Let's talk about a future on Mars with Dr. Zubrin



Let’s talk about a future on Mars with Dr. Zubrin

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40 thoughts on “Let's talk about a future on Mars with Dr. Zubrin”

  1. I look to a future when Mars will be viewed as a footnote. If humanity eventually becomes a spacefaring species, Mars won't be what enabled that outcome. Getting to orbit from a planet with an atmosphere is hard. To quote the science visionary Larry Niven, "Once you finally climb out of a hole, why would you go down into another one?"

    It's the Moon, Phobos, Deimos, and the asteroid belt where all the materials are to build a space fleet and supply the needs for a human presence in space.

    Space travel is easy compared to the difficulty of getting out of a planet's gravity well and punching through its atmosphere. Once we are in space, we should stay there. Mars is a distraction and a waste of time. We should plant our flag there then forget about the place.

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  2. Ellie, that was really something special. I am glad that you were able to get so much time with Dr Zubrin and let him 'lay it on the line'. I am going to take 2 headache tablets now and watch this again tomorrow. What Robert does not know, is not worth knowing. An old cliche, but very apt here.
    Colonisation has always been fraught with hardship. The sea trips in crammed conditions with stuffy holds on rolling seas with many dying on the way, the Colonial Wagons packed with all their worldly goods crawling across plains, attacked by wild animals and native tribes defending their territory and lifestyle, are all cold hard reality stories we are taught, read about, watch films about. It's never been easy. And Mars will be no exception. There will be losses for sure. But if we stay here, we go the way of the dinosaurs. If we try to fly the 'nest', our future generations may get a chance to live longer than the dinosaurs did.

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  3. Zubrin really took advantage of your generousity, to push his products, books and far-out investment schemes here. People asked is this about space or is it a Zubrin sales show? (Also, please warn people his "investments" are high risk). A book plug is fine, but when you let guests hijack your show, you lose credibility. Hope this helped.

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  4. What is DR. Zubrin's thought on food for Mars? He says farming on Mars is not going to work. Not enough land. Bringing food from Earth doesn't seem very efficient either. Would a station closer to the sun just for robotic farming. Then go back and forth from Mars to this farming station. would this work. I know it would take a long time. Does he have other thoughts on feeding Mars?

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  5. I agree gateway is useless… 😀
    It exists because the Orion capsule lacks the delta-V to leave a low luna orbit.
    HLS can travel to the moon and back without Orion or Gateway.

    Orion could be used as a testbed for measuring radiation in deep space or some other mission.
    SLS could launch probes to Enceladus or Titan.
    Dragon + HLS has luna missions covered.

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  6. In the political aspect, I always find it interesting the political narrative in America. People will say "he is making enemies", yet that doesn't make him the problem. The enemies could very well be the problem here. Just because you have enemies, doesn't mean you are doing something wrong. Often, it means you're doing something right and that makes people doing things wrong very upset. He bought X, because he saw free speech being destroyed. That is at least arguably more important than Mars. But is he the problem for rocking the boat of the oppressors? Or are the oppressors of speech the actual problem, and he is funding the solution? This often depends on YOUR political persuasion to which side you believe is true, ironically.

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  7. There is no future for humans on Mars until we can evolve to live in such an environment. Living in containers with an artificial climate/atmosphere is not economical or sustainable. I would consider steering comets/asteroids into Mars for a few millenium to increase the mass and water needed, plus moving the planet closer to the sun to create conditions more favorable but even then the radiation is too much. It could be a temporary lifeboat but is no place for the wife and kids.

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  8. Just watch the videos of the men living in the Antarctic and take away their ability to just get on a plane and return to South America in seven days. Tell me how good that looks now.

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  9. Thanks, Ellie! I’m glad that I waited a day to listen to Dr Zubrin.

    By definition, any PhD is a no- risk taking coward that has no business passing judgement on Elon’s choices. Wisdom is far from Zubrin as he hides in his dark corner of the ivory tower.

    He has chosen the turgid path of the globalist elite.

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  10. I propose that the inhabitants of Mars must be ketogenic people. This would necessitates the nutrient dense foods like meats. People who eat carbohydrates need to eat much too often to be supported by agriculture wholly. I think their are ways to do this with limited space but it would require protien recycling. The best protien recycling systems we have are BSF systems. I think they can be done in small footprints but we should be doing experiments to see how well BSF works in low G low light, small footprint etc. Food animals that could be part of this cycle , chickens, fish, food items that could be incorporated of vegetable variety aquaponic Lettuce , tubers, melons, herbs, vine fruits. This infrastructure would need to be substantial none the less and it would need separation from multiple systems to maintain germ barriers but it should be scalable, say 30 % of every trips by weight needs to be …

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  11. …Thank you Ellie for conducting this interview. Robert was certainly engaged today, and he covered so many important issues, especially his thoughts on Elon. He was definitely spot on with his synopsis about Elon's hubris. I'm older, so I was first introduced to Mr. Zubrin (not physically) but through hearing his name in news papers and magazines. I only had access to AOL back then, which I used in college. I did receive his Newsletter when it was being snail mailed out. It showed a basic launch schedule for upcoming missions along with various topics. Anyway, he has definitely kept the fires burning for Mars missions all these years. Thanks again for your interview with him yesterday. I only just caught up with it today. Greg

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  12. The idea that Twitter is a waste of Elon Musk's time is simply wrong. We've seen what happens when free speech is crushed. The reason the Left hate Elon now is because they can no longer silence everyone they don't like.

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