SpaceX Unveils Heavy-Lift Rocket Designs

FleaPlus writes "At the recent Joint Propulsion Conference, SpaceX's rocket development facility director Tom Markusic unveiled conceptual plans for how its current Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 commercial rockets can be evolved into heavy-lift rockets, ranging from a Falcon X capable of lifting 38,000kg to orbit, up to a 140,000kg Falcon XX (more than either the Saturn V or the 75,000kg shuttle-derived rocket Congress currently plans on having NASA spend >$13B building). SpaceX presentations also discuss a new Merlin 2 heavy-lift engine, solar-electric cargo tugs, adapting their current engines for descent/ascent vehicles fueled by Mars-derived methane, and a desire for the government to take the lead on in-space nuclear thermal propulsion while commercial focuses on launchers. In a recent interview, SpaceX CEO/CTO Elon Musk expressed his goal of lowering the price of Mars transportation enough to enable early colonization in 20 years, and his own plans for retiring to Mars."

Comments

They'll need to double that

[Anonymous Coward]

To send Oprah to space

Re:They'll need to double that

[h4rm0ny]

To send Oprah to space

Space Oprah?

Retiring to Mars sounds like a good idea....

[Anonymous Coward]

....your income taxes as a US citizen will be lowering, since you will be out of the country :)

Re:Retiring to Mars sounds like a good idea....

[Rene S. Hollan]

Americans are taxed on citizenship, not residency. And, giving up citizenship for tax reasons is not as easy as you might think. However, there is the FEIE: Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, for monies earned outside the U.S. from non-U.S. sources, if you live outside the U.S. for a contiguous year or more. But, you don't have to go to Mars to take advantage of that.

Re:Retiring to Mars sounds like a good idea....

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I pin a double-plus-good ribbon on your brown shirt?

Re:Retiring to Mars sounds like a good idea....

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Americans are taxed on citizenship, not residency.

That reminds me of an old Monty Python quip: "To boost the British economy I'd tax all foreigners living abroad."

Re:Retiring to Mars sounds like a good idea....

[stoolpigeon]

It covers up to 90k a year, but it's worth checking on where you are going. Some countries will require you to pay their income tax while you are a resident. That could end up being quite a bit higher than the US taxes I think. And if I'm not mistaken the 90k exemption is just on income tax not some of the other things like social security - so the US will still be getting a piece. I'm no accountant but that's my rough understanding.

Re:Retiring to Mars sounds like a good idea....

[h4rm0ny]

That reminds me of an old Monty Python quip: "To boost the British economy I'd tax all foreigners living abroad."

Been there, done that.

Re:Retiring to Mars sounds like a good idea....

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, mine have gone up. Well, not yet I suppose, but that's what my accountant already told me will happen. Additionally, the same will happen to my property taxes, my vehicle taxes and my health care premiums are going to go up, to pay for coverage I already had (but others didn't).

And I'm definitely not one of the 100 (or even 10000, or even 30% of America or-so) richest people here.

Re:Retiring to Mars sounds like a good idea....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually taxing foreignors living abroad was the idea behind a hell of a lot of states :

* the Roman empire
* the Byzantine empire
* the Mamluk empire (and all the other states that were the result of islamic slave revolts. You know those slaves "that don't exist in the religion of peace")
* the Mongol empire
* the Ottomans
* various Chinese empires (dozens of them)
* the Shogunate
* the Meiji empire
* the Dutch empire
* the British empire
* the French
* the Third Reich
* Russia, the empire
* Russia, the communist state
* Russia, the communist dictatorship
(* Russia, the "democracy") (between brackets because you could argue whether this is true or not, however it's certainly moving in the wrong direction)
* Egypt
* Saudi Arabia
* Iran
* Pakistan ...

Most on this list did not just extract taxes, but extracted slaves too (all except the French, mostly the Dutch, and "mostly" the British). Although what might be called "wage-slaving" (a lot worse than today) certainly existed under these states.

And it would be a mistake to assume that anyone not on this list hasn't tried it. In fact the list of states that has *not* done this is very thin. It includes, despite what you hear on the news, the US, and does not include any European or Middle-Eastern country.

The idea to use state-sponsored terrorism to extract taxes, then use those taxes to become stronger yourself is not just not new, but given how long it held out (from the start of history until - at least- 1923, when the ottoman empire fell, and the west started forcing other muslim countries to stop this practice), it seems to be a very successfull idea indeed.

Also this list should not be used as "proof" that these states are somehow "equally horrible". Yes they all practice(d) slavery in some form of other. However you should retain a sense of perspective. Slavery in just about all of these empires was legally not that far removed from being employed today in America, sometimes referred to as "wage slaving" (ie. you were free to leave, under certain conditions, even if in practice (like today) leaving was not always really an option unless you liked to starve to death). An example is that, everyone except criminals that ended up in a Roman arena were there by choice. The reason ? Survive for one season and your wealth would rival all but the Emperor's. By contrast, all muslim states were ridiculously cruel to slaves, muslim slaves were raped, worked to death, killed for fun, tortured for fun and worse. The result of this that nearly all slave revolts in the middle east and asia resulted in a decade-long genocide on the former masters.

Re:Retiring to Mars sounds like a good idea....

[shinehead]

Only $90K? I'll pass.

Re:Retiring to Mars sounds like a good idea....

[Rene S. Hollan]

$90k? I remember when it was $70k. In fact I once used some very tortuous tax accounting (and enlisted the services of an EA and CPA for about $750 to verify my work), to make my self subject to U.S. tax while a non-resident tax-wise, so I could (a) claim moving expenses for employment paid when I WAS a U.S. tax resident (such expenses can be deducted either when incurred or when paid); and (b) ensure I had no U.S. tax liability on the income (I paid Canadian tax on it, and there was no deduction for moving expenses in Canada).

It involved using both the Canada-U.S. tax treaty, and the non-discrimination clause in it, as well as the U.S.-Germany tax treaty to pull off, and my return, properly audited, was about 3/4 of an inch thick.

The outcome was a $7500 refund on my U.S. income tax.

Basically, it involved making myself taxable on the income I earned outside the U.S. (like a U.S. citizen would be), which made the moving expenses to earn the income deductible either when incurred or when paid, and sheltering the income from tax using the FEIE (The FTC would not have been nearly as useful).

Re:i've got a problem. :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Would a rooster fit in a donkey?

Hahaha!

[Ironhandx]

People told me I was crazy when I told them a few years ago I expected to see colonization of Mars within my lifetime.

I'm just so glad to see that someone is still working on it.

Now if the US could get their congress-critters to stop wasting cash on it... NASA should be technology development only. Implementation should be left to others(at least in my humble opinion). I think a lot more would actually happen that way.

Re:Hahaha!

[jusdisgi]

I'm not sure the distinction is as clear as you're making it. It's not like NASA ever really built rockets. Rockwell International built the shuttle for them. They just set the spec and take bids, like any other government agency. The question is a somewhat less dramatic one: should the government specify the rockets it wants and get aerospace companies to build them, or should it let the aerospace companies build whatever they want, buy the products that fit best and make it work? For what it's worth (not much) my own view of the situation is that launch vehicle tech has progressed to the point where the latter approach is likely to save some cash. But let's not act like it's a difference between some free-market fantasy and a soviet design bureau.

Re:Hahaha!

[Ironhandx]

No, I'm not espousing a free-market fantasy. If I had I would have advocated getting rid of NASA altogether.

What nasa should do is develop new technologies that will be required for space exploration. The end specs/components/implementation should be left to someone else however(in my opinion, of course). Preferably smaller, leaner, space startups. Companies that are willing to and capable of taking more risks. There comes a point when decreasing the chance of failure another .0001% isn't worth the next 10 million dollars. You do a run, if it fails, you do another one. The money spent on R&D is still there plus you now have practical data.

Making a material that absorbs heat better, or a combination thereof, or an entirely new system for dispersing the heat. Those sorts of things. They should be the realm of NASA. That should be the realm of NASA. Government funding is very good. Very very good. Its great at getting things invented. What government generally isn't good at doing until its forced on them is innovating. Thats what business is good at.

On the other hand, particularly lately with all these insanely rich but incredibly risk-averse asses out there, a lot of businesses are either slowing down massively on new tech or giving up developing new things entirely, letting someone else do it and then either stealing it or licensing it from them, and innovating with it.

Theres a good chance I can utilize technology X after its finished development... but if I put money into it now theres a chance it never finishes and those dollars are completely gone. On the other hand if Technology X is finished and working... well theres something I can do with it right now! It removes a layer of risk for new endeavors to not develop most of the technologies involved yourself.

Thats the main reason I think R&D should become even more the responsibility of government than it is now... for almost everything I feel it would improve everyones lives, and mostly abolish a lot of the industry patent lockouts that happen now, since everyone would have access at the same rate.

Re:Hahaha!

[Rei]

What's being discussed is not a "colony" in any normal sense of the word. It's a base. "Colony" implies a large degree of self sufficiency, which requires the most massive engineering engineering effort in the history of humankind to even get started. What Musk is doing is working on lower-cost spacecraft. Spacecraft that, IMHO, are still 1-2 orders of magnitude too expensive to make true colonization realistic. If all you do is go there and use some regolith for shielding and make some methane fuel using equipment shipped from Earth, perhaps growing some plants in greenhouses shipped from Earth, etc -- you're not colonizing. Namely, because not only could such a "colony" not independently expand itself, but if the shipments from Earth suddenly stopped, the next time something significant broke, the entire colony would die. You're not going to, say, jury-rig a new compressor out of duct tape and rocks. You couldn't even make duct tape itself without an entire petrochemical industry. A sustainable colony requires a mind-boggling amount of sustainable industry and the use of structures and devices engineered to be produceable by said industrial infrastructure.

But anyway, kudos to Musk for at least doing *something* useful rather than building palm tree islands or city-sized yachts.

Re:Hahaha!

[FleaPlus]

What's being discussed is not a "colony" in any normal sense of the word. It's a base. "Colony" implies a large degree of self sufficiency, which requires the most massive engineering engineering effort in the history of humankind to even get started.

I do wonder about the distinctions between a "colony," "base," and a "settlement."

Re:Hahaha!

[The_Wilschon]

Does SpaceX and Elon Musk remind anyone else of Poul Anderson's Fireball Enterprises and Anson Guthrie? Private development of plus drive and passion for spaceflight that totally leaves overlarge bureaucratic government projects in the dust? Now we just need to wait for Musk to clone himself in a computer and keep reincarnating for millennia, right...

Re:Hahaha!

[Nutria]

A sustainable colony requires a mind-boggling amount of sustainable industry and the use of structures and devices engineered to be produceable by said industrial infrastructure.

Especially when:

1. the max temperature on Mars is 5C,
2. the mean "air" pressure is 1/158th that of Earth,
3. there's no magnetic field to protect us from HE radiation, and
4. "continent"-wide dust storms last for months.

Science fiction is great and everything, but really, when you look at the facts, who the fuck would WANT to live there?

Re:Hahaha!

[MacAnkka]

I think you're right. Low temperatures and air pressure, radiation and dust storms would make it practically impossible to go outside the well-shielded martian underground bunker. Now where on earth would you find people willing to live their lives without sunlight inside dark basem^H^H^H^H^Hbunkers?

Re:Hahaha!

[Teancum]

I do wonder which would be more effective at a proper use of tax dollars: A massive increase in NASA's budget to something on the order of about $30 billion per year and a major push to Mars, or simply enacting a law that would remove all federal taxes (including corporate and personal income taxes) for individuals and companies who are directly engaged in the development of hardware and equipment that actually goes into space.

If for some reason a completely "tax holiday" were to be put onto companies developing spaceflight equipment, I'm quite certain that Wall Street would take notice and there would likely be far more money put into spaceflight (both robotic and manned) than NASA could ever dream. Furthermore, the tax receipts that the federal government would lose would be relatively minor in comparison, and I would argue would be less than the current outlays to NASA. Since it would still be private individuals putting their own money on the line instead of lining up to the government pork trench, the most cost effective and profitable approaches would also be used for nearly every design that would actually make it into orbit. Silly things like paper studies to nowhere would become a thing of the past.

If, after some time it becomes apparent that certain areas of industry may need a little bit of a boost due to capital requirements... perhaps a little bit of federal involvement could happen. But seriously, I am not convinced that would even be necessary under such a tax-free space investment environment. The capital necessary to do spaceflight is around, the question is mainly how is it going to be allocated and if it should go through the hands of a bunch of senators and congressmen first.

Given NASA's track record over the past 30 years in singularly failing to develop even a single useful manned spaceflight vehicle in spite of nearly a hundred billion dollars spent along those lines, almost anything would be better than the current approach. I'm not convinced that NASA could possibly be reformed in any meaningful way to do better. Still, wouldn't it be an amazing experiment to even maintain or slightly cut but not eliminate NASA's budget at current levels and do a tax holiday to see just what would come from this kind of activity? Eliminate ITAR restrictions on civilian commercial spaceflight, and it would be an almost ideal environment. The government is the problem, not the solution.

Re:Hahaha!

[Teancum]

I think more of Heinlein's D. Delos Harriman (warts and all), but I think you can find several other good comparisons. Harriman wasn't somebody that you would want to have babysitting your kids, but he certainly did some things in Heinlein's fiction that were impressive. Sort of how I feel about Musk too, for that matter.

Re:Hahaha!

[Ironhandx]

This is a good idea. Someone should do something with this.

I like the tax holiday idea. I would include that any patent filed by any company using or directly related to a company using(same owners, major shareholders etc) becomes public domain immediately.

