SpaceX plans to send a spacecraft on Mars by 2018

Historically most mars missions that weren't russians or poo in loos or came after the invention of computers succeeded

you mean

>or poo in loos

Actually they were the first ones to ever succeed on their first time and their total mission costs were less than the Hollywood movie 'Gravity'.

Actually ESA's Mars Express was a success and carried a real scientific payload. The Indian mission was cheap but for payload/cost it was as expensive as other missions.

Well it had the Methane gas detector and helped with well needed surface mapping, which you can never have enough of. The worst payload/cost are the missions that fail.

The point was that their mission didn't fail, and it is likely that SpaceX can succeed as well. Nearly all 21st century Mars Missions have been successful, the odds are in their favor.

The only recent Mars failure since 2001 has been Phobos-Grunt with the Russians, and the Beagle 2 Lander with Mars Express, which was only a minor component of the mission.

>Space X needs to send their lying asses to the sun.
Dude, what?

>2018
If that's true they should have comprehensive and detailed plans for that mission right at this moment, otherwise they're lying.

I betted $200 with a colleague (a musk fanboi) that they're not gonna make it in 2018. And I know I'm gonna win. I think I'm onto a business model here guys, cowing musk fanbois with bets... They are well enough of them, and they are well stupid enough, might work on a grand scale.

Anyway, when they do send their shitbox in 2020 at earliest (spacex has a track record of being disastrously untimely -- even space sector standards), it is going to carry an irrelevant science payload (because no university can prepare a instrument significant/novel enough in 4 years) and won't learn us much. Even the Indian mission is much more significant that this.

Pure PR stunt to promote his muh mars colony pipe dream.

>I betted $200 with a colleague (a musk fanboi) that they're not gonna make it in 2018.
That's... rather brilliant, actually. Well done, user.

>they were the first ones to ever succeed on their first time
...after half a century of other people doing it. Don't expect anyone to be too impressed by something that was a hair short of being an off-the-shelf option by the time they did it.

>because no university can prepare a instrument significant/novel enough in 4 years
Even though I doubt the possibility of a 2018 Mars mission I'm going to outline a problem with your line of thinking: they could have been actively planning this for more than four years. See, I'm not particularly a fan of SpaceX because of certain business practices that just irritate me, but I'm even more perturbed by arrogant motherfuckers like yourself; actually I think you're just being contrarian for the hell of it. Just for fun I'd like you to outline (in detail, use multiple posts) as to why sending their Dragon spacecraft is impossible.

They have enough of them and there's a launch window in April of 2018, oh and they certainly have the ability to actually launch the craft itself. You're also assuming that there is a science payload, "novel enough" (whatever the fuck that means) to qualify on your arbitrary scale of "coolness" which I'm sure you'll use to weasel out of your bet if you lose. For all you or I or anyone else knows SpaceX is sending up an empty Dragon simply because:
>Pure PR stunt to promote his muh mars colony pipe dream.
Which, again, I'm confident you'll use to try to worm your way out of paying if you do actually lose.

>yfw he won't give you anything if you are right
>yfw he is the only one having a chance of winning the bet because idiots like you will pay if he lose

Perhaps I did not explain it clearly enough, but the bet is that if he launches anything to Mars in 2018, I'm losing my $200. But I won't. And all it takes is half a brain to see it.

>They have enough of them and there's a launch window in April of 2018, oh and they certainly have the ability to actually launch the craft itself. You're also assuming that there is a science payload, "novel enough" (whatever the fuck that means)
It means that the data collected from that instrument will actually help to advance the current knowledge about the planet that's probed. Scientific significant is like the first ever requirement that a space instrument has to fulfil in order to get funded. I keep forgetting that I'm talking to retarded freshmen...

> SpaceX is sending up an empty Dragon
So if the idea is to send an empty capsule just for the sake of sending an empty capsule, it is even dumber and even less worthy of my interest. Geez I should have made it $400.

