Astronomy / Space Amazon Chief Jeff Bezos Targets Moon For Blue Origin Lunar Colony By 2023
- Thread starter Manticore
- Start date
And with Elon Musk and Jeff, we can say that the colonization of the solar system will soon (tm) begin
More empty self-marketing. Have they solved sustainability? Found a way around muscle atrophy? Radiation shielding? On a 5-year plan, anyone talking about a colony without solid technology (as in finished products) for those and other problems is just spouting lies. Between Elon and Jeff, the best we got are geostationary launches and a big shot that completely missed any of its targets; Musk has yet to build a crew capsule that can be trusted to only get people to LEO and back (or let's aim low and ask for a car delivered on time), and to my knowledge, Jeff hasn't even fired a single "production" shot.
Colonisation of the solar system, yeah right.
Colonisation of the solar system, yeah right.
Will we have to join sides or something? I can 'feel' a SMAC vibe about all this.
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he could sell apartments/homes in different price ranges
works well for Roberts Space Industries already
Well to a point and I know you're having fun with the concept.
The current international treaty dealing with that says no one can own the moon.
"We come in peace for all mankind".
Yeah until we find a perfect second 'earth like' world we will need to live underground or in very heavy shielded (to protect from impacts as much as radiation concerns) surface habitats.
I favour digging down into the ground (or in the case of Mars digging into the cliffs at the base of Valles Marineris) as that might give the best protection all round and be easier to maintain.
I favour digging down into the ground (or in the case of Mars digging into the cliffs at the base of Valles Marineris) as that might give the best protection all round and be easier to maintain.
Lava tubes. It seems you may have read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy.
I did, but i've read/watched a lot in general around the colonization of Mars, and obviously lava tubes are part of that.
However i've not seen much on using the natural protection of the Valles Marineris, from about the best protection from radiation and meteor strikes whilst also having that extra pressure vs higher up on the surface (which is good for many reasons). There must be a simple reason why no one really talks about it much, but i'm not enough of a planetary habitation scientist to know why.
I would recommend anyone interested to sub to the Mars Society YouTube channel and keep an eye on them in general (I joined as member in the late 90's, but haven't been active in that for a decade or so). There is an awful lot of talk about the how, why and who for those interested. There are other groups out there also e.g. Mars One etc.
Personally I think that Elon and Jeff are trying to change the paradigm, where humanity has been paralysed from colonisation by fear and general inertia and if I read Elon's plans correctly we will see that change start happening next year, or whenever BFR starts its short test flights. That's going to be analogous to NASA fiddling about with a rowing boat to get people to the ISS and SpaceX parking a cruise ship alongside and saying "what kept ya?".
Will it be risky? yes, but far greater losses have been incurred for far less and for less noble causes.
Is it worth it? absolutely
IMHO of course.
Personally I think that Elon and Jeff are trying to change the paradigm, where humanity has been paralysed from colonisation by fear and general inertia and if I read Elon's plans correctly we will see that change start happening next year, or whenever BFR starts its short test flights. That's going to be analogous to NASA fiddling about with a rowing boat to get people to the ISS and SpaceX parking a cruise ship alongside and saying "what kept ya?".
Will it be risky? yes, but far greater losses have been incurred for far less and for less noble causes.
Is it worth it? absolutely
IMHO of course.
Except NASA had those rowing boats from the sixties to 2011, the Russians/Soviets had them continuously since 1961, and both plus ESA and other budding space programmes have repeatedly and successfully sent probes if not humans to interesting places, while neither SpaceX nor Blue Origin have anything but shiny mock-ups to show, and neither have demonstrated the ability to do anything but satellite deployments with any kind of accuracy or reliability. The concepts Elon showed off for human transportation are dangerously stupid even on earth, and his spaceflight fantasies are beyond clueless. That man is what happens when you give a ten-year-old access to unlimited money with only the most basic checks and balances.
