Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/inside-elon-musks-plan-to-build-one-starship-a-week-and-settle-mars/

by GraemeL • 6 years ago

313 296 6 years ago

Excerpt:

"Just iterate, baby"

"I’ve spoken with plenty of the earliest engineers who worked at SpaceX, and almost all of them have noted that Musk tackles the hardest engineering problems first. For Mars, there will be so many logistical things to make it all work, from power on the surface to scratching out a living to adapting to its extreme climate. But Musk believes that the initial, hardest step is building a reusable, orbital Starship to get people and tons of stuff to Mars. So he is focused on that.

He knows he won’t get Starship right at first. He employs some of the smartest engineers on this planet, and they’re still, in many ways, fumbling toward solutions for the extremely hard problem of getting a super-large vehicle out of Earth’s gravity well into orbit—then to land it and fly it again. Musk has come to believe the only way to realistically achieve this is through trial and error, by iterating closer and closer to the right design."

amelius• 6 years ago

for the extremely hard problem of getting a super-large vehicle out of Earth’s gravity well into orbit

Why does it need to be super-large? To simulate gravity?

AgloeDreams• 6 years ago

Efficiencies of scale. Too small and you can't pack enough food for the trip or proper redundancies, still too small and you can't build the base fast enough, don't bring enough stuff on the trip and you need to make more trips..which are time limited due to the rendezvous. You end up inclined to 'as big as possible'

Retric• 6 years ago

People need to live in it. A 1 Kg probe can take some pictures, the tiny Apollo Lunar Module was 16,400Kg and only designed to support 2 people for 75 hours. Meanwhile Mars (3.72 m/s²) has significantly more gravity than the Moon (1.62 m/s²), making a trip back from the surface even more difficult.

petewailes• 6 years ago

Tonnage. If you're wanting to move 7/8 figure tonnage loads over a period of time, you're going to need a big trunk.

In space vehicles, that means everything gets really, really big.

aphextron• 6 years ago

Why does it need to be super-large? To simulate gravity?

Rocket efficiency scales infinitely with size.

m4rtink6• 6 years ago

It turns out orbital launchers scale rather well with size.

The rocket is already 90+% propellant (fuel & oxydizer), with the few percent left being the engines, structure and payload. So if you want the rocket to have a meaningful payload, it needs to be big.

For example the Falcon 9 weights 350 tons and can place 22 tons to low earth orbit (LEO). So about 6% of initial launcher weight ends up in orbit.

If you want to place the 100+ tons estimated for a reasonable Mars trip, your launcher will be either huge or you will need to do a lot of launches and assemble your ship in orbit with all the overhed that requires.

Starship also aims to be fully reusable, which will eat to your payload yet again but provides a huge benefit of not throwing away any part of your rocket, just burning a lot of propellant, which is dirt cheap compared to rocket hardware (estimates say about 5% of conventional rocket launch is fuel, the less is hardware that you normally simply crash into the ocean after use).

So in short - big payload -> big rocket. Reusable rocket with big payload -> humungous rocket that is really really cheap to operate.

maccam94• 6 years ago

Basically to drive down the cost of payload mass as much as possible. First you have to build a lot of rocket to get anything up into space. If it only launches 1kg of payload, that's going to be a very expensive kilogram. As you continue to scale the rocket up, assuming you can design for a decent payload ratio, the amount of cargo capacity increases and the cost per kilogram drops.

Tsarbomb• 6 years ago

Iteration is what originally gave the Soviets the advantage in the space race.

BigBubbleButt5• 6 years ago

I always found the dichotomy of Soviet culture interesting - that engineers were the most pragmatic I've ever seen, and the politicians were just...fucking idiots.

The best example being Korolev, possibly the greatest rocket designer in history (certainly up there with Von Braun and Xuesen, and in my opinion more impressive), who died because he was sent to the Gulags by a bitter politician (this is an incredibly short edit of the full story, but that is a factual statement).

Korolev built working rockets the US said were theoretically impossible, and he did it because he couldn't afford to build the rockets the way the US were doing it. So he got resourceful.

Had he not died in 1966, I suspect the Soviets would have beat the US to putting a man on the moon.

dgudkov• 6 years ago

It's well known that the Soviets advanced in the Space race because they neglected people's lives. Cosmonauts were launched in half-baked, hastily assembled spacecraft. It's a gruesome example of iteration.

floatrock• 6 years ago

The quote that explains why it's important to build one Starship a week:

“A high production rate solves many ills,” he said. “If you have a high production rate, you have a high iteration rate. For pretty much any technology whatsoever, the progress is a function of how many iterations do you have, and how much progress do you make between each iteration. If you have a high production rate then you have many iterations. You can make progress from one to the next.”

nohuhu2• 6 years ago

This makes total sense to me. If you can solve the hardest problems, it is reasonable to expect that you can solve the rest as well. If you fail at solving the hardest problems, the system will not work anyway.

The science, then, lies in identifying the hardest problems. The art lies in identifying people who can solve these problems.

tpmx2• 6 years ago

This Musk quote from the article resonated with me:

There’s plenty of forgiveness if you pass me the buck. There is no forgiveness if you don’t.

londons_explore2• 6 years ago

Next week, Musks inbox is flooded with "Weld 28467 is looking slightly bubbly. It'll probably be okay, but wanted to pass the buck to you".