I would still keep nasa around at a reduced budget for developing new important techs as I said. 5-10b yearly in pure R&D will produce a whole crapload of really cool stuff that someone will eventually find a use for, even if it happens to not be in the space industry.

Re:Hahaha!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would suggest that your reasoning is naive in the extreme. Why would private industry go to Mars? Why would private industry go to the Moon, an asteriod, or anywhere else? There's huge risk and little identified business opportunity.

The only reason for private industry to be involved in space right now is to get government contracts. That's the current reality.

Now at some point there may be a viable industry out there. Passengers, freight, mining, energy production, whatever. However all those businesses are available on Earth and the risks and costs are dramatically lower.

Compare to the long-ago exploration/shipping era to the Far East. At least it was known that China lay "out there", plus India, the Spice Islands. Those promised valuable cargos of silk, spices, tea, china, rugs, fragrances and all the rest. The risks were high but so were the potential rewards.

What is out in space that we can point to as a valuable trade good? There aren't even any civilizations in the solar system that we can trade with (a reasonable assumption). Anything we obtained would have to be produced by us from primary sources.

Re:Hahaha!

[Teancum]

The best comparison that can be used here is to compare and contrast Europe with China in the 1500's. China was arguably a super-power with vast resources and intimate knowledge of the sea with ships that sailed around Africa and perhaps even made it to Alaska... and a suggestion that perhaps they even made it to South America.

The problem with China was that it had a monolithic government and an emperor who in a fit of arbitrary whim burned the entire international shipping fleet for that country and forced them to wait out the next 500 years on ths sidelines of world history rather than making history with an expansion of Chinese culture and values throughout the world.

Europe, in part due to the fact that there wasn't just one country but rather hundreds of them, had the freedom to try new things and nobody telling them that world exploration was a useless task. Yes, there were a coupe of countries that were very xenophobic, but for the most part those countries were left behind in the expansion of global trade networks.

One relatively tiny country, England, arose to prominence in such a way that eventually they controlled more of the Earth's surface than any empire in the history of mankind.

As for the "rewards" that are in space....there are resources in space that would boggle the mind. Minerals that are easily accessible (once you actually get there) and energy resources that are essentially limitless. If modest effort would go into mining resources in space, almost all Earth-based mining could be discontinued and likely would be once resources started to flow from space due to economic considerations alone.

Getting into space is expensive right now partly as a myth (certain government bureaucrats in multiple countries want you to think it is expensive so they can keep their jobs) and partly because few people have really made the attempt to reduce the cost for space access. From a rocket fuel perspective, getting into orbit consumes roughly the same amount of fuel as flying from from New York or London to Sydney. That is something done by very ordinary people on a routine basis every day. There is no reason that spaceflight can't be at a comparable cost.

My point is that people should be given the freedom to choose to spend their own money going into space, and that there are far and away too many people in positions of government authority who are explicitly trying to stop that from happening. It is these people that need to be exposed... and my only advise for you if you think that investing in a space-based business is risk... don't invest in it. But why are you telling me that I can't invest in one of those businesses?

Vision

[timeOday]

"I'm planning to retire to Mars"

That, my friends, is vision.

Not, "one day mankind must blah blah blah..." but: 'I'm planning to retire to Mars.'

Re:Vision

[mangu]

"I'm planning to retire to Mars"
  That, my friends, is vision.

I'd say it's marketese.

But well, anyhow, it's awesome marketese.

Re:Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

More correctly: "If the government gives me loads of money, I'm going to retire to Mars"

So-called private sector spaceflight relies heavily on the public sector to sink the massive costs. Just as with the banks, its "capitalise the profit, socialise the loss"

Re:Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

I kind of had the opposite reaction. It sounds idealistic, and is likely to scare off investors. If this truly is his dream, he may never accept compromise, even when it's in the best interests of all. But one random sentence is not enough to make that determination.

Re:Vision

[timeOday]

Well, I think it is vision. Elon Musk made a fortune with PayPal and could easily have retired to a private island. Instead he re-invested his fortune into Tesla and Space-X -- two companies which, IMHO, are pretty awesome. I applaud the Obama administration for recognizing the awesomeness and redirecting funds from NASA Ares to Space-X. Falcon 9 launched successfully with only $278 million from the govt. There are some other amazing people in the race, like Burt Rutan. These guys couldn't accomplish what they do without some marketing savvy, but they are not cynical con men either, they are hands-on engineers and entrepreneurs and from what I know of them, I admire it.

Re:Vision

[mangu]

Elon Musk made a fortune with PayPal and could easily have retired to a private island. Instead he re-invested his fortune into Tesla and Space-X -- two companies which, IMHO, are pretty awesome

I fully agree with that, and I must wonder at the similarity between Elon Musk and Mark Shuttleworth.

Two South African guys who made a fortune in a computer related company only to spend a lot of it on space related stuff. Shuttleworth was one of the first people to pay $20 million to be a space tourist.

Re:Vision

[tgd]

That marketese has gotten him a company successfully launching rockets into orbit.

My vision has got me sitting on my couch in my underpants.

Just to put that in perspective.

Re:Vision

[h4rr4r]

Put on pants.

Re:Vision

[Yvanhoe]

He doesn't say all about his plans: He really plans on living on the top of the frickin highest building on the whole red planet, to see all the minions whose life depend on his whim, to laugh maniacally and to glare dastardly at the crescent Earth while shouting on a defiant tone : "YOU'RE NEXT, BITCH ! BWAHAHAHAHA !"

Re:Vision

[tgd]

Musk and Rutan are two very different people. I've seen them both talking about their passions, and have spent some time chatting with Rutan about it ...

Musks vision is going to be the guy who gets equipment in space, gets astronauts into space, and maybe gets people on off to Mars, by providing the technology that governments and other companies use to do it.

Rutan is going to get *me* into space.

I applaud them both. Their "fuck it, I'm doing this" attitude is what will get us off this rock, and maybe kick us, as a species, finally in the direction of doing that permanently.

Re:Vision

[jusdisgi]

But one random sentence is not enough to make that determination.

We have a lot more than one random sentence by which to judge Elon's character. And accepting compromise does not appear to be one of his strong suits. He does, however, seem to have excellent goals, and there's no question that he gets things done...

Re:Vision

[ColdWetDog]

"I'm planning to retire to Mars"

In this economy, brother, you're not going to retire at all. You'll be lucky to get out of Cleveland, much less Earth's gravity well.

Re:Vision

[jusdisgi]

Not sure that buying a ride in a Soyuz should be compared to starting a company to build next-generation cost-effective launch vehicles, but OK....

Re:Vision

[jusdisgi]

Put on pants.

Why? I say this man has vision!

Re:Vision

[jusdisgi]

The crescent Earth? You know what Mars looks like from here? Basically like a bright star. It's probably going to be a similar effect looking the other way.

(That was the only part of your comment sane enough to bother replying to)

Re:Vision

[khallow]

My vision has got me sitting on my couch in my underpants.

I didn't need that vision.

Re:Vision

[Bowling Moses]

"Elon Musk made a fortune with PayPal and could easily have retired to a private island."

Well, close. Paypal cofounder Peter Thiel's a board member, don't know about any involvement by Elon Musk.

Re:Vision

[Chris Tucker]

The important thing is that those underpants are HIS underpants! Purchased by the efforts of his own labor, and not via a government handout!

Ayn Rand would be PROUD of his underpants. PROUND, I say!

<generic libertarian twaddle shouter>

Re:Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

Not when you're looking through the giant magnifying glass that doubles as an implement of torture for the antlike peons on the martian ground below :D

Re:Vision

[bradbury]

Naw... Musk was born in 1971, assuming retirement @ 65 (though he could be retired now) that puts it at year 2036 -- 26 years from now. I would give you very good odds on the realization of full Drexlerian molecular nanotechnology within 26 years. If so, there is a non-zero probability that some post-Internet (i.e. nanotech boom era) entrepreneur will have launched a small rocket of nanobots to Mars with the express purpose of dismantling it for construction of the Mars-orbit layer of the Solar System Matrioshka Brain. Elon should be saying "bye-bye" to his retirement home unless he plans on a much earlier retirement.

Vision is knowing what is *really* possible but everyone thinks is impossible and achieving it. Space X and some of its dreams are only relevant if you believe that real molecular nanotechnology is a pipe dream. If you cannot make that assertion then you have to get into long discussions as to whether the pursuit of some "visions" are really indulging the childhood dreams of particular individuals rather than advancing humanity as a whole.

We knew how to go to the moon and Mars 40+ years ago (if one threw enough money at it). The only thing Space X is bringing to the table is a bunch of engineers who know how to run calculations with spreadsheets rather than slide rulers and a fair number of MBAs who understand principles of engineering successful businesses. Vision? I'm rather dubious.

Re:Vision

[FleaPlus]

I applaud the Obama administration for recognizing the awesomeness and redirecting funds from NASA Ares to Space-X.

Quick clarification: The White House hasn't proposed redirecting funds from Ares to SpaceX -- instead, they want to open up the US human spaceflight market to competing commercial vendors, which includes not just SpaceX, but also the United Launch Alliance. Many aren't familiar with the name, but the ULA builds the Atlas and Delta rockets which have launched most national security and NASA science missions for many years now. SpaceX has stated that they actually expect ULA to get more of the commercial crew market than them, at least initially.

Of course, even this is facing a great deal of friction in Congress. As one of the linked articles in the summary states, the current NASA bill in the House of Representatives has the entire commercial spaceflight program struggling with just $150M over 3 years, while the government-designed/operated heavy-lift and crew capsule program gets $13B over that same timeframe.

Re:Vision

[element-o.p.]

Your first paragraph broke my English language parser.

Re:Vision

[mangu]

Not sure that buying a ride in a Soyuz should be compared to starting a company to build next-generation cost-effective launch vehicles

Tell me about it the next time when you spend $20 million to do something you believe in, wihtout any immediate return.

Re:Vision

[mangu]

My vision has got me sitting on my couch in my underpants.

You see my point? You may have a vision, but I can't see any marketese at all in that...

Re:Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn it, Musk, give those people air!

Re:Vision

[Loadmaster]

ULA will always get more business than any other private company because ULA is Lockheed and Boeing. SpaceX is an outsider building a better rocket while ULA is coasting on government cost plus contracts. If that 13B is funneled back to Ares then Boeing gets a sizable chunk since they were building the 2nd stage of Ares. I wouldn't put SpaceX in the same category as ULA. If SpaceX succeeds we could see space open up to companies like Bigelow and Orbital Sciences. NASA going with ULA will change nothing.

Re:Vision

[FleaPlus]

I could be mistaken, but while Boeing and Lockheed certainly get a number of cost-plus development contracts, I believe the DOD's contracts with ULA are all fixed-cost. That's a big part of why ULA tends to be drastically cheaper than, say, Shuttle or Ares costs.

Re:Vision

[cycleflight]

Amen.

Re:Vision

[yotto]

Actually, as a percentage of my income or net worth I likely spend similar to his $20 million on video game purchases.

Re:Vision

[goodmanj]

I'd say it's marketese.

Not in this case. By all accounts, Elon Musk didn't originally want to get into the rocket business. He wanted to be in the Mars colonization business, but quickly discovered that rockets were too damned expensive, so he decided to make his own.

For Musk, the marketing is a tool for achieving is vision, not the other way around.

Re:Vision

[LoRdTAW]

Me too. I hear the women there have three breasts!

Re:Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I think it is vision. Elon Musk made a fortune with PayPal and could easily have retired to a private island. Instead he re-invested his fortune into Tesla and Space-X -- two companies which, IMHO, are pretty awesome. I applaud the Obama administration for recognizing the awesomeness and redirecting funds from NASA Ares to Space-X. Falcon 9 launched successfully with only $278 million from the govt. There are some other amazing people in the race, like Burt Rutan. These guys couldn't accomplish what they do without some marketing savvy, but they are not cynical con men either, they are hands-on engineers and entrepreneurs and from what I know of them, I admire it.

Raise a glass to greedy billionaires who want to live forever, at list in history eyes. http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2010/08/05/2010-08-05_rich_open_wallets.html

Everyone plays a part, but it's starting to feel like the 20's again with such characters as Howard Hughes playing a huge part again.

Re:Vision

[FleaPlus]

Not in this case. By all accounts, Elon Musk didn't originally want to get into the rocket business. He wanted to be in the Mars colonization business, but quickly discovered that rockets were too damned expensive, so he decided to make his own.

For Musk, the marketing is a tool for achieving is vision, not the other way around.

It's actually quite interesting to read about Elon Musk's efforts to try to launch Mars Oasis and the "Life to Mars" foundation back in 2001, a year before he realized how screwed up the launch market was and decided to start SpaceX:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=3698

Someone is putting his money where my mouth has been. Describing permanent settlement of Mars as "a positive, constructive, inspirational goal" capable of uniting humanity at a critical time," dot-com entrepreneur Elon Musk has pledged a substantial portion of his personal fortune to realizing that goal, beginning with a proposed $20 million technology-demonstration Mars lander to be launched perhaps in 2005. Calling his "victory condition" seeing NASA's top priority change to establishing a permanent human presence on Mars, he said in an interview last week that "the path by which I hope to get there is to get the public enthusiastic about the possibility, then translate that into legislative pressure so that Congress hands us a Mars mandate." Musk's plans are invigorating, finally matching for Mars the initiative and boldness recently displayed in Low Earth Orbit by Dennis Tito's flight and the recent MirCorp announcement of a private "MiniMir" orbiting facility. I hope his entrepreneurial directness will bring a new effectiveness to the Mars effort. I hope also that he can avoid being brought down by the Byzantine politics of space: on the Hill, in the scientific community and in the space movement. ...