If either of those even manage to get their "colonisation" fantasies off the ground, the most likely outcome is one resembling the generation ships we have in Elite: some time down the road, the more considerate will stumble across their remains, wondering when the fine line between bravery and stupidity was crossed.
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Elon appears to have been one of the most successful risk takers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries (Elon didn't inherit billions nor was just given them afaik) and I'd say given what he and SpaceX has achieved to date, such as the re-use of orbital class boosters and rapidly falling costs to overcoming the largest proportion of delta-V in any space journey from Earth, I'd put that as a little more advanced than "mock ups".
As for "dangerously stupid", I'm sure the same could have been said about Magellan, Columbus and all the other early intercontinental sailors/explorers, but they and their crews were willing to take the risk and many paid the ultimate price. Is that reason to try and stop them?
As for NASA and the other space administrations, post Apollo I'd say their vision, motivations, budgetary skills and execution have been sadly lacking. It will have been 50 years this winter since man first left low earth orbit...perhaps they should have more than rowing boats by now, but NASA doesn't even have those currently?
Let's play the ball here shall we, rather than the men/women?
This is not a problem of vision or motivation, spaceflight has seen a lot of those. When one starts talking about colonisation, they better start talking about how they're gonna do it, because shooting something there is only the first step (if Elon has proven anything, it's that he can't hit Mars, it's all the dumb and slow conservative space programmes that have shown that they're able to). Once you can do that, you have to have something that lets them sustainably survive there.
All those explorers on Earth went under the assumption that they'd find more of Earth, possibly better than where they left, which was maybe sometimes a shaky assumption, but in the era of Magellan and Columbus, it was a fair estimate that wherever they went, they'd be able to survive. Today, we know for a fact that this is not the case anywhere else in the solar system. Everywhere but this infinitely thin layer of Earth is utterly hostile to humans, and we have nothing in our repertoire that would allow us to survive outside, indefinitely, in any kind of comfort, or with any kind of purpose but to show that we can send people out to die alone and useless.
All those explorers on Earth went under the assumption that they'd find more of Earth, possibly better than where they left, which was maybe sometimes a shaky assumption, but in the era of Magellan and Columbus, it was a fair estimate that wherever they went, they'd be able to survive. Today, we know for a fact that this is not the case anywhere else in the solar system. Everywhere but this infinitely thin layer of Earth is utterly hostile to humans, and we have nothing in our repertoire that would allow us to survive outside, indefinitely, in any kind of comfort, or with any kind of purpose but to show that we can send people out to die alone and useless.
I completely agree with this. Outside of the robotic probes, NASA has not had a defined mission since Apollo and therefore most of its efforts haven't led to tangible advances in space colonisation. I'm not even sure that any politician alive today would have the gumption to give the kind of directive that Kennedy gave to NASA in 61.
As far as I recall Elon wasn't trying to hit Mars, or he would have designed a spacecraft with its own guidance and correction capabilities and the upper stage and roadster didn't have those. I also agree that colonisation is going to be more about dirty engineering and not this current vision portrayed in the media of gleaming white space domes on the surface of Mars. It more likely to be Bladerunner/Alien than Star Trek with lots of dirt, discomfort and danger. Typical early activities will likely be dominated by mining, refining of ores and volatiles, smelting, forming and building stuff, as well as farming and power generation. Or another analogy might be that the first colony will be more like a deep sea oil extraction site, rather than Antarctic research station. Perhaps you can help me understand why the entity that builds the transport mechanism, also has to provide the entire civil infrastructure and associated eco-system at the other end? Surely that's the job of the people going?
Agree. The risks of not surviving on the Moon or Mars are far greater than in a new land on earth, but all the raw materials appear to be on both celestial bodies for survival, apart from biomass, we just have to work out how to utilise them. The biomass is us and what we bring with us and once that has a foothold DNA has proven remarkably resilient and adaptable
Billionaire's hotel, casino and 24hr nightclub.