News Elon Musk wants to put millions of people on Mars.

[Thunder Chicken]

But each is "small" (2.3%) compared to total thrust

Yes, but you can't make rocket engines arbitrarily big. Combustion chamber stability becomes a limitation, among other things. The Saturn F-1, at 1.5 million pounds thrust, was the largest single chamber rocket engine in the world. The N-1 was limited more by politics and supply chain issues to use a large number of small engines, which made it unmanageable.

The SpaceX booster just took an advanced "large" engine, determined the thrust needed, and counted up the number of engines needed to deliver that thrust. I'm (mostly) sure 42 engines just fell out of the math.

 

[Pipcard]

That SpaceX mass hysteria phenomenon is really beyond my understanding...

Reminds me of your parody post from 2013.

Imagine the impossible, then imagine something bigger, said Melon Tusk, the company representative. That launcher can potentially give us access to the entire solar system, he continued in a mystical frenzy.

Again, I have mixed, contradictory feelings about all this.

I am skeptical because I am not sure if millions of people want to pay to permanently move to a barren red desert that's worse than any place on Earth even after some disaster.

(There's terraforming, like at the end of the ITS animation, but doesn't that take hundreds or thousands of years? Elon's probably just thinking really long-term.)

However, I don't want their plan to fail. I also feel excitement because I want to see a space future that's much bigger in scope than what we have today, with what would basically be a new branch of humanity if successful.

 

[Andy44]

I don't understand all the "who wants to live on a barren Mars" talk. This has been the dream of countless people for the better part of a century, now. Among the billions of people on Earth right now there will be no problem whatsoever finding a few hundred to get a colony started.

Will it be tough? A harsh environment? Will there be technical problems to overcome? Social problems to be solved trying to build a viable colony in a confined pressurized space?

Of course, but that's not going to deter the people who really want to go.

Sure, it might fail. Lots of people might die. In fact, there are almost guaranteed to be casualties and losses.

So what? For too many people living off world is a dream and the tough and lucky ones who make it work someday have to start somewhere.

I expect to see all this negativity in the comments section of yahoo or some other news source, but I'm kind of surprised to see it on Orbiter Forum.

I personally also think that living on Antarctica or Mt. Everest would be easier and cheaper (tech-wise) than living on Mars, but the difficulty of getting to Mars or any other world is what makes it so attractive to many people. It's truly a frontier.

 

[Pipcard]

Just read through this thread on the KSP forum, there's a mixture of excitement and skepticism (e.g. claims that there will be no return on investment) as well. I don't want to come off as negative, I am only unsure.

I prefer to live in a future where there is massive activity in space, whether it's colonization or tourism.

But I've also seen some people on this forum who have doubts about space colonization.

 

[Andy44]

I've also seen some people on this forum who have doubts about space colonization.

I'm one of those people. I don't think there will be any return on investment, not back here on Earth, anyway.

But again, so what? Lots of people want to go there, are willing to spend money to do it, and Musk and a few other rich guys want to do it as well. Guys like Carl Sagan gave us logical reasons to do so. Your (and my) doubts are of no consequence, sooner or later someone is going to try to make this happen.

I hope they succeed. If the plan looked good enough (and it would have to look REALLY good for me) I would even consider signing up.

 

[Pipcard]

Your (and my) doubts are of no consequence, sooner or later someone is going to try to make this happen.

Exactly. That's why I love Musk's determination to colonize Mars.

Lots of people want to go there, are willing to spend money to do it, and Musk and a few other rich guys want to do it as well.

The cost per person for going to Mars is dependent on how many people are going, because of economies of scale. The real question is, are there enough people who are willing to go so that costs can be brought down so that enough people are willing to go, and so on?

Basically, it's a "chicken and egg" (it's cliche, I know, especially in discussions about reusable launch vehicles)

The "negativity" was also in this thread starting from the first page. Phrases such as "worse than a politician," "bordering on megalomania," "pipe dream," etc.

 

[Thorsten]

That SpaceX mass hysteria phenomenon is really beyond my understanding..

Looking through some of the slides, I have to say - same here...

When I was much younger, it was sort of a given that by 2001 NASA would have a space station with 10.000 permanent residents in orbit, used as a staging post for regular flights to Mars.

How was all of this accomplished? By massively cutting launch costs - because there'd be a completely re-usable concept that launches like a plane, goes off into space, then lands like a plane - to be turned over for the next flight in a mere week. Basically all that's needed is a bit refueling, minor maintenance and we're ready to go for the next launch. Like a transatlantic flight really - hundred launches a year at least.

I guess we all know how that space plane turned out...

