–Rick Strickland
@rdstrick777
16 Jul 2019
@elonmusk, what’s the estimated Delta-v for the Starship when fully fueled in Space with 100 tons of cargo for the Moon?
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Replying to @rdstrick777
Approximately 6.9km/s —
Does that mean Starship could land 100 tons of payload on lunar surface, And return to lunar orbit?
And if Starship was fully fueled, one leave from the lunar surface to Mars surface with 100 tons payload. Yes, you waste delta-v {rocket fuel} landed on the Moon. And you waste delta-v just going into lunar orbit.
But I was thinking of couple of things.
If going to spend a week or more in orbit, you might instead want to spend a week or more on the Moon, rather than in orbit.
And other thing wondering about is getting to Mars with shorter travel time.
Also I don’t think you have settlements on Mars without causing markets on the Moon. And I think this would be the case even if there wasn’t mineable water on the Moon.
But in order to go to Mars via lunar surface or lunar orbit, I assuming that lunar water is mineable- so lunar rocket fuel market is started on the Moon. So if Mars settlements starts a lunar rocket fuel market, you two things, lunar water and lunar liquid Hydrogen which could make worth the trip. Or don’t need Earth water and Earth Liquid Hydrogen. Water used in trip to Mars, and liquid Hydrogen for Mars surface, to make methane, and oxygen to leave Mars surface.
Now, if there is not mineable lunar water, the Starship will lower the cost of governmental lunar bases. The Moon is good location for telescopes, and there lot’s research and science aspects related to Moon {the lunar surface is historic record of Earth and solar system, and etc}.
But in terms of lunar rocket fuel market, assuming there is mineable lunar water, the hard part related to it, is having enough market for rocket fuel in Space. And having Mars settlements easily solved that problem.
Now, I think you get to Mars faster, without needing nuclear rockets or things like beamed power. Chemical rockets using lots rocket fuel from High earth orbit {including low lunar or lunar surface}.
Starship can’t do the lunar mission you suggest due to the Moon’s lack of an atmosphere. The landing on Mars is support by aerobraking, where the martian atmosphere bleeds off most of the entry and descent velocity. Only the landing is propulsive.
I meant land 100 tons of payload on lunar surface, and then return to low lunar orbit without lifting any payload.
I’ve given up on the calculations, as there’s not enough firm data to trust any results I get. I’m not that good at it anyway! The last I heard (usually gleaned from Musk tweets and replies to same), to fly a lunar landing mission, such as the one shown in a SpaceX illustration (astronauts unloading 2 rovers on lunar surface), Starship has to fully fuel in LEO (5 tankers), transfer to a highly eliptical earth orbit, top off again (1 more tanker), proceed to Moon and land, then proceed to low lunar orbit with some payload (at least bringing the astronauts and their equipment back), refuel again (1 tanker, which resumably had to be refueled itself!) in order to come home and land on Earth. Mars is easier!
I don’t actually know if any of that is true. Gleanings are fun, but who knows? Musk, I guess. Not me.
I’m extremely dubious about a million people on Mars by 2050.
But a permanent colony of 10,000? Or a permanent outpost of 1,000? I think it might really happen.
The biggest obstacle to Mars settlement is going to be the economics of Mars itself rather than the transportation costs of getting there. Thanks to SpaceX.
“The biggest obstacle to Mars settlement is going to be the economics of Mars itself rather than the transportation costs of getting there.”
Yes and no. The transportation costs doesn’t just change Mars, it changes Earth. So, transportation costs lowering will transform Mars, but not saying it will not transform “everything else” also.
The economics of Mars will be related to Mars being better {in some aspects} than Earth. So that Mars has lower gravity than Earth can be aspect which better than Earth- there is economic advantage of having a lower gravity.
There might be economic advantage of world with higher gravity than Earth, but I don’t see it, at the moment. So if Mars was planet very similar to Earth but had higher gravity, say 1.5 gee. Then it seems to me that it would be worst than Earth or Mars.
