OK, several people have asked, in off-topic comments and email, about this announcement by SpaceX from last week, and wondering why I haven’t noted it.
Two reasons: first, a lot of it is in a piece I wrote for Popular Mechanics last week, and expected to run last week, and I didn’t want to step on the story here. Second, I didn’t think it was that big a piece of news. There’s little here that hasn’t been known for years to people who have been following the company and Elon’s plans. All it does is flesh out numbers on the thrust of the Merlin 2 and payload for the BFR.
As for whether I think that it is a challenge to my ongoing jihad against heavy lift, well, maybe. As I told Max Vozoff at lunch the other week, I’m not opposed to heavy lift in principle — I just think that it is unnecessary at the present time, and that it will be ghastly expensive if done using NASA legacy hardware and work force (and perhaps even ULA-legacy hardware, too, though that will be somewhat more affordable). If Elon can make it work economically, then more power to him, but I expect him to do it on a fixed-price contract that has to fairly compete with solutions not requiring it. For instance, if he wants to bid for propellant delivery, and thinks that he can beat the price at the depot of other bidders, go for it. I just don’t want the taxpayer to subsidize the development of what I consider an unneeded vehicle.
My WAG on this is that if he can get somewhere in the range of 500 metric tons/year paid payload for 10 years, he can make it work financially. He can probably do it on tighter margins than that. I have no inside numbers on the vehicle costs other than the $1B number mentioned in one of the articles I’ve read. There are a number of ways to make up those numbers and perhaps the possibility of ‘low cost commercial’ heavy lift might help make a market where one did not exist before. Elon could spark something like that whereas an Ares V makes commercial folk think “Nothing to see here, just move along…”
Is BFR an acronym for Big Effin Rocket?
For instance, if he wants to bid for propellant delivery, and thinks that he can beat the price at the depot of other bidders, go for it. I just don’t want the taxpayer to subsidize the development of what I consider an unneeded vehicle.
Hasn’t that been your consistent position (and that of New Space in general) all along?
This plan is like Von Braun and Korolev’s plans for Mars exploration on steroids. It is useless. The technology would work, after investing a heck of a lot of money, but there would be no point doing in it other than planting a flag there. There is no market to pay for it.
What we need is to figure out a way to monetize near space. Space activities should at least generate enough revenue to pay for their own running expenses.
What these people are proposing is akin to colonizing the New World before settling Iceland, the Azores, or Bermuda. It means you need to bring every supply along with you for the equivalent of a long trip across the desert. It increases risk and expense versus using multiple forward bases. Using nuclear does not solve the fundamental issues with this approach.
We would be better off saving the money used to develop nuclear thermal propulsion, or whatever, for using it in a broad spectrum of simpler technologies which put together will enable a permanent human presence in space.
We need to be able to generate or recycle most of the necessary mass, to sustain human presence, outside the deep Earth gravity well. This means we should focus on consumables such as oxygen, water, food, and fuel. The tools used to extract these consumables in space should be as simple as possible, so space settlers can maintain them without relying on expensive resupplies back from Earth. Or when this is not possible they should be low maintenance.
We are talking about simple technology which can be manufactured using simple tools. Like solar furnaces, solar thermal propulsion, hybrid LOX/aluminum rockets, magnetic launch, or whatever.
For space development the government could apply a couple of strategies:
– One would be to do something akin to the East India company, where a for profit monopoly was set up specifically to explore the new market. Profits would be reinvested to expand the market further. This is the mercantile approach.
– Another strategy is to fund certain milestones to bootstrap an actual diverse market. The milestones could include putting people into orbit, the moon, or getting them to live there on local resources. Enterprises established in the moon would be free of taxes. The state would fund space settlement specifically for certain applications, such as mapping of local resources, or maintenance of satellites.
what I consider an unneeded vehicle
Payload determines need. We don’t know what the actual cost of the Merlin 2 will be (<$50m/unit) but one replaces three for higher T/W on the current F9. So it may make economic sense at some cost point if they can amortize the development cost over enough flights which includes the new variants down the road.
there would be no point doing in it other than planting a flag there
The point, from SpaceX perspective, is the goal of colonizing mars which they explicitly state. It has nothing to do with planting a flag.
we should focus on consumables [that require simple tools] space settlers can maintain
Exactly right. But this isn’t such a big deal from development cost. Designs would have an economic incentive to be developed and sold once it’s generally understood that we are seriously going to colonize.
