No Mars thread? What do you guys think about Elon Musk sendi

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I want logical reasons.
Why the fuck should we go to Mars? Whats the benefit? It's expensive, colonies on the planet would be expensive, there are no valuable resources there to mine, and the planets gravity and lack of a magnetic field will degenerate the people who choose to live there. I think going to mars is a sham. At least the moon has materials that aren't abundant on earth. Mars is further than the moon. Why not have moon colonies, with rotating personnel? Mars is a waste of time and money. We'd be better off exploring our oceans.

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>>8391066

we have this thread every single day

>What do you guys think about Elon Musk sending humans to Mars 20-40 years from now?

It's worth noting that this is NASA's plan as well, but with an SLS-derived mission. A manned moon program starting in 2026 then a Mars shot around 2036-46.

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>>8391077

I really hope people are smart enough to not respond to this.

>>8391077
Maybe in a couple of centuries from now, many people will be sent of to Mars, and make Mars a pretty habitable place. It could possibly serve as a solution to overpopulation on Earth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qo78R_yYFA

>>8391085
I asked for logical reasons. Why don't you argue your point, and not throw ad-hominems my way.

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>>8391093

your clear lack of knowledge on the reasons for manned space missions, ignorance of how such a thing could be accomplished and aggressively hostile attitude indicate to me that you're just a shitposter who would be better serviced by posting your comment to /pol/ instead

I'm not even a spaceX fanboy, either

>>8391077
Agreed. But....MARS!!! (not really, but I think it makes the reason clear, albeit not entirely logical)

>>8391107
Holy fuck are you a smug faggot..
I'm not hostile to space exploration. I'm just asking, why fucking bother if it doesn't benefit us. Please "enlighten" me on the reasons of manned space missions, if you will. You still haven't answered my question, if you even have an answer.

>>8391083
NASA is playing the long term game.

Elon Musk is playing short term (desperate).

Mars is so far off that there is no point mentioning that shit outside of "Hollywood propaganda". NASA knows that the public will lose interest within a few years if they bring up Mars but don't do something about it, so might as well wait until they can do something substantial. Elon Musk is obviously desperate and hoping to bring in some more delusional investors so he can make some more experimental rockets.

>>8391121

>I'm just asking, why fucking bother if it doesn't benefit us.

see the point: "your clear lack of knowledge on the reasons for manned space missions"

>You still haven't answered my question

and I'm not, because stupid questions asked in a clearly pissant manner don't deserve smart answers

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>>8391135

>>8391077
>At least the moon has materials that aren't abundant on earth.
How does this work out if the moon formed from debris from a massive collision with Earth.

>>8391126

They're both playing the same game. SpaceX knows they aren't going to be doing manned missions outside of LEO until NASA does. They'll follow in their footsteps, gradually assuming larger responsibilities as NASA goes to the Moon and then Mars. This will be useful as it'll give companies that want to invest in space/other planets more options to do so.

This isn't as far fetched as it might seem: once the ISS is deorbited countries (England, Japan, Israel) will be looking to build their own space stations. Likewise, advancements in microwave power transmission might make orbital solar arrays profitable for european power companies. NASA will want something too.

>>8391141

if you're going to post /pol/ memes why not post your question there as originally suggested?

Not another elon musk thread

>>8391160
http://www.iflscience.com/space/why-we-should-mine-moon/

We probably have the technology to land humans on Mars, and to tend humans on flybyes and bring them back, but not the technology to land humans on Mars and bring them back

>>8391066
>20-40 years from now
The slow troll penetrates the shield.

>>8391083
>A manned moon program starting in 2026
A manned moon orbit program isn't a manned moon program.

>then a Mars shot around 2036-46.
Anything this far into the future is nonsense. When you hear senior officials say, "Maybe in 20 or 30 years." they mean, "Not during my career (but I totally deserve credit if someone does it after I retire)."

>>8391066
It's complete bullshit. Had this exact same plan been proposed by a space agency, that is, actually capable people with actual budgets, no-one would have given a shit. But if it's the spayycex, a company which has been losing money since day 1 and can barely reach earth orbit without blowing up more often than not, internet has a collective ejaculation.

>>8391252
>can barely reach orbit without blowing up more often than not
>i don't know what i'm talking about but i've got a strong opinion about it

>>8391066
>What do you guys think about Elon Musk sending humans to Mars 20-40 years from now?
It's not going to happen. It's just pure hype for investors. Nominally SpaceX is in a shitty condition, so they need to push the Sci-Fi bullshit.

>>8391089
>Maybe in a couple of centuries from now, many people will be sent of to Mars, and make Mars a pretty habitable place. It could possibly serve as a solution to overpopulation on Earth.
No, probably not. At least not too soon. It will maybe be possible to have a permanent colony one day, but it will cost a lot of money to keep alive. Mars in inhabitable and every idea in the direction of terraforming is simply ridiculous.

>>8391161
>They're both playing the same game. SpaceX knows they aren't going to be doing manned missions outside of LEO until NASA does.
Hah! This is crap.

NASA's playing the same old team sport of bullshitting to receive taxpayer funds as salaries and profits. That's what it has been about from the beginning, when they inherited a well-planned-out, well-led, well-organized manned space program with complete teams from the Air Force, when it had done all the preliminary work and analysis, and was about to start launching men into space.

