Comment by mayd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mayd | Hacker News Reader

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> I learned to trust nothing that man says.

I admit I did get a little caught up in Musk's web of hype in the early days but fortunately my natural scepticism was strong enough to resist him. Eventually, I found a few detailed analyses of some of his technological fantasies which convinced me that some of what he proposes will not be happening any time soon, if ever.

I am by no means an Elon Musk hater but he does speak a lot of nonsense, from time to time, and he seems to be able to persuade many to abandon their scientific scepticism.

I was persuaded by what Common Sense Sceptic says about some of Elon Musk's plans: <https://www.youtube.com/@commonsenseskeptic>, even though he is clearly biased against Elon Musk.

I am convinced that

1. A city-to-city Starship shuttle passenger service will never happen.

2. A self-sustaining colony on Mars will not happen in the foreseeable future.

I have strong doubts about other SpaceX and Tesla claims by Elon Musk, but these two events I would actually bet on.

> I am convinced that

> 1. A city-to-city Starship shuttle passenger service will never happen.

> 2. A self-sustaining colony on Mars will not happen in the foreseeable future.

Both are in my opinion completely technologically feasible. Just not economically feasible.

If we had another space race I could see a mars colony in the 2040. But I don't think it will happen.

We will probably put people on mars eventually but a Mars colony is basically just not going to be self sustaining. We have Antarctic bases that are definitely not self sustaining which is a similar thing

Depends on what you consider self sustaining. Food, water and energy would be enough for me to call it self sustaining, even if it depends on Earth for things like computer chips.

Sure but that means it is reliant on earth for replacement parts for the habitation modules/structures so not self sufficient.

I feel sorry that you were convinced by Common Sense Sceptic [sic]. You should know that he's an anti-trans bigot. (Watch this video after the one in the second half of this comment.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh2vE5hsZhw

Secondly, and honestly more importantly, most of the information he relies in his videos is actually incorrect and outright lies. This is a really good long video that goes through CSS's "facts" and points out how his information is completely faulty and comes from a lack of understanding of rockets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQsyd4MmQCU

On your first point, why would you expect a sceptic to cease being sceptical just for this one particular belief system?

I'd take the other side of the bet on the #1 hard, and within the relatively near future, depending on how we define passenger. Militaries will 110% be using Starship for this almost immediately after its proven to be tolerably safe and reliable. Getting mass cargo, troops, and transit across the globe in the blink of an eye, with tremendous landing flexibility? If Starship somehow doesn't prove completely unworkable, I would not be surprised to see this happening in < 2 years. That's making the perhaps large assumption that their technology for landing, developed with the Falcon series of rockets, will translate to starting to nail Starship landings fairly quickly, relative to how long it took with the Falcon.

#2 becomes a much more interesting debate if you remove the self sustaining aspect of it, and consider just an Earth dependent colony. Full self sustainability will probably only happen decades after the creation of a persistent colony. There's just too much industry to recreate in an entirely new environment for it to be a remotely quick process.

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