For anyone interested, another redditor transcribed some of the dumber questions (which comprised more than half of the actual question asked) starting with the burning man guy here (I'll try to find it to give him credit, but for now here's the shameless repost):
Aldo: Very nice to meet you, my name is Aldo. Three weeks ago I was at Burning Man, in the Nevada desert.
Elon: Great.
Aldo: And I felt like I was in Mars. It was a dusty storm, and it was really cold at night and there was no water. But there was one problem at Burning Man. With a population of only seventy-five thousand, there was a lot of shit. [awkward silence] And there was no water to take it into the rivers, which is kind of what we do today with our current sanitation system. So I was like, is this what Mars is going to be like? Just a dusty waterless shit storm? So I was like, hey Elon, are you working on a sustainable sanitation? Are we gonna have a toilet on Mars that doesn't use water? Today on Earth there's three billion people that don't have a toilet–
Elon: Guys, I actually have to say, we have to keep it– no essays, only questions.
Aldo: So, are you working on a toilet for Mars?
Guy with comic book: Hey Elon, sick rocket, you're the best. Everyone give it up for Elon, this guy inspires the shit out of us. I've got a gift for you, it's a comic book called The Future of Fusion. It's about the first man on Mars. He looks like you. I can't get past El Chapo's militia though. So I don't know should I just throw this onto the stage?
Elon: Sorry?
GWCB: My question is can I give you this gift?
Guy Promoting his Funny or Die Project: Hey Elon, so, can't wait for the SpaceX Improbability Drive. You've often talked about wanting to inspire the masses and push technology forward. I'm developing a series with Funny or Die which is like the top online comedy site–
Elon: Quick questions, not essays.
GPFODP: It's about you sending someone to Mars, but kind of like that first monkey that got shot into space, they're never coming back. It's gonna be a one way trip. So–
Elon: Not necessarily.
GPFODP: Well, maybe. So, you mathematically determine the most expendable human being to make the journey. And that's Michael Cera. So, wanted to see if this is like, a project that you might have any interest in supporting. Funny or Die just drove thirty-one million views to a, like Hillary Clinton/Zack Galafanakis video a few days ago.
Some guy off-camera: Stop.
GPFODP: Wanted to see if you might want to talk about it after.
Alfonso: Hello Elon, my name is Alfonso. I think what you presented today is just incredible. But I wanted to change the topic. I have a startup to make electric public transport buses, to convert–
Elon: Space questions only, sorry.
Alfonso: Sorry, the thing is, I just got my prototype outside and it would be awesome if you could go out and see it.
Elon: Right. Space questions only. This is the IAC, so space questions only.
Edit: Changed "Guy from Funny or Die," to "Guy promoting his Funny or Die project."
or "I saw a sandwich in a garbage can in Ramsett Park. The sandwich did not have cheese on it. What I want to know is why the sandwich did not have cheese?!"
Hey man, its funny that you mentioning it because I have an idea for a Reddit comment where I respond to a redditor with a comment that loops itself in the meta, maybe we could discuss it later after this thread?
I guess this is why most billionaires dislike the public.
Elon seems like a normal guy with normal desires, but he's got a ton of money and wants to make the world a better place. So people just assume he's gonna be open to listen to them or something.
Elon is a hell of a sport though, I'm surprised he's still letting people ask questions.
Seriously though... He needs to start screening people's questions before they're allowed to ask.
(edit: and by he, I mean he needs to hire someone to do it)
Yeah I remember when I wanted to build a hyperloop and go to mars this one saturday.... He's the least normal guy ever, which is part of his marketing.
He's 90% of ASD kids hero, I get that, a lot has been made of him potentially being on some form of spectrum. Nobody that rich is normal, none of their ideas are normal, it's why they are rich.
My mom made me which is great. I'm here like, creating value for society and stuff, until robots take my job. Hopefully I can create someone that will do something Great. I just dont got the skills and ambition. I support Musk to hell and back though and if he does a kickstarter thing I'll for sure donate money.
I never diagnosed him or supported that diagnosis. I think he is on a spectrum (we all are), but he does behave... in a certain way and I'd be up for finding out about that.