Control was transferred from the military hierarchy to the civilian bureaucracy, which is why the plans for a moon base turned out to be excruciatingly costly flags and footprints, and they still tried to play it off as brilliant management. By the end of that, the careerist bureaucrats had displaced the leaders and broken up the teams that made it work at all.

What was their next trick? The space shuttle: a way to economize orbital launch that obviously had no potential to economize orbital launch (the drop tank cost more than a complete expendable vehicle for the same payload), which was demonstrated to not economize orbital launch, but continued to be used anyway for decades, with a lot of propaganda at what a proud achievement this was.

If you don't understand that NASA is a bullshit organization after the shuttle, I don't know what to say to you.

SpaceX is owned and run by someone who genuinely wants to go to Mars.

why not Venus instead of Mars tho?

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>>8391354

>By the end of that, the careerist bureaucrats had displaced the leaders and broken up the teams that made it work at all.

Total bullshit, both listed groups are exactly the same. For example, the same people who worked on Thor worked on the Saturn V and then the Shuttle. Boeing, after buying MD, also made Ares 1 and is making SLS. You're rewriting history to fit some sort of libertarian narrative.

Additionally, the Space Shuttle was a proud achievement as it was a platform to do experiments in, then it assembled the ISS which has been a huge success. Only issue is that NASA's goal was to shoot for Low Earth Orbit, and not the moon. This changed though after Ares 1 was dumped in 2010.

>If you don't understand that NASA is a bullshit organization after the shuttle

STS ended in 2011, and NASA has not had a single manned mission since as they are busy building SLS and Orion. So the claim here isn't based on anything.

>>8391354

>SpaceX is owned and run by someone who genuinely wants to go to Mars.

SpaceX is a business. No more, no less.

>>8391066
>20-40 years from now
As of now he plans to send people to Mars in 2024.

>>8391077
>Backing up humanity in case of an extinction event

That's literally it. There absolutely no economic benefit to all of this, not even in a hundred years. Goodsflow between planets will be to slow and expensive, even if we switched to cheaper (but slower) ion propulsion for cargo flights.

But please consider
>Because it's human spirit to explore and expand
>Humans are more versatile than robots, a decade of human colonies on Mars will give us more science than a 100 years of sending rovers.

>Why not have moon colonies
>We'd be better off exploring our oceans
Why not fucking both?
People ARE exploring our oceans, it just doesn't get that much mainstream coverage.
And once we have the infrastructure and knowhow of building a Mars colony, building Moon colonies will easy as shit. The ITS has a 550 Ton LEO payload, it will be a lot cheaper.
And that's just the beginning. there is a reason why it's called the "Interplanetary Transport System" and not the "Mars Colonial Transporter".

>>8391077
>>8391416
I also forgot that it's easier to make rocket fuel on Mars than it is on the Moon.

>>8391416
Another point is that because of the cost of bringing stuff along with you to Mars the best way to go about things will be to manufacture things on spot.

Mars will revolutionize the manufacturing process. Stuff like 3D printers are gay and clunky right now but they'll be a necessary technology.
We need to find a way to go from raw material to finished product with minimal resources, energy and time.

That technology can then be utilized here on Earth as well.

Same for farming technology, how to maximize nutrition with minimal resources in a harsh environment. These technologies can be used to feed an ever growing population or be used in places were there are millions people starving already.

>>8391380
>the same people who worked on Thor worked on the Saturn V and then the Shuttle.
No doubt some of the same people did, but Thor was not a von-Braun-led project (he was doing Jupiter at the time), and neither was the shuttle (he got pushed away from the grown-up table at NASA and left to help with OTRAG).

The start of work on Thor to the first flight of the shuttle is a span of three decades. Did you suppose that Thor was all done by fresh-out-of-school kids who retired shortly after getting the shuttle in the air?

>the Space Shuttle was a proud achievement as it was a platform to do experiments in,
That wasn't what the shuttle was for. That was what Skylab was for. Skylab went unused, and then its orbit decayed and it burned up, because NASA insisted that it should service it with the space shuttle, and didn't finish the shuttle on time to do so.

The (ostensible) purpose of the space shuttle was to dramatically improve access to space with a high launch rate and low marginal cost.

>then it assembled the ISS which has been a huge success.
A huge success at what? Spending money? Like the shuttle, in terms of actual function, it does a moderate amount of nothing-new at terrible expense.

Airtight cans are not new or difficult. Solar panels aren't new or difficult. Submarine life support isn't new or difficult. People had already spent years in space.

It's unnecessarily big and expensive just to continue research on the effects of prolonged weightlessness on human health, and we already knew the key fact: it's bad for you, and to be avoided if possible.

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>Mars thread
>No one talking about Schiaparelli landing on Mars in 2 weeks

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Which one of you did this?

>>8391447
Why not focus on making those technologies right now here on Earth rather than them being a possible byproduct?

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>>8391077
>I want logical reasons

Here you go, m8

>>8391482
It's said that capitalism is good for innovation. Which is mostly true, but not always.
It's happens that a certain point is reached when it's much cheaper and safer for all parties to maintain the status quo.
Investing and trying out new technologies is costly and risky. Just how many companies are lagging behind on the digital age, all this stuff could've happened years ago.