Musk's "Mars Oasis" project is a small robotic lander intended primarily as a mini-greenhouse, growing samples of food crops in an enclosed chamber filled with treated Martian regolith (soil), to test the feasibility of humans living off the land. Other experiments may include test units for the production of oxygen and rocket fuel from the Martian atmosphere, and radiation sensors. In a radical departure from the missions scheduled by NASA, each experiment would focus on developing data critical to human habitation, rather than on pure planetary science. ...

He refused to engage in political posturing or NASA-bashing, saying that "I don't have a palpable ideology for private or governmental missions." He described his relations with NASA as "good, I would say. I have not had any bad relations whatsoever. I don't see them as the bad guy. NASA's in the position it's in not through any desire of its own. The public is asking NASA often to have a perfect track record and a perfect safety record," yielding excessive caution and institutional gridlock. "By driving this private space mission forward," he continued, "I hope for changes for NASA, for it to receive a clear and pressing mandate for a human base [on Mars]. I want to reinvigorate NASA."

Re:Vision

[Rei]

The difference between Musk and Rutan is that Rutan will get you to space, while Musk will get you to orbit.

The two sound similar, but they're nothing close to each other in terms of technical difficulty.

Re:Vision

[Rei]

Hint: building robots really small doesn't make the engineering challenge easier. It makes it *harder*. So until well after we reach the point where we could have regular size robots "dismantle Mars for construction", it's not going to happen.

Nanotechnology is quite real. Nanobots are sci-fi code for "magic" and are made of 100% pure Handwavium.

Re:Vision

[DerekLyons]

That marketese has gotten him a company successfully launching rockets into orbit.

That marketese has put more rockets into the drink than it has into orbit. With his current (abysmal) success rate, it's more than a wee bit premature to be talking about retiring to Mars.

Re:Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it's not visions of Cowboy Neal sitting on your couch with no underpants.

Just to put that in perspective.

Re:Vision

[PeterBrett]

That marketese has gotten him a company successfully launching rockets into orbit.

That marketese has put more rockets into the drink than it has into orbit.

Factually incorrect. SpaceX have launched six rockets, only the first two of which (Falcon I Flights 1 & 2) failed to make orbit. Falcon I Flight 3 was a partial failure. That makes it, at worst, a 50% success rate, which is hardly abysmal given that SpaceX launches cost less than half what their competitors charge.

Re:Vision

[bradbury]

It isn't the scale that is the critical factor. It is the capabilities. Why do we not have (currently) automobile manufacturing factory factories? I.e. why not are the elements of automobile factory manufacturing factories rolling out of factories. In which case automobiles should be cost at X% above the basic manufacturing cost (as Ford made them perhaps). If one has an automobile manufacturing factory in ones garage (indeed in every garage), then the ability of manufacturers to charge above the manufacturing cost approaches zero. Likewise every other "tool", "appliance", "etc." required for modern living. The cost of such should approach the raw materials.

Drexler set this bar in Nanosystems. I cannot find the precise reference currently but I believe it is of the order of $0.50/kg. (for anything). So *any* 1000 kg car should cost us $500. More importantly if the designs are open source and you are willing to wait long enough (a few months to years) you should be able to build one for *free*.

In case you are unaware of it there are several million (or more) species of bio-nanorobots, some of which are perfectly capable of assembling things, some of which disassemble things. Depends on the design. Mostly they have evolved in a setting called Nature through a process of natural evolution. Their minimal gene set is around 400 variables (genes). More commonly it is 1-2000. Changing or improving upon these programs is where we are currently. Designing these from scratch is where we are going. It is a significant but not so far hop from biological systems which assemble limited sets of molecules to designed systems which assemble more general sets of molecules.

Re:Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see:
First rocket design (Falcon 1) has had 3 failures followed by 2 successes.

Second rocket design (Falcon 9) has had 1 success.

That's 50%; definitely not "put more rockets into the drink than it has into orbit."

Abysmal? I don't think so. That's pretty typical for national space programs during their first few attempts, and you'll notice they've had 3 successes in a row. This is rocket science, and IMO they're doing quite well.

Re:Vision

[Karrde45]

Falcon 1 Flight 3 definitely did not make orbit. As you noted though, that still puts SpaceX on even footing in terms of 'vehicles lost' vs 'vehicles that made orbit'. And since they're 3 for 3 on the last 3 launches, and 1 for 1 on the newest design, I'd say that throwing around "50% success rate" is a little bit misleading.

Re:Vision

[DerekLyons]

That makes it, at worst, a 50% success rate, which is hardly abysmal given that SpaceX launches cost less than half what their competitors charge.

That's fine for those who are willing to accept a 50/50 chance of having their payload not reach orbit, but that's going to be a very small niche market. (Assuming it even exists in the real world.) Those who spend millions of dollars on payloads generally aren't Wal-Mart shoppers who don't give a crap about quality so long as it's cheap. (Or at least they don't stay that way for long if they hope to continue getting funding and/or insurance.)
 
IOW, yes, a 50% failure rate is beyond abysmal. Of course, by the normal standards of engineering, the 98-99% failure rate considered 'acceptable' by the launch industry is also abysmal.

Re:Vision

[Rei]

The primary reason we don't have car factory factories is that we don't need that many factories. If we needed enough factories, more and more of the factory construction would be automated.

"Bio-robots" is a perfect example of what I was talking about. You see how obscenely complex self replicators are? Until we can build them on the large scale, we're not going to be able to build them on the small scale, where the challenge is far greater. The smallest bacterial genome (by a large margin) is 160,000 base pairs -- and that particular bacterium is in the process of evolving into an organelle.

Re:Vision

[Patch86]

It's nowhere near as impressive, agreed, but it is still basically making a $20 million donation to the space travel industry on no other grounds than it being something you're passionate about. That still gets a smile out of me.

It takes huge skill to do what Musk is doing. not everyone CAN do that. But people doing what they can is still worth a nod.

Re:Vision

[PeterBrett]

Falcon 1 Flight 3 definitely did not make orbit. As you noted though, that still puts SpaceX on even footing in terms of 'vehicles lost' vs 'vehicles that made orbit'. And since they're 3 for 3 on the last 3 launches, and 1 for 1 on the newest design, I'd say that throwing around "50% success rate" is a little bit misleading.

I agree entirely.

Re:Vision

[rufty_tufty]

What you miss is that launches have to work because satellites are expensive. However because launches are so unbelievably expensive, then the satellites also have to work. So you end up with spiralling costs.
Conceptually what most satellites do is very simple - take a comms satellite or a GPS sat as an example - far simpler than what your mobile phone has to do.So if getting one to orbit cost no more than getting a truck from one city to another then you can be certain that they would be orders of magnitude cheaper themselves. So even if only 20% of them made it you've still won.

Now as soon as you talk about man rating the rockets then yes, we really need to have high reliability, but even then I still believe most pioneers would be happy with a 95% success rate and if it was go with 95% or maybe go at some point in the future possibly with 99%, then I bet you'd find enough people saying, "I'm not waiting for 99%, get me to Mars now with a 5% chance of death!"
I don't think gold plating your rockets is as important as most people make it out to be.
And yes before you ask I would go in a 90% success rate rocket if it was taking me to the moon or Mars.

Re:Vision

[rufty_tufty]

Correct me if I'm wrong but we do have factory factories. Name me pretty much anything in a modern automobile factory that wasn't made in a factory. Right, the people.
So to me if we want to advance humanity and get towards the post scarcity society we need to get people out of menial jobs like the factories and farms and mining etc. More automation in these jobs would increase quality of life and reduce costs of goods.
Yet you try and help people like that and they go and form unions and strike and generally get annoyed at your attempts to improve society.

So I ask, how can any technology that improves people's quality of life not be met with hostility because it gets rid of people's jobs. If we assume that it is not possible to improve quality of life without putting people out of work which they will resist bitterly (look at coal miner's strikes, car worker unions or NASA and the shuttle program) and I really want to understand how can we make it better when it seems most people want to have boring drudgery jobs. Or at least they want to do the same job they've always done and they'll often choose to do the same job their parents did.

Re:Vision

[strack]

most launch systems have plenty of failures early on, before the bugs are ironed out.

Re:Vision

[bradbury]

Your point is reasonable but I would add a few points. We don't really have general purpose factory factories (i.e. factories whose function is to produce so many factories that everyone can have one -- for extremely low cost or free). If one has the open design of a replicator and 10kg of general purpose manufacturing nanorobots [1] then everyone can have one in an extremely short period of time.

The problem with putting people out of work (unions et al) is that there is a mindset that one has to have a job to survive. A general purpose nanofactory (replicator) eliminates that concept. That is why the development of nanofactories and replicators has to be driven by people who realise they are going to "break" much of current reality. No more need for most "jobs", factories as we know them, many companies as we know them, even governments as we know them.

Mind you there will still be things to do. The fields of design (of nano-thingys) and entertainment (of the masses who no longer need to work) have pretty much unlimited potential.

1. 10kg of nanorobots per person on the Earth, operating at 100% of their capacity, hits the heat (hypsithermal) limits of the Earth.

Re:Vision

[moosesocks]

The two sound similar, but they're nothing close to each other in terms of technical difficulty.

Or cost.

Re:Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

"That marketese has gotten him a company successfully launching rockets into orbit."

But it won't get him a terraformed Mars before the end of his lifetime.

"retire to Mars" my ass.

When is comes to space exploration, JFK had vision, AC Clarke had vision.
Their visions were actually realized within the time frame they had set.

Re:Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

ULA of course being boeing and lockheed martin. Aka more of the same.

Re:Vision

[Teancum]

In spite of the perception, not much was transferred from ATK and the other Ares/Orion contractors to SpaceX or Orbital Science with the COTS programs... at least for this current fiscal year. Most of the hoopla is over what is going to be happening over the next couple of years, and the fact that Constellation is getting canceled.... with a bunch of fairy god-senators that are furious that their special pork projects are getting cut.

Still, I generally agree that those who are involved in the entrepreneurial space market (as opposed to government contract space market) are some men (and a few women) who deserve the accolades that have been sent their way. I personally think John Carmack is doing stuff perhaps a bit more interesting and in the long run going to be more innovative and original than what Elon Musk is doing, but his approach is also going to take quite a bit longer to happen.

The rockets that have been just announced by SpaceX, on the other hand, ramp up the dialog even more and promise to out-do even what NASA accomplished with the Apollo program. That "Falcon XX" spacecraft in particular is something that, if launched, is going to redefine the very term "spacecraft". Superlatives simply don't exist for a vehicle that size and goes way beyond "heavy lift vehicle".

Re:Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

I applaud the Obama administration for recognizing the awesomeness...

You give politicians WAY too much credit.

Re:Vision

[Teancum]

The ULA vehicles (Atlas V and Delta IV) also have all "intellectual property" owned by the respective parent companies (Lock-Mart and Boeing) and have nobody else that needs to sign off on using those vehicles for commercial launches other than getting an ordinary launch permit and permission of the launch range officers (FAA and the USAF permission with regards to Cape Canaveral launches).

You are correct with the DOD contracts, which are fixed cost. The USAF did, however, help pay for the R&D on those vehicles mainly as a way to have something to ship up their payloads, but there was also some "skin" put into the game by those companies as well. It is this model that SpaceX is using for its own rocket development.

Re:Vision

[Teancum]

It is more of 10% failure rate for early launches.... something that SpaceX seems to be able to get down, and where a 1% failure rate is considered "excellent". Saying that SpaceX has a 50% failure rate is being disingenuous so far as including acknowledged prototypes and an incredibly small statical sampling that has obvious biases from the samples being used to generate the rate indicated.

Still, I'd have to agree that a "Sigma 2" reliability rate is dismal and something that should be improved throughout the spaceflight industry. SpaceX claims that they will do better than this, but like all marketing claims it remains to be seen. They haven't had a failure since they got something to orbit. Unfortunately, SpaceX is still at the prototype stage with its current rockets and has retired the Falcon 1 with only one real operational flight. A 1 out of 1 statistical probability is not really a good measurement either.

Re:Vision

[DerekLyons]

What you miss is that launches have to work because satellites are expensive. However because launches are so unbelievably expensive, then the satellites also have to work. So you end up with spiralling costs.

That's partly true. But satellites also have to work because you can't get at them for maintenance and because if one goes down it can mean significant lost revenue, lost coverage, loss of years of work, etc. They're also expensive because they must operate in an extremely hostile environment.
 

Conceptually what most satellites do is very simple - take a comms satellite or a GPS sat as an example - far simpler than what your mobile phone has to do. So if getting one to orbit cost no more than getting a truck from one city to another then you can be certain that they would be orders of magnitude cheaper themselves. So even if only 20% of them made it you've still won.

The problem with this theory is that 'costing no more than a truck from one city to the next' is a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper than even the most fevered dreams of (sane) space advocates - and those prices are orders of magnitude cheaper than what SpaceX is charging.
 
IOW, your argument here is irrelevant to the issues I raised in my previous posts. Not to mention that if you seriously believe that a launch service offering only 20% reliability (because mathematically that means each bird on orbit effectively costs *five times* as much as a service with 98% reliability) would long survive - you're seriously detached from reality. How long do you think UPS would stay in business if they lost four out of five packages handed into their care?

Re:Vision

[Shotgun]

So what you're saying is that every thing went perfect right out of the gate with every R&D project you've ever worked on? There weren't any teething problems or unexpected interactions/consequences/eventualities?