So, the low gravity of Mars, means it’s easy to leave Mars or easier to export stuff from Mars. And if can grow food on Mars, then Mars could good place to grow food and export it to the solar system. Or Mars is important if humans are spacefaring civilization.
A disadvantage of Earth is that you can’t dig well very deep, due to Earth global water table and it’s a molten ball with a thin crust. Mars might have regional water tables, but even with water table, the water pressure is about 1/3 of Earth’s. And in terms of Mars “being mostly molten ball”, it could be also regional rather than global {until you get really deep}.
So, on Earth there are economic advantage of having cities being vertical and on Mars, cities could more 3rd rather than mostly 2 D.
But in terms economics, what critical is near term advantages. So what can be immediate, could be political. In simple terms, one could have low taxes.
Mike Bloomberg says he going to spend 2 billion dollar on 2020 presidential election. Or just picking who will be next US president is rather important to some people.
Another aspect with lower transportation costs, is we probably mine space rocks. And Mars has many advantages related to mining space rocks. Or Earth has NEOs and Mars has “better” near Mars objects.
Mars might not be as good in regard to with Main Asteroid Belt and Jupiter Trojans, though of course, Mars also has two moons.
I’d guess 100,000 is plausable within thirty years, a million by the end of the century. Gee, I’ll be a hundred years old in 2050. Not only do I hope I’ll still be alive in 2050, I hope I’ll be living on Mars. Surely there’ll be employment on Mars for a mechanical engineering technician/software architect/science fiction writer?
History is full of examples of genius who do something great and then spend the rest of their lives attempting to do something even greater and failing. For example, Tesla’s broadcast power, Einstein’s unified field theory. The jury is still out if his “Starship” concept will work. I hope it does and I live long enough to see it.
At this point there is a lot that could be done with just Falcon Heavy and Dragon capsules even should Musk pull a Tesla with Starship… ahem.*
We’re going to need a bigger FAA
If you have Amazon Prime, you might be considering what happens here about 2 minutes before the end of the episode…
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0819047/?ref_=rvi_tt
“We’re going to need a bigger FAA.”
We’re going to have to get rid of the FAA.
Jesting
–Rick Strickland
@rdstrick777
16 Jul 2019
@elonmusk, what’s the estimated Delta-v for the Starship when fully fueled in Space with 100 tons of cargo for the Moon?
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Replying to @rdstrick777
Approximately 6.9km/s —
Does that mean Starship could land 100 tons of payload on lunar surface, And return to lunar orbit?
And if Starship was fully fueled, one leave from the lunar surface to Mars surface with 100 tons payload. Yes, you waste delta-v {rocket fuel} landed on the Moon. And you waste delta-v just going into lunar orbit.
But I was thinking of couple of things.
If going to spend a week or more in orbit, you might instead want to spend a week or more on the Moon, rather than in orbit.
And other thing wondering about is getting to Mars with shorter travel time.
Also I don’t think you have settlements on Mars without causing markets on the Moon. And I think this would be the case even if there wasn’t mineable water on the Moon.
But in order to go to Mars via lunar surface or lunar orbit, I assuming that lunar water is mineable- so lunar rocket fuel market is started on the Moon. So if Mars settlements starts a lunar rocket fuel market, you two things, lunar water and lunar liquid Hydrogen which could make worth the trip. Or don’t need Earth water and Earth Liquid Hydrogen. Water used in trip to Mars, and liquid Hydrogen for Mars surface, to make methane, and oxygen to leave Mars surface.
Now, if there is not mineable lunar water, the Starship will lower the cost of governmental lunar bases. The Moon is good location for telescopes, and there lot’s research and science aspects related to Moon {the lunar surface is historic record of Earth and solar system, and etc}.
But in terms of lunar rocket fuel market, assuming there is mineable lunar water, the hard part related to it, is having enough market for rocket fuel in Space. And having Mars settlements easily solved that problem.
Now, I think you get to Mars faster, without needing nuclear rockets or things like beamed power. Chemical rockets using lots rocket fuel from High earth orbit {including low lunar or lunar surface}.
