Absence of a magnetosphere entails gradual erosion of atmosphere. You can still have one provided you're topping it up intermittently. So absence of a magnetosphere is not much of a challenge if you have a liveable atmosphere on Mars. But that's the actual challenge, right? Barring ancient reactors buried at the poles, it would take an unfathomable, multi-generational effort to produce a liveable atmosphere on Mars, be it by speed-braking comets in the upper atmosphere or nuking the polar ice. The first step, presumably, is to set up a base on Mars and find a way to make enough money out of it (some kind of Mars-tech or billionaire eco-tourism or the ultimate season of Alone) that it could continue to persist. The first half of that sentence seems doable. The second part seems harder to sell (and is the plot of Thin Air). I think that's the vision Musk has. Or maybe had. This isn't even touching on the legalities and ethics of interfering with the unseen biosphere that may already be there. The colonise Mars thing has certainly pushed the Overton window to set the stage for other stuff much closer to Earth. A space hotel / research lab catering to the superrich seems pretty feasible in the next couple of decades. A permanent (at least for a decade or two) presence on the moon now seems like a strategic priority for both China and the US. Neither of those really seemed plausible 20 years ago. I think SpaceX changed a lot of that. Anyway, I know you already know all of that. It's a pity to see what's happening to Musk.
Yea, is the idea terraforming mars, or making bases on mars as livable for humans as like, the Antarctic research labs. The latter sounds plausable but I cannot ever imagine Mars being a nicer place to live than Earth no matter how badly we screw it up.
The most realistic approach to terraforming mars I have ever read was a scientific paper in Analog suggesting that about a thousand times the peak Cold War arsenal of the US and USSR could be dropped on the caps, and hopefully within the thousand-year window of extremely marginally atmospheric atmosphere, someone might figure out how to retain it before it wafts away on the solar wind. I'm something dumb like 150 hours into Surviving Mars. It's my kind of anthill. But there's a lot of hand-wavey tech. I still hunt up Mars One swag from time to time. You know what? I had this conversation just today. SpaceX exists because Musk went to Roscosmos to find out what it would cost to hitch a ride to LEO and they gave him the fuck-you price. So he spent ten years and hundreds of millions of dollars reverse-engineering the Korolev Design Bureau. I think it's fuckin' hilarious that I was the only kid in a four-state radius who knew what grid fins were because I grokked Soviet nukes. I think it's more fuckin' hilarious that the only outfits to use grid fins are Soviet ballistic missiles and SpaceX. I want you to imagine it's 1998. You're the CIA. And you just found out that an eccentric South African millionaire is trying to buy ICBMs from the former Soviet Union. How many case officers do you think were up Elon Musk's ass from the jump? Edwin Land effectively disappeared from the public eye right about the time of Sputnik because Eisenhower said "Ed, we need you." Muthafucka went deep black for the rest of his life, designing the most gonzo batshit cameras ever seen by nobody. Howard Hughes was mentally ill, addicted to painkillers and on a downward paranoid spiral and still managed to steal a wrecked Soviet submarine. SpaceX has never added up. Tesla has never added up. SolarCity has never added up. Musk is, by all accounts, a truly mediocre man whose principle life advantage is getting lucky. What has the United States government gained through the success of Elon Musk? - massive investment and adoption of electric vehicles - a viable alternative to the United Launch Alliance - Global, undisruptable internet - A jump start in renewable energy The thing is? Elon Musk is a phony, and has never really given a shit about being a phony. He just wants the world to think he's a genius. And I think the more vital the various arms of Musk Inc. have become, the less actual control he has, and I think that fucking bugs him. And I think the fact that his luck has been extremely fortuitous to the interests of American foreign policy explains a lot as to how we got here.Anyway, I know you already know all of that. It's a pity to see what's happening to Musk.
Yeah, I assume Gwynne Shotwell actually does a lot of the driving behind SpaceX. That's interesting about the grid fins - I didn't realise they were a Soviet innovation. Timely conversation in view of the Polaris Dawn mission underway, incidentally.