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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Sep 29, 2016 - 10:42am PT
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Mf... you're a trump... not of politics but of science conversations. In the climbing world they call that a poser. Busy day, sorry I have no more time for you...
There is utilitarian science (i.e. knowing conversion of methylmalonic acid to succinyl-CoA in the citric acid cycle is promoted by hydroxocobalamin - but not by methylcobalamin - and all of the relationships that particular phenomenon effects).
Lol
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Sula
Trad climber
Pennsylvania
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Sep 29, 2016 - 10:45am PT
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The problem with robotic probes is their strictly limited mobility May be somewhat true of a single robotic probe (though some on Mars have done impressively well).
But in terms of mobility per dollar, robotic probes easily beat humans. The fundamental point (mentioned above) is that for far less than the cost of a single human mission, you can send robotic probes to many dozens of locations, covering a total area and a variety of terrain vastly larger than any single human mission could hope to.
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John M
climber
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Sep 29, 2016 - 10:46am PT
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Mark, I'm not weighing in on whether this is morally right or not, or if it is even possible, but what I got from the video that Broke originally posted is that Elon is thinking in terms of creating a system that is capable of delivering people and supplies to various places relatively economically. He said he believes the goal is to get the cost down to 200,000 dollars per person by making each part of the system reusable. It is undeniably ambitious, but I kind of admire him for it. And whatever the morality is, if he can make each part of the system reusable, like the shuttle, and if there are valuable minerals on mars, then it could become cost effective. But not likely in Elon's lifetime, which I don't believe is his goal, because if making/having money was his only goal, then he could quit right now.
He also said that mars has plenty of frozen H20, so with a large solar array, they could create a methane producing plant for fueling the rockets return flight, and with gravity on mars and with water, they could create a plumbing system much like earths.
As for flights, he says one can fly to mars within 100 days, and he believes its possible to get it down to 30 days. That is on a 2 year cycle when mars is closest to the earth.
Elon is mostly focused on the system of flight. He said he believes that if he creates the system of getting there and back, then others will be motivated to create the support structure for humans living on places like mars.
The whole thing is fascinating to me.
I have my own understanding of the spiritual motivations for this. but am hesitant to post them on this forum.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Sep 29, 2016 - 10:47am PT
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"I vehemently disagree..."
Vehemently!
Yeah right... no "belief" there. lol
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Sep 29, 2016 - 10:50am PT
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If your understanding of the citric acid cycle biomechanics is different than mine, please post up. Poser? No. That's practical science put to use regularly with real people improving their lives and confirmed with standard pre and post lab tests. There's no posing about it. It's all about parctical science.
HFCS, you got nothin'. It's sad. Your wheels are starting to wobble. We've done this before. You're a cheap troll that likes passive aggressive aspersion rather than logical argument or debate. If you have an issue with what I've posted put up something substantive or STFU.
Your science is shallow worship rather than the quest of rigorous intellectual pursuit. The mark of the real thing - someone dedicated to science - is their humilty. Being clear of the limits of understanding while being excited about the promise of discovery and greater understanding; of being clear of what they know and don't know; of being willing to scrap what they believe as the data indicates a need to modify or even scrap their existing models or theories. Hubris and faith makes for poor science.
John, I'm with you on the engineering puzzles being fascinating.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2016 - 11:04am PT
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DMT-
OK, rather than discussing science here, we've now switched to philosophical arguments. The underlying reasons given by Elon Musk have never been about economic exploitation, as he really doesn't need any more $$$$. He's personally worth--by some estimates--$12.5 Billion. He's very altruistic about the colonization of Mars by humanity, and in many of his speeches lays out his reasoning. It's all about ensuring survival of the entire human race, should a worldwide pandemic occur here on Earth, or against the possibility of a major asteroid impact such as the "dinosaur killer." We all have our own immortality through our offspring, and it would be nice to know that would continue in spite of a catastrophe. In fact, the technology developed by SpaceX would be useful should a deep space object (read that a comet or asteroid) be discovered on a collision course with our home here on Earth be discovered soon enough, subsequent use of the boosters developed for Mars missions could "do something" to either destroy or alter the course of an incoming object.
We are here in America the children of the Frontier, and have become what we are as a result of that spirit to grow outwards. Stagnation is simply not a part of that, and I am not one to agree with those saying we should postpone doing great things until "after we've solved all the world's problems." The world will ALWAYS have problems.
In my professional career, I was always happiest when working on new things--being on the cutting edge of chemical science. My business prospered because we did custom manufacturing of recently reported substances that no one else was willing to attempt to make. I'm now retired, but retain my enthusiasm for the frontiers of science.
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Sula
Trad climber
Pennsylvania
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Sep 29, 2016 - 11:06am PT
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The cost of sending a team of 7 astronauts to the Martian surface has been estimated at $30 to $40 billion if done by the Government You have to scratch your head at this, given that the cost of the International Space Station (not even close to the complexity of a manned Mars mission) has been $150 billion.