Starship can’t do the lunar mission you suggest due to the Moon’s lack of an atmosphere. The landing on Mars is support by aerobraking, where the martian atmosphere bleeds off most of the entry and descent velocity. Only the landing is propulsive.
I meant land 100 tons of payload on lunar surface, and then return to low lunar orbit without lifting any payload.
I’ve given up on the calculations, as there’s not enough firm data to trust any results I get. I’m not that good at it anyway! The last I heard (usually gleaned from Musk tweets and replies to same), to fly a lunar landing mission, such as the one shown in a SpaceX illustration (astronauts unloading 2 rovers on lunar surface), Starship has to fully fuel in LEO (5 tankers), transfer to a highly eliptical earth orbit, top off again (1 more tanker), proceed to Moon and land, then proceed to low lunar orbit with some payload (at least bringing the astronauts and their equipment back), refuel again (1 tanker, which resumably had to be refueled itself!) in order to come home and land on Earth. Mars is easier!
I don’t actually know if any of that is true. Gleanings are fun, but who knows? Musk, I guess. Not me.
I’m extremely dubious about a million people on Mars by 2050.
But a permanent colony of 10,000? Or a permanent outpost of 1,000? I think it might really happen.
The biggest obstacle to Mars settlement is going to be the economics of Mars itself rather than the transportation costs of getting there. Thanks to SpaceX.
“The biggest obstacle to Mars settlement is going to be the economics of Mars itself rather than the transportation costs of getting there.”
Yes and no. The transportation costs doesn’t just change Mars, it changes Earth. So, transportation costs lowering will transform Mars, but not saying it will not transform “everything else” also.
The economics of Mars will be related to Mars being better {in some aspects} than Earth. So that Mars has lower gravity than Earth can be aspect which better than Earth- there is economic advantage of having a lower gravity.
There might be economic advantage of world with higher gravity than Earth, but I don’t see it, at the moment. So if Mars was planet very similar to Earth but had higher gravity, say 1.5 gee. Then it seems to me that it would be worst than Earth or Mars.
So, the low gravity of Mars, means it’s easy to leave Mars or easier to export stuff from Mars. And if can grow food on Mars, then Mars could good place to grow food and export it to the solar system. Or Mars is important if humans are spacefaring civilization.
A disadvantage of Earth is that you can’t dig well very deep, due to Earth global water table and it’s a molten ball with a thin crust. Mars might have regional water tables, but even with water table, the water pressure is about 1/3 of Earth’s. And in terms of Mars “being mostly molten ball”, it could be also regional rather than global {until you get really deep}.
So, on Earth there are economic advantage of having cities being vertical and on Mars, cities could more 3rd rather than mostly 2 D.
But in terms economics, what critical is near term advantages. So what can be immediate, could be political. In simple terms, one could have low taxes.
Mike Bloomberg says he going to spend 2 billion dollar on 2020 presidential election. Or just picking who will be next US president is rather important to some people.
Another aspect with lower transportation costs, is we probably mine space rocks. And Mars has many advantages related to mining space rocks. Or Earth has NEOs and Mars has “better” near Mars objects.
Mars might not be as good in regard to with Main Asteroid Belt and Jupiter Trojans, though of course, Mars also has two moons.
I’d guess 100,000 is plausable within thirty years, a million by the end of the century. Gee, I’ll be a hundred years old in 2050. Not only do I hope I’ll still be alive in 2050, I hope I’ll be living on Mars. Surely there’ll be employment on Mars for a mechanical engineering technician/software architect/science fiction writer?
History is full of examples of genius who do something great and then spend the rest of their lives attempting to do something even greater and failing. For example, Tesla’s broadcast power, Einstein’s unified field theory. The jury is still out if his “Starship” concept will work. I hope it does and I live long enough to see it.
At this point there is a lot that could be done with just Falcon Heavy and Dragon capsules even should Musk pull a Tesla with Starship… ahem.*
*Metaphors best served shaken not stirred.