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points by metalman 3 days ago | 0 comments
economicaly unfeasable for you perhaps, but what Elon is offering is a chance to be in the first wave of routine commercial access to microgravity, 1000kg mass and durration of your choice, and if you can achive the materials science objective to make something, that wasn't, possible, and have a market, then it's just manufacturing, and for many business concerns, negative data is worth the same as positive, because it refines where to put there research efforts, which there competition will have to guess at.again 1000kg's , crazy!, makes building the module SO EASY, mass to BURN baby, go! go! go!
[–] oliculipolicula 2 days ago
More of that generous absurdity from you, please. That's your comparative advantage

The following isn't more absurd, in fact opposite, alas. A much better payoff than microgravitated materials research, and further, it makes sense to start NOW

  Evolve bony vertebrates to thrive in microgravity. Use that learning to genetically enhance humans
[–] adrian_b 2 days ago
The time when we will be able to modify vertebrates to thrive in microgravity is much farther in the future than the time when we will be able to build interplanetary ships with artificial gravity generated by rotation.

The former requires some scientific breakthroughs for which it is unpredictable when they will happen.

The latter is an engineering problem with very little unknowns, which is guaranteed to be solvable today if enough money are provided for it.

Until now, the additional costs for rotating ships could be avoided, as long as humans did not go farther away than the Moon.

For an expedition to Mars or even to some more distant celestial body, currently there is no known way that would avoid severe health damage for the humans, without using artificial gravity.

The experiments on the ISS have shown that for mice a gravity of at least 2/3 of that of Earth is required to completely avoid all health problems, while a gravity of at least 1/3 of that of Earth is necessary to avoid the most dangerous health problems.

It is unlikely that humans will prove to be much more resilient than mice.

[–] oliculipolicula 2 days ago
Should start rightaway exactly because it's so faraway. I'm also comparing to all the materials research that are being suggested here, for which specifically microgravity enabled breakthroughs seem ... quite impossible? Including efficiency breakthroughs of the economic variety, btw.

(Yes I agree rotating spaceships are cool/feasible, but what if you are dead set on finding "benefits" of microgravity?)

And out there, you have free radiation for that accelerated evolution..