You know, forget about the Mars end for a minute. The gravity,

>>8788506
Forever is a long fucking time -- but yeah, a rocket that delivers payloads for a lot less money lowers the cost of putting payloads up.

>trivial

Not in and of itself, sine landing and exploration issues still remain things you need to pay attention to. But yeah, the abillity to put a lot more mass up a lot cheaper is better.

>massive space station

OK, but with the proviso that I am not sure mass is the ultimate metric for measuring the worth of a space station.

File: ark station.png (2MB, 1366x768px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1366x768px

>>8788806
A larger space station always opens up more capabilities. The entire ISS is the weight of one ITS payload right now; imagine what could be built out of 10 or 20 ITS payloads

An artificial gravity centrifuge, comfortable quarters for dozens of astronauts, dedicated zero-G manufacturing facilities, a solar transmission experiment platform, etc.

Of course
Space Stations would be pretty irrelevant though, would you build a colony in the middle of the ocean ?
Maybe low earth orbit tourism would finance that though

Yea the ITS can deliver payloads to the moon, just like to Mars.

>>8789383
It opens up the possibility of true space exploration. Asteroid mining wouldn't just be a pipe dream anymore.

>>8789383
There's certain practical uses for an L1 or L2 station

Also $100 million is pocket change by rocketry standards, you could basically plant a Skylab sized mass anywhere in the solar system for whatever reason you feel like

>>8789403
>t a Skylab sized mass
but that is misleading since you couldnt actually put a space station anywhere on the solar system, the further you go the bigger it would have to be. and more self reliant.

Altough you could have probes, probes up your ass, i mean like send one of those robot fuckers to every fucking piece of rock in this sorry ass solar system.

I mean, if the prices go down they're gonna have to start mass producing those automated bitches, like no longer THE I.S.R.U.A.R.E.R.S.U. joint constructed by 256 different goverments and 300 different scientific payloads each hand crafted by a different tibetan monk.


No, just le ebin "multipurpose interplanetary probe" MIP-1 MIP-2 MIP-3

just a change in propulsion modules if it's going past the orbit of mars and you're done.

Then youll have conversations like, hey joe i need to write an essay on the surface of enceladus. which one of the probe was there? was it the MIP-1240?

-No you dumbass, any probe from the 1524 to 1654 are assigned to enceladus, stop being such a lazy shit and do your research well

>>8789367
>, a solar transmission experiment platform,
didnt the musky musk specifically said that was a pipedream?

File: tZqc48v.jpg (860KB, 4288x2848px) Image search: [Google]

860KB, 4288x2848px

>>8788506

NUCLEAR PULSE PROPULSION
>NUCLEAR PULSE PROPULSION
NUCLEAR PULSE PROPULSION
>NUCLEAR PULSE PROPULSION

come on 500t is like half of a small orion design.
Just fucking do it already

personally can't wait til we get to cydonia and find out wtf is up with that five sided pyramid

>>8789987
>500t is like half of a small orion design

And without any nukes, with a comparatively tiny fuel cost. Launching the ITS as many times as would be required to launch the payload capacity of one large Orion pulse ship would be way cheaper.

>>8789981
What a bad photoshop

>>8790004
nukes are fucking expensive you retarded moron

it's the equivalent of using platinum for rocket fuel

>>8790007
actually if you look closely it's a real photo

>>8789973
I would imagine that if even MuskyMusk dont think its possible, then its probably not possible.

>>8790008
>nukes are fucking expensive you retarded moron
No they aren't dipshit, they are just highly regulated
There is no free market or free trade in fissile material
Civilian nuclear power plants were intentionally designed to contiminate the plutonium they produced, as an anti-proliferation thing.

>>8790528
Therefore they are expensive?

>>8789987
not necesarily, but once ITS is flying regularily, they could put a decent NERVA engine ship in orbit on one go and it would be way cheaper that insisting on chemicals.