Then there also the human aspect. Just how many people are against GMOs. Most of these people are just fearful of these new technologies. Look up Golden Rice if you want a good example.
GMOs would be welcomed on Mars.

Most of these technologies probably already exist.
We basically need something to kick-start this.
One way would be to have another Elon Musk or Steve Jobs (yeah I know, but the Iphone 1 WAS revolutionary), someone with money who is willing to take risks and is very good at marketing and publicity.
Or another is to have it as a byproduct. A fully working model of these technologies on Mars which Earth companies could just copy at minimal risk.

>>8391382
>>SpaceX is owned and run by someone who genuinely wants to go to Mars.
>SpaceX is a business. No more, no less.
Derp harder. Saying that something's organized as a business tells you very little about the motives or commitments of the owners.

Some owners just want to make money. Some do it for the status and prestige of being an employer. Some want a business that loses money, for accounting purposes. Some are unofficial welfare programs where the government provides subsidies or access to a captive market in exchange for providing some number of jobs. Some just do it for the social interaction, or as a hobby. Some primarily want to serve society by making something good available to other people, without trying to squeeze the most money out of people. Some have a goal to accomplish, that they can't simply pay for out of pocket, but can partially or fully sustain itself with related activities along the way. Some are laundering money. Some need a source of income, not just a bank balance, for immigration reasons (very typical of rich people from poor countries buying their way into rich countries).

What SpaceX definitely isn't, is a public corporation, with a duty to its shareholders to maximize their purely monetary gain.

"It's a business." does not mean, "It's just about getting money." Many businesses are very poor ways of making money, and are pursued for other reasons.

SpaceX started out just as a way for Elon Musk, as a dot-com millionaire, to spend money on a project he wanted to see accomplished: landing a growing flower on Mars, and sending back pictures of it to Earth. Then it became a business as he saw a way to do something far more ambitious: provide practical, affordable transportation to Mars, so he could go there himself, in relative comfort and safety.

>>8391508
>Iphone 1 WAS revolutionary
it wasnt revolutionary. But it was a big leap from existing technology.
same goes for elon musk. A revolution isnt just further developing of existing techs.
>mah capitalism
besides the moon landing and therefor "winning" the space race, the soviet Union was far ahead of the united states. Also apollo wouldnt be possible without von braun.

>>8391547
>A revolution isnt just further developing of existing techs.
If you're not willing to acknowledge as revolutionary a highly-reusable rocket a thousand times cheaper than pre-SpaceX expendable ones, everything after picking up the first stick is "just further developing of existing techs".

>>8391547
>it wasnt revolutionary
Well now we're just arguing about semantics, but how is it not? Historically people who revolutionize technology are rarely the people who invented that technology.
Henry Ford invented neither the automobile nor the assembly line.

>space race
>von braun
War is another way to kickstart technology. I don't prefer this option though.

>>8391077
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2Mu8qfVb5I

>>8391380
>the Space Shuttle was a proud achievement as it was a platform to do experiments in, then it assembled the ISS which has been a huge success.

wat?
They could have done that on expendable rockets for a fraction of the price and 10 times the payload

>>8391547
>besides the moon landing and therefor "winning" the space race, the soviet Union was far ahead of the united states.
Actually, the Soviet Union was hopelessly behind the United States in missile guidance technology, so they just went ahead with building a big honking rocket, hoping to acquire (steal) the tech for a guidance computer later.

Sputnik was a test of a ballistic missile to nowhere. The manned program was thrown together to exploit the propaganda value after the press and public surprised everyone with their reaction to Sputnik.

The USA was well ahead on ballistic missiles. They had European bases to launch from, so they didn't need ICBMs to target Soviet cities (USSR trying to even that score resulted in the Cuban Missile Crisis), and worked first on deploying smaller, non-orbit-capable IRBMs instead.

When it became a PR issue, the USA caught up and surpassed them on orbital tech *very* quickly.

>>8391547
>A revolution isnt just further developing of existing techs.

Something that completely changes the game IS a revolution

>>8391582
Great video

>>8391600

A thing which most people were unconcerned with until the late 90s. It's clear that /sci/ are mostly young twentysomethings that can't remember that decade at all.

>>8391459

>Did you suppose that Thor was all done by fresh-out-of-school kids who retired shortly after getting the shuttle in the air?

Look at the top of the chain: Eisenhower was President in the 50s and his veep, Richard Nixon, presided over Apollo program and the Shuttle's initial design process. If it wasn't for Watergate, he himself would have stayed on until '78 meaning that he would have presided over the majority of STS's development as well. Down the development chain, most people stayed on. This was also back when companies gave a shit about employee retention, so the idea of someone working at MD for 40 years was completely normal. I've met people in real life who have done just that.

>A huge success at what? Spending money?

International Cooperation. The ISS allowed countries other than the US, Russia and China to have a place in manned spaceflight. Thousands of experiments were made plausible by the ISS.

>It's unnecessarily big and expensive just to continue research on the effects of prolonged weightlessness on human health, and we already knew the key fact: it's bad for you, and to be avoided if possible.

How old were you when the Soviet Union collapsed?

>>8391541

>Saying that something's organized as a business tells you very little about the motives or commitments of the owners.

