Ken Fabian

SpaceX income and commercial viability depends heavily on government contracts and it is a long way short of beng fully funded privately; it receives a lot of government funding, which comes tied to particular projects and outcomes. I am not sure what it is but it is not "private enterprise" as it is usually understood. Even Starlink is getting funding. By operating a business which has the US government as the principle customer SpaceX can't just do as it pleases - and without the strong US government support I think current SpaceX capabilities would be much more modest and big ambitions like Mars missions look a lot less likely. Not that I think colonies will be possible even with strong government commitment. Will the Lunar lander they are being funded to develop be the prototype for the Mars landers that don't yet exist? I think they will keep up the science fiction inspired Mars Colony hype but with a timeline reminiscent of Zeno's Paradox, whilst hoping that sufficient popular support leads to a crewed Mars mission as a government funded venture, like with the moon. As contractors they would be well placed to make the profits but avoid the financial risks. Doing it as a wholly private venture? I don't think they are anywhere near being capable of even doing a crewed orbit of Mars and return, let alone landings.

I am not endorsing IDNeon's combative contributions. I remain interested in discussing and debating the real prospects for colonising Mars. I see fundamental problems and am not impressed with "Problems are opportunities" type truisms as responses to them. Those problems are not due to a lack of an optimistic attitude; they need much more substantive solutions than additional optimism. At this point "plans" to colonise Mars are little more than wishful thinking and adding more wishful thinking won't do it.

There is no viable plan for colonising Mars and the improvements SpaceX have made to rocketry are not nearly sufficient to make Mars colonies possible. I suggest Rockets capable of taking missions to Mars part are just one unresolved issue amongst a plethora. Are we not supposed to point out the problems with Mars ambitions? Sorry but the optimistic enthusiasm looks more like Belief and Faith that Elon the Prophet will lead the way to the Promised Land than it being a rational and reasonable ambition for a worthwhile goal that is within reach. At every point the arguments in favor revert to variations of "Planet B", "Lifeboats for escaping a world with no future", "inevitable", "Destiny", "builds hope", "just like Columbus", "Once there people will thrive" and "new tech will make it easy". None of those address concerns raised about fundamental economics or what it takes to be self sufficient under such circumstances. I should just share the enthusiastic hope and refrain from criticising? Sorry, no. I think the subject needs a healthy round of scepticism; people who otherwise appear reluctant to accept extraordinary claims on trust sound a lot like dogmatic Religionists on this.

Some manufacturers like Tesla already include provisions for taking back batteries for recycling/disposal in the purchase price. It is a serious consideration but I don't think it is being neglected. I fully expect more and better recycling and safe disposal Also I think we need some perspective - projections for battery waste for Australia indicate a rise to above 100,000 metric tons per year by 2050. Not sure what global projections are. It is also projected that by then most of that waste will be recycled. I am inclined to think that the quantities of battery waste is an underestimate, but by comparison coal burning in Australia currently produces 12.5 million metric tons per year of heavy metals contaminated and chemically reactive coal ash. Then there is CO2, which exceeds all other waste more than 5 times over. In Australia, 20 times more of that than coal ash waste, which is a lot, lot more than we expect from battery waste. Yes, battery and other RE waste needs to be dealt with but the shift to RE will greatly reduce overall amounts of toxic waste.

People can believe and promote whatever beliefs they like but I do think there are or should be obligations for people holding positions of responsibility and trust, including journalists to investigate and report factually and news editors to make clear the difference between reporting and opinion. We have large parts of communities disbelieving the existence or seriousness of the climate problem - profoundly important to our future - because people we rely on to know the difference between fact and fiction chose to promote conspiratorial BS. The US experienced an attempted coup, because organisations that promote themselves as the Fourth Estate, the essential guardians of Truth and Democracy promoted conspiratorial BS. These were not grass roots movements of people holding their own beliefs but conspiracy theories presented and promoted as factual by people holding positions of trust as , with fiduciary duties, who should and mostly did know better. Journalists and news editors, like people holding high Offices, should have and abide by minimum standards - and be held accountable.

I don't think History tells us that at all. This is the popular retelling of colonial history by space dreamers but I don't see any real substance to it, not adventure as the initial motivation for exploration nor the searching for places to put down roots. What History tells me is that colonies depended on trade and the use of cost effective existing technologies - the gap to bridge between expensive to normal was relatively small. There was an abundance of readily available exploitable resources both for basic survival and for trade. Once provided with maps and rutters plenty of ships could get there and back - and do it profitably. But the gap between expensive to go to Mars and normal remains such a huge gulf that even the superficial resemblance to Europeans colonising The Americas breaks down. It won't be bold adventurers but meticulous planners - and bean counters - that will make any expansion into space possible; the bold adventurer type will be low on the list of preferred crew characteristics.