I-M-S• 6 years ago

That was my first thought as well - how does the spiritus movens behind both Tesla and SpaceX have the bandwidth to pull off that level of (micro)management?

ceejayoz5• 6 years ago

As with actually using an "open-door policy", that's probably a good way to wind up fired.

justapassenger2• 6 years ago

Is it me, or does this article basically romanticize abusing workers and glorifies running projects without a plan, just with a goal?

bryanlarsen• 6 years ago

I assume that an "all-hands" meeting at 1AM means an all-hands for everybody working the night shift, not the entire staff. Yes, shift work sucks, but that doesn't necessarily mean overwork.

mdorazio• 6 years ago

Having several SpaceX employees in my circle of friends, I would not assume that at all.

jgalt212• 6 years ago

Shift work also correlates with elevated levels of various diseases and cancers.

virgilp2• 6 years ago

AFAIK they work in shifts, non-stop; crazy hours & weekend is irrelevant in this context.

brlewis2• 6 years ago

This part of the article is about shifts for assembly workers:

So Musk is making the machine to make the machine. Musk has brought lessons learned from Tesla’s assembly line so workers do not burn out. They will work three 12-hour days and then have a four-day weekend. Then they’ll work four 12-hour shifts with a three-day weekend. Thus, with four shifts, the Boca Chica site can operate at full capacity 24 hours a day, seven days a week. SpaceX is throwing in hot meals every three to four hours, for free.

gameswithgo• 6 years ago

I've noticed in my life, over the last 20 years, a strong correlation between companies being successful, which means, making money so they can keep paying their employees, and concerns with those companies making their employees work too hard or for too little.

Maybe this problem can be solved, by changing the system, but unless you are in a situation where you can avoid competition, until the system is changed companies may have to do some degree of hard work to survive.

toomuchtodo3• 6 years ago

You require a significant amount of equity and board seats assigned to employees or their representatives, so they share in the gains and have control over the direction of the org.

krapp3• 6 years ago

Most Great Man narratives do.

_ea1k• 6 years ago

Absolutely, but I do think the people joining know what they are signing up for.

Avalaxy• 6 years ago

I don't think it's abusing workers if it's perfectly clear to everyone before they get on board what they're signing up for. I think most people applying for those jobs are dying (figuratively) to get in on it because it's such a unique opportunity to work on something big, hightech and exciting.

Florin_Andrei4• 6 years ago

If you want to change history, you'll put up with a brutal working schedule.

If you want a cushy 9-5 job, just apply to the nice big corporation down the street. At the end of the day, you just go home and enjoy your comfy bunny slippers.

thouitsme• 6 years ago

If you want to change history for the better you will do the better for the people now. Putting up with brutal working schedule reminds me of the coal mines of England on industrial revolution, no coal mine owner or worker from that time comes to my mind now.

rchaud• 6 years ago

This sounds suspiciously identical to a tweet Elon posted last year that went 'viral', including the bit about how people working 9-5 (like that even exists at most corps today) as somehow being 'weak'.

justapassenger2• 6 years ago

Changing a world is a marathon, not a sprint.

londons_explore2• 6 years ago

I wonder how they handle differences in plans/knowledge/outlook between the 4 shifts. I can totally see the AM team working towards different quality standards or designs than the Evening team because they never talk to one another.

riffraff• 6 years ago

usually people change across shifts over time, you don't always work with the same people every time, so there would be a continuous sync up.

WoodenKatana• 6 years ago

Elon Musk is beyond obsessed with reaching Mars. I feel bad for his employees

detritus2• 6 years ago

They can always leave.

I'd presume that many of them are on-board in the first place because they're engaged by the idea.

everdrive• 6 years ago

Right, particularly, engineers who can build space stations definitely have other employment options.

wolco• 6 years ago

I suspect we have a few groups. Those who drank the kool-aid and liked it. Those who used to believe in it but after abuse are now stuck in an endless cycle where they have no time for job searches. And those that never drank the kool-aid and will leave after getting time on their resume.

It takes a great mix of super smarts and super stupid to work there.

retSava• 6 years ago

I'm happy Musk _is_ obsessed. The world would be a worse off place without SpaceX and Tesla, who both are what they are to a large extent because of him.

Udo• 6 years ago

I'm happy Musk _is_ obsessed.

I can definitely empathize with that, I'm happy with what's being achieved as well. Seing how SpaceX and Tesla are routinely achieving their goals and arguably change the world, I often can't get over the fact that the output of our civilization seems to hinge on the iron will of a few billionaires.

Elon Musk (and SpaceX as his tool) is just an extremely illustrative example of this, because we can directly see what our space capabilities and ambitions would look like without him.

I wish there was a Musk-like figure focused on transhumanism, but sadly it may genuinely be too early for that in my lifetime. Or not. And that's the frustrating thing: we wouldn't know until one appears.

I know this sounds like I'm writing a love letter, but it's really not meant that way. I would rather live in a civilization that has its own momentum and a better-distributed capacity for achievement, as opposed to putting my hope for the future on a few tenuous human pivot points and their whims.

chapium• 6 years ago

If you work for someone else you have already traded your time for a wage and their benefit. How is this any different?

Diederich• 6 years ago

Working at a Musk company usually is, from what I've heard, a rigorous, fast-moving and stressful experience. It's expected, from the top all the way down, that people move really fast and push really hard.

So, given that, here's my question: is it not well known, ahead of time, that's the environment? How many people are truly surprised once they hire on?

I've been a long-time fan of most of Musk's work, acknowledging that the man is deeply flawed.

Yet even though I personally believe in most of what Musk wants to accomplish, I will never work at any of his companies, even though I'm quite qualified for several roles in each.

I believe in the mission, but my personal and family time is even more important to me.

Note that all of the above is, roughly, talking about salaried/technical/management positions, and not, roughly, about hourly.

widowlark2• 6 years ago

Right because people who work for SpaceX have no interest in the same goal.

throwaway13337• 6 years ago

It's quite inspiring to see a real goal and drive towards it.

Purpose is so hard to come by now because we all don't know what we want. When we do know, we're constantly unsure about it.

Such a clear goal makes it easy to have greater purpose that you don't second guess.

This isn't a scheme to get rich, a zero sum political movement, or a narcissistic artistic endeavor. It's pretty unique there.

There's that whole danger of a cult of personality but the project is bearing fruit.

grecy7• 6 years ago

Purpose is so hard to come by now because we all don't know what we want. When we do know, we're constantly unsure about it.

