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Elon Musk To Unveil Mars Spacecraft Later This Year, For 2025 Flight (foxnews.com)
frank249 writes: Fox News is reporting that Space X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk expects to unveil plans for the spacecraft that would send humans to Mars within a decade. Speaking at an event in Hong Kong, Musk said he was 'hoping to describe the architecture' of the spacecraft at the International Astronautical Conference in Mexico in late September. "That will be quite exciting," Musk said. 'In terms of the first flight to Mars, we are hoping to do that around 2025.' As for his plans to go into space, Musk said he was hoping to reach the International Space Station 'four or five years from now.'
The whole page of submissions from 'timothy'. What the hell?
Mars in 2025, Spellchecking in 2026.
I have no doubt than in ten years he can build a rocket powerful enough to reach Mars. Then if he wishes to do it safely, he would have to send several unmanned missions (I'm thinking three) before he can get a safe certification for the one year (wo)manned journey.
A hell of a lot of things can go wrong in a year, as the ISS proves, and that is within the protective realm of the earth's magnetic field.
Tesla Model-X unveling: February 2012, planned for deliver in early 2014. Actual deliveries began on September 29, 2015.
This is only one data point, and space systems are considerably more challenging; but let's say ball-park, the Musk factor is somewhere around 2. See you in 2034. I hope they get rid of any lingering Unix time bugs before they launch.
This monster is going to get people killed in the name of profit.
can you be sued for being a net negative for the prosperity of humanity? Sure you can .. I problary wont win though'
For the same reason the media loves Trump - he gets clicks, shares, and forwards. (Plus haven't you seen the Musk worship here on Slashdot?)
So for the CEO of a rocket company, making a rocket is "outside his sphere"? Interesting.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
The first demo flight of the 27 engine Falcon Heavy is in April. SpaceX announced in May 2015 that they are positioning Dragon V2 spacecraft variants—in conjunction with the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle—to transport science payloads across much of the solar system, in cislunar and inner solar system regions such as the Moon and Mars as well as to outer solar system destinations such as Jupiter's moon Europa. Details include that SpaceX expects to be able to transport 2,000–4,000 kg (4,400–8,800 lb) to the surface of Mars, including a soft retropropulsive landing using SuperDraco thrusters following a limited atmospheric deceleration. When the destination has no atmosphere, the Dragon variant would dispense with the parachute and heat shield and add additional propellant.
SpaceX began development of the large Raptor rocket engine for the Mars Colonial Transport before 2014, but the MCT will not be operational earlier than the mid-2020s. SpaceX have not yet publicly released details of the space mission architecture nor all the system components of the MCT, nor a timeline for earliest MCT missions to Mars. Elon Musk hopes to unveil the space mission architecture at the International Astronautical Congress in September 2016.
The super-heavy lift launch vehicle for MCT is intended to be fully-reusable. Mars Colonial Transporter has been notionally described as a large interplanetary spacecraft capable of taking 100 people or 100 tonnes of cargo at a time to Mars.
Sounds far fetched but based on Musk's track record, I would not be surprised if he goes for it.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Unveiling plans and unveiling an actual spacecraft are two very different things.
well new management here seems still under the pay of musk, since every word, regardless of actual achievements (to be fair musk does have some), coming out of musk seems to result in a post here.
Everybody knows rockets are cylinders, not spheres (unless, of course, you are a rocket physicist).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
He has opinions about things that are completely outside his sphere
Whereas your opinions are limited strictly to areas in which you've been practicing professionally for at least 20 years, right?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
My opinions don't get broadcast all over the world with an air of authority.
For the massive costs that were required to build life-support into the moon mission, automatic drills, returning samples to the lander, could have been built. And by the time a manned Mars mission can start, chances are that AI's are good enough to even locate and visit the most interesting nearby drilling sites from an unmanned Mars lander.
Lots of people use their leisure to challenge their limits. Kayaking, mountain climbing, sky diving, etc. I don't think they'll have trouble finding those who want the life of a pioneer and explorer.
Then if he wishes to do it safely, he would have to send several unmanned missions (I'm thinking three) before he can get a safe certification for the one year (wo)manned journey.
Who exactly is responsible for "safe certification" of manned spaceflight missions?
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Considering that no one has actually put a man on Mars, how does one become an expert if only experts are allowed to do it?
Antarctica is far more hospitable than Mars. This not wanting to keep our eggs in one basket is a silly argument until the human race has the will and means to start terraforming other worlds. Because as it is now, Mars isn't the least bit habitable, and it's much farther away than any remote place on Earth.