As an airplane homebuilder, the rule of thumb is that you can expect to build three of everything. The first is to understand what it is you're building. The second is to get the skills right. The third is to make a viable airplane piece. I would expect that in pushing hard against the envelope of materials engineering as these guys are, that they would have more failures than they have to overcome the learning curve.

Re:Vision

[Shotgun]

It isn't the scale that is the critical factor. It is the capabilities. Why do we not have (currently) automobile manufacturing factory factories? I.e. why not are the elements of automobile factory manufacturing factories rolling out of factories.

Unions.

Re:Vision

[Shotgun]

So to me if we want to advance humanity and get towards the post scarcity society we need to get people out of menial jobs like the factories and farms and mining etc. More automation in these jobs would increase quality of life and reduce costs of goods.
Yet you try and help people like that and they go and form unions and strike and generally get annoyed at your attempts to improve society.

Or they spend their life in front of soap operas and reality TV shows.

Re:Vision

[DerekLyons]

So what you're saying is that every thing went perfect right out of the gate with every R&D project you've ever worked on? There weren't any teething problems or unexpected interactions/consequences/eventualities?

No, I'm not saying that. You're an absolute idiot or utterly drug addled fool if you have somehow come to the delusional belief I said anything close to that.
 

As an airplane homebuilder, the rule of thumb is that you can expect to build three of everything. The first is to understand what it is you're building. The second is to get the skills right. The third is to make a viable airplane piece. I would expect that in pushing hard against the envelope of materials engineering as these guys are, that they would have more failures than they have to overcome the learning curve.

So what? The fact is, they are still at the bottom of a very steep learning curve - and at the top of that hill, the goal the original poster posited is a distant and steeper range just barely visible on the horizon. When all one can build is RC aircraft models, and poorly at that, it's a wee bit premature to predict the ability to build a Concorde.

Retiring to Mars?

[blair1q]

If he wants to die in a harsh, hostile environment, why doesn't he spend a few $billion retiring to Compton or Afghanistan?

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Compton lacks the mountainous craters of Mars, Afghanistan though would be a good approximation - just sprinkle ground up iron oxide over a few square miles and it will look about the same. As a bonus, no need for a space suit.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[barberousse]

What??? Compton (Quebec) is a nice place. That's where I go pick apples every year!

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[Caerdwyn]

When you're stranded high up on Olympus Mons

And your suit-gauge shows your O2's all but gone

Open your faceplate and face vaccuum's dawn

And go to your god like a spaceman.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do believe he is referring to compton, CA. not exactly known to be a nicest collection of neighborhoods. I'm sure you wouldn't want to do any apple picking there, unless you like a not so healthy lead enriched diet.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[Grishnakh]

Mars is safer. You don't have to worry much about people shooting at you on Mars.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[arcsimm]

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will!

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[khallow]

I think this sort of thing needs to be emphasized. The hazards of Mars are pretty much static. No matter what you do, you'll encounter the same dangers. If you come up with a pressurized habitat, the Mars atmosphere isn't sentient and coming to com up with a way around that to kill you. In other words, the hazards of an uninhabited world are far different and less dangerous from the hazards of an inhabited world where some of the inhabitants are trying to kill you.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[abramovs]

Where is that from? Is that yours? If so it is excellent.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[Rei]

The cage is very small
A tiny silver ball
That makes you a hero
The moment you step inside
The world is watching you
What you're about to do
Will live on forever
Even though you'll be dead
And gone
Buckle up
We're about to turn the engines on.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say we're on a good start... assuming that hemoglobin would have a satisfactorily similar look.

By the way, misparsing my own typing I came up with a new term: hoboglobin. Addendum: it already appears that hoboglobin is a common misspelling of hobgoblin. I've got too much panache to come up with some stupid pun for it, but I figured I'd do the human gene pool a favor and gift that pun to some lonely Slasdhotter.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[pedestrian crossing]

Burma Shave.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[SonnyDog09]

It is actually reworked Kipling.

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains
And the women come out to cut up your remains
Roll onto your rifle and blow out your brains
and go to your God like a soldier.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[powerlord]

The Green Hills of Earth
Let the sweet fresh breezes heal me
As they rove around the girth
Of our lovely mother planet
Of the cool, green hills of Earth.

We rot in the moulds of Venus,
We retch at her tainted breath.
Foul are her flooded jungles,
Crawling with unclean death.

[ --- the harsh bright soil of Luna ---
--- Saturn's rainbow rings ---
--- the frozen night of Titan --- ]

We've tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.

The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
ALL HANDS! STAND BY! FREE FALLING!
And the lights below us fade.

Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps a race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet ---

We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the friendly skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.

Robert A. Heinlein

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[DragonWriter]

In other words, the hazards of an uninhabited world are far different and less dangerous from the hazards of an inhabited world where some of the inhabitants are trying to kill you.

Well, that's fine for the -- literally -- solitary inhabitant of a world. (Though both the absence of support and the psychological effects inherent in that isolations are their own kind of hazards, which may more than offset the hazards, so I'm not sure that, even initially, the conditions are as favorable as you present.)

OTOH, once more people go to the world -- which they will as soon as it is feasible -- you have the natural environmental hazards plus the social hazards associated with an inhabited world.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[rrohbeck]

Meh. Everybody knows that the second you're about to suffocate on Mars a volcano will start spewing oxygen behind you.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[khallow]

OTOH, once more people go to the world -- which they will as soon as it is feasible -- you have the natural environmental hazards plus the social hazards associated with an inhabited world.

But you still don't have people trying to kill you. Keep in mind that the vast majority of us don't live in a situation where some neighbor would for various reasons consistently try to kill us. It's reasonable to expect early Mars colonization to be similar to current human civilization in that regard.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[DragonWriter]

Keep in mind that the vast majority of us don't live in a situation where some neighbor would for various reasons consistently try to kill us. It's reasonable to expect early Mars colonization to be similar to current human civilization in that regard.

I think that's no more reasonable than assuming that early Mars colonization would largely be drawn from people on Earth who don't have neighbors consistently trying to kill them, which it makes it a wash.

What I don't think is reasonable to assume is that early Mars colonization would consist largely of people moving out of places where people are consistently trying to kill them, but would not result in them living in conditions where people are trying to kill them.

There are, I suppose, scenarios that aren't completely implausible (even if they seem rather unlikely) where that might be the case. For instance, one might imagine that the US would run Mars as a prison colony, and divert non-violent convicts to Mars instead of its domestic prisons.

Re:Retiring to Mars?

[redmoss]

I rarely comment on Slashdot, but that was awesome. Well done!

This guy's got balls.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sign me up. What can I do to help?

Re:This guy's got balls.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lick them?

(Hey, you asked!)

Re:This guy's got balls.

[MacAnkka]

http://www.spacex.com/careers.php

Relevant expertise required and also US citizenship, apparently.

Re:This guy's got balls.

[MacAnkka]

citizenship, or permanent residence, that is.

Name

[Anonymous Coward]

Martians will be unimpressed by the name SpaceX. We must properly convey fear!

Therefore. What should the new name of SpaceX be?

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

Martians will be unimpressed by the name SpaceX. We must properly convey fear!

Therefore. What should the new name of SpaceX be?

Space Xe

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

I vote for Virgin Galactics. All the power in the universe cannot stop a virgin in space. Just ask River.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

What should the new name of SpaceX be?
Ubuntu. A South-African name, just like Elon Musk, that no one seems to know what it means.

Re:Name

[khallow]

Off the top of my head with its imposing craglike forehead, denoting intelligence beyond your ability to comprehend,... oh where was I?

How about SpaceXterminate, SpaceXtinction, SpaceXploit? They could be divisions. One kills you, one makes sure you're dead, and one converts the ruins of your puny civilization to, um, something profitable, maybe RC toy cars.

Re:Name

[tehcyder]

Therefore. What should the new name of SpaceX be?

Doom.

Shiny!

[CrimsonAvenger]

Two different designs (Falcon X Heavy and Falcon XX), either capable of boosting a Mars Direct type mission on its way...

Which would give us capabilities in space we haven't had since the last Saturn V was launched.

Hopefully, SpaceX won't have problems coming up with the cash (or contracts) required to finish the designs and get them certified, since I'd really like to see the first manned Mars mission in my lifetime. And from the looks of things today, if SpaceX doesn't do it, no-one will.

Re:Shiny!

[jpmorgan]

Well, what I like about SpaceX is they've turned "rocket science" into "rocket engineering." As an interested outsider, they seem to have a strong focus on modular design, which aids in keeping costs down. It's basic bottom-up design, which usually leads to better and cheaper solutions than the top-down design work that government mandated engineering tends to be.

Design should always be a compromise between what you want and what is practical. The space-shuttle is what you get when you'd rather spend billions than be flexible in your requirements. And the worst part about that is you end up with such a bleeding-edge integrated solution, that you don't get to take anything away from it. You're always starting again from scratch.

Re:Shiny!

[Martin Blank]

I dunno. A billion dollars to certify the Merlin-2 seems like a lot of money, though if they can turn the Falcon X and XX into reusable systems, that could pay back relatively quickly.

I do have a question, though: aside from the additional 15 ton capacity of the Falcon XX, is there a reason to develop it in addition to the 125-ton payload capacity of the Falcon X? The Falcon X payload exceeds that of the Saturn V, and would allow (mass-wise) a launch of a third of the ISS at one time. Is it the simplicity of six engines in one container instead of nine in three containers?

Re:Shiny!

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, you have missed the fact that he is not pushing Mars Direct. The reason is that it makes ZERO sense. Basically, it will be a build a train in space, then push it with nerva. Sadly, So many ppl have it wrong about Saturn V. It was built that way, because it was OUR shortcut to the moon. Basically, USSR had done a number of shortcuts to get ahead of us. For example, when our first mission went up, it was loaded with Science packages. USSR put up a radio. When they were finally able to put up real science, it was several years later. They did a publicity stunt, just like we did with the moon. Now, People like Musk are trying to rectify that problem and do things right. Sadly, the God Damn republicans want to push Ares V style solutions that are funded by a central committee to waste money. The interesting thing, is that the republicans share so much in common with the Chinese on this approach.

Re:Shiny!

[sconeu]

The Merlin-2 at 1.7M lbs of thrust... More powerful than a F-1. That is fucking awesome.

Re:Shiny!

[Anonymous Coward]

It going to cost Washington state 4 billion dollars to build one lousy fucking bridge:

SeattlePI
WS DOT

By government standards, a billion dollar is hookers-and-blow change.

Re:Shiny!

[Anonymous Coward]

An excellent point, those "bleeding edge" designs do push the envelope of modern technology, but unfortunately end up on a progressive tangent. Practical, economically viable technological succession is absolutely the way to go; and more often than not, is also easier to build upon and progress gradually.

Re:Shiny!

[khallow]

I dunno. A billion dollars to certify the Merlin-2 seems like a lot of money, though if they can turn the Falcon X and XX into reusable systems, that could pay back relatively quickly.

The now moribund 2011 NASA budget proposed by Obama back in the spring had budgeted $3 billion over several years to heavy lift propulsion research. And at the time, many people said that was too little for the task. Musk basically is claiming he can do it for a lot less than NASA could. I think he can do it, given that he's already developed three engine designs (the Kestrel, Merlin, and Draco) on half a billion dollars. That's money which also incidentally developed two rockets, the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 and funded a few launches of the Falcon 1.

I do have a question, though: aside from the additional 15 ton capacity of the Falcon XX, is there a reason to develop it in addition to the 125-ton payload capacity of the Falcon X? The Falcon X payload exceeds that of the Saturn V, and would allow (mass-wise) a launch of a third of the ISS at one time. Is it the simplicity of six engines in one container instead of nine in three containers?

At a glance, I'd say SpaceX is presenting these as different choices. There's probably a little value in having both, but my take is that SpaceX proposes to implement only one of them.

Re:Shiny!

[khallow]

I do have a question, though: aside from the additional 15 ton capacity of the Falcon XX, is there a reason to develop it in addition to the 125-ton payload capacity of the Falcon X? The Falcon X payload exceeds that of the Saturn V, and would allow (mass-wise) a launch of a third of the ISS at one time. Is it the simplicity of six engines in one container instead of nine in three containers?

At a glance, I'd say SpaceX is presenting these as different choices. There's probably a little value in having both, but my take is that SpaceX proposes to implement only one of them.

More reading of the article indicates that I'm probably wrong. It may still be the case that SpaceX doesn't intend to fly the two platforms simultaneously, but these are meant to be examples of a family of vehicles. It's possible, for example, that the Falcon XX is a successor vehicle to the Falcon X, or that they'll use the vehicles for different customer profiles. I don't grok their plans well enough to say what's going on here.

Re:Shiny!

[Martin Blank]

I expect that SpaceX could do it with less money than legacy contractors, but a billion dollars to certify the Merlin 2 is twice what was spent to develop two rockets, three engines, and a capsule. That would have to be R&D that pays off either very fast, or over a very long time. Proven reusability would probably allow for both.

Another thought crossed my mind after my post about the Falcon X and XX. Perhaps the XX will be a sequel product, especially if the Falcon X is intended to use largely the same manufacturing dies as the Falcon 9. The first stage diameter would be larger to accommodate six engines instead of three (hex cluster, or five surrounding one?), so a logical development path is Falcon 9 -> Falcon X, using experience with the Falcon 9 rocket body to get experience with the Merlin-2, and then Falcon X -> Falcon XX, using the Merlin-2 to get experience with the Falcon XX rocket body.

Re:Shiny!