Yeah I know he will probably not pay it (he's one of my students kek), but I'll have the opportunity to shame him for years on end

>It means that the data collected from that instrument will actually help to advance the current knowledge about the planet that's probed.
>advance the current knowledge
A simple hydrometer in the soil would "advance the current knowledge" because at the point sampled we would know precisely the amount of humidity. There, a fifty dollar instrument has advanced our knowledge of Mars.

>Scientific significant is like the first ever requirement that a space instrument has to fulfil in order to get funded.
>get funded
>private company
Do I really need to point this one out?

>it is even dumber and even less worthy of my interest. Geez I should have made it $400.
Then when an empty capsule sets down on Mars you would be throwing up all sorts of reasons as to why "well that doesn't count!" You're arguing this position with me and I didn't even make the bet and none of this isn't going to happen for two years:
>Perhaps I did not explain it clearly enough, but the bet is that if he launches anything to Mars in 2018, I'm losing my $200.
>But I won't.
>all it takes is half a brain
Conditions of the bet were anything getting launched? Shit, nothing even needs to set down then, it could be blown up in transit by the Crab People of Tau Ceti and you would have still lost simply because the rocket took off. Maybe you're leaving out some caveats you made with your colleague, but in two posts you've made it perfectly clear that the only prerequisite SpaceX needs to achieve for you to lose the bet is launch a rocket in April of 2018.

Congratulations.

>colleague (a musk fanboi)
>he's one of my students

>colleague
>student

Let me guess, he's some other kid in your 11th grade science class and neither of you have $200 dollars anyway.

>it is going to carry an irrelevant science payload
The science payload isn't the point. The point is:
1) to establish an affordable off-the-shelf option to routinely land bigger payloads on Mars than have ever been sent,
2) to test a system suitable for manned landing on Mars,
3) to get data useful for developing bigger landers.

It's a development flight. They haven't even decided whether to fly entirely their own payload or share the capacity.

>spacex has a track record of being disastrously untimely -- even space sector standards
Oh bullshit. It's like you're not familiar with how bad things normally are in the launch industry, and just want something bad to say about SpaceX.

Falcon 9's first launch was in 2010. Six years later, they've done 23 flights and will likely be over 30 by the end of the year. Ariane 5's first launch was in 1996, by the end of 2002 it had done only 14 flights. Atlas V started in 2002, by the end of 2008, it had done only 14 flights.

If you're going to point to the Falcon Heavy delays, you've got to bear in mind that they've already upgraded Falcon 9 to the point that it can do the missions Falcon Heavy was originally supposed to do. Now Falcon Heavy serves little commercial purpose except to expand the number of missions that can be accomplished without expending a core, so it makes no sense until reusability is working well.

As an expendable rocket, Falcon Heavy's only really competing with Delta IV Heavy and SLS, and a few capacity-pushing single-payload Ariane 5 and Atlas 551 launches. The rest can be served by Falcon 9.

>more difficult propulsive landings in the higher gravity of Earth.

you know jack shit, the mars landing is much MUCH harder

they wont be coming off at a comfy @exactly the right speed i want@ they will be going at @get from one planet to the other@ kind of speeds and instead of the thick juicy earth atmosphere they are dealing with the hardly distinguishable from a vacuum shitatmosphere of mars,
there surely exists an illegal bet market about rocket success, and barge landings must be the most important events

Are you going around between the space threads and being an idiot in all of them?

Landing on Mars with rockets is much easier than landing on Earth with rockets. The gravity's lower and the wind forces are negligible.

They do need a more capable heat shield than they would for single re-entry from LEO on Earth, but the Dragon V2 heat shield is about ten times what it needs just for that (since they want to reuse it for multiple flights without replacing the heat shield), and they do need to decelerate from a higher terminal velocity, but that's trivial compared to the precision needed for a landing.