This statement resonates deeply with me.

Whenever I meet someone new or that I might be interested in dating I ask "What are you doing with your life?" or "What are you striving for?" and I find the extreme majority of people don't have an answer beyond "I just go to a job I don't really like"

It seems very few people are seriously driven and motivated and living a life where they're pushing hard to achieve something great.

StaticRedux3• 6 years ago

Why do they have to? I have that drive, but my wife is perfectly happy with a calm, comfortable, stress-free life. And in fact it helps to bring me back down to Earth sometimes also.

There's nothing wrong with wanting a life that free. In fact it's oftentimes admirable. Especially at times when I'm wound so tight I feel like I could pop.

If you're choosing a partner based solely on whether they want to be the next Elon Musk or not, you're doing yourself a serious disservice.

And if you really ask those questions to every potential date, you should stop, because dude, wtf?

dint• 6 years ago

I think this is what inspires me about spacex/musk, too. I'm not convinced there's a rational, utilitarian justification for settling Mars. But is there anything wrong with doing it solely for the purpose of having a grand purpose in the face of infinite uncertainty and doubt?

AnatolyPetrova• 6 years ago

It's definitely very difficult. I'm striving to learn a new language,improve at chess and olympic weightlifting but that's a much lower level of purpose than building spaceships to reach Mars. I hope that I can find something in my career that fuels a burning desire like some of the SpaceX employees

Crolle• 6 years ago

To live with such kind of drive implies sacrifices not everyone is ready to make. Being all-in also means that you'll miss on other aspects of life.

nixpulvis11• 6 years ago

It's quite inspiring to see a real goal and drive towards it.

I'm throughly uninspired... As a friend of mine once said: "progress when you're going the wrong direction, is turning around".

The idea that we'll settle Mars while the Earth burns in borderline sinister. It reminds me of the elite outpost from Kingsman (the movie).

We have a planet that is in dire need of this kind of motivated action, and yet Elon would rather be distracted by this dream.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the "cool" factor of expanding to other planets. I too enjoy a good science fiction story. Who wouldn't want to escape the problems we've inherited, and proliferated.

But escapism solves nothing for "us", and it's foolish to think Mars is anything else. If we as humans can't live on Earth responsibly, we frankly don't deserve to exist at all.

(Perhaps we should pull a Titan A.E., and preserve some DNA in the vast wasteland of space. Just in case an alien species decides to give us another go)

anthonypasq2• 6 years ago

sigh...

there are plenty of reasons humanity should be multi-planetary other than escaping climate change.

vsareto2• 6 years ago

If we as humans can't live on Earth responsibly, we frankly don't deserve to exist at all.

We did for a long time though, except for relatively recently. And Mars won't be able to live without Earth for a long time so it isn't really escapism as you paint it.

I don't think we deserve to disappear completely, but if we don't reverse climate change, we'll have a ton of loss of life but not likely total extinction except for some astronauts. That's probably "enough" as far as galactic justice goes. I'm always a little disappointed in this argument though because it's climate change that we should be judged by, rather than massive deaths from human made conflicts throughout history. Surely there's lots of previous events that qualify for "we don't deserve to exist at all".

Do we need another eccentric billionaire but for climate change though? Sure, bring it on.

aperrien• 6 years ago

Instead of being fatalistic and bemoaning the problem, you'll find yourself in a better mental space if you just apply yourself to solving it. Yes, you will only start with small steps, and yes, that will be a great risk, but in the end it the only chance we have of making things work.

dwaltrip3• 6 years ago

The technology developed for Mars will improve life on Earth, in ways we can't even imagine.

Human effort isn't completely fungible. There is no guarantee that all of the people working incredibly hard at SpaceX would switch to work on whatever problem you want them to.

jcadam• 6 years ago

We have a planet that is in dire need of this kind of motivated action, and yet Elon would rather be distracted by this dream.

What? You see a motivated person with the resources and drive to pursue his dream and you're upset that he's not putting his vision aside to pursue what you think is important? Musk doesn't owe you anything.

grecy7• 6 years ago

As a friend of mine once said: "progress when you're going the wrong direction, is turning around".

I disagree strongly.

Progress in the wrong direction still teaches you things, and it means you're moving and you've overcome the inertia of doing nothing, which is half the battle.

Failure isn't trying and not reaching your goal. Failure is never trying.

ralusek• 6 years ago

The person who is doing this is also very concerned with the state of affairs on Earth.

He owns SolarCity, a solar panel company, Tesla, an electric car and battery company, and Boring Company, an attempt at creating a transportation system that mandates the use of EV.

The fact that all of this technology will benefit human existence on Mars should go ahead and show you how developing technology in order to survive a situation far more dire than Earth's, in a sustainable way, might also help us better survive our situation on Earth.

majkinetor• 6 years ago

That line of thinking is next to insane. You should be happy he is not somewhere on the yaht drinking $20K whine every night.

That can be said about anything - why do you buy board games or watch sport events every night or learn to play piano - you should be saving the planet ffs...

ballooney• 6 years ago

Settle on Mars

chottocharaii• 6 years ago

Humans are not biologically adapted to surviving on Mars, and for that reason, any settlement to Mars is bound to fail in the long term.

mandeepj• 6 years ago

I don't know how fun that would be to roam around with a helmet on your face or live in a giant doom or environment controlled building

glouwbug• 6 years ago

I imagine mars would be terraformed eventually over time. It just needs a little atmosphere to get going

tardo99• 6 years ago

Yes. It seems like having robots colonize a planet or the moon would be a lot smarter.

ceejayoz5• 6 years ago

We're not biologically adapted for surviving in Siberia, but we manage it. Hell, you'll get hypothermia on the French Riviera in winter without clothes.