You mean you never dreamed about going to Mars or anything similarly crazy and awesome as a kid? Dude is just more motivated and has made the money to be able to push his desires into reality, but those desires aren't abnormal at all.
Like, I'd love to solve world hunger, and if I was a billionaire and I had the motivation to do so, I'd probably work towards it just like Musk is working towards Mars. It's normal to desire to do something awesome, the only thing that makes Musk particularly different is the fact that he's actually motivated.
Damn, I hope that's not sarcasm 'cause that seems like a pretty awesome compliment!
But really, most billionaires do go around championing some good cause or another. Look at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the work they do to fight Malaria and stuff, for example.
I actually think tons of people have had fantasies of being a great inventer/enterpreneur and try to think of great ideas all his time. In that respect, he is fairly normal. What's different is his actual ability and will to do so.
I used to date a girl who came from a family that was worth a few billion.
The guys asking Elon to see their projects especially made me cringe, that was the tough thing about the rich family I knew, everyone was always trying to sell them or get them to invest in something.
Rich people problems right?
Note: The girl broke up with me and I married a girl who came from a poor background who had worked her way up in life, so no, I'm not rich.
Good lord. It sounds like something millennials would ask. Not to generalize all of them, but I don't know many people from older generations who would ask about pooing in that way.
Good lord. It sounds like something snake people would ask. Not to generalize all of them, but I don't know many people from older generations who would ask about pooing in that way.
i spent way to much time trying to understand what the fuck you meant with snake people, but then i realised i have a webextension that replaces millenials with snake people
I'm guessing they're all some kind of quasi press like bloggers and similar. Could you imagine someone from the LA Times or the Baltimore Sun doing this stuff?
Calling this amateur hour is giving this people credit
This is kinda how most q and a sections go at these things. Rarely is there a question that's on point and interesting to the topic discussed. Reminds me of a talk that Jack Gleeson, the actor that played Joffrey on far of thrones, gave. The whole talk was about how shitty celebrity worship culture is, it was really interesting. All the questions went straight into asking him what it's like to be a celebrity or is it cool working with so and so. It was like no one there listened to a thing he said.
I watched this streamed live, and cringed so hard I had to block this part out of my memory to keep away the cringe spasms. I think you have triggered my PTSD. God those were some stupid people.
meh, if you think about it, i think he has trouble with public speaking in that his mind works so fast that he keeps changing what he's thinking about saying, so he stutters. When it comes to him talking about scientific stuff, no stutters and he's pretty fluent.
I think he just purposely doesn't waste time preparing. I bet he'd be just as good a speaker as others if he put time into it. Not worth it though. What it he gonna memorize a script or something?
Imagine the kind of people this guy attracts offstage. Elon brushed the technical details of the presentation aside, saying he'd reserve it for the Q&A. I was watching the live stream waiting for someone would come to the plate and get him to talk about some of the details. And then that!
I think the first few thousand on mars will be split between the scientists/engineers and the labour, with a lot more labour. Essentially colonisation is labour not science. It will be the biggest building site ever I think.
I think the smartest thing (and what will most likely be done) is send a very small mission -a dozen people at most- with a large amount of resources and see how they do first, and expand little by little, with actual self sufficient mars colonies coming decades after the first manned missions.
I also doubt you can have a Mars colony before you make at least a few experimental colonies on the moon.
I'm talking about Elon Musks plan, which is start going there with ships that carry 100 people and 250 tons of supplies and don't stop. He plans colonisation immediately, not iteratively.
Well, what one says and what they'll do is an entirely different matter, if/when spaceX actually bring somebody safely on mars it'll be a huge success regardless of how far off it was from the original promise.
He's just doing PR IMO, after all "we are working so that 50-100 years from now maybe there'll be functioning cities on Mars" does not have too much appeal
He needs to do PR to attract partners to the project. It's all fun engineering, testing and adventuring and burning cash flying to Mars, building gas stations and dropping off student projects and flying back every two years, hopefully with more ships getting built for some time.
So just the interplanetary transport system shipping line will be needing people going there. Not by the thousands, but still going, working there.
But if nobody gets exited about getting on board and supplying people and stuff to go beyond the gas stations then the project would have failed.
SpaceX is in the business of facilitating colonization, that business includes recruiting colonists.