Wrong, it's a business. It's goal is to make money if only to self-sustain itself. There's nothing wrong with that, but don't buy into the cult of personality around it's founder. It's all well and good that he has a vision but SpaceX's business plan is much more modest. When Musk talked about "colonizing Mars", he provided concepts not FAI deadlines.

>Many businesses are very poor ways of making money, and are pursued for other reasons.

And government contracting, which is what SpaceX primarily does, is hugely profitable.

>>8391617
>>>/pol/

>>8391943
>SpaceX's business plan is much more modest.
SpaceX's business plan is to dominate the global commercial launch market as a stepping stone to high-volume interplanetary transport. There's nothing modest about it. It goes well beyond changing the world.

>When Musk talked about "colonizing Mars", he provided concepts not FAI deadlines.
Jesus, I hate people who just use an uncommon initialism out of the blue as if everyone should know it, that isn't even related to the field being discussed.

Anyway these aren't just "concepts". They've put years of work into the hardware already.

>government contracting, which is what SpaceX primarily does
You're wrong about that. It might be where most of their revenue's come from so far, but it's not what they primarily do, and they're certainly not going to make an actual profit by focusing on that.

It's not an operationally mature company. Most of its money has come from investments and subsidies, including sweetheart contracts, because most of what it has worked on isn't running yet.

In another year or two, they'll be routinely reusing boosters, flying Falcon Heavy, and carrying humans in Dragon 2. Their launchpads and pad operations will be complete and final. Then they'll be able to launch upwards of once a week, at much lower prices, and won't have a backlog of launches a mile long.

Right now, they're just producing overbuilt rockets and flying them once with undersized payloads on them.

>>8391938
>Look at the top of the chain: Eisenhower was President in the 50s and his veep, Richard Nixon, presided over Apollo program and the Shuttle's initial design process. If it wasn't for Watergate, he himself would have stayed on until '78 meaning that he would have presided over the majority of STS's development as well.
Jesus fucking Christ. I regret taking you seriously enough to respond to you at all.

Has Musk ever talked about what the ICT will be doing during the downtime between launches to mars?

Seems to me thats gonna be a key thing to finance the mars colonization.

>>8392311
While the ICT booster has a nice $/Kg I don't think the market for 550Ton LEO is very big. At least right now.

And if the falcon 9 becomes fully reusable the price wont differ much.

I'd like to know how he plans for people to live on mars without protection against flares. Are we forgetting the planet has barely a magnetic field and an extremely thin atmosphere?

>>8392689
Just for info. The Lawrence Livermore portable nuclear reactors were going to be 500 tons tor 100Mw and 200 tons for 10Mw (not sure why they suspended development).

>>8392698
I'm sure we'll see commercial space stations in the next 50 years.

Don't think any country will be to happy about nuclear reactors orbiting the Earth. Maybe on the Moon.

>>8392694
12cm of water is enough to protect against solar flares. We're gonna need some cosmic weatherman to tell us about those in advance or we'll have a dead crew.

Cosmic rays are a bit harder. A 3 month trip wouldn't have any noticeable increase in cancer risk.
Living on Mars for life would.
I guess living underground would be the best.
Or generating your own magnetic field. Not sure about the power requirements for this.

>>8392705
any manned trip to mars probably would be at least 6 months long due to the added safety of a potential free return

>>8391077
His rockets are designed to mitigate cost ,streamline production, increase technological progress rate in propulsion technology.
Moon does not have an athmospehere.A day in Moon is a month sometimes.
Oceans will not answer whether life is possible in outer solar system,going to Mars will answer that question.

>>8392715
The longer the time to send the crew the more food they need. Bones will weaken and morale will be lower.
For cargo missions... we dont want them to return anyway.

>>8392790
I'm sure your strong bones will help you when you're floating in a solar orbit with no chance of returning to either earth or mars

>>8392913
>>8392715
Free return was smart for moon missions, but would be pretty insane for a Mars mission, especially ones going to a Mars base with thousands of tons of equipment waiting for you.

The moon free returns bring you back in a couple of days, only about twice as long as the trip to the moon one-way, and the one-way trip isn't lengthened.

Mars free return is a very different proposition. To survive the "free return", you have to be prepared to live on the spacecraft for two years, making it actually a very expensive, very demanding return, in every system but propulsion. Even then, all you get is an approximate Earth flyby (of course, it's not really a *free* return, you need course correction). Any system which failed and left you unable to stop at Mars will also leave you unable to stop at Earth, so now there needs to be a complex rendezvous-and-rescue mission.

>>8393305
>To survive the "free return", you have to be prepared to live on the spacecraft for two years, making it actually a very expensive, very demanding return, in every system but propulsion.
Apart from the radiation, how is it more expensive and demanding than a regular Mars mission which lasts about two and a half years?

>Even then, all you get is an approximate Earth flyby (of course, it's not really a *free* return, you need course correction).
You need course correction in any case. That's not exclusive to an abort and free return.

>>8393332
>how is it more expensive and demanding than a regular Mars mission which lasts about two and a half years?

? But the regular mars trip is going to be about 4 months
Food, water, and oxygen is gonna be sourced on Mars

>>8392689
>if the falcon 9 becomes fully reusable the price wont differ much.
Falcon 9 won't become fully reusable, and even if it did, it would be much more expensive to operate than ITS on a tonnage basis.