…the government could apply a couple of strategies [to monetize space.]
Why assume the government has to take the lead? Why assume the taxpayers have to pay for it? Elon is not alone. All it would take is enough people willing to spend their own money. To get that you need to show them equity. Real estate would do that.
Two other things. Elon has said the heat shield on the dragon could handle mars return. I hope that isn’t an implication that the dragon is a planned mars vehicle. Perhaps it could be the bridge of a spaceship but it’s real operational environment is relay between earth orbit and surface. We need a real general use spaceship with lots of internal volume for going to mars and everyplace else.
Second, the government can have a role. Developing a nuclear engine would be a useful, although not absolutely required, role. Space is an unequaled opportunity to reassert the rights of individuals over government… or it could be just the opposite. I don’t want the government taking the lead, nor do I want a single company taking the lead. Company towns are worse than government reserves.
Monetization is a direct result of ownership. Life, liberty and property needs to be the battle cry.
I like what Godzilla is saying. We should be out there mining water.
We should look for the best place to get water and distance from Earth shouldn’t be a limiting factor.
Please no strip mining on our only moon.
Please no strip mining on our only moon.
How would you, even in a hundred years, know?
All it would take is enough people willing to spend their own money. To get that you need to show them equity. Real estate would do that.
Then why hasn’t it? The solar system is out there for the taking. Why so little interest?
Then why hasn’t it?
Because god invented time so everything didn’t happen all at once.
It’s not that there’s little interest, it’s that your collectivist friends pushed through a lot of “common heritage of mankind” treaty language back in the 60’s that makes any potential extraterrestrial private ownership claims legally problematical.
Eagleson nits the nail squarely on the head yet again!
It’s not that there’s little interest, it’s that your collectivist friends pushed through a lot of “common heritage of mankind” treaty language back in the 60’s that makes any potential extraterrestrial private ownership claims legally problematical.
Dick, any particular reason you feel the need to be insulting? Did I say or do anything to deserve your contempt?
I’d like the Moon to be strip mined so that anyone with a modest telescope could look at the Moon and see that people were working and living there.
The Moon is Earth’s oldest landmark, sacred to numerous cultures throughout the history of our species. It will be there long after mankind has passed on.
What inspires some people will also breed resentment in others.
Do we want people 500 years from now, who are stuck on Earth (there will always be people who are not fortunate enough to visit space) to look up and see the tattered remains of abandoned equipment and plants?
Any development of the Moon needs serious consideration beyond how best to exploit its resources by a few select humans. Limiting heavy development to the far side would be a good start.
All I am saying is, we have one Moon lets not f it up for everyone else for the rest of eternity. Treat it with respect.
Do we want people 500 years from now, who are stuck on Earth (there will always be people who are not fortunate enough to visit space) to look up and see the tattered remains of abandoned equipment and plants?
We already left “abandoned equipment” there, forty years ago. Should we go remediate the site? Why is allowing it to be bombarded by meteroids on a continual basis fine, but not utilizing its resources?
All I am saying is, we have one Moon lets not f it up for everyone else for the rest of eternity. Treat it with respect.
We only have one earth as well. Does that mean that we should shut down all industry, and return to a state of nature? Are you saying that the entire moon should be a natural park, or only the part visible to the earth? What if the resources are only on near side? Will you be willing to purchase the real estate so that it can be set aside from those who would use it to bring life to it, and the rest of the solar system?
One other point:
The Moon is Earth’s oldest landmark, sacred to numerous cultures throughout the history of our species. It will be there long after mankind has passed on.
Long after mankind has passed on, it will be returned to its former barren and cratered state, unless we clean out all the debris in the solar system.
Now long would it take before all traces of Apollo are wiped out by micrometeroids? Millions of year, billions? Would that even happen before the end of the solar system? Not that I’m interested in keeping the moon pristine (I’d like to see resorts, mines and bases), just curious.
500 tons per year to Mars to be feasible? How much does the entire industry lift currently?
