Musk: SpaceX will put a man on Mars in 2025!

[Monoriu]

How to bring the man back from Mars though?  I imagine that they will need another rocket to escape Mar's gravity

[Martinus]

Just crack water into hydrogen and oxygen and make rocket fuel on site.

How's that going to help with the problem grumbler described?

[jimmy olsen]

Just crack water into hydrogen and oxygen and make rocket fuel on site.

How's that going to help with the problem grumbler described?

Ah, I skimmed it. Thought he was talking about the problem of bringing enough fuel to get off Mars once you land there.

You could simply build a ship in orbit. Make multiple launches. The individual parts of the ship, the fuel stocks and the supplies can be made much larger that way.

[Admiral Yi]

He's free to crowdsource it.

[grumbler]

You could simply build a ship in orbit. Make multiple launches. The individual parts of the ship, the fuel stocks and the supplies can be made much larger that way.

(a) We haven't had (and don't have) the technology to "simply build a ship in orbit."  When we develop such a technology, that doesn't get around the fact that you have to land a huge mass on Mars without a cooperating atmosphere.

(b) Even assuming that most of the supplies necessary for a mars colony are sent remotely, the size of the lander needed to get the people to the surface is beyond current (though not proposed) rocket engine technology.

One of the factors accepted by NASA and other proponents of a Mars mission, BTW, is that anyone undertaking the mission will accept the fact that radiation exposure on the trip to Mars will take at least several decades off their life.  There will be no old people on Mars until the Mars-born descendants of the first colonists grow old.

The very first colonists will likely all die of misadventure, much like the Roanoke Colony.  The second wave may well produce a stable population, but won't live long enough to know of their success.  I'm not sure there will be a third wave, once people back home see the fate of the second wave.  Those first two waves will almost certainly exist, though, because there will be enough people willing to die to be part of something bigger than themselves.

[Monoriu]

I have no idea how you guys can find the funding for this.  This is going to cost, what, hundreds of billions of US$?  With no financial return whatsoever? 

[The Brain]

The very first colonists will likely all die of misadventure, much like the Roanoke Colony.  The second wave may well produce a stable population, but won't live long enough to know of their success.  I'm not sure there will be a third wave, once people back home see the fate of the second wave.  Those first two waves will almost certainly exist, though, because there will be enough people willing to die to be part of something bigger than themselves.

They'll Donner party like it's 2525.

[grumbler]

I have no idea how you guys can find the funding for this.  This is going to cost, what, hundreds of billions of US$?  With no financial return whatsoever?

Lots of bake sales.

[Ed Anger]

Elon Musk is genderfluid.

[Tonitrus]

I am sure the Nazi refugees there will greet us with open arms.

[jimmy olsen]

Elon Musk is genderfluid.

He has five kids, so I kind of doubt it.

[Zoupa]

You could simply build a ship in orbit. Make multiple launches. The individual parts of the ship, the fuel stocks and the supplies can be made much larger that way.

(a) We haven't had (and don't have) the technology to "simply build a ship in orbit."  When we develop such a technology, that doesn't get around the fact that you have to land a huge mass on Mars without a cooperating atmosphere.

(b) Even assuming that most of the supplies necessary for a mars colony are sent remotely, the size of the lander needed to get the people to the surface is beyond current (though not proposed) rocket engine technology.

One of the factors accepted by NASA and other proponents of a Mars mission, BTW, is that anyone undertaking the mission will accept the fact that radiation exposure on the trip to Mars will take at least several decades off their life.  There will be no old people on Mars until the Mars-born descendants of the first colonists grow old.

The very first colonists will likely all die of misadventure, much like the Roanoke Colony.  The second wave may well produce a stable population, but won't live long enough to know of their success.  I'm not sure there will be a third wave, once people back home see the fate of the second wave.  Those first two waves will almost certainly exist, though, because there will be enough people willing to die to be part of something bigger than themselves.

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/145160811X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465194271&sr=1-1&keywords=the+case+for+mars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

The first flight of the Ares rocket (not to be confused with the similarly named rocket of the now defunct Constellation program) would take an unmanned Earth Return Vehicle to Mars after a 6-month cruise phase, with a supply of hydrogen, a chemical plant and a small nuclear reactor. Once there, a series of chemical reactions (the Sabatier reaction coupled with electrolysis) would be used to combine a small amount of hydrogen (8 tons) carried by the Earth Return Vehicle with the carbon dioxide of the Martian atmosphere to create up to 112 tonnes of methane and oxygen. This relatively simple chemical-engineering procedure was used regularly in the 19th and 20th centuries,[8] and would ensure that only 7% of the return propellant would need to be carried to the surface of Mars.

Seems doable.

[Tonitrus]

Elon Musk is genderfluid.

He has five kids, so I kind of doubt it.

Sounds like plenty of gender fluid to me.

[Ed Anger]

OMG, HE NEEDS A VASECTOMY

[jimmy olsen]

Speaking of space architecture, a prototype inflatable module was blown up on the space station.

http://www.popsci.com/this-is-what-it-looks-like-to-inflate-habitat-on-space-station