First thing you've got to recognize about ITS is that it's a space station. You don't need a separate space station design, you just fly one up there, and there's your space station. You can fly it up full of stuff and people, or you can fly people and stuff up to it in another ITS that docks with it.

Furthermore, you can put it anywhere you like. It's meant to go to Mars after all. You won't want to sit in the Van Allen belts, but it's not limited to LEO. Sitting one in GEO is child's play compared to landing one on Mars.

What's going to happen is that satellites will be assembled, tested, maintained, and upgraded on and from ITS stations. There'll be at least one in GEO, which will move around from position to position to be near where people want to put their satellites. People will try comsats out, and then bring them back in and fix them if there's a problem with them, ordering parts from Earth as necessary, since there's a new shipment every month or so.

Taking advantage of the drastically reduced tonnage rate, frequent access, and crew capability, people will build huge, frequently-upgraded satellites, like data centers in the sky. Probably some people will order ITSes just to use as satellite busses.

>>8393391
>? But the regular mars trip is going to be about 4 months
lol retard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fturU0u5KJo#t=23m42s

>>8393332
>Apart from the radiation, how is it more expensive and demanding than a regular Mars mission which lasts about two and a half years?
SpaceX Mars trips are mostly intended to be one-way. Coming back is optional and unhurried. You land at Marstown. You're not isolated on one ship. Even the first manned mission will be heading toward hundreds of tons of landed assets, and landing alongside separate ships with many more hundreds of tons of equipment and supplies.

>You need course correction in any case. That's not exclusive to an abort and free return.
Yeah, but free return is a backup option. You're only supposed to use it when things have gone badly wrong. Free return from the moon was much easier and quicker than performing the full landing and return mission, and there was no safety on the moon, or hope of resupply if they stayed there. Free return from Mars is not clearly easier overall, and in many ways is more difficult, than landing on Mars and surviving there until resupply.

>>8393419
4 months isn't an unreasonable Mars transfer. It's not the cheapest, but it's not too much more costly than the cheapest.

>>8393419
>Everything in the solar system circles the sun

and stopped right there
why post these lies?

Musk is not using minimum energy transfers

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>>8392913
Are you being retarded on purpose?

>mentally ill manchildren on 4chan talking about things way above their heads

kek. It's so cute. btw, can't wait for your shitty nu-male generation to die out.

>>8392181

I proved your point wrong, everyone from the top of the chain to the bottom typically stayed on. I mention Presidents as that's the most obvious example.

>>8393449
>>8393452
Are you guys really this stupid? It doesn't matter if you choose a minimum energy transfer or a 6 months free return trajectory or even faster and more fuel inefficient trajectories. You HAVE to wait till the planets are in proper alignment again before you can make the trip back.

>>8392158

>SpaceX's business plan is to dominate the global commercial launch market as a stepping stone to high-volume interplanetary transport. There's nothing modest about it. It goes well beyond changing the world.

Keyword: plan.

>Anyway these aren't just "concepts". They've put years of work into the hardware already.

Exactly, all talk and no FAIs. NASA pulled the same stunt, as has all their contractors (Boeing, MD, NG, Hughes, etc). Even Pan Am made "concepts". I want to see him actually build a prototype.

>>8393468
Musk is not doing a boots & flags mission
Musk is doing colonization
People are not going if they can't be supplied in bulk from machinery on Mars already.

People are not going if they have to live in the spaceship

What Musk is going to be doing is a fast transit there, unload/refuel, then a fast transit back.
6 km/s delta-v from LEO, and something like 8km/s return.

>>8393435
>You land at Marstown.
Fantasy land doesn't exist.

>>8392158

>Most of its money has come from investments and subsidies, including sweetheart contracts, because most of what it has worked on isn't running yet.

It's not like it matters, government contracting will remain their bread and butter. It's the most lucrative and most reliable source of income.

>>8393476
I don't care what that fraud says. This is a science board.

>>8393476

>Musk is doing colonization

Sure he is, but he's not going to have anyone willing to buy into it. Investors don't want colonies, they want profit. And the type of technically skilled people that a colony needs does not want to abandon their earthly luxuries (fast internet, full sized suburban homes, being able to walk outside, etc) without some other incentive. Most of the original inhabitants of the new world were either conscripts, prisoners, or refugees. Their leaders were only interested in colonization for the wealth it would generate for the home country (examples would be Spanish gold or British cotton).

Even IF he gets everything he wants, there needs to be a much more in depth study of Martian climates, geology and hydrology before permanent settlements are established. This means lots and lots of sample return missions as a baseline, and more complicated studies (for example, boring deep into Martian ice to obtain a climate record).

>>8393469
>>>>SpaceX's business plan is much more modest.
>>SpaceX's business plan is to dominate the global commercial launch market as a stepping stone to high-volume interplanetary transport. There's nothing modest about it. It goes well beyond changing the world.
>Keyword: plan.
You: garbage.

I was responding to some stupid bullshit trying to claim that their REAL business plan is much less ambitious. It's not.

>all talk and no FAIs
There it is again, unnecessary jargon, used inappropriately, trying to pretend to be much more sophisticated than the people you're talking to, while spouting stupid shit.