[Grishnakh]

They should just drain the lake and reclaim the land, like the Dutch do. Then they wouldn't need a bridge, and Seattle would have more room for expansion.

Re:Shiny!

[khallow]

I expect that SpaceX could do it with less money than legacy contractors, but a billion dollars to certify the Merlin 2 is twice what was spent to develop two rockets, three engines, and a capsule.

The thing to remember here is that SpaceX isn't just developing the engine, they probably also are certifying it for manned NASA missions. There's the cost right there.

Re:Shiny!

[cmowire]

Doubly so. Notice there are two Falcon 9 boosters. One with 9 Merlin 1 engines, one with 1 Merlin 2 engine.

Re:Shiny!

[cmowire]

Well, notice that there are two Falcon 9 cores listed. There's the one with a single Merlin 2.

Given the systems approach that SpaceX has, I suspect that the Falcon X Heavy is slotted the same as the Falcon 9 Heavy -- there if you need it to attract NASA or some customer before the Falcon XX is ready. I'm assuming that the Falcon X's core diameter is sized around some constraint (factory size, transportation, etc) and the Falcon XX is designed under the assumption that funding to exceed said constraint was provided.

I think it's all about options and incremental development. They don't have to qualify the heavy configs until they need them and that's the hard part.

Re:Shiny!

[CrimsonAvenger]

but a billion dollars to certify the Merlin 2 is twice what was spent to develop two rockets, three engines, and a capsule.

Note, by the by, that Merlin 2 will be the most powerful rocket engine ever built at 1.7 million pounds thrust. The F1 in Saturn V was only 1.5 million.

In other words, it's taking us to places we've never been before, engineering-wise. I'd expect it to be expensive....

Re:Shiny!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, the God Damn republicans want to push Ares V style solutions that are funded by a central committee to waste money.

Ummm, last I knew Demo-critters were in charge of both houses, and every committee, oh, and the White House, so what does it matter what the Republi-critters want?

Re:Shiny!

[hedwards]

SpaceX doesn't have to convince politicians to give it funding without requiring pork. That's the big difference. Since the politicians insist on including strings you're going to see a significant mark up. And since nobody's opposed to pork that comes their way, it's not going to change.

Re:Shiny!

[ravenspear]

It would be the most powerful liquid engine.

The shuttle SRB solids have more thrust.

But yes, it would be expensive.

Re:Shiny!

[camperdave]

Odd. There's nothing on the SpaceX website about these shiny new rockets.

Re:Shiny!

[khallow]

It appears to me that the only current customer for such a rocket is the US government. That means some degree of squealing probably will occur.

Re:Shiny!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure if comparing a rocket to a car makes much sense to me.

Re:Shiny!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, the God Damn republicans want to push Ares V style solutions that are funded by a central committee to waste money.

Ummm, last I knew Demo-critters were in charge of both houses, and every committee, oh, and the White House, so what does it matter what the Republi-critters want?

Sadly, our National Capital (as well as most state and local bodies politic), have been overrun by critters.

At this point we the choices are either an Open Hunting Season to see if we can reduce their number to controllable levels, or else we need to call in an exterminator.

Re:Shiny!

[powerlord]

And from the looks of things today, if SpaceX doesn't do it, no-one will.

If they don't, someone probably will, but it most likely will not be in our lifetime, and future explorers will most likely be speaking Chinese or Hindi.

The most exciting thing about SpaceX is that they seem to have Targets/Goals, they have a Plan to get to them, and they have demonstrated solid Engineering (so far).

If they can do something "wonderful" it might even re-ignite children's imaginations and interest in science and technology, something this country has lost for the past few decades.

Re:Shiny!

[Teancum]

The Falcon X vehicle is essentially a Saturn V replacement vehicle (rated to lift more tonnage but with less fuel). The Falcon XX.... if you look over the specs it turns out that it has the same cargo capacity as a 747 that would be used for inter-continental transport.

I don't know what you think could be flown on one of those vehicles, but those are simply huge and would require some customers wanting to put some serious tonnage into orbit. I like this analogy with the Falcon XX:

If you man-rated the FalconXX, you could put every astronaut who has ever flown into space so far in the entire history of mankind, together all at once, on a single flight into orbit. Yes, that would include food for a couple of days and life support. The size of that vehicle is something that has never flown... ever.

As far as what kind of equipment you would want to fly into space that could also barely fit into the cargo area of a 747-cargo plane, that would be an interesting prospect by itself. That goes way beyond GEO satellites or even a Hubble replacement, but more along the lines of a monster spacecraft built by Bigelow that could hold a couple thousand people. I am still trying to get my head around how big that vehicle is and what kind of applications it would be used for.

Re:Shiny!

[sconeu]

I'm going to assume you're not making a bad joke.

F-1 engine. Five of them powered the first stage of the Saturn V.

Re:Shiny!

[cbhacking]

Something very cool that might be possible to build with that kind of mass: practical-sized spacecraft with new engines that are either incapable or cannot legally be used for launching from the surface. Examples include VASIMR (a plasma rocket, far more powerful than modern ion drives but also capable of long-term thrust, but mass-intensive and not capable of lifting its own mass into orbit) or a Project Orion-style nuclear pulse rocket (requires a truly absurd mass for the pusher plate and shock absorbers to smooth out the thrust from the blast wave, but capable of capable of putting out more than 1G of acceleration with a reasonable design. Unfortunately, it would violate the nuclear test ban treaty).

For that matter, even if we just launched more conventional spacecraft, this engine could be a great basic launch platform for defeating the steepest part of the gravity well. Imagine multiple smaller craft (that still have full fuel tanks) taking off to pursue independent missions once in orbit.

I'm sure if we develop that kind of lift capacity, or even get close enough that there's some confidence it *will* get developed, people will come up with all kinds of uses. For example, how many flights would it have taken to put the current mass of the ISS into orbit? How about it's complete design mass?

Re:Shiny!

[Teancum]

I think they would stop being called "spacecraft" and move into the realm of a "spaceship". With a little bit of work and some engineering, you might even see some space-based drydocks and spaceships that could never be launched from nor land on the surface of the Earth, but instead are strictly designed and built for point to point locations entirely in orbit or at least off of planetary bodies. "Landing", what there would be, would be more "docking" than anything else.... like "docking" to a facility on Phobos.

There will still be a need for "landing craft" to get to and from planetary bodies, but in my opinion those vehicles ought to be relatively small and dedicated to the environment and engineering requirements for that body. I also see no reason to cart all of the mass of an Earth landing vehicle to Mars only to bring it back. Keep the Earth landing craft near the Earth, and Mars landing craft near Mars (if you can make them reusable).

Still, it is fun to speculate about what you could do with mass on the order of 150 tons, and consider that a whole bunch of heavy machinery is hauled around here point to point on the Earth in vehicles capable of transporting loads of that nature. The faring diameter for the Falcon XX launcher would also be on the order of the hull diameter for a 747 as well.

If anybody was serious about getting extra-terrestrial mining efforts going, I would think that such mass requirements would be routine for launches, and something that would be comparable in terms of logistics to mining in very remote areas that use air freight for moving in parts and supplies. At the moment, even if somebody had the money to pay for such launches there isn't a vehicle that could make the trip right now.

I'm sure if we develop that kind of lift capacity, or even get close enough that there's some confidence it *will* get developed, people will come up with all kinds of uses. For example, how many flights would it have taken to put the current mass of the ISS into orbit? How about it's complete design mass?

The total mass of the ISS is right now about 400 metric tons. @150 tons per trip, that would put the mass of the whole ISS up in three trips with room to spare. One module for habitation (& life support/logistics), one module for science, and a third module for power. If you used a Bigelow-style module for the habitation module, it could house about 30 astronauts (for the same mass) and the launch costs.... assuming about $5 billion as a high-ball estimate for this vehicle, would be about $15 billion. In other words, for less than 1/10th of the cost of the ISS they could put up a larger facility that does more in fewer launches and holds more astronauts doing far and away much more science. Heck, that is the operations cost alone for the ISS over the next decade.

And I'm really high-balling the costs here. Each Merlin-2 engine is quoted as costing about $50 million each, and the Falcon XX has somewhere between a dozen and 20 of these Merlin-2 engines (I don't see the specific figures right now on the design, but I know the 150 tons of lift is accurate). Tankage and configuration costs put it in the realm of between $1 billion and $5 billion to launch, or about the cost of a single Space Shuttle flight, give or take some fudge room and interpretation of how much it costs to launch a Shuttle.

It should be noted there were privately financed shuttle launches (not many, but they did happen and arguably subsidized).

Re:Shiny!

[FleaPlus]

And I'm really high-balling the costs here. Each Merlin-2 engine is quoted as costing about $50 million each, and the Falcon XX has somewhere between a dozen and 20 of these Merlin-2 engines (I don't see the specific figures right now on the design, but I know the 150 tons of lift is accurate). Tankage and configuration costs put it in the realm of between $1 billion and $5 billion to launch, or about the cost of a single Space Shuttle flight, give or take some fudge room and interpretation of how much it costs to launch a Shuttle.

FYI, the Falcon XX would only have 6 Merlin 2 engines, placing the engine costs around $300M. Musk also seems quite insistent on recovering and reusing the engines, which would presumably lower the per-flight costs considerably.

Re:Shiny!

[Teancum]

Thanks. My reference doc disappeared on me, as I should have made a local copy of the thing and forgot to do just that.

Launching that vehicle for a half billion dollars (taking into account range fees, spacecraft refurbishment, "standing army costs" and such) really makes you wonder what kind of Kool-aid that NASA is drinking with the Ares spacecraft.... where each launch was going to be roughly $1 billion each and only had the capacity of launching 4 astronauts at a time... with the "larger" vehicle costing about 4-10 times that cost.

Nuclear Thermal?

[jpmorgan]

I like nuclear thermal as much as the next /.er, but is there really any point in thermal rockets beyond attaining orbit?

Personally, I'd rather see the money go into a space-borne power reactor and rely on VASIMR or other electric engines for the transit. As SpaceX and Musk should know, a modular system is a lot more flexible, and we know a lot more about how to design and build power reactors than nuclear thermal rockets. More to the point, you'd need a gas-core reactor to match the specific impulse of current VASIMR prototypes, and gas-core reactors are ENTIRELY theoretical.

(If you don't know, specific impulse is the rough analogue of how 'fast' a engine is in space, although it actually bears more in common with fuel economy than power).

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[0123456]

I like nuclear thermal as much as the next /.er, but is there really any point in thermal rockets beyond attaining orbit?

For one thing there's the slight problem that you die during the transit through the Van Allen belts if you don't have a high-thrust engine or very large radiation shields.

And nuclear thermal rockets kind of suck ass for attaining orbit since you have to ensure that they land somewhere safe if they fail during launch; NASA's test plans for the early models involved polar launch where the flight path was designed to dump it in Antarctica or a remote part of the ocean if something went wrong.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[khallow]

As 0123456 indicated, there are both a need for high thrust engines in space and huge risks with the use of nuclear-anything propulsion on Earth. In addition to passage through the Van Allen belts, we also need to consider the Oberth effect. When you're trying to leave a gravity well (such as Earth's), then thrust deep in the well has a higher effective ISP than equivalent thrust higher up the well.

Second, because of the risks of operating nuclear rockets in Earth's biosphere, it makes sense, that if you're eventually going to have a nuclear powered rocket to orbit, that you try it somewhere else first and generate a reliability record. Space is the "somewhere else".

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[rickb928]

You still have to throw those cute nuclear and electric motors out of Earth atmosphere. Thermal rockets are still the most practical way, and it seems that nuclear has a LONG ways to go to be possible, much less affordable.

And of course the concept of nuclear on the launch pad will frighten the Luddites. Maybe even me.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[jpmorgan]

An interesting point, I wasn't aware of the Oberth effect. However, theoretically a VASIMR engine can operate over a range of specific impulse and thrusts, and can tune its thrust/Isp ratio to take maximal advantage of the Oberth effect over its entire flight path.

Now I know why the VAriable Specific Impulse is such an important aspect to be part of its name.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[khallow]

However, theoretically a VASIMR engine can operate over a range of specific impulse and thrusts, and can tune its thrust/Isp ratio to take maximal advantage of the Oberth effect over its entire flight path.

For most applications, that means as much thrust as you can get at the start of the mission (or at the point when you're deepest in the gravity well, if you're doing a flyby) subject to whatever acceleration constraints are imposed by your payload (don't want to jelly the astronauts!). That advantage goes to nuclear thermal. VASIMR simply isn't comparable on the high thrust end.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[FleaPlus]

I like nuclear thermal as much as the next /.er, but is there really any point in thermal rockets beyond attaining orbit? Personally, I'd rather see the money go into a space-borne power reactor and rely on VASIMR or other electric engines for the transit. As SpaceX and Musk should know, a modular system is a lot more flexible, and we know a lot more about how to design and build power reactors than nuclear thermal rockets. More to the point, you'd need a gas-core reactor to match the specific impulse of current VASIMR prototypes, and gas-core reactors are ENTIRELY theoretical.

I was pretty surprised at this as well, particularly since Tom Markusic (SpaceX's rocket development facility director and the guy who did the presentation) has a fairly extensive research background in electric propulsion and plasma thrusters:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=tom+markusic

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[Anonymous Coward]

So NASA is putting oil companies in charge of testing?

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[tsotha]

As SpaceX and Musk should know, a modular system is a lot more flexible, and we know a lot more about how to design and build power reactors than nuclear thermal rockets. More to the point, you'd need a gas-core reactor to match the specific impulse of current VASIMR prototypes, and gas-core reactors are ENTIRELY theoretical.