Technology has always been our way of expanding into spaces we're not otherwise evolved to cope with.

ash3• 6 years ago

In Siberia you can have: breathable air, drinkable water, edible food, safe radiation levels.

daxaxelrod2• 6 years ago

Humans are not adapted to live in space either. But because of a couple brave people, we now know a little about how to counteract zero gravity's degradation on the body (Bone and muscle loss -> stricter workout regiment). Bound to fail in the long term is quite the statement to make given our ability to build tools based on data that could increase our chance of survival.

bergoid3• 6 years ago

Low gravity is one thing. But the radiation outside the Earth's magnetic field is quite another. People colonizing Mars will need to shield themselves from several types of harmful radiation. Wich means in practice: living underground.

pretzell• 6 years ago

The alternative is we either go extinct on earth or find another earth-like planet to go to, which won't have humans on in and may not be able to support us any better than mars

m4rtink6• 6 years ago

Well, humans are not biologically adapted to surviving outside of a cave of reasonably hot part of ancient Africa.

Yet people now manage to survive the winter in Europe just fine using technology.

Mars and space settlement in general can be seen as yet another - more challenging - extension of this long term progress.

Also possibly in the future one could upgrade people themselves to make living in space easier.

superbrane• 6 years ago

I hope he gets to solve the terraforming part of going to Mars, as well. Also, maybe he sets his eyes on colonizing the ocean space on Earth - lots of empty space in the water.

Cobord4• 6 years ago

Do a simple lower bound calculation, and you see that Elon is talking out of his ass.

kerenua• 6 years ago

godspeed

Ajedi322• 6 years ago

The pace of innovation here is absolutely ludicrous. They designed and built a custom welding machine _and_ a custom x-ray machine for building tank domes in four weeks? They've gone from a production rate of one prototype in 8 months to one prototype every 2 weeks in less than a year. They doubled the size of their workforce in less than 48 hours. I'm gonna have to agree with the article author here: this is absolutely mad.

aguyfromnb5• 6 years ago

They designed and built a custom welding machine _and_ a custom X-Ray machine for building tank domes in four weeks?

Can any engineer speak to whether this is actually progress, or even necessary? It seems like every time something goes wrong, Elon "invents" a way to do it better.

I'm old enough to remember rescue subs, battery swaps, brain implants that will cure autism, factories spitting out factories, solar shingles, truck carriers, one-hour body shop service, tunnels at a fraction of the cost, the ability to identify squeaks in your car with your phone, robots assembling cars so fast they need a strobe light to be seen...

peeters• 6 years ago

I'm not in that area, but I struggle to find an analogue of a large pressurized tank on Earth where mass is the dominant cost factor.

You might have equally big tanks on Earth, under equal pressures, but it will be more cost-effective to just increase the material used on the shell of the tank to solve your problems. Whereas in space, every kg that can theoretically be removed from the launch vehicle is worth investing in, even if it raises the cost of engineering and materials.

So yes it seems reasonable to me that these are groundbreaking challenges.

Ajedi322• 6 years ago

I can't speak to how common that sort of custom tooling is in the industry, but as to whether it was necessary the article already explains that pretty clearly:

The current process for building a pressure dome takes about a week; 1 or 2 days to tack up and fit steel sheets, 4 days to weld the sheets together, and 1 to 2 days for X-ray inspections and repairs.
[...]
The knuckle seamer looks something like a giant zipper that articulates over the front and back of a dome, like a taco shell around its filling. [...] Then, in about 10 minutes, an automated torch will trace down the length of the curve, providing a precise weld. Following this, the dome is rotated to bring the next seam into view.
[...]
With this new X-ray machine, SpaceX hopes to compress a process that can take a day down to a few hours.

So the new machines reduce the amount of time needed to weld and inspect a pressure dome from several days to several hours. I'm certainly no expert, but that seems like a pretty big deal to me.

balfirevic• 6 years ago

Can any engineer speak to whether this is actually progress, or even necessary?

No, they probably can't. It would be really weird for an outside engineer to have a better insight on this than the engineers from the actual rocket company.

dexen4• 6 years ago

They designed and built a custom welding machine _and_ a custom x-ray machine for building tank domes in four weeks?

That's feasible due to the requirements being narrow and specific, and also well understood by a team close to the team building those machines.

Contrast that with expensive & slow-to-build machines available on the general market, where the requirements are broad, under-specified, and always shifting.

TeMPOraL2• 6 years ago

Perhaps it's a demonstration that the market should have more tools as composable building blocks, rather than turn-key solutions.

CydeWeys• 6 years ago

It's really helping them that they have some of the most motivated employees on Earth. Their people absolutely believe in this vision of colonizing Mars just as much as Elon Musk does. (Hell, I do too, I just don't work there.)

Meanwhile I'm working at an advertising company.

missosoup• 6 years ago

Meanwhile I'm working at an advertising company.

That's a funny way to spell Google.

irrational2• 6 years ago

You could set up the first billboard on Mars!

koheripbal2• 6 years ago

...not to mention talented. There is a massive efficiency multiplier when you combine multiple brilliant and experienced people together.

stjohnswarts• 6 years ago

They are definitely mad lads over at SpaceX and Tesla

smarri• 6 years ago

Absolute turbo geezers

ASalazarMX2• 6 years ago

Maybe the garbage fire that the Internet has become today was a necessary step for informatics to develop enough to tackle ambitious projects like this. Maybe all the talent that focused on computer entertainment, trading, advertising and surveillance was worth it and we'll see a second renaissance.

I hope more entrepreneurs follow Elon's steps.

shauhdej• 6 years ago

Given that the USA is apparently forming a Spaceforce and the long history of astronomical products becoming military products I'm surprised that more companies aren't trying to "go to Mars". Elon can probably tell that a race to be the first to expand heavily into space is coming and that even if he can't sell people on Mars he can sell tourists and the military on the moon.

martythemaniak• 6 years ago

Slightly off-topic but apart from Mars-related things, I don't think are appreciating how big of a deal Starship/Super Heavy will be.