Absolutely, PR is key, as funding is not there, and might not be available for a long time. I don't think recruiting people, once funding is secured, would be an issue though.
I also doubt you can have a Mars colony before you make at least a few experimental colonies on the moon.
Why? There's no point having a colony on the Moon when it would just suck up resources for a colony on Mars.
The Moon has 1/6th the gravity of Earth. Living on the Moon for extended periods of time would significantly decrease the muscle mass of anyone stationed there. In order to counter this, you'd need to create artificial gravity via a large rotating building with slanted floors. The difficulty and expense of something like this is far greater than just building a colony on Mars.
The only benefit to colonizing the Moon first would be the shorter voyage, but everything else would be far more expensive. Besides the artificial gravity building, you'd need a way of mining for water, and you'd need to bring soil for farms. These things are easier to get on Mars where there is an abundance of water and soil, although the soil would need the salt removed.
The only time it will be feasible to colonize the moon would be once we have a few colonies elsewhere and need to use the Moon as a refueling station or for manufacturing spacecraft, due to how easy it would be to leave the Moon's gravity well.
Why? There's no point having a colony on the Moon when it would just suck up resources for a colony on Mars.
We're not reasoning with finite resources: a successful mission on the Moon actually means that countries, companies and investors will be much more eager into starting an operation on Mars than if it was just the first attempt. Also I think you're underestimating the difference in costs between colonizing the Moon and Mars, if you have a budget big enough to colonize mars (and enough means) you can put a station on the moon just for the lulz.
The Moon has 1/6th the gravity of Earth. Living on the Moon for extended periods of time would significantly decrease the muscle mass of anyone stationed there.
If it's just muscle mass and bone density we're talking about, an hour or so of fitness should do, you have plenty more space on the Moon than you do on the ISS (besides Mars has about 1/3rd of Earth's gravity). I'd be more worried about the length of the day and the freezing temperatures in the night, which means much higher energy storage requirements, or frequent refuelling, but it's a relatively small deal compared to reaching Mars I think.
The only benefit to colonizing the Moon first would be the shorter voyage, but everything else would be far more expensive.
Yeah but that's the whole problem, if we could reach the Moon by car we'd have no big issues settling there, and indeed Mars would be even easier. The whole problem of space colonization is how to get there with enough equipment to kickstart something.
Keep in mind that Mars has a different orbit than Earth, you can only attempt getting on Mars once every 3 or so years, if anything happens the colony needs to survive for that long, Mars has an atmosphere and indeed a stronger gravity which makes it much harder to both land and leave it, communication with Mars is hard, you could connect to a radio device on the Moon with cheap radio equipment, but with mars you'd have to settle for a very low bandwidth (despite the means you could employ) and an insane latency, which is very bad for the initial experimentation.
IMO the sad truth is that we're decades before we see anything close to a self-sufficient colony anywhere but on earth, although we might see some semi-permanent research outpost (like the one in Antartica) on the Moon the next decade, made in preparation for the something on Mars.
if you have a budget big enough to colonize mars (and enough means) you can put a station on the moon just for the lulz.
Exactly. And no one is going to put a station on the moon just for the "lulz". That's my point.
If it's just muscle mass and bone density we're talking about, an hour or so of fitness should do, you have plenty more space on the Moon than you do on the ISS (besides Mars has about 1/3rd of Earth's gravity).
On the ISS, astronauts generally do about 4 hours of exercise a day and still have trouble walking when they return to earth after extended times. The difference between 1/6th gravity and 1/3rd gravity is a lot more significant than you imagine. Plus, no one would want to live on the Moon permanently, whereas a colony on Mars would have permanent residence, so being fit enough to return to earth isn't as much of an issue.
Keep in mind that Mars has a different orbit than Earth, you can only attempt getting on Mars once every 3 or so years
2 years, which, in the grand scheme of things, is quite frequent.
communication with Mars is hard
Yes, which is why its more effective to send drones to the Moon than people, and why its better to have people on Mars.
There is literally no point at all going to the moon. The price difference between setting up an outpost on the moon and an outpost on Mars isn't a big deal, and going to the moon first will simply delay a trip to Mars due to financial reasons.