I don't agree. The resources needed for putting those boots on the ground can do multiple missions and multiple rovers, and can not just deliver and examine a very few samples within close proximity to the lander but do thorough surveys and mapping across vast areas. The data can be on the monitors of teams of the world's best geologists in short time. And in any case I expect any crews will sit within the safety of their base and send out rovers! We've visited Mars by proxy and it offers no path forward to the stated grand dreams of expansion into space I am reading. There are no shortages of better ways to push and celebrate human limits than pointless ones like Mars and most frontiers that matter are still on Earth, frontiers of science. The alleged motivations of Columbus don't even appear to be true - Columbus sought different route to a well known region of rich trade and potential plunder and found an unexpected region to plunder, one with fewer defenses. Any comparison of the opportunities Mars presents to modern humans and the opportunities The Americas offered - unparalleled opportunities to advanced raiders with ships, steel and gunpowder - looks ridiculous. Look at The Americas. Look at Mars. The Americas offered real opportunities to Europeans using everyday technology in common use. Mars offers no real opportunities without technologies that do not exist, technologies that would probably bypass Mars. Space is nothing like the explorations and colonisations of the past and such comparisons offer nothing but illusion; the Grand Space Dreams will be advanced by Earth's economy being sustainable, by using spin off tech from what Earth develops and makes and uses for itself.

We are exploring and better than ever. 21st century humans do space exploration from swivel chairs in front of computer monitors on Earth - it is the in-person explorer thing that is anachronistic. With roots in Astronomy and science, space exploration done from a distance, remotely, is normal and works extraordinarily well, whilst the gloves-on, in-person human space explorer is wishful thinking. Leaving out the crew part simplifies any space mission, extends it's reach and reduces costs enormously. We still do space exploration and we share in it through remote machines and their feeds, in different ways to crewed missions of the Apollo era. But the claim that humans do space exploration better is bunk, with probes and rovers already having explored far beyond the reach of the most ambitious crewed missions. There are some worthwhile taxpayer funded goals in space beyond Earth orbit, eg meteor defense - but Mars colonisation is a poor one. It isn't the spirit of adventure that will carry space enterprises over the line into self supporting viability but commercial viability and Mars doesn't have any.

The quoting from SF may be making my point for me. It IS corny, sorry and I don't accept that it is true; machines are doing it better at this point, already going where Man cannot go boldly or at all. We are way short of stagnation and the disparagement of our blue orb is not called for; nothing in our solar system can compare, not even close. Our harshest deserts are more hospitable. And I think the Grand Space Dreams that science fiction inspires absolutely depend on an enduring, prosperous and wealthy Earth economy. Should we manage to achieve some kind of colonising of space I think it will arise from servicing Earth's needs for resources - at this point the standout resource is nickel-iron and Mars would not be the place to try and mine it. And to succeed, will have to ruthlessly eliminate the need for astronauts wherever possible; nothing adds more costs and complications to doing things in space than including people. Mars is interesting if you are a planetologist or we want to look for evidence of life apart from planet Earth but it's a terrible place for people and I do think sending crewed missions there is pointless as well as extraordinarily wasteful. Also very high risk. It is hyper expensive theatre with a high likelihood of turning to tragedy. If people want to do it out of their own resources, sure, but I don't want taxpayers funding it.

I am of the view that the problem must be addressed at the energy industry level, through government policy planning and regulation inducing a transition to very low to below zero emissions. To be effective clean energy abundance such that even people with extravagantly wasteful lifestyles who do not care will have low emissions is necessary. Personal choices to avoid waste, choose lower emissions options and otherwise reduce personal emissions are helpful - and necessary for our sanity and self respect - but without that fundamental shift to clean energy they cannot solve the problem. Going stone age by choice is not a viable choice and failing to go stone age by choice is no more hypocritical than justifying no efforts to reduce emissions through economy wide policy on the basis of a choice to deny or ignore climate science or just not caring. We can mostly agree that stealing is wrong but it takes laws and enforcement to discourage it - and still stealing is widespread; relying on that in-principle agreement that it is wrong is insufficient. I think the climate problem is like that - something widely agreed should be addressed but relying on that in-principle agreement or personal choice will always be insufficient; people are people and still do things despite knowing better. The issues of social and economic equity can't be set aside but it looks clear to me that failure on emissions will overwhelm any short terms "gains" for the poor by deferring or preventing that transition. Good governance is essential, including for poverty alleviation and should include measures to insulate the most vulnerable from short term economic harms from policies to shift to low emissions. In my experience it is primarily people who can afford such measures that are the ones making the strongest objections that they should not be done because it will hurt the poor, speaking of hypocrisy.