Sure, they've built a full-size composite propellant tank, fired a 1:3 scale engine, and announced their intent to start flight tests in two years, but these public disclosures aren't "FAIs" so it's "all talk".

SpaceX is a vertically-integrated company. They're not selling these rockets to anyone, or contracting out their manufacturing. They're going to produce and operate them themselves, and fly them from their own pads. There's nobody to provide a First Article Inspection to, and they can go as far as they like without producing one.

>>8393503
>but he's not going to have anyone willing to buy into it.

You would be nuts to suggest that governments are not going to buy in to a mars mission.

You would be nuts to suggest you wouldn't find large numbers of people who want to go to mars, live there for a decade, then return home.

>there needs to be a much more in depth study
Yea sure another 50 years of "studies" and rovers is what we need! And then at the end of that we'll still not be "ready" for mars!

>>8393517

>You would be nuts to suggest that governments are not going to buy in to a mars mission.

Every other government on earth spends 80% of their income (ie tax revenues) on welfare. The US is special in that we only spend 60% on it, and devote a whopping 1% of our budget to NASA. That said, I firmly believe SpaceX will find plenty of profit from LEO missions which are much more affordable.

>You would be nuts to suggest you wouldn't find large numbers of people who want to go to mars, live there for a decade, then return home.

Those people aren't educated. They have no ties to Earth, most are loners, convicted felons, and various sorts of "loser". They aren't the type of specialists needed for space missions.

>>8393517

>Yea sure another 50 years of "studies" and rovers is what we need! And then at the end of that we'll still not be "ready" for mars!

It absolutely needs to happen. If a company can't get ice cores from Mars landed safely on earth for study then what hope is there for a manned settlement on Mars? SpaceX stands to make the most profit from this as even refrigerators are cheaper than sustaining human life.

>>8393468
>You HAVE to wait till the planets are in proper alignment again before you can make the trip back.
Stop being an idiot. We were obviously talking about the one-way trip. The free return trajectory gets you to Mars slower than a fast transit, and its return is only a backup option for if something goes wrong and you don't want to land at Mars.

Anyway, there's no single proper alignment for all trajectory options. That's why free return trajectories are possible in the first place. You can leave Earth or Mars just about any time to get to the other, it's just that sometimes it both costs more delta-V and takes longer, so there's no advantage compared to waiting.

>>8393537
>If a company can't get ice cores from Mars landed safely on earth for study then what hope is there for a manned settlement on Mars?
If NASA can't get rocks from the moon landed safely on Earth for study, then what hope is there for a manned landing? Oh wait, they did those the other way around...

This is basically just appeal to incredulity. You're setting completely arbitrary, unjustified hurdles.

Why do you need a fucking ice core from Mars on Earth? We know how to purify water. We know there's ice.

If we can send large payloads to Mars, in the hundreds of tons, the simple thing to do is send people. Robots are expensive, fiddly, and slow. The round trip is about three years, and the one-way window comes around less than once per two years, with half a year of transit time just to get payload there.

The sensible thing is to send people there one-way, with lots of equipment and regular resupply, until enough of an operation is set up to produce fuel for optional return.

The sooner we get started on that, the better.

>>8393548
>We were obviously talking about the one-way trip.
We obviously weren't.

>The free return trajectory gets you to Mars slower than a fast transit
It gets you there faster than the minimum energy trajectory.

>Anyway, there's no single proper alignment for all trajectory options.
This doesn't invalidate the argument. You still have to wait for the proper alingment. Yeah it's a different one, but you can't just turn and burn.

>You can leave Earth or Mars just about any time to get to the other, it's just that sometimes it both costs more delta-V
"Just" more delta-v. Stupid redard, delta-v is the most valuable currency in orbital mechanics. And no one can afford to waste it for reasons other than increasing mission success/survivability.

>>8393597
>>We were obviously talking about the one-way trip.
>We obviously weren't.
Please stop being stupid. Here's where it started:
>>8392705
>3 month trip wouldn't have any noticeable increase in cancer risk.
>>8392715
>any manned trip to mars probably would be at least 6 months long due to the added safety of a potential free return
They're talking about whether to do a ~3-month trip one-way to Mars, or a ~6-month one-way trip to mars with the option of a ~2-year free return.

The rest of your response makes it clear there's no point in trying to reason with you. You're one of these low-intelligence people who gets angry and defensive and thinks they can prove they're not stupid by just not admitting it and arguing forever.

>>8393586
SpaceX WILL be doing shit like that for 2018, 2020, 2022, then likely the first ICT launch in 2024

>>8393619
>The rest of your response makes it clear there's no point in trying to reason with you. You're one of these low-intelligence people who gets angry and defensive and thinks they can prove they're not stupid by just not admitting it and arguing forever.
Translation: "I have no way to disprove your points so I'm gonna ad hominem you"

>>8393627
SpaceX will almost certainly not be doing sample return missions before a manned landing.