These increase certain requirements (heat shield thickness and propellant capacity), but don't make the landing more difficult, and Dragon V2 meets those requirements.

why, my peanus weenus of course :)

hahah! :D

it's my weeeeeenus peanus! :) hahah

ITT: Elon Musk - my answer, of course, my peanus weenus :D

hahaha!

ok little kiddy boy sure

nasa has officialy stated that there is no way to landing on mars without extensive research and investigating onto new methods of landing, they said that the spacecrane was barely enough to land that tiny rover and had no fucking idea how to land anything bigger

but your fanboy musky musk le suddenly ebinly can land a people with 7 vehicles on it, yeah sure right, good luck being incoherent

i can have you reported for this post, did you know that?

Yet another non American pushing the world forward

The world would be better of without America and the middle east. Maybe without Russia too.

>another non American
elon musk is as american as they come, you think that because he comes from another country he's le ebin master man.

well i got news flashes for you bobby boy, america's is composed entirely of inmigrants like him who abbandon their personal identity and join the collective construction of a better tomorrow

oh and hes racist, big time
not your leftist marxist utopia idea of le ebin southafrican culture to the rescue
oh

oh im sorry
no
no
dont cry
its ok to be handed your ass inside you with a platter

well, think about it, if you werent such a pathetic inferior there couldnt be amazings absolutes like me, and who woudl want a world without heroes, amirite?

You seem more angry than the guy you were responding to. His purpose is to make people like you angry as fuck and it looks like he succeeded.

>you
>right
>ever
haha, keep trying kiddy boy

So, they figured out how to properly shield their crew from radiation?

well they didnt say it but anyone who knows a bit about the subject like me knows that the only mathematically correct choice is to take water around you and use it both as a drinking lifekeeper and a radiation away sender

If they don't make it in 2018, you can be sure they won't send it in 2019, because Mars launch windows only come every 2 years or so.

Then again, Elon might just strap on a football-field-sized solar cell array and a VASIMR. (I that line out of context could give half of Veeky Forums a boner.)

>Then again, Elon might just strap on a football-field-sized solar cell array and a VASIMR.
what??

youre delusional, a falcon heavy reusable alone can send a fully loaded dragon capsule on trans mars injection, there done. it just has to land like it does on earth

Has NASA ever relanded a rocket engine? Didn't think so. I'm not so sure they're the final authority of what is and isn't possible, not in today's age.

If we can land a spacecraft on the moon we can land one on Mars. The difficulty of landing something on Mars lies somewhere between the difficulty of landing something on Earth and on the moon.

Here is a scientific diagram to explain my concept in full detail.

>i just recently realised i was wrong so i say im joking

real inferior inferiorite

Now that I read it again, it seems that a line got dropped in editing before I posted, thus completely killing the joke.

I had meant to say that the only way to get there in 2019 would be with some kind of "magic" engine technology (like a big ion engine) with constant acceleration/deceleration the whole trip.

What I posted really doesn't make sense without that bit.

Musk should auction off some of the Mars rocks he will bring back. To raise capital for manned Mars mission. Then have one rock given away in a lottery for free. To generate hype for SpaceX.

damage control

>they wont be coming off at a comfy @exactly the right speed i want@ they will be going at @get from one planet to the other@ kind of speeds and instead of the thick juicy earth atmosphere they are dealing with the hardly distinguishable from a vacuum shitatmosphere of mars,
This entire post reads like somebody who is high on methamphetamine

That said, no it is not easier to land a fucking VTVL vehicle on Earth, Mars is very close to ideal conditions for that because atmospheric entry is a cruel mistress.

>nasa has officialy stated that there is no way to landing on mars without extensive research and investigating onto new methods of landing,
[citation needed]
That aside landing a Dragon would qualify is a "new method of landing" because so far everything that's gone to Mars has been small while a Dragon is very large and very heavy and it's doing it under the power of retro rockets.

>good luck being incoherent
The lack of self-awareness here is amazing, it's like a raging drunk yelling at the entire bar to sober up.