A nuclear thermal rocket would be quite a bit more efficient in terms of mass than VASIMR. It's the difference between building a reactor that is a rocket engine and building a reactor plus a rocket engine.

Yeah, it's theoretical. But so is everything else about a Mars trip at this point.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[91degrees]

Wikipedia tells me Hydrogen is not easily space storable. Other liquids aren't as effective. (Actuallly this is from the solar thermal article but presumably the issues are the same)

How does the weight of solar power compare with other means of providing energy? Take advantage of that big Fusion reactor we've got parked out there. Considering the vast difference in Isp and the distances involved, it can't be long until your lower fuel weight compensates for the increase power generaton weight.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[tsotha]

Your comment doesn't make any sense to me. Doesn't matter where the power comes from, you still need reaction mass.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of crap. I guess you don't believe that Man really walked on the moon then? Because, you know, those astronauts had to fly through the Van Allen belts to get there. And, oh yeah, fly through them again to get home. And guess what, they all survived. The radiation does from the belts isn't terribly high, not compared to the dose of radiation received from cosmic rays (much higher energy and much harder to sheld against) and the radiation received from solar events on the long cruise to Mars.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[91degrees]

Yes, but VASIMR makes much more efficient use of that reaction mass. The faster you kick it out, the more thrust you get.

So a kilogram of nuclear thermal propellant will give 15kNs of thrust, a kg of VASIMR propellant will give 50kNs.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[rufty_tufty]

As far as I'm aware nuclear thermal is a bad idea for a take off engine, it's comparatively low thrust even if it is high(er) ISP. Apart from Gas Cored rockets (which as you say are still science fiction at the moment) I've not seen a serious suggestion that Nuclear be used for takeof from earth (Nuclear salt rockets though for Mars takeoff could be interesting :-))

As I understand it where a Nuclear Thermal is good is where you need moderate thrust but for a long time, so they make a good 2nd stage engine or a great 3rd stage engine. The proposal as i understood it was to develop both nuclear reactors to supply power for ion engines and to develop nuclear thermal for the crew stage. As I understood the article this then meant you had 2 types of tugs, one ion engine based, and one nuclear thermal based. The first was used to get cargo from Earth to Mars using the least propellant, the second got your crew to Mars as quickly as possibly but at a lower fuel efficiency.
As far as I was aware VASIMR is more theoretical than the straight Nuclear Thermal proposed here, so while a great design was a higher risk approach. Also because of it's multimode operation it was much harder to flight qualify and heavier so possibly not the best choice for the crew insertion mission.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[TheWrongDoer]

When you're trying to leave a gravity well (such as Earth's), then thrust deep in the well has a higher effective ISP than equivalent thrust higher up the well.

Doesn't the Oberth effect refer to thrusting while passing near a gravity well (i.e. a Gravity Assist [wikipedia.org]), not accelerating from the bottom of a gravity well from rest? Given that a launching rocket starts with zero velocity, wouldn't ISP be the lowest at the beginning of the ascent, due to the massive amount of propellant needed to being accelerating?

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[snerdy]

Space is the "somewhere else".

Did you just declare the ultimate NIMBY?

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[Teancum]

The Oberth effect presumes several things, including that you have a high delta-v engine, that you are in an elliptical orbit, and that your goal is to get to an even higher orbit where increased eccentricity in the orbital path is not really a problem. If you are using an engine design that has a continuous thrust engine (such as VASMIR, solar sails, and ion propulsion... to name a few), the Oberth effect isn't nearly so pronounced or even accurate in the description. It certainly doesn't help out in situations like trying to reach a Geo-synchronous orbit, but it can help in terms of trying to reach escape velocity or doing something like going to the Moon.

The largest problem with nuclear thermal rockets (especially fission-powered rockets) is the use of the word "nuclear", even if it is an accurate description. The hardcore anti-nuclear activists are so hard-nosed about having anything nuclear going into space that you must be prepared to have some of those activists on the thrust end of such a rocket. Not that I'd cry too hard if somebody was that stupid (with reasonable precautions so that folks who show up there know full well what is about to happen), but it is something to at least be prepared to deal with and has some pretty bad public relations aspects. If nuclear thrust rockets are ever going to be built on a large scale, the materials for those rockets are unfortunately going to have to be obtained from space-based resources and not from the Earth. I wish it were different, but that is current political reality even if I agree that nuclear rocketry is something that should be explored and used.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[khallow]

The Oberth effect presumes several things, including that you have a high delta-v engine, that you are in an elliptical orbit, and that your goal is to get to an even higher orbit where increased eccentricity in the orbital path is not really a problem. If you are using an engine design that has a continuous thrust engine (such as VASMIR, solar sails, and ion propulsion... to name a few), the Oberth effect isn't nearly so pronounced or even accurate in the description. It certainly doesn't help out in situations like trying to reach a Geo-synchronous orbit, but it can help in terms of trying to reach escape velocity or doing something like going to the Moon.

The Oberth effect applies in the situation I described, namely trying to leave or get higher up in a gravity well, which in itself is a sufficiently useful class of trajectories to warrant the consideration of high thrust engines.

The largest problem with nuclear thermal rockets (especially fission-powered rockets) is the use of the word "nuclear", even if it is an accurate description. The hardcore anti-nuclear activists are so hard-nosed about having anything nuclear going into space that you must be prepared to have some of those activists on the thrust end of such a rocket. Not that I'd cry too hard if somebody was that stupid (with reasonable precautions so that folks who show up there know full well what is about to happen), but it is something to at least be prepared to deal with and has some pretty bad public relations aspects. If nuclear thrust rockets are ever going to be built on a large scale, the materials for those rockets are unfortunately going to have to be obtained from space-based resources and not from the Earth. I wish it were different, but that is current political reality even if I agree that nuclear rocketry is something that should be explored and used.

That's why you use them in space first. It's a lot easier to defuse the anti-nuclear hysteria, if you have a considerable safety record.

Re:Nuclear Thermal?

[cbhacking]

Is there any particular reason a Nuclear Lightbulb (gas-core engine using uranium hexafluoride) design has to *stay* sci-fi? This seems like the kind of thing that is eminently practical (no inherent problems of "we just have no way of doing that"). I'm not a physicist, so I'm probably missing something here... why *doesn't* this idea get more effort behind it?

How about mining asteroids?

[Nicolas MONNET]

Who are going to be the customers?

For space exploration to begin in earnest, we need it to be economically profitable, beyond LOE and geostationary. Has there been a study on the economic feasability of mining asteroids or something else (i.e. 4He on the moon)?

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps we can send American Fundementalists and Saudi Wahhabist to Mars, in much the same way that England disposed of the Puritans.

It won't make money, but sometimes money doesn't matter.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[mrsquid0]

That may not be a good idea. Read The Mechanical Sky by Donald Moffitt.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[khallow]

For space exploration to begin in earnest, we need it to be economically profitable, beyond LOE and geostationary. Has there been a study on the economic feasability of mining asteroids or something else (i.e. 4He on the moon)?

Yes, and as I understand it, the problem is that costs are a few zeroes greater than revenue. Something like SpaceX's new rocket can lop a zero off the costs, but we're going to need more than that before space mining makes economic sense. If they can lop off a second zero, say via high reusability and a launch rate of thousands of rockets a year, that might do.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[Grishnakh]

Asteroid mining could be very profitable. According to Wikipedia, "At 1997 prices, a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1 mile contains more than $20 trillion US dollars worth of industrial and precious metals." Of course, the value of the metal would go down as that one asteroid would add a huge amount to the supply, but still it would be a lot of money. A $1 trillion+ profit on a mission costing $10 billion would be a pretty good profit.

Also, "all the gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium and ruthenium that we now mine from the Earth's crust, and that are essential for our economic and technological development, came originally from the rain of asteroids that hit the Earth after the crust cooled." So there's potentially a lot of valuable minerals out there waiting for us to exploit them.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[camperdave]

Depends on what you're mining, and where you're planning on using it. Hauling metals down to Earth makes no sense. Sending water ice to an orbital or lunar base might be cheaper than sending the same stuff up from Earth.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[cycleflight]

Good point, but space exploration is kinda like particle physics in that sense (or discovering America for that matter). You go in looking for one thing (which we need to find) but the good finds come out the other side with something totally unexpected, and totally awesome. I don't think we need better than a "we could probably make some cash doing this," sort of probability before it's time to jump on it... I just hope the folks with the big bucks agree.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[khallow]

Hauling metals down to Earth makes no sense.

Precious metals might be viable and were what I was thinking of. They currently have good price for the mass and are used in decent volume on Earth.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[Tekfactory]

He3 costs $40,000 per Troy ounce, its useful in Fusion research and Medical imaging technology.

http://www.lunarpedia.org/index.php?title=Helium

If I can boost some mining equipment to the Moon, and use one of those solar powered tugs to get my ore back to the LEO and drop it in the Ocean somewhere, eventually there would be a payoff.

And yes when you can throw something the size of the ISS up there in 3 launches, the long awaited microgravity manufacturing and some interesting vapor deposition electronics stuff with smaller whiskers and imperfections than you get on Earth are possible.

Maybe like the fly eyeballs nano solar cell story from last week, you only need the perfect space crap to build the molds, then make millions of widgets down on Earth where materials and labor costs are conventional.

Get the lift costs cheap enough and people will fill Bigelow Aerospace's hotels.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[PeterBrett]

Hauling metals down to Earth makes no sense.

Precious metals might be viable and were what I was thinking of. They currently have good price for the mass and are used in decent volume on Earth.

Find me an asteroid with significant coltan deposits, and I will show you viable space industry.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[Anonymous Coward]

'Mining the Sky' by John S. Lewis covers your question exactly.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[TheTurtlesMoves]

He3 is useful in *imaginary* fusion. Having 100x less power density and being 10000x harder to burn compared to DT fusion which we don't have outside bombs.

Secondly its at 0.01 ppm in the lunar soil. So for just 1kg of the stuff you going to need to mine 100 thousand tons of rock with perfect efficiency. You going to use more energy than you get.

He3 if or when it becomes a viable fuel source, mean we also have DD fusion... that will produce tons per year of He3 ash.

Going to the moon for He3 is stupid.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[rufty_tufty]

You could argue that founding America didn't really work out that well for the founding country. They invest all that money and people in getting it started and then the ungrateful sods go and fight a war of independence against you just as soon as they start to generate meaningful tax revenue to recoop your investment.
Bloody ungrateful sods.
You think space won't be any different? Why should a government invest money in getting people into space when they won't be able to tax them, or if they do (outland revenue) then the buggers just declare a war of independence on you and they have the high ground.
Nope governments are not the way to space, corporations however...

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[tehcyder]

Yes, and as I understand it, the problem is that costs are a few zeroes greater than revenue. Something like SpaceX's new rocket can lop a zero off the costs, but we're going to need more than that before space mining makes economic sense. If they can lop off a second zero, say via high reusability and a launch rate of thousands of rockets a year, that might do.

Um, while costs are even *slightly* higher than revenue there isn't really any point in space mining, apart from general awesomeness.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[selven]

You could argue that founding America didn't really work out that well for the founding country. They invest all that money and people in getting it started and then the ungrateful sods go and fight a war of independence against you just as soon as they start to generate meaningful tax revenue to recoop your investment.

And then 170 years later they help you out in the most existentially threatening war you've faced for centuries and then pump billions of dollars into you to get your economy back up and running when it's over.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[Anonymous Coward]

What did they expect to get out of a colony founded on religious extremism and dodging debter's prison?

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[rufty_tufty]

Tempted to argue with the first bit, but:
"pump billions of dollars into you to get your economy back up and running when it's over."
Funny I seem to remember that it was only a few years ago the UK finished paying back all the money it borrowed from the US to pay for all the things that were shipped over during the WWII. This was after selling off large chunks of its reserves that it held too.
I'm not saying the US didn't help greatly, but as I understand history it was paid for a lot/most of its efforts.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[khallow]

Um, while costs are even *slightly* higher than revenue there isn't really any point in space mining, apart from general awesomeness.

And if costs are significantly less than revenue, then there is a point to space mining. Launch costs from Earth to orbit aren't the only obstruction to profitable space mining and hence, we have other means for reducing costs than just lowering those launch costs. But they are significant in that they currently influence the cost of everything we have in space.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[camperdave]

It would be cheaper to just recycle cell phones and other electronics.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[cycleflight]

Yeah, I guess I was thinking more along the lines of "there'll be more that meets the eye in the future than meets the eye right now." From a purely government point of view, it might not be that great. Didn't Spain get some nice bling from Central America and Mexico though?

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[Teancum]

The world-wide market for He3 is minimal and certainly couldn't pay for a major mining expedition to the Moon. Yes, its cost is high due to the difficulty in finding and extracting it here on the Earth, but that doesn't mean that there will be markets for the stuff if you are able to ship it by the ton.

There are substances like Gold which does have a market for the materials if you could find say a house-sized nugget and somehow land it in a cost-effective manner. It might destroy the current gold bullion market if that happened, but even at 10% of the current price gold would have many people finding legitimate uses for the metal and it does have applications where economies of scale apply in a beneficial way. In other words, increasing the world supply of gold 10x would yield a market cap of the whole gold market (how much money is being spent to purchase gold) to be larger than is the case with current gold supplies.