Because space is hard and expensive, when designing payloads, they also have to be over-engineered to make sure you're getting the most out of your ride, which then makes the rockets over-engineered and expensive to make sure they don't blow up carrying the precious cargo. It's a positive feedback loop. So we end up with incredible telescopes like Hubble or James Webb, but it's literally a once-in-a-generation event. There's no tolerance for failure, so budgets and timelines ballon.

What if you knew you could get a cheap ride anywhere anytime? Why not mass-produce slightly lower quality telescopes instead of these masterpieces. The JWST's successor is LUVOIR, slated for sometime in the 2040s (!!), why not build a dozens JWST-like telescopes and use interferometry to build giant telescopes larger than the earth with higher light-gathering ability than even ground-based telescopes? This is the technique used by Event Horizon Telescope to capture the first picture of a black hole last year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-long-baseline_interferome...

grecy7• 6 years ago

What if you knew you could get a cheap ride anywhere anytime?

That's exactly the premise of Starlink. SpaceX know they can launch those things 100x cheaper (1000x ?) than ever before in history, so they're churning them out and throwing them up. Even though the ones going up right now aren't "finished" it doesn't matter, because replacing them with new and better ones is so cheap.

baking2• 6 years ago

400 Starlink satellites per Starship launch costing $2M is $5,000 per satellite per launch. Basically nothing compared to the eventual mass-produced cost to make each satellite which might be $100,000.

https://youtu.be/Exd1IO52exs?t=361

nsm• 6 years ago

This article from October 2019 also does a great job explaining the enormity of vision.

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/the-spacex-sta...

ratsimihah• 6 years ago

Not a bad idea, it's a good way to save the few healthy/surviving ones if coronavirus (or nature, or humanity itself) ends up wiping all of humanity.

recusancy• 6 years ago

Has he ever talked about how people would survive on Mars without a magnetosphere?

scrumbledober• 6 years ago

most likely using martian soil as a radiation shield. Either built up in mounds around structures, or by tunneling under the ground (boring company?)

dnate• 6 years ago

living under big shields perhaps?

kuprel• 6 years ago

Is a magnetosphere what would contain the atmosphere? I remember reading that if someone did nuke the poles the atmosphere would escape anyway

kaycebasques8• 6 years ago

I respect the clarity of the vision and the drivenness to make the vision a reality.

I disagree with the vision. The best analogy I can think of right now is high school kids renting a hotel for a party and trashing it and then doing the same thing next week. That’s humanity right now.

There is no Planet B until we build a mutualistic relationship with the one that created us.

And yes when I say “there is no Planet B” I’m being vaguely spiritual. I believe Earth is a creature and somehow won’t allow one of its creations to explore the stars until that creation learns mutualism. But I’m also being pragmatic: A) colonialism was a big motivation in our last 2 world wars and we still have intense colonizer memes circulating through our societies B) we now have the means to destroy ourselves thoroughly C) Mars is the crown jewel of potential colonies right now.

kiba• 6 years ago

We can do both.

Cheap and rapid space launch may allow us to put polluting industries where they belong: in space.

kaycebasques8• 6 years ago

Ah, yes, the old “just shove it under the rug” strategy.

_carl_jung• 6 years ago

The pursuit of sustainable living and the pursuit of a multi-planetary existence are parallel endeavours, not serial ones. Perhaps the view from Mars will instil a renewed perspective on our dependence on Earth, and teach us lessons on ecological management via terraforming.

kaycebasques8• 6 years ago

The pursuit of sustainable living and the pursuit of a multi-planetary existence are parallel endeavours, not serial ones.

I agree that they’re parallel because the reality is that they’re both happening right now. I’m pointing out that there’s a huge risk in not figuring out A before B, which is that we’ll just be transporting our problems to a new planet (and if they succeed, then whoever controls Mars will be able to use their monopoly to exacerbate problems on Earth). Granted, the rocket sure is shiny, though... funny how that trick never fails ;)

Perhaps the view from Mars will instil a renewed perspective on our dependence on Earth, and teach us lessons on ecological management via terraforming.

Or perhaps you’re in the equivalent of an “early internet” optimism phase around Mars exploration.

We have all the resources we need here. The research around mutualistic living (renewables, land use, food waste, etc) is making that clear. If we’re glorifying hard problems, then the real hard problem is figuring out how to get humanity to share our already abundant resources equitably and peacefully.

Once we solve that problem we will be ready for Mars.

And to be clear I share the dream of exploring the stars. But I can’t in good faith support that dream until we shift from a parasitic to a mutualistic relationship.

kitsunesoba• 6 years ago

I would argue that achieving self-sustainability on Mars forces the issue, even. The problem we’ve had on Earth is that because the costs of being wasteful, polluting, etc are externalized, which makes such behavior “cheap” in the short term — on Earth, the environment is constantly handing out loans that we rarely if ever repay.

That’s not an option on settlements beyond Earth’s surface. There, you’re forced to live with every decision you make almost immediately, so if you’re wasteful or stupid it’s promptly going to bite you in the ass and potentially threaten the lives of everybody involved. You’re not given the option of fixing things later, you have to do the correct thing now, and I think that’s the type of environment it’s going to take for humanity to change its ways.

de_watcher• 6 years ago

Need to ask the question "What is life?"

Maybe it's just the thing that tries to fill the volume. Because otherwise it's displaced by a different one that does it faster. You argue about "how fast" should it be so life won't starve itself, but I think everybody is familiar with this danger. Then we can approach it more formally: what time/speed/volume/survival probability we want, try to calculate it for different options and go from there.

kaycebasques8• 6 years ago

Maybe it's just the thing that tries to fill the volume. Because otherwise it's displaced by a different one that does it faster.

This sounds like parasite logic to me. We can do better. The fact that I can even conceive thoughts of doing better is all the proof I need to know that we can do better. That’s what vision is about.