I don't think that makes it better. Starlink has a huge potential revenue stream that can be reinvested in commercial opportunities and makes commercial sense but trips to Mars do not. There is still no potential future revenue stream from spending all that money going to a dead end destination and will be a bad investment. I think Mars only looms large in popular imagination because of generations of overly optimistic popular fiction.

Ticks usually have specific or preferred host species and will inhabit the range of those... not because they migrate to such places, but because that is where the adult ticks successfully reproduce. Picking one specific individual host over another would be unusual - the way they find hosts doesn't really give them choice. They won't normally seek hosts by walking around on the ground but if lucky enough to find a host like that they won't pass up the opportunity. If it is the wrong host they may drop off - with or without a taste test first. My understanding is that more usually they seek vegetation to climb, where host species pass under them or brush past. Some species have rudimentary eyes and sense movement and shadows, but it seems like it is mostly sensing odors and body heat that tells them to let go of the vegetation and try to catch a ride. As iNow noted above, they will be opportunistic. There would be too many variables in the impromptu experiment to reach any conclusions about the apparent preference for one individual host over another.

I think SpaceX even doing an uncrewed visit to Mars orbit by 2024 seems overly optimistic. With crew, with landing, with return - no chance. Without outside funding - which I can't see any means for being recouped, which makes funding much harder to find - no. Throwing all resources SpaceX has available at it might get something there - at the risk of going broke. The enthusiastic optimists will tolerate deferred targets better than SpaceX will tolerate going broke.

But don't assume you can't change or influence things and be too willing to give up. Get well informed first.

50,000 years is short in evolutionary terms. Living with advanced medical care - even if it didn't include fertility treatments or IVF - would be different to free range humans living as hunter gatherers. I suspect selection, ie those with traits that are helpful survive and reproduce better and those without will do worse, but that would mostly be selection amongst existing variations rather than introducing new variations. More time needed for new variations through mutation.

"Evolutionary purpose" is not an evolution science concept. If humans are fitted by evolution to some overarching purpose it will be through Science and Reason that we will work out what that is. Evolution gave us things like our individual will to live and gave us strong social bonds and a strong sex urge and gave us fierce protective love of our children - but those aren't unique to humans. Brain power with powerful memory and language and dreams and ability to think in abstract concepts and with imagination, tool use and invention are human characteristics. We can discover and invent our own purpose. We seem to be innately fitted for seeking reproductive success and protecting and providing not just for our own children but those of our family and clan. We aren't so well fitted for seeking protection and providing for those who are not family or clan or whatever social groupings we belong to. We face problems that impact our whole species and require us to do things better. I do think we face species wide challenges that test not just our individual capabilities but those of our institutions, societies and economies - and it is a test that seems to require a lot of the human characteristics that conform to what many religions count as good, but does not depend on religion to be true; intelligence, accurate observation, truthful record keeping, sharing knowledge, cooperation, organisation, just dealings with others. That challenge is - I think - the outcome of enduring and exceptional success by our species in a finite and fragile world - the need to achieve enduring prosperity and security for our descendants. It looks to me that achieving that for our personal descendants requires achieving it for everyone's descendants, which is why I think it may be something like an emergent purpose. One discovered and revealed by Science and Reason.

Trying to figure this out. 90 + posts essentially because someone doesn't understand the difference between force, pressure and work?