That is not the case with He3. If you increased the global supply of that stuff 10x or 100x, He3 demand wouldn't increase that much more with a corresponding drop in price. This is called price elasticity. The He3 market is not that elastic. You certainly wouldn't want to bring stuff from the Moon with the only real application is to fill up balloons.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[Teancum]

There are applications for He3 beyond nuclear fusion, although I will admit that it is the "killer app" which makes He3 a viable commodity to be mined in large quantities.

In terms of mining huge quantities of rock for just a minor fraction of that ore being extracted for something useful, I would suggest that you try and read up on Copper mining techniques. While not measured in parts per million, the concentrations are in the low parts per thousand range, and involve the processing of millions of tons of rock and the literal moving of entire mountains to obtain this mineral. The technologies and ore quantities suggested here certainly have existing examples and techniques used here on the Earth for at least processing similar quantities of ore for relatively small quantities of final product extracted.

The trick is knowing what to do with that "1kg of the stuff" once you get it.

As for practical nuclear fusion, there have been some recent efforts along those lines including the Bussard Polywell Fusor that seems to hold some promise. Enough promise that it may happen within the decade if everything works out for the better. Unfortunately He3 is not being looked at as a primary fuel for various reasons and in fact Boron is being looked at more as a fuel source for those reactions... primarily due to radiation concerns from other types of fusion reactions. While not nearly as deadly as Plutonium fission reactors, a He3-He3 reaction does produce high energy neutrons that can pose a radiation hazard and can transmute some metals into radioactive isotopes that would require some significant mitigation issues for long-term use.

Re:How about mining asteroids?

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Parts per thousands compared to .01 ppm is a factor of 100000. Thats not even comparable. U is mined in the 100 ppm range (factors of 10000 more)...but with methods that avoid processing large amounts of rock. They use leaching.

Facts are that if you have a He3 fusion reactor, you have a DD fusion reactor that not only has much higher energy density, but can put out *tons* of He3 per year as a by product (it could also burn too). Then the He3 would most likely then be used in applications where dealing with neutrons is too heavy.

The idea of mining He3 as something even remotely viable, was dreamed up by folks that just want to go to the moon. Tourism is at least a factor of 100000 better for a reason for a moon base. There is even a reason for humans to be there.

Dear Elon:

[Anonymous Coward]

GET YOUR ASS TO MAHHHS!!!

Merlin engine!!!

[StarTux]

Great news! The Merlin powered the famous Spitfire, Hurricane, P-51D fighters amongst many other Allied airplanes! Legendary!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Merlin

Oh wait..You mean a rocket engine?.

Re:Merlin engine!!!

[Sovetskysoyuz]

Rolls-Royce should go after them for trademark infringement.

Falcon XXX

[spoonist]

More like Falcon XXX.

Did you see the shapes of those things?

Re:Falcon XXX

[blair1q]

That isn't a rocket project. It's something to do with drilling and shooting money. Can't tell for sure. The pages of the press release were stuck together.

Re:Falcon XXX

[cmowire]

Hey, nobody likes a pocket rocket that comes apart after launch.

Re:i've got a problem. :(

[Anonymous Coward]

You came to the right place for that kind of thing. Lots of Linux users who'd doubtlessly oblige you.

SpaceX's design sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republican backed plan will cost way more, take way longer to develop/build, and will do less. It's an awesome plan. You'd think SpaceX wants to go to space quickly, cheaply, and reliably. Who wants that? I sure as hell don't. The government can't do anything right which is why only the government can waste money, I mean, build a better rocket.

Not bad

[zogger]

Not bad for a quickee re-rendition.

Re:Not bad

[blair1q]

exceptin' the vacuum part...

Re:Not bad

[Anonymous Coward]

exceptin' the vacuum part...

Olympus Mons is so far up in Mar's atmosphere it's basically on the edge of space. Calling it a vacuum isn't far off. It's have close to the same effect on your anatomy.

Great poem btw.

Re:Not bad

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with the vacuum part? Olympus Mons is 25km high on a planet with next to no atmosphere down at the datum level... it's gonna be close enough to vacuum for government purposes!

I don't always travel by rocket...

[RevWaldo]

...but when I do, I prefer Falcon Dos Equis.

Stay orbital, my friends.

.

Did Heinlein invent this bastard?

[mrmeval]

Or did he merely predict him?

Re:Did Heinlein invent this bastard?

[arcsimm]

Here's to hoping that Musk gets around to retiring sooner than Delos Harriman.

'Bout damn time

[Diagoras]

Mars in 20 years? Sounds good to me. Let's do this.

I am going to order one myself.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I am going order a space tug for myself and going to name it the Millennium Falcon, as soon as I can borrow some cash fro Jabba the Hut. Should start looking for a co-pilot soon.

Re:I am going to order one myself.

[badboy_tw2002]

Waaaaaah. Grrrrrrr. Whhhhhaaahaha. GRRRRR.

References available upon request, of course.

Good Luck

[Anonymous Coward]

I really do wish all the new space cowboys the best of luck. I think they will need it.
Rutan / Branson will be doing Low Earth Orbit pretty soon too and both projects have seen catastrophic setbacks.
The explosion at the Scaled Composites lab scared a few and I'm surprised at the tone of Musk's claims given the past performance of his rockets.
I am a big admirer of the American space programs and I hope that NASA (and others) are helping out a bit to at least gain the minimum requirements of being able to supply the International Space Station after their Shuttle retires this year.
If this doesn't work out maybe China will show everyone how to make a real rocket.

Re:Good Luck

[Anonymous Coward]

If this doesn't work out maybe China will show everyone how to make a real rocket.

edit: ...for cheap!

SpaceX Needs Financial Independence

[BJ_Covert_Action]

First off, I have to say that SpaceX announcing they have the intention and potential designs for a Saturn-class lifter is some of the most exciting news I've heard about space in my lifetime (yes, I'm a post 70's child).

However, there is one key thing that SpaceX needs as they develop as a company. First, and foremost, SpaceX needs to get its LEO business to become lucrative and profitable. If that company can develop enough profit to start breaking away from NASA prize money and other political tie-ins, then they will be set. I have not doubt in my mind that the engineers at SpaceX can deliver what they advocate in this article if they are given the money and opportunity to do so. However, I also have little doubt that folks at the various NASA labs could do the same thing. The key advantage that SpaceX has, over NASA, however, is that it has the potential to be independent of Congress fucking about in it's vehicle designs. That, above all else, is what makes SpaceX special.

If SpaceX can break it's ties from the government through contracts and cheap launches, then we will be to Mars in my lifetime. However, if they get roped into the political games that so many defense contractors and other space companies do, then America is screwed for a mission to Mars. Right now, the single greatest threat to space explorations is the United States Congress. It really is that simple.

Re:SpaceX Needs Financial Independence

[FleaPlus]

However, there is one key thing that SpaceX needs as they develop as a company. First, and foremost, SpaceX needs to get its LEO business to become lucrative and profitable. If that company can develop enough profit to start breaking away from NASA prize money and other political tie-ins, then they will be set.

Not sure if you already knew about this, but back in June SpaceX announced a huge launch contract with Iridium, which is the largest commercial launch contract in history (worth up to $492M). Of course, more contracts like that would be better, but change happens a step at a time.

Re:SpaceX Needs Financial Independence

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Yeah, I knew about the Iridium contract. I am excited for it. However, I will be more excited to see the actual launches taking place and SpaceX posting profits.

See (you may already know all this), SpaceX isn't the first commercial space venture out there. Other companies have tried to do the cheap commercial launch thing and failed (albeit, they did it very differently than SpaceX). For instance, both the Delta IV and Atlas V vehicles by Boeing and Lockheed-Martin were supposed to provide what SpaceX is now trying to provide (cheap, accessible space on board a launch vehicle). Unfortunately, those two vehicles have, since, failed to be cheap. Similarly, Sealaunch offered a unique GEO access platform for commercial use. They also failed financially in an epic manner (they are currently recovering from bankruptcy). All three of those companies had various contracts signed that they waved around declaring it was proof that their launch platforms would be great business opportunities to invest in at one time. All three of those companies have, since, failed to provide cheap access to space. Now, I do realize all four vehicles being discussed fill various niches that the others don't. However, my point is that SpaceX has a contract that will earn it a lot of money if all goes according to plan. If that doesn't happen, potential customers may start investing in other platforms. With other customers earning business, SpaceX's profit-margin would 'sink' from it's theoretical maximum and it may not be able to turn over a decent profit to achieve it's engineering goals.

Now, I don't say any of this to be pessimistic. I am rooting for SpaceX every step of the way, and I think they have the engineering and business know-how to get their goals accomplished. However, until I see those Iridium sats sitting on orbit, and money being transferred to SpaceX's accounts that exceed it's development loans, I will remain fearful that Musk and his team's high ambitions could get muddled by outside influences (ahem, Congress, ahem).

The point is, the sooner SpaceX can point and laugh at Congress when they decrease the available funds to NASA for helping to develop commercial platforms, the better....IMHO.

Re:SpaceX Needs Financial Independence

[Tekfactory]

Yeah Elon said they booked like 30 launches and only a third of them were government, which left some room for more than a few non Government, and non Iridium launches.

Re:SpaceX Needs Financial Independence

[Anonymous Coward]

The key advantage that SpaceX has, over NASA, however, is that it has the potential to be independent of the President fucking about in it's vehicle designs.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:SpaceX Needs Financial Independence

[IrquiM]

If SpaceX can break it's ties from the government through contracts and cheap launches, then we will be to Mars in my lifetime. However, if they get roped into the political games that so many defense contractors and other space companies do, then America is screwed for a mission to Mars. Right now, the single greatest threat to space explorations is the United States Congress. It really is that simple.

Take a look at the launch manifest on their homepage. It's not like it's all NASA activity.

Re:SpaceX Needs Financial Independence

[Teancum]

From a pure accounting perspective, SpaceX has been a profitable enterprise now for several years. Some of this is more of following accounting rules and having to take income received as a form of profit, but they do have a cash flow and money is coming into the company from sources other than the U.S. Federal government. There are also several customers who are waiting for the deployment of the Falcon 1e and "certification" of the Falcon 9 rockets before they make commitments for flight.... and this includes groups like Bigelow Aerospace who certainly have the money to put into more flights. The loans that SpaceX has right now are for capital expenditures and expanding the business rather than to meet day to day expenses. Otherwise, those loans would be paid off by now.

Certainly the fiscal picture for SpaceX is much better than it was with Tesla, which has some serious cash flow problems that needed to be dealt with and having some house cleaning on the top management to get it back under control. Given his choice, I'm sure Elon Musk would have preferred to stick with SpaceX and not get distracted by Tesla. If anything, Musk's experience with Tesla is going to be very useful for SpaceX as well as it moves up into the larger tiers of major industrial manufacturing companies and the kinds of skills needed to run a company that size.

If SpaceX ever builds that Falcon XX rocket and launches it, at that point I think it would be safe to say that the Manned Spaceflight Office and for that matter the Johnson Space Center should be closed. Then again, I thought that Elon Musk was smoking something really good when he came up with the Falcon 5 design originally and I thought I would never see that vehicle fly. I guess he didn't.... he flew an even bigger one instead :)

NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

They used to talk of privatization of NASA launch vehicles and other spacecraft. What ever happened to that?

Far better visions...

[bradbury]

A far better vision would be much more expansive than Space X's -- which in my opinion consists of nothing more than building well engineered reusable reliable rockets at affordable prices.

Some guidelines:
1. Never use a rocket for material you can hurl or lift into space (i.e. non-G sensitive "mass").
2. Never use humans when robots can do much of the work (i.e. systems assembly, parts replacement, etc.).
3. Minimize the risks that humans face (keep them out of space as much as possible or well sheltered from the hazards there).
4. Invest only once. Build the factories to use materials from space in space.

You would start with (1) by throwing out the idea of rockets that can lift increasingly larger payloads. Instead you would invest one or more times in building ocean-equatorial based rail/mass guns [7] (to launch fuel, H2O, O2, food, "station"/"factory" subunits using solar power. This would lead to the construction of orbiting sky hooks which could augment the mass guns and/or pick up astronauts from SpaceShip Two type "ferries". Then SpaceTugs pick the astronauts up from the hooks and relocate them to ships under construction in "Dry Dock" (@ L1|L2).

But before one wants to engage in a vision like this one needs to *seriously* have a discussion regarding when molecular nanotechnology, i.e. when can nanofactories build nanorobots, when can nanorobots build nanofactories (allowing exponential expansion either on the Earth or in space). Nanorobots and nanofactories significantly lower the costs of access to space as well as the development of space (because they eliminate the need for biological "human" environments, safety systems, resource supplies, etc.). So one has to face up to the question of whether we want "human" or "nanorobot" development of space (when one path is clearly less expensive and likely to be more efficient), though perhaps less emotionally fulfilling.

Many engineers 'dis molecular nanotechnology, but for people who understand genome biology, that genomes are "software", that enzymes, esp. DNA polymerase, RNA polymerase and the ribosome are "assemblers", and who may have read Drexler's 1981 PNAS paper in which biological systems were cited as existence proofs for molecular nanotechnology, and perhaps who have read Nanosystems as well, the only questions that remain are how and when we could engineer systems of such complexity.

Then the question becomes whether we spend billions of $ on 40-50 y.o. visions (rockets to the moon or Mars) or equivalent or even greater amounts on say a 11-29 y.o vision... [1]. It is clear, at least to me, that the 40-50 y.o. vision provides some great stories, improves our technologies and lets us go where we have never gone before. In contrast the 11-29 y.o. vision frees most individuals on the planet from having to ever work again to survive, may indefinitely extend their lifespans and enables the evolution of humanity from a pre-Kardashev Type I level civilization to a Kardashev Type II level civilization [6].