>>8391077
Only because I want someone to screen cap it so we can just post it to the reply like this.
>Why the fuck should we go to Mars?
Because it can and will provide massive leaps in technological improvements and inventions. It also is nessassary to go to Mars as it is the most friendly and forgiving planet for humans to work and live on with resources to produce fuel and other useful things for sustaining a colony.
>Whats the benefit?
See above.
>It's expensive, colonies on the planet would be expensive, there are no valuable resources there to mine, and the planets gravity and lack of a magnetic field will degenerate the people who choose to live there.
So was coming to America in the early days, it was also dangerous as fuck with high mortality both on travel and once making it to America. However, it turned out better after a while for the world and people who travelled to the new land.
>the planets gravity and lack of a magnetic field will degenerate the people who choose to live there.
Lower gravity is an issue we know about even before going there, and we have ways to combat it as well as the ability to find ways to adapt to it.
>At least the moon has materials that aren't abundant on earth.
And has little to no way to transport it back in a cost effective way. Not to mention even LESS protection from solar storms, micro meteors, and micro gravity. There is also so little known about space mining that there is no effective way to mine the moon.
>Mars is further than the moon.
A->B doesn't matter so long as you have proper supply lines and schedules set up for transportation.
>Why not have moon colonies, with rotating personnel?
Because we have been to the moon and have an ISS for testing things in near 0G. Going to Mars in a much more forgiving atmosphere will provide much more useful information for effects of living on other planets long term.
1/2

>>8394025
>Mars is a waste of time
No it's not. It can provide so much useful data for future missions including mining, long term settlements on planets, and help lay ground work for further solar system missions.
>Mars is a waste of money.
This is why we aren't on Mars or the Moon already, because people care about instant returns on investments. Musk is at least realizing that yeah this won't generate a profit anytime soon until we figure out more about mars.
>We'd be better off exploring our oceans.
We already do that, dogpiling into it with others won't provide anything more useful to humanity compared to what we already are doing.

Mars is better than anywhere else due to
>Gas Atmosphere
Even if weak this makes heating and cooling colonies, equipment, and landings easier. Not to mention slow, deflect/slow/burn some micro space junk hurling towards the planet
>Magnetosphere
While weak and deteriorating it still provides some shielding. There is also the ability to cover settlements with dirt and burrow into the planet for additional protection
>Water and gasses to make propellent as well as other resources.
Moon doesn't have anything like this and would be solely reliant on earth. Water could also be purified or have O2 extracted from it. None of these are available on the moon
>more gravity
Compared to the moon and the meme "floating cities" on Venus which is literally a meme

Mars is the best and most forgiving planet to start testing many of the technologies, sciences, and technologies we will need to use FOR ANYWHERE ELSE we go. It won't be easy, safe, or probably fun for the first batches of people that go but everyone knows that already.

>>8394074
>Moon doesn't have anything like this
uh it does have frozen CO2 & H2O in places.

>>8394074
also fk u floating cities is not a meme

20-40 years from now, Mars colonies won't be practical but O'neill cylinders will be. Mars is just a terrible place for humans to live and making it habitable would take far longer than building giant space stations.

>>8394107
Yeah, in cold, dark craters at the south pole there are lakes worth of water, and corresponding amounts of carbon compounds, with some nitrogen compounds.

Plus the rock is all oxides, which can be electrolysed to make oxygen (and in some cases, simply heated until oxygen is released).

You can also throws stuff from the moon to an Earth-aerobraking trajectory, by catapult at fairly reasonable speed, which means you can put absolute shitloads of material in LEO.

>>8394107
Harder to extract, we already know mars is pretty well off in those resources with minimal effort to obtain them

>>8393586

>You're setting completely arbitrary, unjustified hurdles.

I'm absolutely not. If anything a sample return mission, even something as fragile as ice cores, should not be particularly difficult for SpaceX. NASA doesn't want to do the dirty work of such an expensive mission, meanwhile SpaceX can provide an actual physical product in exchange for their service. As for the ice cores themselves, they are hugely important as, like on earth, they contain invaluable Martian climatology and hydrology data.

>>8393586

>Robots are expensive, fiddly, and slow.

Robots also have zero life support needs, only power. It's easier to build a durable robot than it is to keep someone alive in space and on Mars. Also factor in OSHA red tape, a colony will need heavy equipment anyway.

>The sensible thing is to send people there one-way, with lots of equipment and regular resupply, until enough of an operation is set up to produce fuel for optional return.

Such a thing requires actual knowledge about Mars, especially where the water is (if there is water). Ice cores are useful here.

>>8393844

what logic does that follow? Sample return is easier than a manned mission.

>>8394497
>Sample return is easier than a manned mission.
Sample return is development in a different direction than a manned mission.

Ask someone other than SpaceX to cost out a Mars sample return mission. You'll probably get a budget in the billions of dollars, maybe upwards of ten billion. The Curiosity rover cost $2.5 billion to develop. That's just for an arthritic rover that crept around at a speed measured in meters per day.

What's SpaceX's estimate of the unit cost of a rocket that can land 450 tons on Mars? $200 million. Development cost is $10 billion, but they're committed to spending that anyway, and can probably make a profit on it in the long term, so that's an investment, not an expense.

SpaceX isn't magic. They're efficient by prioritizing well. By conventional reasoning, they should have spend their development budget adding strap-on boosters and a hydrogen upper stage to Falcon 9, and even developed a bigger engine for the Falcon 9 booster rather than putting 9 engines from Falcon 1 on it. Now there's a real, proper rocket, right? A consensus-of-experts expendable launch vehicle. Look how efficient it is.