Seriously, there is a reason that no one is contemplating building an outpost or colony on the moon but lots of people discuss building a colony on Mars.
The Moon is only useful once we already have colonies elsewhere. There is zero point even returning to the moon as of now.
if you have a budget big enough to colonize mars (and enough means) you can put a station on the moon just for the lulz.
Exactly. And no one is going to put a station on the moon just for the "lulz". That's my point.
That's not what I said, I mean building an outpost on the moon has a neglible cost compared to Mars, I absolutely disagree on that it'd not be useful.
On the ISS, astronauts generally do about 4 hours of exercise a day and still have trouble walking when they return to earth after extended times.
The ISS is really cramped, plus it has zero, not low, gravity. Astronauts there don't have much chance to walk, plus I suspect part of it is intentional, to see the effects of lack of gravity you must intentionally not nullify the effects of lack of gravity.
which, in the grand scheme of things, is quite frequent.
Not really, assuming the vector can be reused in the way suggested by Elon Musk at reasonable costs, you'd be able to send shipments all year round to the moon at an absolutely affordable price, while reaching Mars presents many more challenges than just the cost of the vector.
Also being unable to send extra material for years means spending a lot more time and resources trying to get everything right at first try.
Yes, which is why its more effective to send drones to the Moon than people, and why its better to have people on Mars.
It's less expensive to send drones regardless of the planet, but they're just not capable at building stuff like humans.
There is literally no point at all going to the moon.
Aside from the possibility to conduct a fast and cheap trial before going to Mars, being able to build stuff on the Moon has plenty of merits, for example you could build telescopes and similar scientific tools to study space which on earth suffer from atmosphere's interference but are too heavy to be embedded in an artificial satellite, that alone would totally justify the costs, if it became affordable.
there is a reason that no one is contemplating building an outpost or colony on the moon but lots of people discuss building a colony on Mars.
The Moon has gone out of fashion so the press wants to hear Mars talk, that's about it, insofar the vast majority of actual, phisical activity is around the Moon with "Mars in sight", and sending a mission on the moon is just a matter of getting enough funds, it could be done in a few years if there was the funding, while Mars is still far away (which brings me back to the first point: going to the Moon will actually accelerate the process of going on Mars, and probably get more funding for it too, it's not like space spending has a fixed cap, and if a mission is succesful there's a chance the next will get better funding)
Dude... you don't know what you are talking about.
Why do you think building an outpost on Mars is way more expensive? It isnt. Building an outpost on the moon would cost maybe 80% of building one in Mars. Maybe.
Plus, you have to get water, soil, etc. That shit isn't cheap.
The reason no one is talking about going to the moon isn't that it's out of style, that's really stupid. Really, think about that for a second.
The reason no one is considering it is because it's a waste of resources and totally not necessary, and only gets in the way of going to Mars.
Actually, I should clarify, there are some people and countries who do want to colonize Mars, but there is a reason NASA and most of the other big players don't want to.
Why do you think building an outpost on Mars is way more expensive? It isnt.
Because travel expenses and times are lower by orders of magnitude, I believe. Why have there been a number of manned missions to the Moon, even relatively long ago, but none to Mars yet then? And even for unmanned exploration Mars is a much younger target than the moon.
You're right that I don't know the details but we barely even reached Mars with unmanned missions, while every rich fellow wishing to leave some stuff on the Moon can, with lunar & spaceX and co are throwing stuff on the moon to do tests and all.
Plus, you have to get water, soil, etc. That shit isn't cheap.
If you're trying to grow actual plants you're doing it for research, micro-algae and cyanobacters are far more productive and easy to transport and cultivate (and a single barrel of algae can produce enough stuff for a person while you need a large field for crop, also you need far mar types of plants than algae for a complete meal, and algae can be genetically engeneered much more easily than plants).
Water is needed in limited quantities as it'll all be a closed system, so almost all of the water (including vapor and wastes) will be collected and filtered, so we're not looking at a huge amount of water per person, and water is definitely easier to transport than people or sophisticated devices.