So the question to be asked here - did this not work as advertized because

a) it's actually always much more complicated than presented during sales pitches and on shiny slides?

b) it wasn't Elon Musk who planned it?

Might not the fact that Space-X seems to have massive trouble even now operating a fairly conventional rocket safely be an indication that things are complicated? Is there any evidence that Musk (or his team) have engineering skills orders of magnitude better than anyone else in the world so that they can cut costs not by 50% but by orders of magnitude within a few years?

Saying you want to put Millions of people to Mars is a PR stunt - guaranteed to get attention. So is an artist's impression of a spacecraft on Enceladus.

I mean, don't get me wrong - I really want a world with more space activity - but that's wishful thinking and I know it.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, there is more to the world than return on investment... but I doubt that this matters for SpaceX.

(Also, if you look carefully, you can see that the 3D models had been pretty quickly clobbered together and must have went through multiple iterations. Musk had a deadline to deliver something, and he delivered something.)

 

[jroly]

The plan looks to me excellent, like he said there are other issues that need to be addressed on Mars, his job is to bring people there, he is not the one who is going to build the cities/bases, once he can send people there other enterprises will deal with the habitats on Mars, his job as he said is to build the railroad to Mars and those who want to travel there can.

It is a long shot, but after seeing the presentation and hearing that resources from SpaceX are currently being used (under 5%) the program has already started and it doesn't seem as such a long shot as before and if there is anyone who can deliver a long shot it is Elon Musk.

It is really unfortunate there are people deliberately being critical of SpaceX and I am not talking of the analytical side which I think is fine, it's just being rude such as Doug Messier saying Elon will keep loads of CGI animators employed for a long time... and other comments to suggest the whole thing is a joke.

Fair game with MarsOne and a host of other fakers, SpaceX is dedicating time and limited resources to do this and there are people laughing this off the bat is absurd. He's already spent 10-20 Million on this and MarsOne hasn't even raised 1 Million and what they have raised probably went down the drain in expenses for PR and to Bas.

I would say this presentation is probably going to be the #1 space news story for 2016.

 

[Thorsten]

and if there is anyone who can deliver a long shot it is Elon Musk.

Why? What's his track record in that department?

 

[Urwumpe]

Why? What's his track record in that department?

None, except building up a large spaceflight company in mere 14 years.

 

[jroly]

Why? What's his track record in that department?

He's started a number of successful Billion $ companies the first being Paypal, that is a long shot for a person to achieve if they planned it.

Robert Zubrin has made his comments on it, overall positive. He has some ideas for improvements too.

http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=66acde49870b0e6bc3a161cc0&id=46e8d8b04d&e=66242eccde

The key thing I would change is his plan to send the whole trans-Mars propulsion system all the way to Mars and back. Doing that means it can only be used once every four years. Instead he should stage off of it just short of Earth escape. Then it would loop around back to aero-brake into Earth orbit in a week, while the payload habitat craft with just a very small propulsion system for landing would fly on to the Red Planet.

I don't know about that, means each refilling craft would have to expend more fuel to reach the higher velocity to refill the Mars craft. Interesting thou.

 

[Urwumpe]

I don't know about that, means each refilling craft would have to expend more fuel to reach the higher velocity to refill the Mars craft. Interesting thou.

No, actually, it would be rather the following:

1. Launch Mars payload and space tug
2. Launch tanker and refuel both payload and space tug
3. Launch to high elliptic orbit
4. Separate Mars payload from space tug
5. Mars payload completes escape maneuvre
6. Space tug returns to Earth.

Not sure if it is better for the reusability, because you would have more smaller modules with interfaces to protect during reentry. A TSTO sounds good enough IMHO.

 

[Thorsten]

He's started a number of successful Billion $ companies the first being Paypal, that is a long shot for a person to achieve if they planned it.

Why is that different from, say, Bill Gates? Steve Jobs? Donald Trump? <Insert any other successful businessman here...>

Point being, it's nothing special if you look among people who have built businesses that they have built businesses - it's how you selected the group. Also, while there's hundreds of others who started to create a business that didn't grow, part of this is certainly down to sheer luck in timing.

I fail to see what in there is so special that it would enable someone to do what a whole nation hasn't managed. There's tens of thousands of entrepeneurs around the world who operate on this time horizon.

Anyone who lives from forestry operates on a 100 year horizon by the very nature of his business - that's a long shot.

Note - we're not talking about whether Mr. Musk is an able businessman - he undoubtedly is. We're talking about whether he has messiah-like qualities which make him orders of magnitude better than anyone else.

 

[jroly]

No, actually, it would be rather the following:
Launch Mars payload and space tug
Launch tanker and refuel both payload and space tug
Launch to high elliptic orbit
Separate Mars payload from space tug
Mars payload completes escape maneuvre
Space tug returns to Earth.

