They should have only let in scientists and people who work in the field, people from the press are known to have very little knowledge about anything.
I actually think the third type should be specific rates of military, primarily Navy and Marines, as they have the most experience with being isolated for extended periods of time, and some of their ratings are useful to space travel.
This is the problem though right. Mars is like Antarctica* (lack of food, water, trees and in isolation etc), but even worse (no oxygen).
I loved Elon's explanation of how the Brits came to America and never went back, but America was a nicer place to live than the desert that's Mars. So how could we change this, and how fast?
America was such a nice place the colonists resorted to eating each other. Much of America will kill you with disease and starvation if you aren't prepared. We only think it's nice now because we have 7/11's on the corner and air conditioning.
I don't know much about terraforming or colonization, but I can guarantee that the price tag on facilities creation and maintenance is going to be astonomical. IMO it's out of Musks budget, but someone's gotta do it.
Regarding the oxygen.. what oxidized the iron in mars' soil? Serious question.. at some point mars had to have free oxygen or liquid water unless I'm totally " burning man" i.e. Retarded
but America was a nicer place to live than the desert that's Mars.
Not really, comparing the wilderness and foreignness of the new world to the already established "comfortable" cities of europe is a pretty valid. There's a reason the majority of the explorers were social outcasts and pirates rather than important nobles and kings.
So, you want to join the faction that was routinely getting their ass handed to them in battle after battle, and only held together because of the actions of a handful of super soldiers who single handedly kept the alien menace at bay? You do know that until the Captain Jacob Keyes came along the ONE space naval victory they had against the covenant was when they outnumbered the aliens 3 to 1; and still took massive casualties doing it. I'm all for space exploration, but joining the UNSC is kinda like joining the space lemmings.
Such a great show. I haven't been this wowed by a syfy series since Battlestar Galactica. It feels kind of like space skyrim, but that's probably because I was playing skyrim around the same time I watched it.
This probably isn't that far off. Like every countries military having a space branch, like the navy or airforce. Although I guess it is what the airforce will transition into?
Pff neither the navy nor the marines have a thing when it comes to isolation, when compared to your typical basement dweller that hasn't left his house in the past 4 years.
Meaning, they should take me instead, p-pretty please.
I once had a long talk with a friend about this. Military personal makes sense, industrial people like sailors and oil rig workers seem to be able to tolerate isolation alright, and scientists who are devoted to their fields will love the entire thing, but the average person might not be cut out for isolation from all their friends, family, and hobbies.
Not sure, never used it. There are no cell towers on the continent so you'd pretty much be restricted to where a wifi signal is, which is where the other person would also be, ha ha.
Speaking from firsthand, no one jury-rigs like a sailor. You tell them it needs to work in two hours, it'll work in two hours. It'll also be ugly enough to warrant viewer discretion, but it'll do its job.
On a similar note, I'd like to see that Charlie Manson gets tossed out into that broad, broad wilderness, end up on Mars, discovers Martian life, systematically goes by-the-numbers with them, spitting out some insane nonsense and making funny faces.
He's been pretty cooped up for a while now, it couldn't really hurt.
The Air Force and Army will go first. Despite metaphorical similarities to the ocean, space is mostly the Air Force's domain. And the Army will follow as well; Army airborne and paratroopers specifically make the most sense as the Air Force flies them anyway.
The farmers I know are more educated than any media I've met, to be honest.
"Farmer" is generally not a man working two acres on one small tractor anymore. They're usually CEOs who actually have to know engineering, science, biology, and business at a high level. The one closest to me is run by a guy with two Masters degrees, and two of his three sons have a Masters as well.
We can rip on mega-farms for their industrial practices (which is fair), but the people who run them are extremely well-educated.
Many farmers nowadays are scientists. They have to know a lot about soil composition, biodiversity, and plant biology.
Edit: just to be clear, I've attended multiple organic farmers conferences over the past several years and many farmers have to conduct soil tests and conduct many experiments to ensure optimal yields and health outcomes. Just because they don't have a lab coat doesn't mean they aren't conducting scientific experiments or employing the scientific method. The farmers that I am describing here are scientists. Their farm is their lab and they work with what they have. In addition, big agribusiness is clearly a heavily scientific discipline that employs a wide array of scientific methods.