>i can have you reported for this post, did you know that?
I'm not going to lie, I laughed pretty hard. I can "have you reported" for your posts too. (or I'll do it myself since I'm not a bitch) To be fair, is a coward for deleting the post in question.

I got the joke because I don't sniff glue.

He said if they miss the 2018 launch window Elon Musk will just will the mission into being, thus proving everyone wrong simply because he can. Not exactly an amazing joke, but hey, it was completely understandable.

>>/pol/

Its not really relevant for this mission, seeing as there will be no crew.

Dragon's a lander, not a transit vehicle. People would need something bigger to stay in.

Anyway, the general idea for radiation protection in a Mars trip is to have a radiation shelter consisting of supplies for solar radiation storms, and just tolerate the cosmic radiation otherwise.

Cosmic rays are a lot harder to shield against than lower energy solar protons, but the dose is smaller, so you just get a bit higher risk of cancer, like you get from being an airline pilot or a LEO astronaut. Solar storms can be severe enough to cause acute radiation sickness and a fast death.

Generally, if you've got enough supplies to survive the trip to Mars without any really extensive recycling, you can nestle in a coccoon of them when a solar storm comes. There isn't any practical way to shield the entire living space, the mass would be huge.

This is a cool use of their hardware and leftover money.

It's when Musk talks about 'Mars colonial transporters' and giant methane/lox launchers that I start smelling BS to get dreaming young engineering graduates working for lower than industry standard pay...

Everything spaceX are developing has a short-term financial reward. Dragon allows them to fulfill NASA commercial crew contracts, falcon heavy to launch defense payloads, ect.

Sure, you can do 'red dragons' with that, but I just don't see how they go from running falcon9/heavy/dragon to their large scale mars projects. The profits from the existing pursuits just wouldn't be enough to develop a set of vehicles at least as ambitious as Apollo for no short-term reward.

So I think they would need public funding to colonize mars. I would like to be wrong though.

?
their raptor engine is almost done

>The profits from the existing pursuits just wouldn't be enough
They are making billions of dollars now, and you would be a retard if you think it costs them as much to produce a new family of rockets, as it might cost the ULA or whoever

>short-term
thats bullshit, they had long term mentality since the beggining

the only reason rockets are reusable is because it was planned from the start

>They are making billions of dollars now
billions of dollars just barely cover what they want, a measly 3 PEOPLE to the MOON costed about 50 billion todays dolar

he wants to take 100 people to mars, which is like 100 times farther

so ballpark 50 billion times 33 times 100 youre talking abotu no less than 165.000 billion per trip

thats

165.000.000.000.000 dollars per trip

its a ballpark estimate i may be a bit off but not by much

Government organizations and government contractors exist to spend money
It didn't "costed" 50 billion, thats just what they spent

>their raptor engine is almost done
[citation needed]

Almost done is has gone through a ton of static firings and the bugs are nearly ironed out, not prototype non-flightweight preburners investigated. Raptor is in the research phase.

if it didnt cost that then it cost more, stop agreeing wtih me

>There isn't any practical way to shield the entire living space, the mass would be huge.
Yeah, about that, I've been spitballing an idea I encountered awhile back and despite my professional bias I think it might be the best way to go: superlifts in space. In the shipbuilding industry we manufacture sections of large vessels and then assemble them in the dock, each movement of these pre-built sections is a "superlift" done by large cranes. I think it would be really, really smart to stop with using what is essentially a dinghy to try and cross an ocean and actually build a proper interplanetary ship in orbit.

We're going to have to figure out how to do it eventually, but building something large (maybe not handymax large, that's pushing it I think) would allow for a round-trip vehicle that could absolutely accommodate water reservoirs (bilge tanks?) large enough to adequately shield the living quarters. You could carry more/larger landers to Mars, it would be a better option.

