Deathmatch On Mars: an Interview With Warren Ellis 94
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timothy
from the read-it-for-the-illustrations dept.
from the read-it-for-the-illustrations dept.
pigrabbitbear writes "Iconic comic book writer (Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Red), cult novelist (Crooked Little Vein), futurist intellectual, and beloved Internet curmudgeon Warren Ellis, known for his impassioned arguments for space travel, talks to Motherboard about Newt Gingrich's presidential plans for lunar colonies and conquering Mars." Warren Ellis does not mince words.
Wasted money for decades (Score:2, Interesting)
Every new President has a space dream. And Congress has a different dream. In the end they make a compromise that does nothing but keeps jobs in Utah, California, and Florida.
I wonder how many times we could have gone to Mars and back with the money wasted in these compromises (like the ISS and the Space Shuttle)?
Look, space travel has to *do* something... (Score:4, Interesting)
Something practical, like provide electricity to earth, or a ubiquitous free satellite internet, or something besides, "It's really cool!" That's not going to go any further than revolutionary fervor did in sustaining communism. In the near to medium term, if you talk space, you'd better talk money. Mars and the moon have no profit possibilities. Near earth orbit, which is affordable, more easily achievable and potentially profitable needs to be our next focus. I'm sure this is what the Chinese will do, and what we in the USA no longer have the common sense to see.
Re:Celebrity journalism redux (Score:4, Interesting)
It's no less irrelevant than Newt running at all. I'm not from the USA but aren't you guys worried about the FBI arms deal sting and the possibility that the guy was willing to turn traitor? Surely any other possible candidate is a better choice.
Re:ISRU... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I never said I wouldn't mine the asteroid belt, but the moon has the advantage of proximity. You can get to the moon in a few days, the asteroid belt is farther away than Mars. Also, the moon's gravity well is conveniently shallow enough to escape with a rail-gun (see: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress), and most of the stuff you need to build and power your rail-gun is available in the regolith.
So, first you go to the moon, and start mining the resources: oxygen for propellant and life support; iron, aluminum, magnesium, and titanium for building things. Once you can deliver these goods to lunar orbit, you start building the habitats and cargo ships you'll need in order to mine the asteroids. In the meantime, you can do a more close-up assay of the moon's resources. Given the number of asteroids that have impacted on the moon over billions of years, there's a good chance you could find some major sources of platinum, palladium, nickel, etc..
In this scenario, the main things you'll need to import to the moon will be carbon and ammonia. Carbon is essential to life, and useful for making high-grade steel; ammonia gives you nitrogen and hydrogen, both of which are scarce on the moon, but necessary for human settlement.
Re:Celebrity journalism redux (Score:5, Interesting)
He's just another fanboy pining for the glory days.
That's not how I read him. Now Zubrin, who he mentioned, is unreasonably anxious to get out there. Why should we visit Mars? To show the world it's possible? To research the place? And if the latter, why send people instead of more robots? Only reason to send people is as a prelude to the ultimate goal of colonization, which we're a long ways from being able to do. If we can't colonize Antarctica, which at least has breathable air, we sure can't colonize Mars. We have plenty of deserts we are currently unable to utilize much. At this point, we really cannot even just visit Mars, as we did the moon. It's a nice dream, but it is just a dream. And I see that he realizes all this.
I've spoken with Zubrin, and I asked him why the rush, why not wait 50 years or a century for technological improvements to make a Mars visit easier? He didn't want to wait, he felt our current capabilities were enough that we could do it now. And therefore we should. We should go "while we are young" is what he said. How romantic. But romance won't get us to Mars, and sure isn't a justification for trying.
They're both delusional (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sorry, I've had enough of this crap from science fiction writers about space flight. I don't want them, (or crony politicians promising money for votes) to be guiding our government's decisions. Just because space flight is romantic and awe-inspiring doesn't mean we should do it. There's only one good reason for the kind of space travel they're advocating and it's the old don't-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket idea. But if the Earth were destroyed I don't have a lot of hope for people making it on the Moon or Mars. They'd still be completely dependent on resources from back home. Just try running a self sufficient society in the middle of the Sahara and see how long it lasts. At lest in the desert you still have oxygen to breathe and the temperatures are in the realm of habitable. Neither of which are true for the Moon or Mars.
They're also completely ignoring the fact that technology has become completely unpredictable for anything over 20 years from now. They have no idea what new things we'll discover in the next 100 years that could have profound impacts on space travel. Impacts that would make their current proposals completely meaningless. They sound like a salesman in the late 70s telling his company that they need to make their mainframes bigger and add more tape drives.
Our space-tech is either going to advance at a humdrum, linear pace, in which case we're never getting out of this solar system. Or it'll advance by leaps and bounds in which case just going back to the Moon, or building a rocket capable of going to Mars is pointless in the long run.
There's also no reason to have people on these flights other than to have a good old fashion feel-good PR story. You can have robots do anything you'd want a human to do and more. And you don't have to waste any money on food, oxygen, extra fuel, extra space, waste expulsion, and a return trip.
But what I love most about the interview is this quote:
You know, we must have already perfected space travel because I have no clue what planet Warren Ellis currently inhabits, but it's certainly not ours. Yeah, Obama has a whole bunch of cash lying around that he can just 'loosen up' at any given moment. It's not like we're running a huge deficit with programs and funding being cut left and right.
Nobody's ever gonna stand on Mars (Score:2, Interesting)
John Michael Greer's post on the end of the space age [blogspot.com] confirmed for me what I'd concluded myself: the stars are not for us. Nor the planets. Not even the moon. If you are a person of unwavering faith in the myth of infinite progress then you won't accept what he says. It may even seem ridiculous. Yet for those who've had nagging doubts, it can hit like a punch in the gut to finally hear it stated this firmly and this eloquently.
I was 8 years old when the Eagle landed on the moon. If there's ever a time to make a lasting impression on a boy, it's when he's 8. From that point on, humanity's expansion into space was a given: the bedrock of my vision of the future. In fact, it's hard to believe in infinite progress without taking space travel as a corollary. But I see the world declining now on so many fronts. The myth of progress seems not only false but absurd. Civilizations have their ups and downs. This last one has reached higher than any other, boosted by an enormous non-renewable energy supply, but that supply is now in decline and so are we, like all the others. We reached the moon at our apex, but did not grasp it, and now it is too late. Nobody's ever gonna stand on Mars. And I mean never.