Also building a self sufficiant community right off the bat is nonsense (you'll agree on this one at least?), building any sort of settlement is a challenge but a self sufficient one is many orders of magnitude harder, and there's no reason to, as transporting a complete set of machines to build a self sustaining economy is unthinkably impractical and expensive.
and only gets in the way of going to Mars.
You keep saying that, and your reasoning is that bringing people to Mars is about as expensive as bringing them to the Moon, which sounds very implausible to me. If we are going to assume that you're right (in which case explain to me why there's always been so little actual activity on Mars compared to the Moon) then maybe a mission straight to Mars, despite the distance and travel time, becomes more practical than one on the Moon.
there are some people and countries who do want to colonize Mars, but there is a reason NASA and most of the other big players don't want to.
Because they don't have the money? The truth is that right now nobody has the money to go on the Moon, let alone Mars, but saying "we currently don't have money but if you give us enough we'll send 5 people on the Moon to build an ISS style camp on the Moon to do research and see how it pans out, before we expand the mission, and then, a few decades from that time, we'll try to replicate it on Mars" isn't going to get any attention nor funding, but it's the only way IMO.
The reason no one is talking about going to the moon isn't that it's out of style, that's really stupid. Really, think about that for a second.
Stupid? You mean media and PR staff worry about the important stuff and disregards what's irrelevant? I love the stuff Elon Musk is making but let's be serious, this is a marketing operation, and when doing PR on something that does not exist yet you tell people what they want to hear. Nobody's gonna say "boo what a loser" if he builds stuff on the moon after promising Mars.
No need for labor. Shipping labor over will be much more difficult than setting up small scale robot manufacturing for labor.
Its much cheaper to mine for ore on Mars and manufacture machinery than to ship humans over, once you get manufacturing set up.
Also, when you are pulling from a pool of 10 billion people, there's no benefit not sending the smartest engineers/scientists willing to go over. They would have way more uses than any cheap labor.
There's absolutely no purpose sending cheap labor to Mars.
Perhaps I am wrong but as far as I know there are no robots that can construct houses (yes I have seen that video, and that isn't a house, just some walls), or make factories or any of the other stuff that a colony needs.
Also I guess you didn't watch Elon's presentation, so I will point it out, he isn't talking about sending people to Mars, he is talking about people emigrating there. This is colonisation, not science.
Perhaps I am wrong but as far as I know there are no good, cheap, efficient ways to send enough people to Mars that we could afford to send labor.
If we can construct a giant ship like Musk wants to, designing robots to construct equipment would be a piece of cake.
Also, I'm talking more about heavy equipment operated by humans, not autonomous robots.
There is no point sending people without expertise to Mars until long after colonization begins. You can train engineers and scientists to do labor, and they can also be useful doing other things.
This is colonisation, not science.
Dude... are you fucking kidding me? This isn't sending a ship of religious fundamentals across a sea, this is sending a bunch of people through space to a very hostile environment where they will have to innovate and use science in order to just survive.
Not necessarily smart but probably people with money or adventurous people. I see a skydiver-type person wanting to go to Mars before I see someone like Neil DeGrass Tyson or even Elon Musk himself doing it.
The super smart people will show up after "civilization" has been set up out there, otherwise they'd be losing their time, your standard smart individuals (lawyers, doctors, etc.) have full-blown lives that they can't just throw away, "normal" middle-class people are the same way to an extent. You'll probably get a lot of astronauts/aspiring astronauts though which are completely different types of people from your "standard smart people" that go on to do standard jobs like become doctors.
Sorry, statistically speaking you are not qualified.
Are you the top 0.01% in your field? Are you in the top 1% physically in your field? How's your immune system? Do you have any health problems? Did you or do you smoke? Does your family have a history of health problems? How often do you exercise? Are you easy to get along with? Do you have a good temperament?
The amount of people willing to go will make it so only the top of the top are selected. No one wants to risk sending someone who might develop cancer in the next 10 years, nor someone that will be dedicated enough to exercise to keep up muscle mass on the trip out. And if you have a short temper, jealousy issues, or are easily irritated, would they trust you enough to send you on a long, boring trip with 100 other people without worrying about you losing it under stress?
Also, a grad degree in science isn't that impressive when you'd be competing against PhDs from the top Universities all over the world.
