That's easy. Musk will be the Imperator Imperator meaning as Elon Musk changes Twitter bio to "Imperator of Mars" and it will be self governing and people signing up to starlink must recognise Mars as having "no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities."3) Governance. It seems to me that politics is going to be a showstopper. How is Mars run, accounting for the fact that every person who puts their mind to it will be able to commit mass casualty events through sabotage, or just letting the external environment inside ? To guard against these risks, a police state with extreme surveillance powers will be needed.
How feasible is Elon Musk's idea to establish a colony on Mars in the 2020s?
Answer (1 of 178): It's totally feasible for Musk to establish a colony on Mars by 2025. And experienced aerospace professionals like Bob Zubrin have already told him that gaggles of F9 Heavy's using orbiting refuel depots and on-orbit assembly techniques can do it right now. And Elon already HA...www.quora.com
There's a thread on Quora that discusses this subject, including a contribution from me.
But just to cite three points, of the many, many concerns about colonising Mars:
1) Gravity. Mars is 38% of Earth-normal gravity. Living in zero-G is terribly unhealthy, but there is no data about the health implications of living in low gravity. Sending hundreds of thousands of people off to Mars depends on things just happily working out OK
2) Who would go ? When people emigrated to North America in the 1700s, life was no worse, and in some ways (more land) better, with the same technology, and same jobs. Living on Mars, would be grim: like being sealed in a nuclear submarine. Very restricted vegetarian diet, no open spaces, no greenery, none of the diversions or variety of human civilisation on Earth. I wouldn't mind a gap year on Mars, but living there indefinitely would make a prison sentence on Earth seem agreeable by comparison.
3) Governance. It seems to me that politics is going to be a showstopper. How is Mars run, accounting for the fact that every person who puts their mind to it will be able to commit mass casualty events through sabotage, or just letting the external environment inside ? To guard against these risks, a police state with extreme surveillance powers will be needed.
Future astronauts going to Mars could have trouble sleeping, become lethargic, and have problems with mental tasks over the course of a long mission.
Double impact crater spotted by LRO.It now looks like that object is the Chang'e 5 T1 Long March 3C/E upper stage (originally launched October 2014).
Astronomers now say the rocket about to strike the Moon is not a Falcon 9
It’s probable that the impact object comes from a Chinese rocket launched in 2014.arstechnica.com
Jared Isaacman wants to pay for it. The Polaris Programme is his private space programme, with the Inspiration 4 mission last year being a dry run. Polaris 1 will feature the first spacewalk from Dragon."At no cost to the government" - how does that work?
A F9 punted a new generation (Navstar) GPS satellite to transfer orbit two days ago. The upper stage passivisation dump produced a nice spiral in the sky above Hawaii.
It seems the entire upper stage final disposal sequence was visible quite clearly (starts about 24 seconds in): burn, engine cut-off, reorientation, fuel dump.
Hi USM what do you mean by:"Stoke Space" is SpaceX-adjacent and embodies some interesting ideas for the reusable second stage: LH2-cooled metallic heat shield, aerospike-type engine, integrated fairing
SpaceX-adjacent
I read the headline as 'expandable', and I thought 'now that's a clever and intriguing idea!'SpaceX is going backwards:
Expendable SpaceX Starship Could More Than Double Saturn V Payload | NextBigFuture.com
SpaceX’s Starbase factory is already building multiple intentionally-expendable Starships. Ship 26 and Ship 27 feature no thermal protection, have no heatwww.nextbigfuture.com
Now that's some next level iNnOvAtIoN!
This is a SpaceX thread. Stoke is not SpaceX. But it is in the same business. So, figuratively, it could be said to be adjacent. Hope that clarifies things. Do let me know if you would like to discuss further.Hi USM what do you mean by:
Fueling is well underway. NSF are streaming:They're going to test all 33 engines on the starship booster today. If all goes well, it will be the most powerful rocket firing ever. More than twice as much thrust as the Saturn V. Peak power output of ~125GW which is equal to about 1/4 the average electricity consumption for the whole USA
When's that in GMT?SpaceX Crew Dragon 6 launch targeting 0534UT tomorrow. If the clouds co-operate it would be visible over the UK in the pre-dawn sky some 20 minutes after launch.
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UTC is the same as GMT.When's that in GMT?
This will, as they say, be FUCKING HYPEIt looks like the first SpaceX Starship orbital test flight could be on - they've just filed NOTAMs for launch and recovery for attempts covering 6-12 April, 1355-1810BST each day. These might just be full test dress rehearsals as a shakedown for a date later in the month (Musk has previously hinted at 20 April as a target date), but could possibly include an option to switch to a live launch if everything behaves and all other factors (weather, range safety, other operational constraints) are favourable.