CryptoPunk2• 6 years ago

Developing technology for surviving outside Earth's atmosphere contributes to advances in sustainability tech.

It also opens up huge amounts of clean energy resources.

kaycebasques8• 6 years ago

Developing technology for surviving outside Earth's atmosphere contributes to advances in sustainability tech.

Good point, thanks.

It also opens up huge amounts of clean energy resources.

Sustainability research is making it clear that we already have an abundance of clean energy resources here on Earth. If Mars does indeed flood the market with cheap clean energy and makes clean energy the overwhelmingly obvious choice, then I agree that will be a net win. But the problem doesn’t appear to be a resource scarcity issue here on Earth so I’m unconvinced that the solution is more resources.

Also, what clean energy resources are you referring to specifically? We essentially need something that can be substituted into our existing fossil fuel infrastructure. Mars provides something like that?

_Microft5• 6 years ago

We do not backup our data because we are planning to wreck our harddrive. We hope to never have to use it but if things go awry, it will be there.

kaycebasques8• 6 years ago

It will be there for a beautiful cross-section of humanity for a while so long as Musk controls it (but even then he surely has some unconscious biases that will limit certain segments of the population from being there) and then nuclear war will break out on Earth and it will be there for whoever is well-connected to whatever government seizes control of it fastest.

kaycebasques8• 6 years ago

A related question: What’s your bet on how long until the US government starts taking SpaceX seriously and commandeers it under the pretext of national security? Or is Musk already cozied up with the MIC?

zerop• 6 years ago

Steve jobs was super rude to Elon Musk! Right.

pjc50• 6 years ago

So we've accepted that we're never going to find life on Mars, and that there's no concern of "contamination"? Or is this just a big plan to build a city in the first bit of "unspoilt" wilderness we can find off planet?

dangus• 6 years ago

What is the benefit of settling on Mars?

Until we explain that in some kind of sane way that doesn’t just involve the earth being a crutch for raw materials, it all seems rather stupid to me.

Settling an earth-like planet? Sure! Seems logical. Mars? Not really.

koboll• 6 years ago

Ability to survive nuclear war. He doesn't just want to settle, he wants to settle with a self-sustaining colony. It's a contingency plan.

We've almost plunged the world into nuclear holocaust a couple times before. India and Pakistan are at each other's throats, and rising ethnonationalist populism and climate change are threatening to strain these tensions further. This is a real risk.

giantrobot3• 6 years ago

I'd buy into Musk's Mars bullshit if he built a sealed self-contained colony in New Mexico. We have experience with two long term space habitats, Mir and the ISS. Despite all of the engineering know how that built both shit breaks on them all the time and needs to be repaired. They also need regular resupply because they're nowhere near self sufficient. They also need a Soyuz capsule docked at all times in case they need to evacuate.

The Starship is an iterative design with seventy years of engineering knowledge behind it. Keeping humans alive outside the Van Allen belts for a long duration and then on a completely inhospitable planet has very little engineering knowledge behind it.

Also to suggest a Mars colony is a contingency plan is ludicrous. In order for a Mars colony to be a human civilization contingency plan it would not only need to be self sustaining but self perpetuating. Otherwise a life ending event on Earth would just give the Mars colonists a few months to come to terms with their mortality. Then no kore humans.

There is nowhere in the solar system that can support humans in the way Earth can. In fact everywhere else is so hostile we need to take significant amounts of Earth with us just to not die immediately.

If you want to live in underground colonies have the Boring company build you tunnels here on Earth. At least when you need parts for the GECK you can go above ground with just a gas mask and rugged clothes instead of a bulky space suit.

m4rtink6• 6 years ago

Also, the thing we do not have an earth like planet in a reasonable distance to settle. We have a few candidates that might be earth-like from the few scraps of date we have been able to gleam about them, but all are many light years away, which is much MUCH more mindbogglingly farther than the ~9 months of flight time our probes can already do today to reach Mars.

schaefer• 6 years ago

A Linguistic Beef:

The word "Starship" means specifically that the ship is capable of traveling between stars. At a minimum, it should travel from it's home star to the nearest neighboring star.

What we're talking about here are "Spaceships". -- The only way I can lighten up and enjoy the name Starship in this context is to assume it's being used ironically... like someone who's named their cat "Dog".

rococode• 6 years ago

It's going to be really interesting to see how vocabulary changes as frequent space travel becomes a reality. This may be one of the few times in history where a field has had so much imagination invested into defining it (sci-fi stories making up words for things) before it slowly becomes a reality.

olex• 6 years ago

There are other vehicles called "Starship" that aren't actual starships either - the Beechcraft Starship (a twin-engined turboprop pusher aircraft) or "The Starship" (a Boeing 720 used by Led Zeppelin and other bands). It's a proper noun chosen as a name or model designation for the vehicle, as opposed to a common noun describing the vehicle itself (a spacecraft).

aglavine2• 6 years ago

It is called after a fictional spacecraft

https://science.howstuffworks.com/10-fictional-spacecraft-we...

weregiraffe• 6 years ago

The word "Starship" means specifically that the ship is capable of traveling between stars.

Well, it would be capable. Just very-very slow.

LargoLasskhyfv• 6 years ago

Seen from the earth every light point in the sky is a star at first. Even planets. Or the starship itself. Or some satellites. So even if it only travels to Mars, which looks like a star to us it would be OK to call it that. Don't be so uptight!

paulcarroty• 6 years ago

Living without big plans & big dreams is bad, don't matter how crazy they are. Why I support Elon.

zshrdlu• 6 years ago

Why Mars, specifically? Why not "settle" Antarctica or Marianna's trench? Aren't these orders of magnitude easier?

vsareto2• 6 years ago

Marianna's is probably way tougher than Mars to be honest.

