a nuclear war, a few million people at the very least would survive.