It is good it worked out well, but it was not a reliable action to take - not that I'm sure there can be any guarantees, whatever course is taken. Even constant supervision comes with downsides. But it could also have had a bad ending. The potential for an "ordinary" fist-fight to result in serious injury or death is always there - usually without any such intent. Fighting on or around concrete surfaces for example raises the risks greatly. Achieving some kind of just outcome also depends on whether the aggrieved party can win the fight - which is always far from certain. Legal repercussions as well as enduring hostility were also potential outcomes. I don't think so, not even when it was malice and intent that took out the eye rather than unintended consequence, such as a fist-fight gone wrong. Restitution - that will work better from someone with both eyes - might serve justice better. I don't think so. The greater good might be in the deterrence - which will be limited - or the public safety by removing someone who might be likely to re-offend - which can be achieved by imprisonment. But not the public enjoyment. Most people in attendance would have no direct involvement, knowledge or interest. The public satisfaction looks more like indulging a powerful human urge to violence by virtue of promoting the lack of virtue in the victim. It looks like populism dressed up as justice. It seems likely to me that normalising execution unnecessarily affirms and legitimises the taking of human lives - and I think our legal systems work best by putting distance and objectivity between that indiscriminate urge and attempts to deliver just outcomes that maintain community safety and social cohesion. Where capital punishment is practiced it is more likely to be perceived as necessary as well as normal but lots of nations do not practice it and they are not overrun with violent crime. It is not necessary. Public satisfaction at knowing a serious criminal is executed seems to me to be qualitatively different to the satisfaction at knowing the person will spend their lives under constant supervision, with most of life's opportunities denied to them.

And some will be, beyond any shadow of doubt, guilty. Full confessions and all. There is part of me that wants that ultimate punishment but it is that element of satisfaction, even enjoyment at the prospect that troubles me. It is an urge and not necessarily a good urge. Keeping people safe from any further harms doesn't require the death penalty so it will be for other reasons. Cost? Unless the perpetrator is dealt with quickly I am not sure that executions really save money. I suppose I am thinking of other "costs" with my inclination to oppose capital punishment, as in what kind of society we have and want. What if reliable rehabilitation were possible? I don't really expect much on that front; get tough on crime politicking invariably plays successfully to that too human response - the urge to hurt those we think deserve it. Giving quality care to criminals when there is so much innocent suffering just will not be popular. Unlike executions or harsh treatment. Yet I think rehabilitation - even if a serious crime still gets lifelong imprisonment - is a worthwhile goal; even from within prisons people may yet contribute something of worth to the greater society. Although I might add that prisons as they mostly exist don't look suited to doing real rehabilitation or making positive contributions to society and prisons as businesses using forced labor don't do really do it; the criminals outnumber the staff, it is us and them and they don't intermingle much, but that is a divide that probably has to be broken down for real rehabilitation.

I had wondered if this was about Trump's Capitol mobbing, whether punishing them would be justice but it was a misspelling. Good question though, one I admit to doubting I have a clear answer to. Not sure justice is what capital punishment - or any punishment - really does for one thing although a lot of people equate payback/revenge with justice but I do not think they are the same. Each case can be different and courts do not always get it right for another. With an assumption that any decision to execute has the right person and there are no wrongful convictions? I don't think we can make that assumption. Revenge as "closure" is about the satisfaction that comes with doing horrible things to someone people hate and believe deserve it - which, ironically, may very well have been part of the motivation or at least self justification for the initial crimes. It is not a good thing to encourage in my opinion, as popularising punishment to appease those urges feeds violent urges; the violent acts themselves are not treated as intrinsically bad but rather, are good or bad according to what we think of the perpetrator. I think it is one of humankind's most problematic traits, that we can revel in violence, even horrific violence... as long as we think the victim deserves it. And unfortunately we have no innate requirement for weighing evidence - just being told someone is bad can be enough. Or if they have the wrong ethnicity or religion or political beliefs, that can be enough. It is an urge that has very little to do with justice. Which raises other problems when ethnic or other groups feel unjustly treated and one of their own is arrested and convicted - the disrespect and abuse and lack of cooperation that law officers might get in some neighborhoods can be one unintended consequence. Cycles of revenge and payback can be triggered too, especially where there is distrust in the fairness of legal systems and "justice" turns vigilante. Imprisonment with or as harsh treatment can work as deterrence but it looks like a very unreliable method that appears as likely to alienate and harden as rehabilitate, especially without any system for rehabilitation. It looks like getting the best results for rehabilitation is incompatible with harsh imprisonment as deterrence. Capital punishment vs imprisonment for life? I still don't have a clear answer but no doubt the kind of prison system it is would influence my opinion if it were me facing the one or the other.

To exist, life needs enough warmth, within a range. I suppose some crude measure such as total bio-mass could be used for the range between Earth too cold and Earth too hot as a better or worse for life global temperature indicator. But it will be crude and not really encompass the complexities of diverse ecosystems or the impacts of periods of climate stability versus periods of change. I am not sure the concerns that a species like homo sapiens, that has thrived within the range of temperatures of the recent past, have can be reduced to such simplicity as more or less global bio-mass being good or bad.

