Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Mars Settlement by 2024: BUSTED!" video.

  1. As an aerospace engineer you've basically hit it 100%. This could have and should have been a great tool for the development of systems and knowledge on how to do this off world. The fact it didn't deliver anything usable as in it didn't answer the questions that need to be answered. The biggest question of all isn't how do we replicate the Earth but rather how do we replicate a "Bit of the Earth" that can work as a stable biological system that can in part sustain an off world base. They kept trying to be too complex and maybe that is an answer but it didn't answer: "What can we do that works?" If you think back to Apollo there were a lot of different mission profiles suggested and rocket designs proposed but in the end they went with something they could get to work. Its the advice I give to many younger engineers. Look through the requirements and specifications and sort out "what's necessary" from "what's glitz"? Ask yourself how many sports cars looked incredible and were failures because they had crap suspension, crap engines, crap transmissions,.....etc? I bet you've seen the same thing or something very similar in environmental science projects.
    2
  2. Follow up Stephen Petranek is just a writer his basic bio is easy to find on Wikipedia. He can make all these claims because he DOES NOT do any of the technology development. He doesn't have to do any of that boring maths stuff or reading an endless list of technical papers. If you go back far enough TED and TEDx used to have on some great people who were informing people. Now its just a bunch of clowns preaching garbage.
    1
  3. As an aerospace engineer its because NOBODY ASKS THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW. Its really is that simple. As an example after the Challenger disaster (my junior year) Kelly Johnson who had been the lead engineer on the P38, U2 and SR-71 publicly said (paraphrasing) "DON'T REPLACE IT, its a flawed system that's too expensive to do the basic job we need which is just getting people up and down. Spend the money on doing something better." The decision to build another space shuttle was emotional and NOT practical or rational or sensible. You'd think when you have one of the greatest engineers of all time publicly say what needs to be done and all but a few ignore him claiming national security for a non-existent threat and there's your explanation.
    1