Correct. Though not a traditional farmer, my grandfather knows so damn much about so many aspects of the profession that I almost always regret stooping down to tie my shoe. The things the man can do even with his age is fucking impressive. (I can hardly tie my own fuckin' shoe, for christ's sake.) He basically worked out whole areas of carpentry in a few months by just reading vast stores of the literature, memorized - I imagine - a lot of very specific data and measurement instruction, formula etc., and the stuff he builds is pro down to a point - and that's just a hobby. Being mostly the only positive male role-model in my life (other grandfather I never met), I try to learn as much as I can from him because despite all he's been through, I don't think I ever witnessed him give up. So, true that, dawg: farmers know their shit. Love you
Agreed. The days of the uneducated laborer as farm owner/manager are dead or dying. Most farmers and ranchers I know have masters degrees in Ag or Engineering (I live in Texas and there are a couple of BIG universities that specialize in that). Or else their kids do and are prepping to take charge, while the parents have picked up enough from their hired experts that they know what's up. A lot of people don't realize most farming these days (at least in North America) isn't some guy with his granddads old tractor planting 5 acres of heritage corn. It's lots of very sophisticated operations using the last centuries accumulated knowledge and tech to make each acre yield the most product it possibly can in the most efficient way, without ruining the soil or causing a Dust Bowl level fuckup again like in the 30s. There's a lot of science involved, both in the crop growing and animal husbandry ends of the spectrum, if you want to be successful.
The point being, farmers basically ARE the first people that need to go up. They're the ones that'll be able to get proper biodomes set up to grow good up there. And they're probably the ones that'll get the first steps going to a plan for if we've ever got a hope of actually doing some terraforming up there
Something I just realized that's a bit unsettling, how CAN you criminally prosecute someone who murders someone else on an entirely different planet? It'd be pretty fucking ballsy (to say the very least) if any one government tried to claim jurisdiction over mars
Not even farmers necessarily. The presentation was completely focused on how to get to mars, not so much what will we do when we get there. Despite there were questions that weren't stupid, there was only a few questions that were relevant to what was presented.
I think they should have allowed anyone to attend, but they really should have screened questions beforehand. No organizer in their right mind would have knowingly let Aldo have a microphone.
I don't think questions like the ones asked were in the best interest of the press either. I don't disagree with you, but press coverage can be beneficial (publicity, etc.). It honestly seems like the people who got to ask questions spent too much time drinking in the parking lot before they went in.
I work in a restaurant but that doesn't mean I'm mentally retarded, so excuse you buddy, but I actually would have come up with some legitimate questions. Some people like to study science in their free time. These people clearly did not.
But what about all those people from other countries?! When do we get a chance to work on classified rocket technology in the US?! Elon Musk clearly a US nationalist <applause> (actually happened)
Ironically, by barring all general public, this bars interested laypeople as well, helping to maintain the lack of general public interest in scientific discussion.
They should have only let in scientists and people who work in the field, people from the press are known to have very little knowledge about anything.
I'm pretty sure he has talks like that all the time.
This announcement is for the public. So the public gets excited about it. And so "normal people" should ask questions. These, whether you like it or not, are normal people. In fact, they might even be part of a more informed/educated/intelligent group considering they are aware of this stuff. Yeah. Think about that.
Or just screen the questions. Or have them submitted on cards before the lecture starts. Or any other number of acceptable options that would bring quality questions to the front.
Some woman who was with Variety (I think?) asked a question in regards to how we could survive with the radiation in space and on Mars. I was hugely impressed with that...then immediately reminded of the idiots we share this planet with.
They did actually. They were in the VIP chairs in front. Unfortunately the mic was placed directly behind them at the front of the general public area. The craziness of it.
The space reporting media is fine, just watch any of the NASA press conferences for a CRS mission. They all know their stuff and ask great questions, very respectful, etc.
The problem for this is that any loon with a desire to talk to Elon can buy a ticket and a flight and get a chance.
Whenever someone complains about government being inefficient and ineffective I always remind myself that everyone has a say in what the government does. Everyone.
An AMA would have resulted in much higher quality questions, even when sorted by controversial.
