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The Native Martians will provide for and take care of them until they become self sufficient enough to take their land and exterminate them.
It's been 6 months since I joined the gym and there's been no progress. I'm going there tomorrow in person to find out what's really going on!
JaxCoder.com
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Mike Hankey wrote: take their land and exterminate them
Robert Heinlein[^] demonstrated that's not likely to happen.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Practicalities aside, I think it dubious that you'd find a million people willing to leave the lushness of Earth to die on a baron airless rock. It's not exactly Tahiti...
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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I was thinking about that. I propose we start building a list of preferred candidates for everybody to vote on! 
If we start with all politicians and all lawyers, we should be well on our way towards a million...
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
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I believe Douglas Adams already figured out that we need to send the telephone sanitizers, hairdressers, jingle writers, accountants, etc.
I, for one, like Roman Numerals.
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We had a discussion in the coffee corner about who we should urge to volunteer as settlers. I guess creating a list in this thread could lead to the thread being censored 
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As someday it may happen that a victim must be found
I've got a little list
I've got a little list
Of Elon Muskés colonists, living underground
And who never would be missed
They never would be missed
...
(With apologies to Messrs. Gilbert & Sullivan)
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Rob Philpott wrote: I think it dubious that you'd find a million people willing to leave the lushness of Earth to die on a baron airless rock
Did Elon specifically say anything about people volunteering for this...?
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That makes it sound like Australia, except without all the poisonous critters.
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."
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Tahiti, it's a magical place.
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I first read that as "to die on a baconless rock". Which I suspect is also true.
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Quote: Practicalities aside, I think it dubious that you'd find a million people willing to leave the lushness of Earth to die on a baron airless rock. It's not exactly Tahiti...
Probably not a million, but we already know there are thousands of people already signed up for this trip. I could see millions attempting to go on nothing more than a hope of a better life.
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Elon's checklist for getting us on Mars
[ ] Solve propulsion problem to allow us to get to Mars
[ ] Solve renewable water problem
[ ] Solve renewable oxygen problem
[ ] Solve renewable energy problem
[ ] Build Starbucks
[ ] Transport people
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I wonder how he will space these activities in time from now until 2050. And what would happen if Starbucks is bankrupt before they get to that point?
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F-ES Sitecore wrote: [ ] Solve propulsion problem to allow us to get to Mars
Starship SN01 is being built in open sided tents in Texas today.
[ ] Solve renewable water problem
Land at a location where orbital sensing indicates large amounts of water frozen a few meters down in the regolith. Then start mining. The amount needed as an input (along with CO2) to the sabatier process to create the methane needed as fuel for the trip home and as a backup power source during sandstorms will dwarf that needed for human consumption.
[ ] Solve renewable oxygen problem
The previous step gets this one for free because you want to run your rocket engines fuel rich in order to keep the chamber temperatures low enough to avoid melting and burning them.
[ ] Solve renewable energy problem
Tesla and Solar City.
[ ] Build Starbucks
I'm pretty sure he can get Starbucks to pay him for the privilege of being the first franchise opened on Mars. (Just threaten to go to Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, etc instead.) 
[ ] Transport people
Build a bunch of Starships. To fund doing this he's building Starlink; which is expected to a be $15-30bn/year printing press for money.
And although you neglected it, The Boring Companies tunneling machines can be used to dig the large underground vaults needed to build habitats on Mars.
Elon's reach may exceed his grasp; but all of the projects he's juggling feed into his long term goal.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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You gotta love an optimist...
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There's a reason why space geeks joke about "Elon Time". 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Um, yeah, my post was just a joke to highlight how all major tech innovation seems to power nothing but vapid consumerism.
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did he actually say they would be alive?
scattering ashes in space was a thing for a while till the satellite makers complained that bumping into orbital detritus may affect their ability to um ...spy on the still living.
why not dump that useless crap (and more) on a useless rock that only sci fi writers and clueless dreamers care about?
after many otherwise intelligent sounding suggestions that achieved nothing the nice folks at Technet said the only solution was to low level format my hard disk then reinstall my signature. Sadly, this still didn't fix the issue!
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If you are into science fiction books I highly recommend reading the Mars series of books by Kim Stanley Robinson. It is about the process of terraforming and settling Mars. The trilogy of books takes place over several hundred years and is quite fascinating. The books are titled Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars.
Highly recommended!
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
modified 22-Jan-20 11:10am.
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Rick York wrote: Red Mars
OK...
Rick York wrote: Green Bars
I'd have thought "Green Mars" would have been a better title. But OK...
Rick York wrote: and Blue Blue
OK, now it's just getting silly.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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green bars? where they serve alcoholic health drinks and smoothies?
kale liqueur with cauliflower on the rocks please sir ... make it a double smoothie!
after many otherwise intelligent sounding suggestions that achieved nothing the nice folks at Technet said the only solution was to low level format my hard disk then reinstall my signature. Sadly, this still didn't fix the issue!
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I do read a fair amount of SciFi, but consider them science fiction. The author is free to ignore any law of nature, any technical problems, and may assume whatever issue "solved two thousand years ago". Most (high quality) SciFi does not aim to solve practical issues, but to create a setting for discussing a large set of other, usually non-technical issues.
So while I might pick up that Mars series (I am not familiar with it), what I am curious about this time is the Science part rather than the Fiction part.
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Generally, that is true. KSR is a little different in that he describes the science behind most of his premises. David Brin does that quite a bit too since he is in fact a scientist.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Sidetracking a little here: I will say the same about James P. Hogan. I have a Comp.Sci Masters degree and 40 years of experience, judging his books from the perspective of a computer expert. I picked up the 1979 "The two faces of tomorrow" again not too long ago, and it still holds up. "Realtime Interrupt", 16 years later (but 25 years old today) still raises essential questions that cannot be pushed aside. (And a few of my collagues, to whom I have recommended the book, have had nights of bad sleep, essentially because the comp.sci parts still holds water after 25 years.
As a computer professional, I know that the issues are real. People with less background tend to laugh it off as more or less pure fantasy. If I read books too far out of my own field of expertise, I would like to have other experts confirm the realism. For a Mars settlement, there are so many issues that it would take a large flock of experts in different areas to confirm the realism of it.
That is what Weisman did with "The World Without Us". While he wrote the text, and is fully responsible for it, in every chapter he leans heavily of one or more top experts in the field. (Hogan also use to include thanks in he preface to those experts that have read through the manuscript to verify that there are no factual errors or impossibilities in the story.)
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