Guess I can answer my own question. From the May 2010 Semi-Annual Launch Report, I count 77 launches (33 recorded, 44 projected). If we were to assume these were all Delta IV Heavy max payloads, that’s just shy of 1700 tons in a year. If launch rates were to generously grow at a rate 5 percent a year non-stop, anyone care to wager at what point SpaceX could reasonably expect to meet the necessary demand to ship 500 tons annually to Mars?
Four Falcon XX per year (140 tons each) to support a mars colony doesn’t sound like a whole lot to me. The rate will of course depend on how deep the pockets are that are paying for it. Land rush, anyone?
The problem of course is those four launches (eight actually) would be bunched up.
Falcon XX, 140 tons to Mars. Each?
Setting that aside, there’s still the demand problem. What is there on Mars that an industry could justify putting a quarter of current year launched mass on her surface?
This, btw, is also the same problem I have with a “Flexible Path” that doesn’t at the very least set a public mission to deeply explore the Moon. What private interest is there in cultivating off-world mineral resources if there’s currently zero in prospecting for them?
SpaceX is not on a development path to much lower cost access to space, its short term future looks great, but its long term future does not look good. Upscaling glorified missiles instead of developing low cost access to space seems a particularly bad idea to me, especially as both seem to have around the same time line and cost. I am predicting that there will be no market for a SpaceX heavy launch vehicle – except perhaps NASA a couple of times a decade, if they can keep the pork flowing (“the pork must flow”).
Falcon XX, 140 tons to Mars. Each?
That’s to orbit. Then you refuel and send it onward.
Setting that aside, there’s still the demand problem. What is there on Mars that an industry could justify putting a quarter of current year launched mass on her surface?
Reminds me of the security guard on the border that knew this guy on a bicycle was smuggling but couldn’t figure out what. He was smuggling bicycles.
What’s on mars? Mars itself. A whole world waiting to be developed. A friend of mine moved to a small town, bought some land and started digging and making piles of rocks and sand. Guess what he sells? Rocks and sand.
Get people and equipment there and they will build industry assuming they have title to property and can sell the fruits of their work. What’s on mars? Life, us, hopefully.
I thought so. We’d still have to account for that.
I’m certain your bicycle smuggler benefited greatly from having suppliers and consumers, which is the point here.
There’s a whole world waiting to be developed just under 200,000 miles away. That’s a hell of a lot closer than Mars, and a lot easier to and quicker get to, and for the immediate future a lot cheaper to exploit than the Earth crossers we’d really want.
American countries didn’t just expand to from coast to coast overnight. Their people spread out cautiously from a number of coastal oil spots over the course of centuries, settling and developing the intervening territory to support the next wave of expansion. And this is the main problem I have with Flexible Path advocacy. Destinations matter, and we should choose them with an eye towards securing the greatest return possible on the investment.
That’s a hell of a lot closer than Mars
My contention is that the moon is too close. Yours is that mars is too far. There are a number of issues.
Does the moon support expansion to mars? Not anytime soon. Moving in and out of the moons gravity well loses any advantage it might provide. Someday we may have the infrastructure to catapult fuel to a Lagrange point but waiting for that day adds an unacceptable delay, IMHO.
The goal is an independent industrial colony. Mars has all the raw materials for an industrial society (the moon does not.) That gives us something we can build on. This is infrastructure we can start building immediately and not have to abandon. The moon (forgive me Heinlein) is not going to be independent from the earth for a long time, perhaps forever. It actually makes me nervous that they talk about cutting the trip down from two years to a month or so because that impedes independence. This isn’t a new world analogy where you can stop at islands for resupply. Going to mars, it makes absolutely no sense to stop along the way.
Mars has a substantial gravity and near earth normal day. Making it the closest earth analogy in the solar system. We should start with that. Even if we do eventually live in space (in a rotating cylinder at least a couple of kilometers in diameter) mars will grow faster initially. People on mars will drive to work (including teenagers) and live independent lives. They can independently choose what direction to expand. Direction having more than one meaning.
Yes, go everyplace else as well. We need to get serious about mars if we want the rest of the solar system in the shortest time. A colony on mars given enough initial resources will not stagnate. I fear that other destinations will just as the moon has for most of my lifetime.
Is there such a thing as too close? If I have a gold bar next to me, does it make sense for me to leave it be in order to go the next town over and search for one there?
