[Thrymr]

> much more science in the same amount of time.

I'm not convinced by the time argument, as astronauts would have limited time on Mars dictated by orbital mechanics and return schedules, but the bigger problem is cost. You are replying to a comment about how rovers and probes are cost effective; there is no way that crewed exploration could accomplish more science than Mars rovers without orders of magnitude more cost.

[tkcashman]

A manned mission to Mars isn't even on the table yet (sorry, Elon) until we solve several huge problems, including cosmic radiation, landing heavy payloads, and a feasible alternative to chemical propulsion (most likely nuclear, but untested).

[ozim]

Manned mission to Mars is a fad.

But it is important fad just like space mining.

We as humanity have to believe we are not in zero sum game to stay decent…

Unfortunately last years are showing us how ugly it is with rare earth elements, energy etc. It is also showing what you wrote is true. No one really believes that we can affordably space mine for rare earth and no one believes in Martian colonization that would bring tangible benefits.

[RetroTechie]

For anything to become reality, the 1st step is be able to imagine it.

Also a big problem can be attacked by solving a small part of it, see what's left & repeat until remaining bits are easy.

Over time, what used to be 'impossible' becomes easy. What matters is deciding what to focus on for the foreseeable future, and spend resources wisely. See eg.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel#Wait_calcu...

Yeah a human mission to Mars, colonizing the clouds of Venus, asteroid mining or Dyson spheres may not be achievable now (if ever). But exploring the problem space, or having a good look at the required engineering, is. And may be cheap as well.

[somenameforme]

If you held the same logic back towards the beginning of humanity then we'd all still be wandering about the woods poking each other with sticks. Most people don't believe things are possible which is probably some sort of evolutionary thing. A society full of people with their head in the clouds probably wouldn't work so great, but humanity would also stagnate without at least some people looking to the stars.

This could very well be why planned economies seem to struggle with innovation. People being able to devote significant resources to endeavors, that might not make sense to most, is how you get lots of failures, and the occasional revolutionary successes. Do everything by committee and all you get is a shinier version of what you had last year.

[close04]

With the power of hindsight many decisions look obvious. But many others look silly. For every "discovery of the Americas" there were thousands of expeditions that fizzled out in a worthless desert, middle of the ocean, dead end cave.

The argument that "progress always needed bold steps" can lead into dead ends too. Past experience isn't enough to justify future steps without additional evidence. Exploration and learning are always good reasons but if you jump to the "it's good business" step before knowing all you can reasonably know, it's probably a fad. It's shooting in the dark. It could still hit the target, or it could miss. You only really know if something is a fad or not with hindsight.

It's hard to say with certainty today whether Mars is a viable target for colonization in the long term compared to other places like Titan or even the Moon. Before you drill for oil you do a lot of exploratory activities. If those bring back solid positive results then you go for the full blown thing. Before you launch a business you build a business case. Did anyone provide a solid business case and exploratory evidence for why "going for Mars" is the viable future?

As far as I can tell it's not scientists pushing for colonizing Mars. All we have to go on is the push from a man widely known to pump up the value of his own companies (which this would do and then some) by repeatedly making sweeping promises he failed to keep.

[somenameforme]

This [1] is pretty much exactly what you're looking for. Zubrin is one amongst countless voices, of all back grounds - certainly academic included, pushing for Mars colonization. Even as far back as the 60s NASA, under Von Braun, had drawn up extensive plans for settling Mars. This was all cancelled by Nixon, in large part because he was worried that a catastrophe under NASA would look bad on his political career. If he only knew what was coming.

Musk has become demonized mostly because of his politics. He's made bold claims and overwhelmingly fulfilled them in space. For instance there was a time when something we now take for granted - autonomous landing reusable rockets - was deemed impossible by the powers that be. They were even taunted by Boeing et al along the lines of 'yeah, we tried that long ago - the economics don't work. it's cute to see you having a go at it though.'