The ideal would be a way to manufacture nuclear fuel of planet so that you get none of the hippie politician tree huggin crap of earth

File: pep.png (361KB, 858x725px) Image search: [Google]

361KB, 858x725px

>>8789367
>posts the 100 trash
REEEEEEEEE
GET OUT NORMIE

>>8789466
hearty kek


I think you're right on the money, OP

even looking at our recent history, you could put up FIFTEEN FUCKING SKYLABS, 500% THE PRESSURIZED VOLUME OF THE ISS for the same price of the ISS if you kept the Saturn V flying instead of the dumb protons and shuttles.

Upmass is important - not only for the amount of stuff, but for the benefits that amount of stuff brings.

- not having to have a 20 page document on the proper brushing habits for maximum toothpaste consumption
- not having to have every floor be a wall, every wall be a floor and every surface be a storage closet at the same time
-not having to shuffle around research projects every year because some prof was assmad that he wasn't getting station time like he was promised
-etc

>>8792866
And having seperate stations so that one persons delicate vibration sensitive zero g experiments aren't messed up by astronauts fooling around

Or doing other experiments like artificial gravity that have the possibility of destroying the station.

Can ITS build a space elevator (assuming we had the strong enough materials)?

>>8792914
you need to move a carbon rich asteroid into a very high orbit. then you have facilities on the asteroid mine, refine, and produce carbon/graphmeme material. which is then printed atom by atom on a long slender cable down to the earth's surface.

>>8790008
>nukes are fucking expensive
see
>with a comparatively tiny fuel cost

I said that using chemical propulsion is way way cheaper. You read it wrong.

>>8790528

Separating Uranium nuclear isotopes is not a cheap process. Breeding plutonium is slow, and requires a massive facility, and is therefore not cheap either.

>>8792840
>they could put a decent NERVA engine ship in orbit on one go and it would be way cheaper that insisting on chemicals

Why would that be cheaper? Thousands of tons of liquid methane and liquid oxygen are probably cheaper than a single NERVA. Also, the liquid hydrogen that NERVA would no doubt be using as propellant is more expensive than that liquid methane and oxygen, and they'd need more liters of it due to hydrogen's low density. Finally, trying to contain liquid hydrogen for extended periods of time is just too much trouble for what it's worth. Switching the propellant to something more stable doesn't help because that makes the Isp dip to below that of just simply using regular chemical propulsion.

>>8788506
yes
read the high frontier

>>8793177
It has a million times the power density, so it can handle being more expensive, then still come out ahead

Natural gas storage & shipping & processing is not cheap either, the price is driven down by bulk.

When we talk about the cost of nuclear weapons, the fissile material is a very negligible part of it

>>8790004
No one is going to let you fill the atmosphere with long term radionuclides.
>>8790528
Yeah so obviously we should make things cheaper by ignoring proliferation concerns so you can build your meme-ship more cheaply.

Orion project was classified as soon as they started working on nuclear shaped charges...almost like the government realized the extreme repercussions of developing something like that.

>>8794079
>by ignoring proliferation concerns
Proliferation concerns are a meme by people who want to destroy the nuclear industry

Something being done in a controlled manner in the west has no potential of proliferation

>>8794085
>Proliferation concerns are a meme

t. schizophrenic

>>8794079
>No one is going to let you fill the atmosphere with long term radionuclides.

Correct, I was not being pro-Orion drive in that comment. If you read what I wrote you'll find that I actually said that the ITS style of doing things, with many relaunches of the same chemically powered booster, would be much cheaper than a single large Orion pulse launch.

As a plus, with no nuclear bombs detonating in series in the atmosphere and in space, we don't have the effects of radioactive fallout and mass destruction of orbiting satellites due to the artificial radiation belts that would result.

>>8794146
fallout comes from ground bursts, airbursts are negligible in contamination

>>8794152

How many ground bursts would there be during an Orion pulse launch before the ship reached an altitude where the fallout became negligible?