For perspective, the California High-Speed Rail project is budgeted at $68 billion, and it now seems to be widely agreed that this is looking like a serious underestimate. Is it realistic to think that a manned Mars mission could be done for around half that?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 29, 2016 - 11:28am PT
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To survive within humans (a more or less necessary requirement for a human pathogen) an organism pretty much has to evolve among humans - or at least among creatures with a similar biology.
Anywhere humans can take off a suit is a place where pathogens will instantly start killing them. In the confines of any long-term, closed-loop habitat the microbes we bring with us will kill us over time. Not happening now or ever. And that's coming from someone who is a big fan of scifi and Elon's rocketry. But futile hurling is just that.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2016 - 11:34am PT
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Sula-
Yes it's indeed feasible to do it within that budgeted amount. It all boils down to the contracting process in the prevailing industry. The big aerospace/defense contractors operate on the "cost-plus model," where the government agrees to give the contractor a small percentage commission for accomplishing any task. Hence, the bigger the pie gets, the more money they make. That model of contracting is why toilet seats cost $500 and a hammer is $800. On one hand,this contracting model was conceived to avoid systemic gouging and "excess profits" to the related industry.
On the other hand, companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origins, etc. are all running fixed price contracts for services rendered. That is with private companies worldwide, and there is competition for placing payloads in orbit (communications satellites). SpaceX has a model where profit is enhanced through booster reusability, which is knocking down the price of payload to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The use it once and throw it away accounts for the high price of space launches by the United Launch Alliance, where a $100 Million Delta 4 Heavy gets dumped in the Atlantic with every mission. This accounts for much of SpaceX's success, since they charge a "mere" $65 Million per launch, due to lower overhead and reusability. I believe that figure comes down to $45 Million per launch of a satellite into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) if a previously flown booster is used.. Every time they've landed a booster successfully, they reduced oceanic pollution by returning an $17 Million booster to Cape Canaveral.
Musk estimated that one of his big Interplanetary Transfer System spacecraft will cost $300 Million to build. The first stage is completely reused up to 1000 times. The actual passenger vehicle will be capable of perhaps 12 uses over 26 years coinciding with the Hohmann transfer windows.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2016 - 11:53am PT
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OK Guys, I need to 'fess up a bit on my background. It might explain some of my enthusiasm for the travel to Mars--and beyond. I began my collegiate education on Aerospace Engineering, and after 3 years, decided that the whole concept of being a tiny cog in a really big machine (read that--a drafting board based engineer) lost it's fascination. I took a "time out" and in the times I was living, that meant a hitch in the Army for 3 years in order to get my head back on straight. I finishe a BS in Chemistry at CU in Boulder, then went to Grad School up in Laramie, graduating with a Ph.D in Physical Chemistry. Then on to Postdoc at UC Santa Cruz, followed by Research Associate at Stanford. Thus endeth my academic life. In spite of the career change, I never lost my boyhood enthusiasm for rocketry and the whole concept of Space Travel. I grew up in a time when Wernher von Braun was becoming a culture hero.
I'm not necessarily endorsing Musk's grand plan for planetary colonization, but exploration followed by exploitation seems to be something of a pattern. Too bad I simply got old before my time... I'd love to visit Mars, and probably Callisto, the outermost of the Galilean Moons of Jupiter. What a view of the giant planet that would be! To walk the plains and desert of mars--to view vistas previously unseen by no living man--what a trip that would be!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Sep 29, 2016 - 12:04pm PT
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"research associate"?
Could that be anything like a "science associate"? lol
(sorry, bdc, you had to be there; old conversation)
What dmt fails to do often enough is distinguish between (a) reasonable "exploitation" that is responsible and (b) the other kind. He always does this. Takes a narrow, Trump-like pov to push his beliefs to the exclusion of the many other viable povs that could be simultaneously considered for a fuller, more productive overall "systems" picture.
re Healyje's concern... microbial human ecology... thousands of others (experts) don't seem to be expressing it. How come? Didn't Kelly just spend more than a year in space? Nothing from the experts in the news in regard to microbic dangers, one way or another. How come? If ever this issue becomes significant I'm sure it would become widely discussed.
Obviously, if life of any kind - of DNA or of anything else - were detected on Mars, appropriate responsible measures would be effected. So no worries there.
The naysayers and downer debbies (like mf) are just overtalking it. You'd think this was a Christian knitting group.
Dangus Ditchweed votes Trump over the issue of space exploration???!!!
Yes, how does one even begin to make sense of commentary like that?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Sep 29, 2016 - 12:26pm PT
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The Great Mark Force... (1) Who exactly has thrown the "aspersions" not to mention the bs? lol (2) One of us is in good company of thousands (starting with Elon Musk and Sam Harris). I think that rather speaks for itself, eh?
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2016 - 12:27pm PT
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HFCS-
Research Associate at Stanford was a marked step above a Postdoc; it was essentially equivalent in rank to the lowest professorial, or assistant professor, rank but was non-teaching. Yeah, I had academic standing.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Sep 29, 2016 - 12:40pm PT
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Research Associate at Stanford
Oh I get it, bdc. (It was an old reference. There are also "science associates" at Stanford and other research universities.)
Hear, hear, to Elon Musk and the others. Mars here we come!
Keep the charge!!
....