"Sample return is easier than a manned mission." is that same kind of conventional reasoning. It takes less mass. That's the main thing. Less mass, even if it means you end up sending a $2+ billion robot that takes a year, while being babysat by dozens of highly-paid specialists hogging the Deep Space Network, to do what a couple of guys can do in a day. Even if you have to develop a special mass-saving lander, and a special mass-saving return vehicle, and that will cost another $5 billion, because vehicles are difficult and expensive to develop.

But what if spending $2.5 billion enables you to land 4500 TONS of stuff on Mars? Is 4500 tons of cheap, ordinary stuff enough for a team of people to survive and set up propellant production so they can send the ships back to be reused, saving you $2 billion off your next load?

>>8391943
Oh come on, it has no fiduciary responsibility.
It's explicitly trying to support space colonization

>>8393586
> If we can send large payloads to Mars, in the hundreds of tons, the simple thing to do is send people. Robots are expensive, fiddly, and slow.
You have it backwards.

The limitations of rovers stem from the fact that the rover itself is the entire payload. During the journey, its power consumption is zero. While operating, its power consumption is a tiny fraction of that of a human.

You could have robots whose capabilities far exceed those of humans with a fraction of the associated life-support costs. And no-one is going to care about leaving them on mars once they're done with.

>>8393532
That 1% would get us to Mars though.

>>8391066
X (

>>8394625
I think SpaceX WILL do a sample return mission, paid for & done by someone else, carried on a 2020 or 2022 Red Dragon

Maybe.

>>8394025
>>8394074
Finally logical responses! TY famalam might make me reconsider.

>>8395049
>You could have robots whose capabilities far exceed those of humans
Okay, so if robots are so capable, where are the fully-automated mines and factories on Earth?

There's no such thing as "robots whose capabilities far exceed those of humans". Nobody's suggesting to send humans without machines, tools, and instruments.

There is still nothing near as versatile and adaptable as people that we could send in their place. A few people around to drive the big machines, make a lot of quick decisions based on good judgement, and bang on things that get stuck dramatically increase the efficiency and reliability, and dramatically reduce the cost, compared to remote operating the same stuff with a 20 minute ping.

>>8395515
> where are the fully-automated mines and factories on Earth?
Invalid comparison. Human workers end up being cheaper when you don't have to ship them and their survival requirements half way across the solar system.

Bear in mind that most mining and factory jobs are in low-wage economies. And most factories are heavily automated compared to a few decades ago.

> A few people around to drive the big machines, make a lot of quick decisions based on good judgement, and bang on things that get stuck
Robots can do those. Not necessarily some of the more complex decisions, but those don't need to be quick. Self-driving cars are already close to feasible, and driving in traffic is orders of magnitude more difficult than driving around an empty planet.

> compared to remote operating the same stuff with a 20 minute ping.
I'm talking about robots, not ROVs.

>>8395398
me personally, I am sick an tired of these 'elon will/wont go to mars threads'

He has always done what he says he is going to do. EOS. End Of Story.

I would prefer /sci to try thinking and resolving design problems and the logistics of it.

My current thinking: Electricity from solar panels is only useful for static stations. We need mobile, automated drilling rigs for tapping sub-surface liquids, maybe water. The design of an automated drilling rig is not difficult, powering it is. Currently investigating the smallest possible portable nuclear reactors (molten salt based) and trying to think how to automate a power transfer from a remote nuclear power tractor to a remote drilling rig (kind like refueling jets in the air).

This is the kinda stuff i would like to see on /sci rather than this babby tier muck.. but thats /sci for you, rare gold nuggets in a mountain of shit.

>>8395910
>I'm talking about robots, not ROVs.
If you're going to make that distinction, then nobody uses "robots" for space exploration, either. Every unmanned probe and rover is actively monitored by a team of specialists prepared to give it new instructions and write new software for it whenever it runs into trouble.

You're seriously ignorant of the state of the art in robotics if you think they're ready to replace human workers in general, but just that:
>Human workers end up being cheaper

Human workers are sometimes used instead of viable automation for cost reasons, but there are still many, many things which can't be automated.

>Bear in mind that most mining and factory jobs are in low-wage economies.
Because human labor is actually essential. Do you think "low-wage economies" are easy to do business in? They have low wages because they're disorderly and corrupt, with an uneducated, unreliable workforce. Your industrial operation might get nationalized, extorted, or destroyed at any time. But they need the workers. (also, environmental regs, taxes, "anti-discrimination" meddling, and unions combine to put practical industry someone in the range between uncompetitive and impossible in high-wage economies)

>>8395960
>tapping sub-surface liquids, maybe water
Yeah, Mars probably doesn't have those. No apparent active volcanism.

What they'll be doing to get water is breaking up the ground and boiling (or sublimating) it off. It's in the ground everywhere there, with increasing concentration as you get farther from the equator (with actual icecaps at the poles).

>Electricity from solar panels is only useful for static stations.
...where batteries will be charged and fuel will be synthesized. Short-range vehicles will run on battery power, long-range vehicles will run on methane and oxygen.

>>8395515
>where are the fully-automated mines and factories on Earth?
its called the ecosphere

without that extremely complex machines that produces food indefinitely humans would be shit.

if mars had oxygen plants and animals then yes, you would only need to take people there