How do we deal with the detonation of multiple nuclear bombs in space, where the last time we did so it fried many of the satellites we had up a the time, back in the day when we didn't even really rely on space communications yet?

>>8788506
Space doesnt exist. NASA, and all other space agencies have been taking taxpayer money with this knowledge. This may surprise you, but the Earth is flat. Im not joking. I pimped the heliocentric model for 35 years and then found out 3 years ago its all bullshit

>>8788506
>If there's a working rocket that can carry a 400 to 500 ton payload into orbit for less than the cost of two 20 ton payloads, won't that in and of itself change everything about space exploration forever?
No, because this rocket is not being designed to carry payload. The second stage is literally just a spaceship. It has no payload bay. Only a cargo hold.
>but they could develop a payload second stage and fairing
They won't waste money on that when development funding is so tight as it is.

>>8794146
>>8794152
>>8794168
If you watch enough anime and sci-fi you know that everyone gets to orbit then to some safe min distance before using their destructive propulsion systems.

>>8794152
So why dont we use airburst nukes to destroy places?

>>8794491

Because the fallout isn't actually negligible :^)

>>8794479
>everyone gets to orbit then to some safe min distance before using their destructive propulsion systems

So the main benefit of an Orion drive goes out the window, because you have to haul this massive craft into orbit and away from Earth to a minimum safe distance before you can actually use it. Unless you have chemical rockets beyond even what SpaceX is proposing, and are going somewhere beyond Saturn, there's no reason to use it.

>>8788506
>If there's a working rocket that can carry a 400 to 500 ton payload into orbit for less than the cost of two 20 ton payloads, won't that in and of itself change everything about space exploration forever?
But that's not the value proposition of the ITS, which is: carry a 300 or 400 ton payload (optionally including a bunch of people) into orbit for less than one tenth the current cost of one 10 ton payload.

And yes, being hundreds of times cheaper changes everything. ITS is essentially intended to be an airliner, which goes to orbit rather than to another continent.

>>8789383
>Space Stations would be pretty irrelevant though,

How so? If you can live indefinitely on a big station, you can then give it a small-ish shove and go... anywhere.

>would you build a colony in the middle of the ocean ?

Ignoring that some utopians want to do just that, the situations are not the same.

On Earth, we have lots of places where we can live without the hazards of floating in the middle of an ocean.

Off the Earth, every place we know about is lethal, living on a station no more so than anywhere else. At least you can build it inside the Van Allen belts, for some protection from solar radiation. And getting to it is easier than getting anywhere else.

>>8789393
>Asteroid mining wouldn't just be a pipe dream anymore.

I still wonder if Earth will decide to allow that to happen. Asteroid mining in quantities that would be economically important seems to involve throwing lots of big rocks at the Earth.

It is possible to imagine a downside for that.

>>8792959
So, i the real world, no. Not in the foreseeable future.

The first space elevator will be built on the moon. Cap this.

>>8794065
>When we talk about the cost of nuclear weapons, the fissile material is a very negligible part of it

And the political part is a very large part of it. Which I suspect gets larger when you tell folks "We're going to be slinging nuclear bombs and shit around over your heads, but it's cool, no worries."

>>8794531
Second.

With the proviso that, long, long term, building one to throw a payload at the star of your choice, and building/launching it off Earth, may be an idea that has some merit.

>>8794491
We have only used nukes to destroy two places, with detonation at 500-600 feet. Can't plot much of a curve on only two points.

>>8794531
Orion is for interstellar trips, where you can't get enough speed with chemicals rockets, but with nuclear propulsion you can.

>>8794658
>ITS is essentially intended to be an airliner, which goes to orbit rather than to another continent.

Just to be a wet blanket, STS was INTENDED to do much the same thing.

Intentions count for something, but not for much if the results don;t work.