As far as I'm concerned (and Elon Musk and thousands of others as well) the aims are plain as day...
(1) Make life multi-planetary. A good thing. Not just human life either. Imagine an earth bio-repository on Mars... how provident would that be in the long term?
(2) In the spirit of Carl Sagan, show the can-do spirit of Homo sapiens in the Cosmos... to the Cosmos. (You know, as opposed to "subsistence" living here on just Earth.)
What's mighty clear is this... the old adage... different strokes for different folks... is plainly evident on this thread.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Sep 29, 2016 - 01:00pm PT
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HFCS, yeah, you're a funny guy. You just might be the champ of hack logic, double-bind questions, and passive aggressive riposte. You're certainly a dedicated cheerleader for scientism, but you don't seem to grasp the scientific realities well and your grasp, too, of economics seems lacking. Those questions have been posted by me and others here.
I get how easy it is to become enamored with the idea. It brings up wonderful scientific challenges. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The pursuit may lead to some useful science and engineering - the same would probably be more efficently achieved and put directly to more useful applications by focusing on developing sustainable energy, agriculture, resource use, and infrastructure. That focus actually ends up doing something that serves people beyond a few self-obsessed elites.
The idea is fun, playing with the idea is fun, actually figuring that putting resources into it is a good idea is silly.
The time is past for the space race to be galvanizing and productive in a big way. The NEXT science and technological wave that will demand the best and the brightest to ride it will be to make our living on the Earth sustainable. Of course, that's not "cheap entertainment" like fantasizing actually flying through space on the Enterprise, but once you're done fantasizing make yourself useful.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 29, 2016 - 01:02pm PT
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Healyje's concern... microbial human ecology... thousands of others (experts) don't seem to be expressing it. How come? Didn't Kelly just spend more than a year in space? Nothing from the experts in the news in regard to microbic dangers, one way or another. How come? If ever this issue becomes significant I'm sure it would become widely discussed.
Oh, it variously get's discussed, just not often in lay terms, press or forums. Microbial research has and is being conducted aboard ISS, but until this past July it was done by sampling different parts of ISS and returning those samples to Earth for study. But in July they conducted the first in-orbit DNA sequencing (even if just on test samples from Earth). Baby steps...
There hasn't been much formal work or talk around the ecological aspects of colonization and intra- / interstellar travel because those prospects are so remote as to still be science fiction.
But even when proposing ways to bridge the gap the focus is still generic and non-ecological because even we don't understand even the most basic processes and interactions (though we do know many species of bacteria become more virulent in space, but don't know why).
Any successful, sustained human presence in space requires a deeper understanding of how biological systems, such as single—celled organisms or our own immune system, respond to the space environment.
Again, most of the work going on is around protecting astronauts for short durations in space (and a year in ISS or a trip to Mars would still be short duration in this context) - i.e. focused on the basics and the obvious. Generally you have to have some background in microbiology, genetics and ecology to even be interested in what our prospects would be for longer durations.
The other folks interested in this sort of thing are working on closed-loop systems like ESA's Melissa and other 'biosphere' initiatives.
Regardless, the bottom line remains the same, it's a biological impossibility for complex organisms to leave their planets of origin for anything but short durations.
Oh and it's not just us that gets attacked...
Mutant space microbes attack ISS: 'Munch' metal, may crack glass
P.S. Kelly's year in space - a year? Pfft! A year is nothing in the context of what you guys are suggesting. A generation would be more like the minimal benchmark if we're talking about intrastellar travel.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Sep 29, 2016 - 01:58pm PT
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"the bottom line remains the same, it's a biological impossibility for complex organisms to leave their planets of origin for anything but short durations."
All right, Healyje. The proof will be in the pudding. One way or another.
I'm certainly not one that wants to underestimate complex ecologies and their awesome, incredibly powerful dynamics thousands of generations in the making. Time will tell.
In other words, the resolution of this conflict is plain enough: Get out there mid to long-term and see.
Sign me up.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 29, 2016 - 02:37pm PT
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The only possibility would be if a very Earth-like planet were close enough to continuously ship enormous numbers of people there to die until one breeding pair somehow miraculously survive the immunological onslaught without damage to their reproductive systems and with enough available infrastructure to live and breed. Even then you'd still have to keep'em coming until you found some more breeding pairs, because in reality the survival of breeding pairs wouldn't automatically guarantee reproductive success - that might take many attempts by many breeding pairs. It would be a morose and moribund process at best.
Basically it would be a matter of running a human-scale version of this recent experiment:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2016 - 04:01pm PT
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There is compelling evidence that some at NASA believe true, that life here on Earth was possibly transmitted by means of Mars rocks ejected by asteroidial impact on that planet. The key evidence will be--if any life is found living deep underground in the aquifers of that planet--that the carbohydrates will be of the D-configuration and amino acids of the L-configuration. That data alone is not a sufficiency of evidence, but is definitely a necessity.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Sep 29, 2016 - 06:09pm PT
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So what say you, Moose, re healyje's deal-breaking concerns? Jump down into this here fray and tell us what you think. Is he over-downplaying it at this early stage or what?
Without vision the people perish.
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