He's also brought the price to get things to space down multiple orders of magnitude relative to the Space Shuttle. And similarly before him, electric vehicles were glorified go-karts for virtue signaling hipsters. Having any public political opinion in a country as divided as America is going to make a whole lot of people hate you, but I think the efforts to try to marginalize what he's done are a mixture of silliness and ignorance. If he died tomorrow he'd already go down as the Edison of this generation, and there's yet many a decade remaining for him to cement what may be the ultimate legacy of the first man to make humanity truly multiplanetary.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars

[close04]

> This [1] is pretty much exactly what you're looking for. Zubrin is one amongst countless voices, of all back grounds - certainly academic included, pushing for Mars colonization.

What about the countless voices, academic included, against it? It's not whether someone thinks it's a good idea but if we have a reasonable consensus on it. 50/50 is a coin flip, not a "peer reviewed" conclusion. It took the blink of an eye to realize putting things in orbit is greatly beneficial. We've been looking at Mars from all sides for decades and the business case is yet to be clear except mostly for people making money by selling you the idea, or the book.

> Musk has become demonized mostly because of his politics. ... He's also brought the price to get things to space down multiple orders of magnitude relative to the Space Shuttle. And similarly before him, electric vehicles were glorified go-karts for virtue signaling hipsters.

Let's not make this the core of the discussion, my objection to him isn't ideological. The companies he has led have a history of fraud, misinformation, and lies. Tesla is the poster child of this. If I can pick just the most obvious examples, FSD has been promised just around the corner for close to a decade now and the recent retroactive change of the contracts really drives the fraud home. Solar Roof was a sham from the start. Boring Company, sham. See how I'm not listing just a "normal" business failure, like xAI failing as a frontier AI lab. Not everything is destined to be a success. I'm just mentioning the things that were overtly lies told for money. SpaceX is probably successful because by all accounts Musk left the leading of the company to the CEO. His history of lies to enrich himself legitimize the attitude to start with the baseline that any wild claim that could enrich him is a lie and wait to be proven otherwise.

For a hammer everything looks like a nail, so for Musk everything is in space. As it happens, he's one of the few parties in the world with easy access to that resource, and acts as a gateway for almost everyone else.

I'm not losing or making money on his success so this for me is just a matter of common sense. If someone lies as often as he does, it's "shame on me" to still assume truth until proven lie.

[ozim]

You went false dichotomy on this.

I say fad because I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime and I would say 90% it will never happen.

But that 10% possibility of it happening is important or 0.01% of possibility it happens in my lifetime.

It is important that people believe it is more than my numbers. It is important to spend money and work towards that goal.

Because alternative is much more terrifying.

[somenameforme]

That I did. Most people don't tend to think probabilistically, and my responses tend to assume that. Heh, kind of ironic.

However, I'm quite curious of something. I don't understand how one can think Martian colonization would never happen. We went from horses (for most at least) to putting a man on the Moon in about 60 years, and that's it? Or are you implying that you think Mars may be less desirable than other targets for colonization?

Almost regardless of what motivation you put forward for people - greed, curiosity, adventure, desperation, or whatever else you can imagine - it ends up with us expanding beyond Earth. The only way this might not be true is if it's somehow literally impossible, but the ISS is already an unstable hellish nightmare relative to Mars, and people survive there just fine for years at a time.

[WalterBright]

It wasn't that long ago that HN had a spirited discussion about how data centers in orbit could not possibly work. But it looks more and more like Musk is going to deliver.

[cucumber3732842]

>No one really believes that we can affordably...

People said that about everything. I wore a $10 silk tie to work today and ate toast with a $1 Avacado on it.

Marco Polo would shit a brick if he saw Interstate 90.

[hugmynutus]

Add to the list that martian dust contains a massive amount of carcinogens meaning any air/dust lock has to be an ISO-6 clean room.

Sure it is a "solved" problem but all the solutions are very heavy.

[gosub100]

This is the first time I've heard of that. What are some of the carcinogens? I know the radiation is bad there, but I didn't know the regolith was toxic.

[peterburkimsher]

Not to mention supplying astronauts with food and managing their waste for 6+ months.

[rented_mule]

And if we're keeping costs proportional, send orders of magnitude more rovers and that helps the time argument for rovers as well.

[baq]

A geologist with a shovel could do 10 years of Curiosity’s science in an hour.