Not saying the results won;t work this time, just saying Thou Shalt Not Count Thy Chickens As Hatched Until After Hatching Of Same.

>>8794531
>Unless you have chemical rockets beyond even what SpaceX is proposing, and are going somewhere beyond Saturn, there's no reason to use it.
No, what SpaceX is proposing is adequate.

A 10,000 ton Orion (the "advanced interplanetary" concept) would require about 1000 ITS launches to assemble at an Earth-Moon lagrange point, costing a few billion dollars. NASA could afford it, as could several corporations and even individuals. A small chemical or electric propulsion push would take it out of Earth orbit and to a suitable distance to use whatever dirty propulsion they wanted.

It could go out to Saturn (this design was proposed as suitable for a 3-year mission to Saturn and back), or it could be used for fast travel to Mars and back irrespective of launch windows (there and back in half a year, rather than three years).

>>8794680
It would probably be used for in situ manufacture. We would send the payload with mining equipment and build the mining/industrial station near the asteroid rather than moving the asteroid around to where the station is. Then you move finished products.

>>8794713
>would require about 1000 ITS
By the time you can do that, you'll probably have more than enough technology and payload in space available to refine asteroids in space and build everything there.

>>8794708
>>ITS is essentially intended to be an airliner, which goes to orbit rather than to another continent.
>Just to be a wet blanket, STS was INTENDED to do much the same thing.
Not really. The shuttle was only aiming for about $1500/kg to LEO, when the pre-SpaceX standard was around $5000-$10000/kg to LEO. ITS is aiming more around $20/kg to LEO.

What the shuttle was trying to achieve was still within the range of what was seen to be reasonably possible with expendable rockets, like with OTRAG, which was developed around the same time and aiming for similar cost targets.

The early enthusiasm for the shuttle was that it would be a step toward even more economical systems, without expensive expendable parts like drop tanks.

>>8794720
But if you move sufficient tonnage to be economically worthwhile, the same problem arises.

Getting hit by a few tons of iron ore coming in at orbital speeds is not much different than getting hit by a few tons of steel ball bearings coming in at orbital speeds. Other than maybe the latter is slightly funnier.

>>8794690
>The first space elevator will be built on the moon. Cap this.

I think it'll be built on an asteroid, my dude. Propellant-less slingshotting of bulk materials to the vicinity of any target object in the solar system, given a rapid enough spin and a long enough tether.

>>8794761
I'll stand by the distinction between "intended to do" and "actually does." While hoping that the wildest dreams of everybody involved in improving the exploration and exploitation of space work out.

But I'm from Earth, the "Show Me" planet.

>>8794773
You may be right. If we were not anonymous, we could have a bet and see who wins.

>>8794706
>Orion is for interstellar trips
see
>and are going somewhere beyond Saturn

I didn't say Orion is totally useless, I said unless you're using it for a very specific long-range kind of transport, the drawbacks of detonating thousands of nukes outweigh the benefits of payload and speed.

By all means, build a huge Orion drive in the asteroid belt and fly off towards Proxima with it, that's fine. Just don't think about using it to get to LEO.

>>8794780
We can still make the bet, we'd know if the other guy won or lost. Either way who cares at that point, there's space elevator somewhere where it makes sense.

File: old kid zim.jpg (136KB, 400x300px) Image search: [Google]

136KB, 400x300px

>>8794800
Odds are I'll be ded beofre any of it happens, I am an old fag in the "I am old but not a fag" sense.

But if you live to see one, and it is on the moon, raise a glass for me.

>>8794767
I don't think chemical rockets have the necessary energy density to move a mass significant enough to be dangerous to earth, unless maybe if someone is willing to wait lots of time performing complex orbital maneuvers to hit earth in 10 years with very little delta-v with said asteroid.