I know which vision I'd be inclined to vote for.

1. Drexler's PNAS paper was published in 1981 [2]. Engines of Creation (Vsn. 1 was published in 1986) and (Vsn 2.0 published in 2007) [3]. Nanosystems (Eric's MIT PhD thesis) was published in 1992 [4]. Nanomedicine Vol. 1 by Robert Freitas was published in 1999 [5]. Almost all other nanotechnology "literature" tends to be long on either speculation or technical details and short on "vision" and facts. Those are the references for "science "visifact"ion.

2. http://www.pnas.org/content/78/9/5275.abstract
3. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Engines-of-Creation/Eric-Drexler/e/9780385199735
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engines_of_Creation

Re:Far better visions...

[bradbury]

"When you want better visions -- study the visionaries" (me, though I expect others have said it...)

In that respect:
http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/Authors/Engineering/Drexler-KE/index.html

The M.S. thesis (which I have read) is particularly interesting as it details concepts of nanotechnology before they may have been fully formed in Eric's mind.

Re:Far better visions...

[ShooterNeo]

Once we have real molecular manufacturing the barriers to getting anything into space basically vanish. Molecular manufacturing would be like inventing a 747 and a supertanker at the same time if we were in an age of wooden sailing ships.

Think about it. Once you build ONE general purpose, self replicating molecular 'printer', you can have it copy itself. With exponential growth, you'd soon have more capacity for making things than all of the factories on the planet. Modify the design of the molecular 'printer' and you would have a molecular 'scanner' that could cut apart any frozen and solid object and determine the exact molecular structure. With this we could copy anything (including human beings).

For space travel, it costs a lot of money to make a rocket because it has so many parts that human labor is required to assemble and quality check. One you can print out atomically precise parts for the cost of raw materials and energy (both of which will become much cheaper because you can print out mining equipment and nuclear reactors just as easily as anything else) the cost of making spaceships would plummet to nothing.

I think the biggest costs of widespread molecular nanotech that would prevent us all getting into space right away would be the necessary regulation and policing. The bureaucracy required and all the safety checks would probably cost more than anything else.

Re:Far better visions...

[bradbury]

Yes, you understand the consequences and implications. But it begs the question -- how do we get us "there" ("there" being general purpose molecular assembly with workers with an ~$0/hr salary) [1]. We can speculate on what such a reality may be like but that does not get us any closer to it. Discussing what it will be like is less productive than discussing how to get there.

[1] There is no "free lunch". Nanorobots require energy and such can/would be harvested from the planet/atmosphere; they also have to dissipate heat; so there are very "laws of physics" determined limits to how many nanorobots one can have on the planet operating at any point in time. The estimate by Robert Freitas is ~10kg nanorobots per person. Which is more than sufficient for the needs of most individuals.

Re:Far better visions...

[ShooterNeo]

Incrementally, step by step. To get money to develop the pre-requisites for something like this, you need to create a useful product. Those microfluidic chips that will allow for laboratories on a chip are one way to go. University labs are working on designing micromachines such as tiny engines and other gadgets.

I do think that once nanomachines are clearly possible, and we have the stuff to actually start thinking about building them, then the resources invested will increase enormously. Once we get close, one would think there would be Manhattan project sized efforts to get the molecular printing technology online. After all, if you can make anything, that means that you could mass produce the most advanced weapons as easily as anything else. The real reason we don't have armies of humanoid robots is because good ones would cost millions of dollars each to manufacture due to the incredible complexity required. Same reason we don't have thousands of anti-missile lasers in orbit and a defense grid of millions of flying drone aircraft patrolling our borders.

Heck

[voss]

If they can deliver on reliable space station freight contracts...getting a billion dollars for the next generation rocket engine would
be almost effortless unless the group backing the Ares aka the Pork Launcher get their way.

Why would you develop the Falcon X? What could you do with the ability to launch 125 tons into space affordably?

Simple answer...Space hotels, private space labs, Really big communications satellites, a few extra space stations,
  Advanced Technology Large Aperture Space Telescope or something similar.

Re:Heck

[rufty_tufty]

See this is what gets me, people ask "what on earth would you do with 125 tons of launch capacity"
As long as it's a cheap enough 125 tons (i.e. cheaper than 125 1 ton launches) then what couldn't you do?
Most of the economy runs on what trucks ship around, now in the UK they're limited to 40 tons, (don't know about other countries) but pretty much everything civilisation needs is transported on those things and once you have enough of them moving stuff cheap enough...
What I'm not sure of is if this Falcon X is the cheapest way to get payload into orbit or are they just a way to get as much into orbit at once. It will be interesting to see if the Falcon 1's, 9's or X's end up being the space truck.

Re:Heck

[Martin Blank]

I didn't ask what would be the purpose of a 125-ton payload. There are a lot of things that one can do with that, including splitting the cost of a launch between a lot of smaller customers. Being able to send up 125 tons of water would itself be a significant achievement allowing improved sustainability in space.

I was asking why would SpaceX, after developing a rocket with a 125-ton payload, move to a rocket with a 140-ton payload. That was answered through brief discussion above.

Merlin

[b4upoo]

The Rolls Royce Merlin engine was critical in winning WWII. Perhaps a new rocket engine should get a more original name and leave the name alone as it has already earned the gratitude of so many of us.

Re: Merlin

[MarkvW]

While the Merlin made the P-51, and the P-51 made precision bombing over Germany, precision bombing was not critical to winning the war in Europe. It was definitely helpful, but not necessary to victory. Very good arguments can be made that air resources would have been better allocated to operational and tactical commands.

I like the Merlin engine idea. It evokes an image of good British engineering (drawing on the noble past you cite).

Henry Ford

[Anonymous Coward]

Elon Musk is the Henry Ford of this century.

Ownership?

[nuclearpenguins]

If a private company or individual sets up a settlement on Mars do they own the planet? The UN's Moon Treaty has yet to be ratified, and the current treaties we have only prohibit state actors from claiming ownership of celestial bodies.

Re:Ownership?

[trout007]

Depends on your politics but I subscribe to the homesteading principle which basically states how some unowned resource becomes property. It isn't a settled matter mind you but offers a good start. So say you land on Mars with a rover capable of traveling a 10 mile radius from your base. The land you traveled to would now be your property for you to do with what you wish. Sell chunks of to people on earth, ect. So using this theory the US wouldn't own the moon because we did not travel everywhere. We would own just the outline of where the astronauts walked/drove. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_principle

Re:Ownership?

[tehcyder]

So would the land not be owned by the driver of the Rover rather than the company or country who sent him there?

Re:Ownership?

[tehcyder]

If a private company or individual sets up a settlement on Mars do they own the planet?

Why would they? The first European to set foot in the Americas didn't thereby acquire ownership of the whole continent.
Ignoring the question of native inhabitants here, of course.

And a question goes begging...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The 100-kw. tugs each would carry around 4 metric tons of payload and take 390 days for the round trip."

What would 8 programmers do for 390 days in space?

This is the plan..

[zawarski]

Get your ass to Mars, and go to the Hilton Hotel and show the fake Brubaker I.D. at the front desk, that's all there is to it. Just do as I tell you. You can nail that son of a bitch that fucked you and me. I'm counting on you, old buddy. Don't let me down!

lovely quote...

[hitmark]

"the government should only lead the propulsion element development where there is no existing commercial capability, or a high risk of capital loss."

so basically, privatize the profits, socialize the risks...

You're still crazy

[sean.peters]

And so is the rest of the "let's colonize Mars" crowd - because there's simply no reason to colonize Mars. For one thing, even if the wildest dreams of SpaceX become true (and here's a hint: they probably won't, at least not completely), getting a colony to Mars is going to be unbelievably expensive. You need to not only haul the people, but all their life support equipment, capital goods (they're going to have to earn a living, right?), at least some minimal housing, energy generation, startup food, plants, greenhouses for the plants, fertilizer for the plants (unlike you're going to find fixed nitrogen on Mars, for one thing), minimal personal possessions, etc, etc, etc.

And once you've spent the trillions of dollars that would require, then what? How are you ever going to recoup your investment? Mars is mostly made of the same stuff as earth - iron, silicon, oxygen, carbon, etc. What are you going to find or make there that's worth the enormous expense to do it? The answer, pretty much, is that there isn't anything.

I doubt there's any realistic hope of retirement communities there either. The Gobi desert, for example, is a lot easier and cheaper to get to, has the advantage of a breathable atmosphere, and looks about the same as Mars (less pink), but I haven't seen a flood of Happy Acres Assisted Living developments going in there.

Look, I get that space colonization is all cool and romantic and stuff. The problem is that it's not remotely practical, and most likely won't ever be.

Re:You're still crazy

[Ironhandx]

Ah hell, maybe they'll discover some new mineral deposits of stuff thats really really useful but really rare on earth? Who the hell knows what they'll find until we go there?

You're just a killjoy :P

Question for the space colonization folks

[sean.peters]

Of course, even this is facing a great deal of friction in Congress. As one of the linked articles in the summary states, the current NASA bill in the House of Representatives has the entire commercial spaceflight program struggling with just $150M over 3 years, while the government-designed/operated heavy-lift and crew capsule program gets $13B over that same timeframe.

Q: Why does the commercial spaceflight program need even $150M to get going?

A: Because going to space isn't profitable.

Space colonization is a fun thing to think about, but there's no money in it, which pretty much means it's not happening.

Modded funny, but

[sean.peters]

... it's true. There are plenty of places on earth that are pretty Mars-like, so why not save the trouble and expense and just retire in, say, the Gobi desert? You wouldn't even have to worry about air to breathe.

Bingo

[sean.peters]

The only substance obtainable in space that's not readily obtainable on earth is He3, and 1) it's not that obtainable on the moon either, and 2) we don't have any practical use for it until fusion power is perfected (if it ever is). All the other bodies in the solar system* are made of iron, nickel, silicates, etc - just like the earth. You'd have to lop several zeros off the cost for that to become practical.

*Excepting the gas giants. But we have all the hydrogen we can use on earth, thanks. And if we wanted to bring back more, how would you extract it from, say, Jupiter? At a cost you could live with?

Probably not

[sean.peters]

Someone did the math in an earlier discussion here - platinum is the most expensive of precious metals that's routinely traded, and at reasonable estimates of costs to get to Mars and back, even if there were pre-refined bars of platinum lying about there, it wouldn't be cost-effective to go pick them up. I can't imagine it's cheaper to go to the asteroid belt, and bear in mind that in a real world situation you'd have to add costs of prospecting and refining.

Re:Probably not

[khallow]

Someone did the math in an earlier discussion here - platinum is the most expensive of precious metals that's routinely traded, and at reasonable estimates of costs to get to Mars and back, even if there were pre-refined bars of platinum lying about there, it wouldn't be cost-effective to go pick them up. I can't imagine it's cheaper to go to the asteroid belt, and bear in mind that in a real world situation you'd have to add costs of prospecting and refining.

I'm aware of that. Just because it costs, say ten million per kg to bring back stuff from Mars now doesn't mean it'll cost that much twenty years from now. Things change.

Sure

[sean.peters]

And a properly picked sphere of the earth a mile in diameter would contain the same. And it would be so much cheaper to extract and refine. Which is why we're still mining the earth and not asteroids.

Re:Sure

[Grishnakh]

Go read the Wikipedia article. The Earth's crust is poor in those minerals, because they all migrated to the core while the planet was still hot. What we have mined has come entirely from asteroid impacts after the crust cooled.

To get these minerals from the Earth in the large quantities that asteroids have them in, you'd have to tunnel down into the Earth's molten core. Good luck with that.

We're running out of places to mine, plus every time we do mine, it screws up the environment and looks horrible. Asteroid mining would eliminate that, plus refining would be easier as the asteroids have far higher concentrations of valuable minerals. With earth-based mining, you have to sort through tons of worthless rock for a few ounces of something valuable, because the concentrations are too low.

Re:Sure

[sean.peters]

plus refining would be easier as the asteroids have far higher concentrations of valuable minerals

Right. Except for the part about the asteroid being millions of miles away. You need to think harder about the costs involved. There's no way you're sending an entire factory to the asteroid belt, accomplishing the mining and refining, and getting the finished product back to earth for $10B. Consider that building an aircraft carrier (on earth) costs $5B. A space factory is going to cost at least that much just to build. Then you have to get it there (presumably in pieces) and assemble it. Then, most expensive of all, you need operators, and paying for all the life support, food, danger pay, transport, etc, etc is really going to set you back. No need to even discuss automated mining operations, as such technology doesn't exist and isn't likely to soon.

Bottom line: there's a reason why no private companies are chomping at the bit to go mine asteroids. No one can figure out how to make any money.

Re:Sure

[Grishnakh]

There's tons of asteroids in Earth-crossing orbits; you don't have to go to the Asteroid belt.

The missions could be largely automated; we already do this with all the space probes, Mars rovers, etc. The key is moving the entire asteroid (we'd be using the small ones, not Ceres) into Earth orbit, or one of the Lagrange points, where it can be mined more easily with either human operators or remote-control (as there wouldn't be any significant radio delay so close to earth).

The main thing missing that would make all this feasible is propulsion technology powerful enough to move a small asteroid into a place convenient for us to use it. With automated systems and good enough propulsion, even the Asteroid belt asteroids would be good targets, though they'd probably take longer to maneuver into convenient positions.

I think either very large ion engines, or even nuclear engines, would make this feasible. Of course, in many cases it might take years to maneuver an asteroid into position in the interest of fuel efficiency, but if it's all done automatically, the time isn't that important.