>I would like to be wrong though.
I'm hesitantly confidant that you will be, but there is something that stands out in your post that you're dismissing:
>young engineering graduates working for lower than industry standard pay...
This is PRECISELY what SpaceX does, most of their workforce is young and driven, yes, but they do put in a massive amount of hours and people who leave say it's too hectic. That's how they manage to pull off all this interesting shit while being, essentially, on the brink of financial ruin and it's only until recently that this paradigm has changed. Musk knows what he's doing but I question if such a workplace culture is good in the long term; what happens when those young and spunky engineers get older? There's no secret regarding the difficulty in upward advancement at SpaceX, as young people get older they tend to stop loving their job and start preferring stability instead.

Yes, but in terms of the topic in discussion, the 2018 mission, radiation shielding is pointless as there will be no crew, just a science payload.
But for a manned mission, yes they will need some kind of shielded habitat-module.

>his is PRECISELY what SpaceX does, most of their workforce is young and driven, yes, but they do put in a massive amount of hours and people who leave say it's too hectic. That's how they manage to pull off all this interesting shit while being, essentially, on the brink of financial ruin and it's only until recently that this paradigm has changed. Musk knows what he's doing but I question if such a workplace culture is good in the long term; what happens when those young and spunky engineers get older? There's no secret regarding the difficulty in upward advancement at SpaceX, as young people get older they tend to stop loving their job and start preferring stability instead.
i see nothing wrong with this, they are literally the only space program where people really believe in dreams and are not there to accomplish some evil political or beliigerant motif

>I just don't see how they go from running falcon9/heavy/dragon to their large scale mars projects. The profits from the existing pursuits just wouldn't be enough to develop a set of vehicles at least as ambitious as Apollo for no short-term reward.
Falcon 9/Heavy and Dragon have allowed them to start from an expendable rocket and splashdown capsule, and get experience with all the technology needed for a fully reusable vehicle.

The point of BFR is not so much to be big as to be fully reusable, and to take maximum advantage of that reusability. Flyback lower stage only, no barge landings. Upper stage also lands near the launchpad. No scarce, costly helium, self-pressurizing propellants only. Fuel tanks insulated well enough to be suitable as storage tanks, meaning the vehicle can sit fuelled on the launchpad indefinitely, and the vehicle is thick-skinned enough to tolerate worse weather. Performance surplus can be used to fly in poorer conditions, launching at lower speeds to cope with worse winds, rain, etc. or to do high-delta-V missions such as circularizing a GEO payload before returning to Earth, use a cargo bay rather than a disposable fairing, have shuttle-style fine maneuvering capability and a robot arm for modular construction or sample retrieval, etc.

It all has advantages for the conventional launch market, and it won't be all that much larger than Falcon Heavy. Falcon Heavy's a beast. With crossfeed and a good hydrogen-fuelled upper stage, FH could rival Saturn V.

So they're building a somewhat bigger vehicle (maybe about triple the size of Falcon Heavy), with a larger payload, which will fly at lower cost due to better reusability and cheaper consumables, and has various other operating advantages. Developing this isn't a clear business error even if the spaceflight market doesn't grow in response to the reduced prices and increased launch availability.

The ability to do Mars missions is largely a side-effect.

>With crossfeed and a good hydrogen-fuelled upper stage, FH could rival Saturn V.
im gonna need source on that

i thoght that falcon heavy had a capacity of like 50 tons to low earth orbit and saturn V of 100

>i see nothing wrong with this, they are literally the only space program where people really believe in dreams and are not there to accomplish some evil political or beliigerant motif
That's probably because you don't understand the psychology of being in that kind of environment, it affects morale and I suppose saying people get "burned out" is a good way to put it. You're also probably young, too young to fully appreciate what a stable job can provide in an otherwise competitive career.

It's a very real concern for the viability of SpaceX as a long-term company, the automotive industry had to learn the hard way about this and it's still shows today. Dreams are nice, but companies don't run on dreams and they never will; it's naive to think that "belief in dreams" matters beyond the conceptual stage of any project.