The economical viability will probably come from trade, since there will be people living there. They make cheap shit, probably for use in space that is cheaper to build there, maybe telescopes, or even ships, or just maybe something so easy to produce but can be made in huge bulks and nobody will really miss it if it takes years in travel, like bearings as you said, so they can just drift stuff like that for no money at all and spit it out like crazy since they have all this metal just lying around and can extract it for no cost at all, or things with rare elements, so they flood earth with titanium I beams, but it can't really do any harm because it arrives so slowly because of all that mass, so it takes years in transit. Then they buy stuff they need, food or something?

>>8794815
>unless maybe if someone is willing to wait lots of time performing complex orbital maneuvers to hit earth in 10 years with very little delta-v with said asteroid.

But given the tech to do it, mean people seem to get everywhere. Who do YOU trust with the tech to drop big-ass rocks on your city? I would suspect asteroid-shoving-around tech to be VERY controversial as it nears becoming practical.


>The economical viability will probably come from trade, since there will be people living there.

This would seem more likely to me, with little or no material being flung at Earth -- and thus little to no economic impact (or the other kind of impact!) on Earth.

>>8794826
You don't get my point at all. Moving asteroids takes lots of delta-v, it is HARD. So either you get some nuclear pulsed propulsion, or lots of rendezvous with smaller rockets, or you try to find a really intricate trajectory with lots of complex maneuvers that will make you wait decades. Either way some fag on earth will aim a telescope at you and find out soon enough. And if you've gone with the slow and steady way they will probably laugh at you "hey look at that fag trying to push a quintillion ton asteroid on a Jupiter fly-by. We're doomed! in 30 years" Then they would launch nukes at you and that is it.

You can also, of course, find an asteroid that will eventually have a near miss and hope no one sees you trying to move it, but there aren't that many and those that are know would probably be monitored closely.

File: 674657653673.png (24KB, 504x296px) Image search: [Google]

24KB, 504x296px

What did Elon mean by this?

>>8794168
>How many ground bursts would there be during an Orion pulse launch before the ship reached an altitude where the fallout became negligible?

Launch it from water

>How do we deal with the detonation of multiple nuclear bombs in space, where the last time we did so it fried many of the satellites we had up a the time

Do a polar launch
With nuclear pulse, you would want to go BIG, huge, hundreds of thousands or millions of tons. It's the same amount of nukes either way.

>>8794815
>They make cheap shit, probably for use in space that is cheaper to build there,
That really doesn't make sense, cheap stuff will come from population centers, not from isolated communities
Asteroid mining is really just a meme, its not something that would be truly desirable.

>>8795274
>Launch it from water

That doesn't solve any of the fallout problems, by ground bursts I was talking about low altitude nuclear explosions. Those are going to occur during an Orion launch whether the ship starts off in the ocean or on land.

>It's the same amount of nukes either way.

Except the nukes are bigger for a bigger Orion drive, meaning the fuel burn-up efficiency goes up compared to a smaller Orion drive, but the actual level of fallout increases drastically.

>>8795275
Why wouldn't there be a population center in a mining station?

>>8795275
We are approaching shortage levels of cobalt, tungsten, etc.

>>8794735
I highly suspect that we'll have mass manufacturing capabilities on the surface of Mars a good deal before we have the same in space. Most if not all current machinery designs and manufacturing used on Earth still works on Mars with slight adjustments (reasonably high gravity, etc), especially if performed within a pressurized environment.

Manufacturing in microgravity on the other hand will require a rethinking of practically everything. Absolutely doable, but you're looking at a windup time of 10-20 years minimum.

>>8796068
>That doesn't solve any of the fallout problems,
It's less of an issue detonating in water, well away from anyone else.
As well these devices would be substantially cleaner than 3 stage devices in the 50's
More inert material around each bomb would absorb neutrons, reducing fallout.

>Except the nukes are bigger for a bigger Orion drive
Not really, there are minimum critical mass needed to produce a nuclear bomb, and you aren't using the total potential of the maybe 5 kg of plutonium per bomb.
Not with a smaller Orion vehicle anyways.