Posted on 04/26/2011 7:03:05 PM PDT by KevinDavis
Elon Musk, the inspiration behind Iron Man’s executive-turned-rocketeering space hero Tony Stark, believes his space-transport start-up will send passengers to Mars in as soon as 10 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
In a century, maybe. You see, this kind of a base requires:
At this point we don't have the ships, and it's pretty obvious that our current ships can't run on anything but organic fuel (Kerosene+LOX, UDMH+NOX, etc.) This fuel can be made only on Earth. Other fuels, like HTP as a monopropellant, may be manufacturable on other planets, but the ingredients - essentially water - are precious out there, and the direct synthesis method is a bit shaky so far (other methods require organics.)
The settlement will require nuclear-powered tunnel boring machines. I just don't see a workaround. Solar won't be enough, unless you are willing to wait a couple of centuries. All that *heavy* machinery has to be delivered to Mars somehow before pioneers can fly in, settle in temporary shelters and start digging the tunnels for the city. Of course once that is done you need air, water (perhaps obtained locally) and high tech stuff like light bulbs, water taps, chairs and desks, and everything else that surrounds us every moment of our lives. You may not think highly of a blanket, but you will once you don't have it when you need it - and it's cold on Mars. A colony in Antarctica is a good example, though we don't need to ship air or water there or burrow into ice for protection. Still, a batch of supplies for a science outpost, for a mere handful of people, is usually delivered on a large ship, and it doesn't steam empty. Airplanes fly there when needed; radio is always on and is instantly available.
Finally, the reason. That might be easier - some things we do for fun and don't need any more reason than that. However when people have to make life-defining choices they tend to think a bit (except when marrying :-) So a career of an asteroid hunter may be fun for a while, but eventually radiation will get you - and what then? How much of what you have to find and deliver to where to sell to who to pay for all the treatments you will need for the rest of your life? This requires some good infrastructure. I don't want to say that it can't be done; but it can't be done overnight. At our current pace it will take a few centuries.
“How much of what you have to find and deliver to where to sell to who to pay for all the treatments you will need for the rest of your life?”
It could be in a few hundered years things will be such that if one person from your village doesn’t “volunteer” to do asteroid mining, or some other such work, the village doesn’t get food.
Or perhaps in a few years if Obama gets reelected.
Look, I KNOW there will be problems along the way, things to be developed and worked out.
I also know it simply isn't going to happen with our earth bound butts firmly planted in the mud.
At the rate we are going, we'll be lucky to have people who know some of those lights in the sky are planets in three generations.
I should’ve been more clear - I’d say he should get bonus points for doing it without taxpayers money - because I know he’ll get scads of it.
Easy. Same way they did for Apollo.
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