Now could someone explain it to Elon Musk?
It must be sinking in already, since he has already backed down and refocused on the moon.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Now could someone explain it to Elon Musk?
It must be sinking in already, since he has already backed down and refocused on the moon.
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Was there a plan to use the Boring Company to tunnel to Mars?
AI generated. That ain’t Feynman.
I was told halfway through last year the bubble had burst.
And yes, larpar. There’s a rather nice one of the Hitch, too.
(Neither makes bones about it)
Hence the Zubrin Mars Direct plan for making rocket fuel back on Mars to then be used for the return journey :
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct
Among various other plans that obvs consider this issue and address it. It’s not something that hasn’t already occurred to those intrested in planning such missions and then been addressed by them.
I recall Zubrin’s plan as quoted being discussed decades ago.
Dreadful and deceptive AI slop clip too.
StevoR, this was earlier and better: https://www.gaerospace.com/space-exploration/express-transportation-architecture-for-human-mars-exploration/
What is the going rate for predicting spaceX won,t get anyone (alive) to Mars before 2050 on Polymarket anyway? Ofc they could buy a rocket design off somebody else, that might work.
Not a fan of the A.I. there, PZ.
Yeah, it’s an obvious AI head reciting a pre-written script — the way it pronounced abbreviated units (m/s etc) was a giveaway. But I’d be interested in seeing a rebuttal of the actual facts in the script.
I’ll believe in automated harvesting of fuel on Mars when we can point to a 160 acre field and tell a machine to grow a soybean crop, tend to it, and let me know in a few months when they’ve filled a boxcar with processed beans. That’s got to be easier than gathering hydrazine or oxygen over the distance from Earth to Mars.
@PZ Myers : Were you this skeptical of the Apollo Moon landing program when that was happening?
Woud you have been this pessimistic of people’s ability to fly in heavier than air craft back in the day? (1901~ish.)
Humanity finds a way.
With science, engineering. Imagination. Brilliance. Which people do show and come up with..
Video is gone now.
. . . but searching on [ Feynman mars video ], finds this, which looks the same, or is very similar:
Why We’ll Never Reach Mars: The Physics Truth | Feynman Insight
AI slop, check. Physics contra Mars, check.
Or . . . maybe not. I just found another one:
why we can’t reach Mars ｜ Richard Feynman
Completely different use of face and voice, and some guy in the background who isn’t Feynman doing equations on a blackboard.
And . . . wow, a lot more videos as well.
It looks like making anti-Mars videos using Richard Feynman’s body is, like, a whole thing now?
The voice in this once sounds ever so slightly English RP pronunciation. The other voice wasn’t really Feynman either, but it sounded closer than this one.
StevoR @ #9 — I wasn’t skeptical about the Apollo goal but then I was a teen and the world was full of possibilities. Now I’m old and not sure we can even get back to the Moon. Part of my skepticism is about the political climate now versus then. Apollo was sold as the great human desire to explore new worlds, but it was driven by fear and competition with the USSR. That’s not the case now so a good deal of the financial motivation is gone. And, as I’m sure you realize, Mars is a much tougher problem than the Moon for humans. Will we ever get to Mars? Maybe, even probably, but not in my lifetime.
Owlmirror @ #12 — I can’t see the one PZ posted, but I’ve seen the one you posted before. It looks like AI to me…the mouth isn’t quite in sync and in fact seems like a loop. The audio may be Feynman…that’s more difficult to say. There are a bunch of these kind of AI generated talking heads. I’ve seen some with the “Founding Fathers” like Franklin. Clearly that’s all AI generated.
Oh, and welcome back to Pharyngula. Hope you’re feeling better, PZ.
Do I think someone will eventually go back to the moon? Yes, same with Mars. Will it be Elon? Not even if he survives being arrested for conspiracy with Miller, Trump, et al. Will it be done with todays technology, without some sort of major breakthrough(s), not likely Mars. Maybe the moon, but then it wasn’t implausible to have a base there given the technology we already had back when we still did go there. Its like arguing that going back to ancient times and watching people argue about it being impossible to sail across the Mediterranean, and how you would run out of everything needed to get there, therefor, the big, seemingly endless, oceans would be suicide, even if someone had evidence of there being something “to” get to out there.