There is no advantage to smokestacks with respect to global warming - and CO2 is the most abundant form of waste humans make, by a very, very large margin; about 5 times more than all other waste combined, by weight. Much more by volume. Shifting to electric vehicles AND shifting to low emissions electricity is necessary, not one without the other; both are happening, if much slower than the seriousness of the climate problem requires. More new power generation is solar and wind than any other sort now but we haven't stopped building new fossil fuel plants yet; emissions growth is slowing with overall generation rising but globally it has yet to become emissions reductions. I think if electricity production can become low emissions that will flow through to lower emissions of manufacturing and across whole economies. Whether EV's lead the way or low emissions energy comes first, they complement each other in ways that make doing one a strong incentive to do the other. Diversion may have been the intent but dilution as well as diversion seems to be the result; diluted enough made the people even further downwind safer too and for a long time the climate impacts really were insignificant. When it took navvies with shovels and wheelbarrows the amount of coal simply could not ever be enough to have a big effect and what few scientists that thought about it at all also lived in cold climates and thought a bit of global warming would be good. Modern coal mines even have robotic trucks (including battery electric, because they care about emissions... err, because they reduce costs) to help bring the quantities up to globally catastrophic levels.

Levers, gears and pulleys are all ways for less force to lift objects that weigh more (have greater gravity force) than that - a smaller force is applied through a longer distance. But the amount of energy expended will be (without friction) the same. What cannot be done is doing that whilst using less energy.

Battery operated tractors are already on the way. Hydrogen will struggle for lack of supply infrastructure but may gain traction over time as industrial use of H2 grows - it is needed for low emissions iron and steel and may be a way to convert gas plant used as backup to wind and solar to zero emissions and beat batteries for long, deep storage. Right now it would be possible to recharge a tractor from local solar but fast charging a big machine in a time of heavy use might be better with grid connection. A dilemma that those machines may get only weeks of use per year but then run 24/7 when used, however there are credible proposals to run a complementary power supply vehicle alongside. Plenty of lower hanging fruit for going electric than grain harvesters - a lot of higher priorities to deal with first, during which much will be learned. Possibly we will see farm scale H2 production emerge - it could be used for producing low emissions Nitrogen fertilisers on site as well, but battery electric can work right now. For small, intensive farming there are also small tractors with long electricity leads - not even new tech, that. The future of tractors - John Deere's Joker is a fully autonomous electric tractor with articulated steering and a tracked single axle. John Deere is apparently very committed and optimistic about battery electric tractors. And automation.

Multiple studies say ICE cars generate more CO2 even where EV's are charged exclusively using FF produced electricity. EV's make even less when charged with low emissions energy. Manufacture the EV's where the grids are low emissions and less emissions are used making them; as the proportion of low emissions energy grows the amount that EV's produce goes down. Battery use is growing rapidly and what they do, they do successfully and cost effectively, from EV's to home solar to grid - and at this point I don't see any credible alternatives. And I don't see the transition to very low/below zero emissions as something optional. Storing energy is already useful. Electricity grids around the world are getting cost effective benefits already, as do householders who have invested in them to complement solar on rooftops. Plans for complementing growth of solar and wind in Australia with new build gas are being set aside in favour of batteries - with energy companies, not government policy, driving take-up. How Hydrogen is produced, as with batteries and the emissions in FF production chains as well as end use surely does count. Ultimately all manufacturing must be included, not by counting the nails in people's boots but through counting the emissions from the industries involved in the manufacture and supply of all their products. Make the energy systems low emissions and everything manufactured with it will have low emissions. I don't know that an EV would have more of those materials than any fossil fuel burner. I would say that that they aren't fossil fuels. They do offer some potential for recycling... except most recycling is 'downcycling' that uses materials at lesser quality, perhaps a few times at best. Burning them as the ultimate means of disposal - using plastics as fuel, that displaces other fossil fuels - is quite common too, so some portion of those materials do end up as fossil fuels. My understanding is burning waste oil as fuel is the most common fate of lubricant oils too - although re-refining and re-use is becoming more common. I don't see that as anything but an interim means to reduce overall harms without offering any end solution. The ultimate solution will be in better materials in "Cradle to Cradle"* style, where technical materials are selected for being able to be recycled back to original "virgin" quality, within waste management systems that actually do that - or else use biological materials (in "Cradle to Cradle"* style) that are made to fully decompose back to reusable biological nutrients. But this problem of plastics use and disposal is society and economy wide, whether we consider emissions or not. But we do need to consider emissions. * Cradle to Cradle concept is the brainchild of Braungart and McDonough. Their "Waste Equals Food" Doco is worth a look IMO.