Not sure if it is better for the reusability, because you would have more smaller modules with interfaces to protect during reentry. A TSTO sounds good enough IMHO.

I suppose between steps 3-4 the craft is fully fuelled again, makes sense. But it requires more than 1 refuelling as the refuelling craft expends a lot of the fuel to get into Orbit and not much left over to transfer, so if there are going to be multiple refills rather than just one in LEO, refilling crafts will have to match velocities if the elliptical orbit is raised each time.

My thinking is the Mars craft has been boosted to the highest elliptical orbit it can achieve without escaping and refuelled then.

Then again Zubrin says a smaller Mars craft would be better so one refuelling might only be needed?

---------- Post added at 19:15 ---------- Previous post was at 18:58 ----------

Note - we're not talking about whether Mr. Musk is an able businessman - he undoubtedly is. We're talking about whether he has messiah-like qualities which make him orders of magnitude better than anyone else.

Out of the 7 Billion people on the planet and those who have and own the aerospace infrastructure at their disposal, how many people are there? a few, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson.........Bas Lansdorp? :tiphat:

Elon Musk has what it takes and the resources to 'possibly' do it, there isn't anyone else. I shouldn't have said he is good at long shots, better to say he is the only one in the basketball court and taking a shot at the hoop.

 

[Urwumpe]

Note - we're not talking about whether Mr. Musk is an able businessman - he undoubtedly is. We're talking about whether he has messiah-like qualities which make him orders of magnitude better than anyone else.

I have not yet seen him walk on water. :lol:

Maybe we can at least get a Tony Stark?

 

[Thorsten]

Elon Musk has what it takes and the resources to 'possibly' do it, there isn't anyone else. I shouldn't have said he is good at long shots, better to say he is the only one in the basketball court ATM and taking a shot at the hoop.

*shrugs*

He might be the only rich guy interested in this, granted. If there were actual wide-spread interest, a nation pooling resources could try to put people on Mars - similar to the Apollo program. But you can't win an election on that ticket, because outside this forum, nobody really cares. People care about their job, their healthcare, climate change, immigrants in their country, the situation in Syria - that kind of thing. If you ask the average citizen for money to put someone on Mars, he'll walk.

That limits the amount of resources that are available for that kind of thing. He's rich, but not that rich to pay it all on his own. Investors might fund Tesla or Space-X because they see a profit, but a pension fund doesn't care for going to Mars, it cares for revenue. His wealth is small compared to the GDP of an industrialized nation.

Second, yes, he as spaceflight infrastructure - which Urwumpe predicted to be in financial difficulties elsewhere in this forum (to which I tend to agree) - operating a conventional rocket - not a super-heavy Mars lifter or a manned vehicle.

The actual track record of the Falcon-9 (if Wikipedia doesn't fail me) is now 29 launch attempts, 2 complete losses (not talking about bringing it back here) - that's against one Space Shuttle lost during ascent in 135 missions. Space-X has to launch flawlessly for another 241 times to get even with good old NASA's track record (which operated a much more complex system). Anyone wants to take a bet whether this will actually happen?

There's no track record of even putting a rover on Mars by Space-X - and yet we're led to believe that he can do it all so much better than any other space agency? There's no track record of Space-X operating a space station and gathering experience with long term orbital stays. And yet we should buy into the idea of this company doing it much better than anyone else?

Third, does anyone have a real concept of how many one million people are? How long it takes to move one million people across the Atlantic? For comparison, it's the order of magnitude of war refugees arriving in Europe, causing severe friction in many societies in the process.

I'm sorry, but I don't see Mr. Musk doing much better than other players in space - I just see bigger PR stunts.

 

[N_Molson]

The N1 had "only" 36.

 

[C3PO]

I don't understand all the "who wants to live on a barren Mars" talk.

Considering how far from "mainstream" this forum is, those kind of statements really don't compute. How can people with such a "niche" interest like space flight, have so little empathy for other people's chosen interests? :blink:

 

[Urwumpe]

Second, yes, he as spaceflight infrastructure - which Urwumpe predicted to be in financial difficulties elsewhere in this forum (to which I tend to agree) - operating a conventional rocket - not a super-heavy Mars lifter or a manned vehicle.

There is just one aspect to remember: While their assets might not be infinite, they are not dead yet. Quite many companies barely make a profit and are still growing rapidly, by attracting investors and conquering new markets.

Also, their rocket is now everything, but conventional. The whole reuse technology by them might not be fault free now, but it works and is innovative.

SpaceX has not yet promised any next milestone, but if they are really serious about the project, they should slowly get towards a vehicle now.