On a related note, Spaceflight Now has a pretty good article about the Dragon flight delays and software testing.
SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk said Friday the first Dragon spacecraft will likely reach the International Space Station in April, echoing a senior NASA manager’s comments earlier this week as engineers update the spaceship’s operating software after problems surfaced during a simulation in January.
Officials last month postponed the mission’s launch from Feb. 7, citing the need for additional work to optimize for the safety and success of the flight.
Describing an “insane amount of testing” on the Dragon’s control software, Musk said a sizable chunk of the work in the weeks ahead will wring out the capsule’s fault-tolerance capabilities, which are designed to respond to system failures without jeopardizing the space station astronauts or the spacecraft.
“The critical path task is verification of the systems failure/response matrix,” Musk wrote in an email to Spaceflight Now. “Dragon is designed to be tolerant of two failures of almost anything. We need to make sure that the failover systems work correctly in all scenarios.”
The craft’s fault-tolerance is critical, especially when the Dragon carefully flies in tight formation just a few dozen feet below the space station. Such times are sensitive to errors and failures.
Is there any economic case to settling on Mars? I’m all for commercial and even government exploration, but I don’t see the demand for settlement.
No, none that I have seen as its just too far away for the moment. Once the Earth-Moon system is developed you may have markets for it, but not near term.
“Is there any economic case to settling on Mars? I’m all for commercial and even government exploration, but I don’t see the demand for settlement.”
I would say there is as much “demand” for settling Mars as there is for government exploration of space.
Or if there was no demand for settling space, there wouldn’t be exploration of space.
Or the demand for settling space and therefore a need of first exploring space, has yet to be supplied- we had only a tiny amount of the government budget space budget spent on space exploration. If you include the cost of building and operating launcher, a large amount is spent of on exploration. NASA has spent a large part of it’s budget, being job program, and building and maintaining space infrastructure- being goverment operated ship builder. Whereas NASA has done little in terms of using ships to explore space.
The SLS is an extreme and obvious example of what NASA has been doing for decades- no mention what the rocket will used for, everything is about building the rocket- mainly justified as job problem on ship building.
As to the main question, is there any economic case to settle the Mars- the focus any amount robotic exploration doesn’t try to try to explore Mars with that idea being in mind. And this applies to all NASA “exploration” of anywhere in space from Apollo to the present time.
What is needed is for NASA to actually explore the Moon- explore in sense of looking for anything which would provide a economic case for going to the Moon. If that is done, then we see a possible economic case for going to Mars.
If lunar water in profitably mined on the Moon and the water is made into rocket fuel, one could also see it then possible to mine water on Mars to made into rocket fuel. With Mars you probably need nuclear reactors to make the electrical power.
If there rocket fuel available in earth orbits, one can get to Mars cheaper. If there rocket fuel at Mars surface. you can return to earth cheaper. With rocket at surface you also explore Mars easier- one go to numerous locations and quickly.
All exploration of Mars [or Moon] doesn’t need to be done by the government, and once there is rocket fuel available, it would enable such exploration or adventures. On the Moon there miles of lava tubes, and this also true of Mars. And there other types of caves, there caves tens km deep it either location and there could huge underground spaces.
And you have sample returns from both Mars and the Moon. And there could mineral finds which could be significant. Platinum group [PGM] worth billions could found on the Moon as well as Mars.
And if you have rocket fuel and it’s cheap enough [and large find of PGM could make it cheap enough] one economicaly return them to earth.
And the money made in California gold rush, wasn’t the gold, it was all the stuff, miner needed to find and mine the gold. Same applies to Moon and Mars. Making steel cable on the Moon and Mars could profitable business if something is found which worth mining.
Unfortunately NASA chooses to view exploration from the post WWII perspective of science rather then economic development. So they spend huge qualities money of pursuing questions that only scientists are interested in, like the existence of microscopic life, and nothing that will advance the development of a Solar System wide economy. That is why NASA has ceased to be relevant to the issue of space economic development and settlement.