Now, what exactly those breakthroughs would actually need to be… we can guess at a few, like making sure you don’t run out of food and water, or fuel, and those are big ones, but its unclear a) what would solve those, or b) what others we might not be considering.
Ironically, some rich nut like Muskrat may be the only “viable” way, as mentioned, due to the politics of it, to actually make it happen. Which is sad, but also not insurmountable, because I could see probes turning up, say, vast amounts of some minerals, or development of a technology that might make mining asteroids plausible, etc., actually offering an incentive once more for governments to go, “Hmm.. We could use that. Someone work out how to get there!!” But, equally sadly, this might be the only thing, outside of either a collective a slightly nuts people, or one really rich nut, doing it themselves.
Have you somehow never run a chemical reaction in your life, or grown a garden, to think that the complexity is anywhere near the same scale?
We had lab experiments converting CO2 to CO + O2 in simulated martian conditions decades ago. There were engineering questions about how to do it more efficiently, more reliably, more durably, etc. There was the dream of maybe there would be easily accessible water somewhere, which would mean easily accessible hydrogen, and then you could use a different reaction to convert locally-sourced CO2 + H2 to CH4 + O2. And lab experiments to confirm it’s easy to set that up in martian conditions, too. Worst case, if Mars was dry, was to send hydrogen (probably as methane). Since oxygen is the large majority of the mass of the water you’d need to use on Mars and the bipropellant to return, sending methane and locally harvesting oxygen would still save a lot.
That was all before we found there’s plenty of water that’s not easily accessible. I’m not sure where the in-situ resource utilization thinking is now.
Actually shipping such equipment to run an experiment on Mars was a question of funding priorities. It’s been seen as more interesting to send exploration robots than to send an experimental chemical plant that doesn’t generate any cool pictures — and I can’t exactly refute that thinking.
We are on mars. Our rovers are , exploring the place and producing new knowledge. except for chicken shit colonial nostalga why do people have to go ? It’s not going to be a second earth life boat, the the technology required to do that is so close to magic we could use that magic if we ever achieve it to fix & protect Earth or do anything else needed to protect humanity without mucking up another planet.
It’s not going to be fun or healthy for the people who do go.
Just send more & better robots.
It pleases me to be able to accurately say “Mars is populated entirely by robots”, and I would kind of like to keep that the case.
The selling of Mars as a Plan B once we irrevocably fuck up Earth is why I oppose Musk’s efforts, much more than the ego-drivenness. Mars ain’t the kinda place to raise your kids (thanks Elton and Bernie).
Mars has about 38% the surface gravity of Earth – leave aside all the other challenges, that in itself means a colony has to be either short-term or no-return, because muscles and bones and ligaments would be so atrophied Earth would be impossible.
Anyone want to bet that the primary reason why Musk has changed his focus is that his previous hype was so blatant that even he can no longer stick with it, and he doesn’t believe that he will still be alive by the time someone finally sets foot on Mars? This is about his ego far more than it is some Lifeboat Earth. He doesn’t want to kick the bucket and be thought a failure.
All my life I’ve heard and read that Humans landing on Mars is about twenty years away. There’s been a lot of different plans and proposals from a lot of different people on how to achieve it. Its pretty clear to me that the obstacles are more a lack of political will and dedication than they are technological and scientific. Worst thing Obama ever did was cancel the Constellation program – right after its first successful Test flight at that and the wretched American political system which is truly shithouse has meant that NASA has kept chopping and changing plans and targets with every POTUS from Mars to Moon and back among other things. No POTUS wants to be one that sees their predecessor esp of the opposite of the two (& ONLY fucking 2 becoz again shithouse governance system!) parties plan succeed so none of them stick to the plan that the last guy did and so the USA just doesn’t get anywhere because of lack of long term view, perspective and political pettiness.
China and perhaps other nations won’t have that problem and like with Sputnik the USA is going to get caught with its metaphorical pants down again by a nation or other group that actually sticks to their plans, prioritises them and funds them properly and just goes and does it.
That’s what’s needed – pick the best plan, stick to it. Build it. Fly it. Could’ve done it long ago. Someone eventually will.
Unless Trump goes and blows us all up, I’m still very confident that we’ll see a human landing on Mars in my lifetime. I’m much less confident now that that human will be American although it so easily already could have been.