KoftaBob• 6 years ago

The overarching goal is to have a "backup" of humanity so to speak. Having some of society living on Mars so that if something were to happen to Earth, humanity wouldn't cease to exist. Settling Antarctica doesn't solve that problem.

karatestomp• 6 years ago

About the only thing that'd make it harder to survive on Earth than on Mars is a planetoid-sized impactor. For anything else a few hardened, isolated bunkers would be a hell of a lot cheaper than colonizing Mars, at least as effective at improving human survivability, and we could start building them today.

Of course I'm rooting for the Martian stuff because it's cool and may be accidentally useful (SpaceX already has been, really) and beats the fuck out of finding new ways to sell crap to people and the other garbage lots of other prominent companies do, but the goal isn't valuable per se, in my opinion.

thu21112• 6 years ago

I'm a huge Musk fan and would love to see us settle mars.

But. Really. What's the threat model here?

Mars is meant to be a backup of humanity. OK. Against what threat? We can think of many, but a self-isolating base in the Antarctic would survive nearly all of them with better conditions than a Mars base.

Nuclear armageddon? Not much fallout over Antarctica and OK, you can't go outside of a while. Still better than Mars where you can't go outside ever.

Runaway global warming? The ice will melt but at a slow pace that leaves plenty of time for adaptation, the climate will become more hospitable at the poles rather than less, and at least you will have lots of fresh water. Unlike, say, on Mars.

Global pandemic? An Antarctic base can self isolate, no problem. Just lock the doors and let anyone who tries to reach you freeze to death. A serious Mars base would need some sort of border control policy too, if Musk had made it cheap to get there.

Massive asteroid strike? I guess it'd wreck the atmosphere but ... well, then you're no worse off than on Mars which doesn't have one to begin with. And you're much more likely to get nuked by a 'roid on Mars where there's no atmosphere to burn it up.

I dunno man. I'm trying to think of a problem that a serious Antarctic city couldn't solve and coming up blank. Short of Earth getting sucked into a black hole or something, what scenario is survivable on Mars that isn't at the poles?

Florin_Andrei4• 6 years ago

It's unfathomable to me how you're missing the fact that we're literally talking about different planets, and why that is the crucial difference.

carapace5• 6 years ago

Now, now, the fact that the sky is full of great big fucking rocks that occasionally fall out of it and hit the Earth has only been known for about two hundred years

It takes time for these things to sink in (apparently, despite e.g. the Chelyabinsk meteor, and all the craters, and how all the dinosaurs have wings now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impact_craters_on_Eart... )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid#History

Although meteors have been known since ancient times, they were not known to be an astronomical phenomenon until early in the nineteenth century. Prior to that, they were seen in the West as an atmospheric phenomenon, like lightning, and were not connected with strange stories of rocks falling from the sky. In 1807, Yale University chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman investigated a meteorite that fell in Weston, Connecticut.[30] Silliman believed the meteor had a cosmic origin, but meteors did not attract much attention from astronomers until the spectacular meteor storm of November 1833.

dwaltrip3• 6 years ago

Neither of those things lead to a space-faring civilization.

immmmmm5• 6 years ago

I don’t get the point

1) we are plain in the middle of a mass extinction event, expected to get much worst in a decade or two. Wouldn’t it be good to solve that first?

2) we need a 4th industrial revolution to survive global warming as a civilization. Wouldn’t be better to fix that first? (No, electric cars won’t suffice)

3) is it really necessary to spoil astronomy/night sky to finance one’s dream? (No, vantablack won’t solve the issue)

4) our technology presently rely on mining 100+ elements. Does anyone here believe one can mine all of those on an a planet that misses an atmosphere? Using Earth ressources for a “colony” seems a dubious idea.

5) has anyone an idea of the CO2 equivalent cost of bringing one person to mars?

6) there is growing evidence that there is life in the Martian underground. Should we take the risk of destroying another biosphere?

s_y_n_t_a_x5• 6 years ago

1) we are plain in the middle of a mass extinction event, expected to get much worst in a decade or two. Wouldn’t it be good to solve that first?

I don't see why we can't do both. Maybe if you come up with an actionable plan you can start your own company like Elon and tackle that problem.

2) we need a 4th industrial revolution to survive global warming as a civilization. Wouldn’t be better to fix that first? (No, electric cars won’t suffice)

No electric cars won't suffice, but they are a start. As is an increase in nuclear, and renewables in areas it makes sense. Again I don't see how this detracts, especially looking at Elon's other ventures. Maybe you can create a company that tackles the concrete problem, that's a big one.

3) is it really necessary to spoil astronomy/night sky to finance one’s dream? (No, vantablack won’t solve the issue)

That's subjective and you don't know if it can be solved or not, seems they are working on it. Why do you think a non-reflective coating won't work?

We don't have to mine all of them at first. Look where we started here on Earth, from scratch.

5) has anyone an idea of the CO2 equivalent cost of bringing one person to mars?

I'm sure it's negligible relatively. Was that rhetorical or do you have a number?

6) there is growing evidence that there is life in the Martian underground. Should we take the risk of destroying another biosphere?

Are you talking about the ice found? The martian biosphere is already destroyed, terraforming it would bring life to the surface and if there is life it's underground and must be pretty hardy.

giantrobot3• 6 years ago

You can't start from "scratch" on Mars with respect to mining or industry. Cavemen wearing mammoth pelts won't work on Mars. In order to simply survive people would need high levels of technology. Even the most basic living on Mars would need steel and glass and equipment to machine both.

Making a steel or glass plate requires a lot of industrial capability and a capable supply chain to say nothing of raw materials. Both are cheap on Earth because we've built that infrastructure over the past two hundred years. That infrastructure was relatively easy to construct because the workers could wear overalls and hard hats rather than space suits. Taking a lunch break doesn't mean disrobing and piling into a pressure vessel.

Go camping for a weekend in the desert or in the snow sometime. Consider all the crap you need to take with you to not die of exposure or thirst. In those environments where you've got air for free and usually water if you know where to look, you've still got a fair bit of equipment. If you forget anything or lose it you could end up seriously injured or even dead. That's somewhere that's lousy with breathable atmosphere, protection from most ionizing solar radiation, and an average temperature high enough your lungs won't freeze.