>blah blah blah muh money

you see that is the difference

the difference between americas original space program that even tough having a ginourmous amount of money, really several orders of magnitude above what was needed for the task, only made a few symbolic achivemnts that were never repeated and had to work real hard to beat a communist shithole that was a feudal country 30 years ago and a space program that with fewer resources revolutionises continuously

>what happens when those young and spunky engineers get older?
Then the technology they've developed will still be there, and there'll be a fresh batch of kids taking over from them.

>you see that is the difference
No it isn't, you bring up two government-run organizations when we're talking about for-profit private spaceflight. To put it plainly, NASA's massive price for any project was deliberately inflated, my brother worked at Thiokol for 15 years all the way up in Maryland and they made the Shuttle SRBs. Subcontractors for all the parts on the Shuttle were all over the country, they deliberately did that because of political reasons. Meanwhile the Soviets had, arguably, slave labor for the better part of fifteen years back in the 50's and 60's and you're pointing to that as a positive example? Neither have absolutely any bearing whatsoever on private spaceflight, completely different "business models."

>Then the technology they've developed will still be there, and there'll be a fresh batch of kids taking over from them.
Oh, so like Bigelow Aerospace? Where engineers leave in a huff and they have to "reinvent the wheel" every time?

Yeah, that's not a good way to run things.

>falcon heavy had a capacity of like 50 tons to low earth orbit
Now they're claiming 54 tons without crossfeed and an undersized, low-Isp upper stage.

Crossfeed would get them over 70 tons, and the biggest, best lox/h2 stage they could stick on top should boost it well over 100 tons to LEO.

They're not planning a lox/h2 stage, and crossfeed is likely also being ignored, in favor of simply developing their next-gen BFR, I'm just pointing out that most of the performance difference is in the upper stages.

Falcon Heavy will be somewhat over half the mass of Saturn V. Comparing the stages that fire on lift-off, FH has performance advantages from higher specific impulse, superior mass ratio, and parallel staging. A modern lox/h2 upper stage could also have superior specific impulse and mass ratio.

Saturn V's lox/h2 engines had an Isp of only 425s, whereas modern ones go over 465s.

FH probably couldn't equal Saturn V's performance with these upgrades, but it would be up in the same territory.

>Developing this isn't a clear business error
Who needs that kind of payload to LEO? I don't see how you can launch, say, 10 payloads at once when they all want their own orbits. Who are the customers for a superheavy rocket?

this is just a publicity stunt, great, their super-heavy can fly an empty capsule to mars but what about the food? the oxygen? the shielding? the return fuel? the porn? chemical rockets just dont have the power to do it in a reasonable time. .you either need some far-out electric rocket tech like VASIMIR or a nuclear rocket.

>claiming
>would
>planning
>somewhat
I'll tell you one thing, you are spewing out more hot air than the Saturn V ever could.

What the fuck do you want? Falcon Heavy hasn't launched yet. They've claimed 54 tons to LEO without crossfeed and with a small lox/RP-1 upper stage. Those numbers aren't 100% certain because it hasn't launched yet. Obviously, it would gain a lot of performance if they implemented crossfeed and used a large lox/H2 upper stage.

SLS is supposed to go from 70 tons to LEO to 105+ tons to LEO by adding a large upper stage (the Exploration Upper Stage). I can't think of any reason why Falcon Heavy couldn't get a similar performance gain.

How are they going to make money in space?

I've read "Mining the sky" - J.S. Lewis several years ago when I was a kid and it advocated the use of asteroids to leap frog onto the entire solar system.

Going to Mars seems like a noble endeavour but I can't imagine it to be a commercially viable project. It would be rather sad to see another retreat back from space because we did not try to take a sustainable approach.

ITT: High school science teachers who are jealous of Musk's accomplishments and so they try to derail these threads with their pessimism.