I think you misunderstand me. I don’t see the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars. I see it as the stepping stone to the rest of the Earth sphere–to capturing asteroids that will be key to building a real spacefaring civilization in freefall about the Earth.
What does the Moon lack that we need to kick off a self-sustaining human presence in space?
Neither will Mars, only there you’re fighting the immense distance and gravity a third, rather than a sixth, as strong as Earth’s. The only reason I’d even bother with the Moon is because it offers a convenient foothold towards to capturing even more gravitationally favorable resources in the form of Earth crossers.
That is, of course, if going to Mars is your goal. I thought the goal was to establish a sustainable, growing presence in space. How is going to Mars the path that maximizes growth with efficiency?
So bear with the Moon for starters, capture some asteroids, spin them for gravity, and go to town.
Is there such a thing as too close?
When the question is independence I believe so.
How is going to Mars the path that maximizes growth with efficiency?
Because it demands an effort that will lead to the fastest growth in the shortest time… if we go beyond flags and bootprints.
The reason it leads to the fastest growth is twofold. The delta V required for growth resources is zero. You get your pick and shovel and hop in your buggy (fueled for free quite literally out of thin air) and go get them. Second, population growth can be zero delta V as well (although immigration should actually be quite large for the foreseeable future.)
To grow population in a space habitat will eventually reach the limit of the habitat and another will have to be built. Habitats in space will be a departure point more than a destination as far as migration. My sense is that will not be a fast process, although I could be wrong. Mars colonies will grow without that restriction. Energy is the only limiting factor.
I don’t see how. Once again, Mars is much hard to get to than other destinations that could serve as man’s first permanent home in space, and those destination have as much potential–if not more–for growth. After expending all the effort to escape Earth’s surface and atmosphere, why burden yourself with another?
That’s in the long run, and in the long run you can say the same about the moon.
Also in the long run, and the same goes for the Moon.
You have to do the same thing on the surface of a planet, or a Moon. Question is how strong a pull you want to fight while doing it.
Why wouldn’t these habitats become the principal home of mankind off Earth? You can build them to support life as comfortably as you please, spin them to live in the gravity you want, design them to support the length of day you desire, and most importantly you can size them as you need. In either the case of a planetary or space-based settlement, you’re always going to start with small bunches of housing and facilities to support the engineering of a larger, more habitable community. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
And where it concerns solar, a disadvantage compared to space habitats.
That’s in the long run
Not that long. The equipment they need to exploit local resources will go with the first landing. Actually it should be waiting on the surface before they arrive. Locating resources will be a first priority. Before they start mining they will get their initial base running but that shouldn’t take more than a month or so during which they should locate some good potential mining sites.
I would expect lot’s of productive activity for everyone soon and forever. All while the colony grows and thrives.
A space habitat will work toward it’s future as well. Long term they have the better of it, but I’d give the first hundred years to mars and depending on momentum the next half millennium as well.
It occurs to me that you seem to be making some very optimistic assumptions about the time and effort it takes to assemble sustainable habitats and prospect the land; and yet that’s besides the point. You’d have to set up the company town and survey no matter what your destination is, so the question is why are you choosing a destination that is farther away, harder to get to, and offers no return on the colonizing interests’ investment?
why are you choosing a destination that is farther away
It’s no farther in time than the settlers of the old west. Far away would be around another star. Mars is our own backyard.
harder to get to
My backyard would be easier to get to, but doesn’t give me a new world. Well, there is the microscopic world in my backyard, but it’s not a new life for me and mine.
offers no return on the colonizing interests’ investment?
You say. This is your biggest mistake. The return is in the eye of the beholder. You need to lose the fallacy of intrinsic value. Land on mars is worthless today because nobody lives there to give it value. Once people live there they will give it value and other economic values will also result.
What part of a whole new world of humanity do you not understand to have value? Be careful crossing the street because your white cane doesn’t seem to be working.
To be more specific. I can stay here on earth and own stock in a company setting up shop on mars. That stock will return value to me as that company grows in value (with absolutely no need for it to be exporting unobtainium to earth.)
Let’s make it clearer. I can stay in America and own stock in a company setting up shop in Germany. That stock will return value to me as that company grows in value (even if they only sell products and services only to Germans.)