Surviving inhospitable environments on Earth requires effort and technology. Surviving outside of Earth is several orders of magnitude more difficult. Thriving outside of Earth is more orders of magnitude beyond mere survival.

UnFleshedOne2• 6 years ago

Re your 4th point, this is exactly why you want a working space presence -- if you move all your mining off the planet you just remove one future failure point.

Also, there are lots of people, humanity can walk and chew gum at the same time. On best of the days anyway.

cstross4• 6 years ago

This is a spectacular gamble, however Musk has a track record and I think Superheavy/Starship will pay off with unpredictable dividends.

But the elephant in the room that Musk appears to be ignoring is the life sciences side of things. Only 12 humans have sortied outside the Van Allen belts (which protect us from the deep space radiation environment). Nobody has spent more than 18 consecutive months in space or reduced gravity, and we know there are biological changes that affect astronauts. The same goes triple for the plants and bacteria and fungi (never mind animals) we depend on for agriculture, and a closed-loop agricultural system and air plant is implicit in Musk's goal of a self-sufficient colony on Mars. We haven't even repeated the (failed) Biosphere 2 experiment.

We need the giant payload capacity before we can test the life sciences problems in a realistic manner (small and ferociously expensive lab experiments on the ISS are useful but fail Musk's iteration test because the lead time for running one is measured in years if not decades).

So we won't know if a Mars colony is even possible until some time after Musk builds the ships to put one there.

zionic2• 6 years ago

One interesting idea I heard: Send starships in pairs. When in interplanetary coast attach each at the nose with a long (300+m) tether. Use RCS to start a spin. You can then simulate 1G the entire way.

viklove2• 6 years ago

What are you building the starships out of that they can withstand those forces continuously over multiple years?

baking2• 6 years ago

I'm not sure how big of a gamble that is. If he gets Starship into orbit he can start getting serious revenue from Starlink. Then he needs to transfer fuel in orbit to send cargo to the moon and mars. At that point he can send people and the return trip after two years will basically be free because some Starships will be returning to Earth anyway. I'm pretty sure he can get enough guinea pigs to commit to a 2-year trip. Then you iterate on the next batch of guinea pigs. Maybe he sends retirees who don't have that much life expectancy anyways.

gentleman11• 6 years ago

What about the sci-fi ships that rotate very quickly and use the momentum as a form of false gravity - iirc, the basic physics seems legit (I recall an Einstein thought experiment along those lines). Or: use the acceleration/deceleration to create gravity. Are they impractical to build or power?

carapace5• 6 years ago

Are you thinking of an O'Neill colony?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder

The O'Neill cylinder (also called an O'Neill colony) is a space settlement concept proposed by American physicist Gerard K. O'Neill in his 1976 book "The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space". O'Neill proposed the colonization of space for the 21st century, using materials extracted from the Moon and later from asteroids.
An O'Neill cylinder would consist of two counter-rotating cylinders. The cylinders would rotate in opposite directions in order to cancel out any gyroscopic effects that would otherwise make it difficult to keep them aimed toward the Sun. Each would be 5 miles (8.0 km) in diameter and 20 miles (32 km) long, connected at each end by a rod via a bearing system. They would rotate so as to provide artificial gravity via centrifugal force on their inner surfaces.

carapace5• 6 years ago

Then we'll merely go to the Moon. :-) (And LEO and the Lagrange points.)

You raise a good point IMO in re: viability of space. In the limit it may turn out that humans can't live anywhere but on or near the surface of Earth. What is certain is that living in space will suck for many years, or likely decades. It will be like living in a mine, but there are more things that can kill you and you're much much further from fresh air and safe ground. And I suspect living on Mars would suck anyway just due to the ~0.4G surface gravity. At least on the Moon you can go home (in a few days rather than lots of months) or fly like a bird under your own power if your cave is big enough. ("The Menace from Earth", Heinlein; "Welcome to Moonbase", Bova)

But even if we can't live there it's still really useful and important to go: micro-gravity manufacturing; robotic asteroid mining; science...

I hope we can live in space, I want to colonize the galaxy. (The green galaxy on the cover of "The Millennial Project" book is one of the more compelling images I've personally ever seen. A photosynthesizing galaxy... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project:_Coloni... )

But even if we can't go at all these rockets are really important!

cstross4• 6 years ago

This is why I like to draw a distinction between space exploration and space colonization. The former is definitely within the realm of possibility, using existing technology (never mind the Superheavy/Starship system).

But Musk, with his talk of a self-sufficient city, is clearly targeting the latter, and there are a whole lot of details we haven't worked out.

hutzlibu• 6 years ago

Well, for context, it seems, that he know, that the whole thing is not so easy ...

"“I’ll probably be long dead before Mars becomes self-sustaining, but I’d like to at least be around to see a bunch of ships land on Mars,” Musk said."

kamaal• 6 years ago

Like every other discovery on earth, the first set of explorers will have to risk life and limb, make sacrifices to get there.

The one's that follow will build several stops along the way. You will be able to stop, stay for a while, and move forward towards your journey.

Also Asteroid mining is going to be a thing. So economy, space labs and all.

tectonic• 6 years ago

Self-promotion:

If you want weekly updates about SpaceX's progress, and about space science and the space industry in general, I write a newsletter for just that purpose: https://orbitalindex.com

shoulderfake• 6 years ago

Who da hell wants to go live there seriously??

justinclift• 6 years ago

Wonder if friction stir welding would be suitable instead?

That seems to be used when very strong + predictable welding is needed.

Not sure if it's generally used for 4mm thick material though.

nohuhu2• 6 years ago

So I guess this is how living in the 1960s felt like? :)

sam36• 6 years ago

Curious, does spacex have any work from home software dev jobs?

Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars

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