I think the whole idea is not that Mars will be commercially driven. Maybe in 20 years we will start to see some asteroid mining, and maybe 20 years after that something will start to be done with the Moon. With profits from this some companies might be able to pull of Mars colonies or something. This said, I have serious doubts that asteroids are even profitable. They might not be as resource rich as we think at the moment, and even if they were, the problem of transportation back to Earth remains. It is very difficult for large masses to be safely brought back to Earth. Unless this is addressed, it doesn't matter what those asteroids have because it won't be profitable to bring it back.

You aren't gonna be crashing the asteroid into earth.

It will be the same as any mining.

I meant using current reentry tech. How do you suppose they will bring tons of materials back to the surface of the Earth with current technology? It simply isn't financially feasible.

Also the price of platinum would quickly inflate if asteroid mining did occur on a large scale.

Well, actually it doesn't make a lot of sense to bring it to earth instead of use it for space goods. It cuts the cost of needing to blast stuff out of the gravity well.

>It cuts the cost of needing to blast stuff out of the gravity well.
Exactly. We won't have a chance to escape this gravity cheaply until it's time to throw the moon at the Earth and pick up the pieces.

No in the book that I mentioned, J.S. Lewis does not intend for the mined resources to be send back to Earth. Rather he envisions them to be resources which grow our industrial capabilities in solar space, for example water could be sold to space stations which means that more cargo to stations would be people rather than raw material.

I actually agree with Lewis here, in that, he does not see a profit for mining asteroids for Earth's sake but for the sake of people who can start living in outer space. A sustainable community that can live in the vastness.

I think that the human body will always be the bottleneck in all these plans, sadly, unless we can modify it in ways to make it suitable for space. It's all a long way away it seems when I think about it.

We just need a generation ship. We can evolve the traits we need manually.

Need a space economy grand enough to build such a ship, in space.
We need to know if we can reproduce in space.

The markets & demand will develop as costs continue to decrease

you really believe NOONE could make use of large payloads to LEO, for 1 million a launch?

I don't see how asteroid mining is difficult or costly
It's more a matter of "just doing it" than having government agencies pissing away billions for nothing.

I believe the BFR will be extremely big and fully reusable, you need a lot of payload to LEO to accept 50% loss for reusability.
Larger the better, barring material limits.

>a space economy
Shit. This could take awhile.

?
You crash the shit into earths atmosphere and land it in some isolated area
For rare metals, asteroid mining will be immediately practical, for mining of cheaper shit in bulk will likely take longer

Small steps, I am rather optimistic that we are destined to see greatness in future. Take for instance we have several companies today who want to mine asteroids, and I just found out that Lewis is in charge of one such company (Deep Space Industries). If these companies can keep SpaceX (or other similar launch platforms) afloat without the need for governments that would be a great feat indeed.

>I actually agree with Lewis here, in that, he does not see a profit for mining asteroids for Earth's sake but for the sake of people who can start living in outer space.
You won't drive the development of extraterrestrial mining without providing an immediate benefit for terrestrial interests, period. Mining an asteroid is a high capital high risk investment that would take a long, long time to see anything resembling a return.

This is not a model that will attract investors easily, and this only gets worse if the investment's returns are entirely locked up in an absurdly high-risk environment; i.e. the orbit around Earth.

I want to become a nanite fog and eat them. They probably taste great with the right taste buds.

wait so you're saying that an apollo mission could be launched with a falcon heavy if everything were maxed out?

? Space shit isn't high risk

>You won't drive the development of extraterrestrial mining without providing an immediate benefit for terrestrial interests

Perhaps with space based solar panels, they can be used to power both industry on earth and space. They would alse be reliable during night and day.

>does not intend for the mined resources to be send back to Earth. Rather he envisions them to be resources which grow our industrial capabilities in solar space, for example water could be sold to space stations which means that more cargo to stations would be people rather than raw material.
platinum is obviously the choice

A dragon capsule is now currently capable to bring back to earth 3,310 kg of unpressurized cargo.