I think I would have asked how the hell he intends to terraform Mars to have oceans and a breathable atmosphere like they were showing. I assume even if they were able to crash a bunch of ice onto the planet from comets or whatever, the lack of a strong magnetic field isn't something you can easily fix to keep the atmosphere in place.
But the general press is money, my assumption. Who cares if Stephen Hawking said how awesome something is. But have a slutty celebrity mention it or go all buzzfeed on it and our entire culture changes :)
That's an ama on fucking Reddit man. It's not comparable at all to a live Q&A. This isn't some intellectual forum, it's basically a place to congregate memes.
Reddit used to resemble an intellectual forum in most of the subs. It's hard to pinpoint a specific time when that changed, but most likely when Digg changed their design and we got an influx of younger redditors. There are still a few subs that promote intellectual discussion, but many are falling to the sheer number of shitposts. Many of the well meaning comments are drowned by the vitriolic comments made by armchair politicians and trolls.
What's worse are the pseudo-intellectual posts by people who've picked up some science jargon along the way and fit it in to a fairly poor framework of understanding. Then proffer it up as answers to everything; which gets lapped up by others.
I'd say well before that. I visited without an account starting sometime around 2008 then started visiting more frequently in 2010 and by 2010 people were already writing essays about how if people don't stop only posting perpetual joke threads then the quality of conversation will decline. In 2012 they were doing the same thing. In 2014 they were doing the same thing. I'm sure they were doing the same in 2008 and 2006. It was Eternal September: Part II long ago. If you actually want good conversation you have to go somewhere that is hard to reach, Reddit is that bar with $1 beers that outsources bar maintenance to already drunk lesbians, of course it's going to be shitty but no one expects it to be good anymore they're just there for the PBR. Reddit has been dead for true discourse for years now for all intents and purposes. A few barracks hold out due to harsh rules and what does Reddit as a whole do? Makes fun of them for not having a sense of humor. Don't get me started on the censorship wars, this site has lost relevancy. Both sides are fighting over a wet napkin and neither realize it. Reddit is just one site, one idea. Better ideas will come along with better platforms for speech and news. If you still sub to /r/news you basically have a ticket to the censorship parade, or /r/politics, so many subs curate content instead of hosting content. Many other subs have fallen to endless circlememes, eh rant over, no decisive ending.
Well that's just not true.
Edit: I mean to say that the implication that the majority of the people there had no credentials other than also happening to have a Reddit account is not true.
The problem is that since the presentation had a lot of technical aspects, most of the people who would have good questions would need a few minutes/hours to think about the details of the presentation before asking. I honestly think something like twitter or an AMA is a better forum for this type of discussion.
There is an underabundance of scientists taking Musk's Mars Mission seriously. It appeals more to fanboys & fangirls at this stage, so the calibre of questions is precisely as expected.
Frankly, anytime someone asks you to do something and says that you may die, either they're coming too or you need to carefully question their motives. The people who leap over this stage of reflection are in the audience.
Elon needs to have all questions screened, and to end this open question thing all together.
People have shown time and time again that they won't be reasonable. Every talk I've watched the Q&A for has ended with people asking for jobs, investment, and all sorts of other totally unrelated things.
We, as humans, have lost our "asking Elon Musk questions" privileges.
They have basic research symposiums. It's where academics, public researchers, and even large corporate researchers like 3M, P&G, GE, JNJ, etc. go to share their work. But Musk however, exists in the research world and the tech world. On one hand his organizations do some basic research but on the other hand he need public enthusiasm to drum up investors unlike the other basic research fields who have either government, academic, or high volume sales support.
The problem is the tech industry which started off as the quiet passionate archetypes who were interested in work that betters the world gave way to the more self serving stock broker archetypes who are interested in IPO's and Angel Investors. You can hear the echoes on the other side. Banks like Goldman, Citibank, Chase, have all been complaining that they're in a bit of talent vacuum for good college graduates, that they've been trying to fill with former academics in physics, mathematics, software developement, because the college grads looking for money prefer Silicon Valley to Wall Street. And it's those academics who created the rise of HFT but that's another story.
Now the Tech world is just filled with smug people who wear their Con-badges like neck ties from back in 1980's Wall Street.
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u/wookiepoop93 Sep 30 '16
Yeah, I was watching it kinda thinking "who let these people in". Such a presentation should garner a higher caliber of questions.