Settling the west took two centuries from three different directions. But analogies aside, answer my question. Why waste time developing real estate as far away as Mars when you’ve got plenty right in the Earth sphere–close enough that prospective interests on Earth at least have a shot of making good on their investment.
Enough with this Disney “a whole new world” crap. You don’t settle your backyard because it’s already settled; you’re getting as much out of your property as the market permits whether you choose to live in a tent or not. And if you want to go and live in a tent, you likely don’t have to raise a billion or two from other investors to do so.
Setting aside your gobbledygook about how real-estate is valued, once again…what is so special about Martian development that it even competes with, let alone outcompetes, lunar, asteroid or orbital settlement? And none of this nonsense about “independence”–if you’re 4 days to two weeks out from Earth, you’re more independent than the most geographically separated pair of countries on Earth today.
Why waste time developing real estate as far away as Mars when you’ve got plenty right in the Earth
Why develop real estate in another town when you have plenty in this town? Because people have the right to make individual choices and some will value that real estate on mars to be of more value to themselves. You may choose differently, but that means less than nothing with regard to the choices of others.
what is so special about Martian development that it even competes with, let alone out competes, lunar, asteroid or orbital settlement?
If you don’t see it, nobody can force you to. However, if you’re open to it you might note that mars is a world full of resources, a sweet spot gravity (perhaps?), near earth normal day, not such extremes of temperatures, enough elbow room (believe it or not, this was a driving force in much of the new world settlement… odd isn’t it?)
Generally because you don’t. I don’t know how better to explain it. The Earth sphere is closer to the Sun. You’ve got plenty of mineral resources on the Moon and asteroids, along with plenty of volatiles. You’ve got more than enough space. And all of it is accessible with a substantially smaller propellant budget than Mars.
And people have the right to disagree, the struggle between ultimately decides the value of the property. If ruining yourself on Mars was the only price to be paid, we wouldn’t be having this argument. But we’re talking about risking the viability of an entire industry in pursuit of an obviously poor investment. If you’re not willing to give up access to space so someone can play Jeremiah Johnson on yet another big rock, it’s only natural you’d pooh-pooh the idea.
we’re talking about risking the viability of an entire industry in pursuit of an obviously poor investment.
All business is a risk. Do you not understand that even if you are correct and it is a poor investment the effort to do it advances our capabilities which others can build upon? Failure is how free enterprise works. Picking winners is what central committees try to do. You’d feel right at home I suspect.
This is non-sequitur. As I’ve stated before and will state again, even commercial development of near Earth space is dicey. Which is one of the reasons I still call for a return to VSE over this Flexible Path crap. If NASA’s charter to “explore” space means anything, it should be in the context of expanding economic opportunity for Americans in the fastest and most judicious manner. If government has any role to play, it should be towards the same ends that gave us the Northwest Ordinance, Lewis and Clark, the Louisiana Purchase, a century of land surveys to identify ripe territory for development, the Homestead Act, and the incident and consequent adjudication of title.
It should not be going places simply because they’re there. If anything, I expect the private sector to be even more judicious its exploitation of space.
I also understand that a colossally poor investment in private space at this juncture can kill an industry, regardless of the advances it makes. This is heavy industry, and you can expect an entire sector to expend TENS OF BILLIONS on a annual population of deliverables you can count in a quick minute or two. It is an industry typified by long lead times and heavy upfront costs. Sure, commercial space may drop the cost of launches by an order of magnitude or two. In which case, your costs and risk looks less like petroleum and more like pharma. Except unlike oil and meds, which sells to billions the fruits of its long labor, for the near future your rocket company could list out the total population of demand in a single spreadsheet.
Those customers, and your investors, are not going to judge your company simply based on its own innate characteristics, but by the performance of the sector as a whole. If half a billion goes down the tubes for a Mars mission that returns nothing, that’s a not unsubstantial chunk of the entire industry’s pie. Your institutional investors will treat you even worse, just for being in a basket called aerospace.
Picking winners (and losers) is exactly what markets do, regardless of who tries to rig the game. And considering this particular market is so niche that a handful of failures could wreck it, I’d suggest anyone interested in a future in space sooner rather than later better hope that the industry as a whole acts more responsibly than the central planners have. This Mars nonsense doesn’t fill me with much hope, though.