Current price of platinum is $34,658.50/kg

That means it can return 114.719.635

Thats almost double the launch cost of a falcon vehicle. And this is a vehicle that hasnt been created to that task, that isnt optimized for volume, its considering prices to sell to others not the real cost that the company would have if its manufacturing themselves and it FOR SURE does not take into account reusability

its almost inevitable, if elon musk can bring the cost of reusability down by creating a succesfuly reusable falcon heavy then the idea of importing platinum from space will be too atractive, at least one, probably more investors will implent it, and from there on it will be a cascade effect

>Space shit isn't high risk
Uh. I don't think you understand what "high risk" is and what we're talking about.

>Perhaps with space based solar panels, they can be used to power both industry on earth and space. They would alse be reliable during night and day.
I recognize that you're thinking but this guy hits it: >platinum is obviously the choice
That's exactly what's needed, everything out of the platinum group is ideal for terrestrial interests and the pitch would be basically, "hey investors! My project, which has several years of R&D behind it and on the team> who have worked on is capable of immediately returning a X profit after Y years of operation."

This is a lot more enticing than, "we will bring back all sorts of mineral resources that have a large pricetag, but it's going to stay in orbit so we can supply other people's risky and expensive operations!" Compounding risk doesn't attract investors, even the most cavalier ones, not without some way to assure them sufficiently. When you're dealing with something that has literally never been done before the assurances that can be offered are extremely small.

>probably more investors will implent it, and from there on it will be a cascade effect
Exactly. Initial mining efforts are going to be small, yes, but they'll be the real test to see if it's possible and profitable. Commercial spaceflight was not even a possibility during the Cold War, it was basically some science fiction "well in the future" proposition. Really it wasn't until NASA pioneered a lot of the technologies involved (well, at least in the US) in the process of launching rockets, then commercial spaceflight was attractive enough to at least try.

not only that, once platinum start getting imported, the market will grow.

ther eare a lot of applications that arent applied because it would make no sense

like, with abundant platinum you can make some sort of super efficient battery that makes electric car like 50 times more efficient that fuel cars and it will be a revolution of progress

The problem with exploring space for resources is diminishing returns. Sure the first asteroid will be worth billions, maybe even trillions like some people suggest. But the second won't be. And the third, and the fourth. Eventually it won't be worth the trip anymore because we'll have 400 of the damned things lying around.

I've always thought exploring space for mineral resources was a terrible idea because eventually it'll wear out. We need to explore space for the joy of exploration or we're doomed.

>we'll have 400 of the damned things lying around.
youre missing the point

the market will grow as more resources are avaivable. shure, prices would drop a bit of percentages initially but as the new market appears it would be fantastic

hell for a complete closed circle elon musk could bring down a platinum asteroid and use it to make ultra efficient batteries for its tesla car

it would be the publicity stunt of the millenium

Successful Red Dragon would be the greatest marketing venture ever.

Private space firm sends robot to Mars, and returns with rock samples.

wait so, basically, once we get a couple of fuel miners in orbit we have free fuel for ships right?

like, giant ships could just ressuply fuel converted from the water right?

plugnstay.com/what-happens-outside-stays-outside-tesla-testing-bioweapon-and-hepa-mode/

>Sure the first asteroid will be worth billions, maybe even trillions like some people suggest. But the second won't be. And the third, and the fourth. Eventually it won't be worth the trip anymore because we'll have 400 of the damned things lying around.
This is a fine post demonstrating a complete lack of understanding in basic economics.

Using your logic we would have stopped mining for tin in the 1940's because there was an explosion of iron mines and "it wouldn't be worth it anymore." On the contrary, WWII was in full swing and we managed to finish off most of the hematite deposits in Minnesota.

doubt it will pan out, more like 2028

Let the kid dream man