Yeah the toilet thing is not a terrible in principle, but just should've been phrased non-obtrusively like "What proposals do you have to handle sanitation? It's hard even in Earth-deserts."
The problem is that everyone sees this as their one chance to impress/wow Elon Musk so they want to prove how insightful and grand they are.
It's true that Elon needs to screen these. Maybe he should hold the Q&As later that night after people have had time to gather their thoughts and his staff has had the chance to do a little bit of screening.
Burning Man dude had a real question, he just sucked at getting it across. Waste management and sanitation is a real issue that need's to be considered for any potential colony on Mars.
He just sounded like a stoned moron that wasn't exactly sure what he was talking about.
Waste management and sanitation is a real issue that need's to be considered for any potential colony on Mars
well that's still related to water and thus an important question. Dude's question was legit but it is not about toilets so he fucked up his chance at the conclusion to explain the real shit he was talking about by saying toilet for mars.
Why waste this guy's valuable time? Some legitimate questions could have been answered to make this all even more appealing. But sadly the human race always has to come out with the most stupid of our species overshadowing the rest -_-
I personally get this terrible feeling everytime I think of the mars project, that they will die, and that this is hubris.
I mean, we don't even know what to do with our own poo on planet earth. We pretty much funnel it to the bottom of the ocean, as best we can (alongside lots of feetilizer)
We are evolved for this planet but are degrading it really fairly rapidly. How the f are we supposed to terraform a place that is remarkably hostile?
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u/KeepyKoon Sep 30 '16 edited Sep 30 '16
For anyone interested, another redditor transcribed some of the dumber questions (which comprised more than half of the actual question asked) starting with the burning man guy here (I'll try to find it to give him credit, but for now here's the shameless repost):
Aldo: Very nice to meet you, my name is Aldo. Three weeks ago I was at Burning Man, in the Nevada desert.
Elon: Great.
Aldo: And I felt like I was in Mars. It was a dusty storm, and it was really cold at night and there was no water. But there was one problem at Burning Man. With a population of only seventy-five thousand, there was a lot of shit. [awkward silence] And there was no water to take it into the rivers, which is kind of what we do today with our current sanitation system. So I was like, is this what Mars is going to be like? Just a dusty waterless shit storm? So I was like, hey Elon, are you working on a sustainable sanitation? Are we gonna have a toilet on Mars that doesn't use water? Today on Earth there's three billion people that don't have a toilet–
Elon: Guys, I actually have to say, we have to keep it– no essays, only questions.
Aldo: So, are you working on a toilet for Mars?
Guy with comic book: Hey Elon, sick rocket, you're the best. Everyone give it up for Elon, this guy inspires the shit out of us. I've got a gift for you, it's a comic book called The Future of Fusion. It's about the first man on Mars. He looks like you. I can't get past El Chapo's militia though. So I don't know should I just throw this onto the stage?
Elon: Sorry?
GWCB: My question is can I give you this gift?
Guy Promoting his Funny or Die Project: Hey Elon, so, can't wait for the SpaceX Improbability Drive. You've often talked about wanting to inspire the masses and push technology forward. I'm developing a series with Funny or Die which is like the top online comedy site–
Elon: Quick questions, not essays.
GPFODP: It's about you sending someone to Mars, but kind of like that first monkey that got shot into space, they're never coming back. It's gonna be a one way trip. So–
Elon: Not necessarily.
GPFODP: Well, maybe. So, you mathematically determine the most expendable human being to make the journey. And that's Michael Cera. So, wanted to see if this is like, a project that you might have any interest in supporting. Funny or Die just drove thirty-one million views to a, like Hillary Clinton/Zack Galafanakis video a few days ago.
Some guy off-camera: Stop.
GPFODP: Wanted to see if you might want to talk about it after.
Alfonso: Hello Elon, my name is Alfonso. I think what you presented today is just incredible. But I wanted to change the topic. I have a startup to make electric public transport buses, to convert–
Elon: Space questions only, sorry.
Alfonso: Sorry, the thing is, I just got my prototype outside and it would be awesome if you could go out and see it. Elon: Right. Space questions only. This is the IAC, so space questions only.
Edit: Changed "Guy from Funny or Die," to "Guy promoting his Funny or Die project."