Maybe before Musks thinks about how to get stuff to Mars he could solve the problem of better (especially with less energy use) getting stuff into space. At about $10000/kg for Earth orbit there will be no way a Mars station will be resupplied for long.
So we need a space elevator or some mag-lev "cannon" (preferably on the Moon to avoid the air friction) before we can go seriously out to explore space using humans. Rockets are like steam locomotives (actually they are worse) they carry all their propulsion needs with them in a quite inefficient way.
Plus anyone that writes something critical of Musk is downgraded. Like others gave you negative marks for pointing out how media treats him like the second coming.
In the space forums there was one guy who criticized Musk and his "hobby rockets" that will go nowhere beyond LEO. His reasoning is to go BEO need pressure fed rocket engines, requiring powerful turbopumps and liquid hydrogen for fuel because that high of ISP is needed. Though many can argue over the numbers, hardware, rocket equation, etc., this one person was the only one to question Musk's intentions and he was banned from the forums.
Elon Musk has created some neat stuff, but like Steve Jobs and Howard Hughes they made their share of mistakes and bad projects.
mfwright@batnet.com
NASA officials admitted today the Space Launch System — the agency’s next big rocket — is a vehicle without a mission plan NASA Spaceflight reports. The agency acknowledged what is essentially an empty flight manifest for the SLS at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, during an all-hands meeting on Monday.
The meeting was held to discuss uncertainty about the SLS. Its first test flight with humans aboard has already been delayed once, and the schedule for the SLS’s tests are shaky — there is no definitive launch schedule for the rocket beyond its first uncrewed test flight, which is slated for September 30th, 2018. After that, the SLS's next flight dates are mostly tentative, and the rocket doesn't have any definitive mission plans — only the promise of going to an asteroid and then to Mars someday.
The SLS was born out of NASA's now-defunct Constellation program, an effort aimed at returning humans to the Moon. Though it was once considered the replacement for the Space Shuttle program, the group far exceeded its budget. President Obama cancelled the initiative in 2010, and out of its ashes, the SLS concept was created — both as a way to salvage parts of Constellation and to provide NASA with a primary vehicle for sending astronauts deep into space. It was also a way to save the jobs of thousands of NASA employees who had been working on Constellation.
But the SLS is expensive, and NASA's budget is at the lowest it has been in decades, even with the new budget allotment of $19.3 billion for the 2016 fiscal year. The cost of developing the SLS through 2017 is expected to total $18 billion. And once the rocket is built, each launch is going to cost somewhere between $500 and $700 million, which makes it unlikely that the rocket will carry astronauts more than once a year.
By comparison, Elon Musk has said that that SpaceX could build the Mars Colonial Transporter(MCT), a vehicle in the 140-150 t payload range, for $2.5 billion, or $300 million per launch. If Musk is going to build the MCT anyways, does NASA need to continue the SLS?
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Really? What opinion has he voiced outside of his sphere? More importantly, who the fuck died and made you god so that you can trample on a man's rights?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You are right, but that is because you have nothing intelligent to say.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
reposted from ARS Technica
We know a few basic things about the SpaceX Mars architecture:
Two stages to orbit. First stage is a single booster with many Raptor engines which returns to launch site for reuse. Second stage is the Mars Colonial Transport, comprising a pressurized cabin section and a propulsion section, also powered by multiple Raptor engines.
MCT is refueled in earth orbit by multiple propellant tankers after expending its initial propellant load during launch. After refueling, MCT departs for Mars and performs a propulsive entry, descent, and landing on Mars. MCT is refueled for the return trip using methane and oxygen produced on Mars. It returns to Earth and lands propulsively. Both stages are 100% reusable. Nothing is jettisoned.
We also know that SpaceX will send Dragon spacecraft to Mars (using Falcon Heavy) before sending the first MCTs, which will be unmanned cargo ships for landing habitation modules and other surface hardware in preparation for the arrival of the first humans.
We don't yet know some of the technical details, including the number of Raptor engines on each stage and the precise stage diameter. We don't know how many distinct variants of the MCT will be produced (cargo, tanker, etc.) and exactly how they will be configured.
But mostly, we don't know the business model: Is this a hobby project funded by their commercial launch business, or is there a profit-making opportunity inherent to the Mars plan? To what extent is SpaceX banking on substantial funding from NASA, who might be able to buy rides from SpaceX long before they are able to send astronauts to Mars using their own equipment?
I don't know if the business model will be clarified as well as the technical architecture when Elon does the reveal in September. That's the part that has space enthusiasts genuinely scratching our heads.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.