This is the most impressive myopia in existence. Yes, there is an economic case for mars.
Start at the end (a very powerful solution method) and ask yourself; which is the larger economy: The earth with a handful of people in orbit or a solar system with as many people off earth as on? If you get the answer to that right it should color the answer to every other intermediate question.
The economic case for mars is simple. People would like to go. So…
It cost X to send someone to the surface of mars with supplies to last a few years. ISRU is required long term but we can see the end of that tunnel easily.
144 million sq. km. of unclaimed real estate exist on mars along with unspoiled mineral deposits waiting to be exploited.
It cost Y to develop a habitat suitable for life. Like on earth you can buy Y or build Y. Most people on earth buy. They would do the same on mars and this is known as a market.
A market makes the economic case.
Getting back to X… The case is made when profit is greater than X.
That’s just a matter of proper sizing of land claims. Some people think that’s the size of Alaska. I say it’s much better if it’s smaller individual sized plots… but regardless, somewhere in that range the economic case is made without the need to export a single thing.
People pay $80,000 just have a chance to stand on the top of Mt. Everest for 15 minutes.
Larry J’s link is a great example of SpaceX being swallowed into NASA’s “safety at any cost” mentality. I’m sure there will be safety benefits to the testing and code re-writes, but no privately funding entity would be able to do that and still turn a profit. I hope Elon built this assumption into the fixed-price quote for cargo service to ISS.
The article mentions that some problems were discovered during a prelaunch simulation. It doesn’t say anything about the kind or severity of the errors. Without that information, it’s impossible to know if the subsequent testing is excessive but I get the impression that the problem was pretty serious. A lot is riding on the success of this flight, more than is reasonable IMO. They really need to get it right.
Is there an economic case for having a child?
No. I have a puppy… same thing economically. Except my puppy is making smarter life decisions than my boy. 🙂
Alex, the economic case for settling Mars would largely be driven by the price would-be settlers are willing and able to pay for Elon’s Martian version of the Condestoga wagon. I don’t know that anyone has done the market research on that.
I think the case for permanent settlements on the Moon and the Lagrange points are more solid, because they can be driven by national concerns for controlling orbit and access to space-based resources. As asteroid mining, space-based solar and satellite servicing become major markets none of the great powers (especially the US and China) will want to be holden to the others. It’s just too important for national defense (especially the satellites).
There are some of us who would pay almost anything to be forever beyond the reach of the thieving, busybody rest of us…
MfK,
The problem with that market is if you have enough to pay to go to Mars, you have more then enough to pay the right folks on Earth to leave you alone, so why go to Mars? 🙂
Why would I pay someone to leave me alone? Especially when I could go someplace really cool. I don’t pay extortionists.
MfK,
And what’s to stop them from going to Mars to bother you? After all, if it becomes cheap enough for you to go, then its cheap enough for the bureaucratics to follow 🙂
If your goal to escape bureaucratics you need to follow the Daniel Boone model and always keeping on the move, packing up when they show up in your neighborhood.
Or you could follow the banker’s model of just creating refuges like the Bahamas and Grand Caymans, both of which are much more reachable then Mars.
Yes, but on Mars, it’d be easier for them to have an unfortunate “accident” just as finding themselves outside an airlock with a leaky spacesuit.
Yes Thomas, you’ve identified the real problem…
“The bureaucrats on mars strike back.” [Queue evil empire music.]
Simple, wage war on the “Terran bureaucratics” and win the spacebattle against them between Mars and Earth Orbits. There’s no such thing as Mutual Assured Destruction in Interplanetary War.
If your goal to escape bureaucratics you need to follow the Daniel Boone model and always keeping on the move, packing up when they show up in your neighborhood.
He was only able to do that because he had a new frontier to flee to.
There aren’t any frontiers left on Earth.
One could actually conceivably construct an economic case for industrializing the moon and the asteroids. Mars, probably not so much.
If you’ve got an economic case for industrializing the moon and/or asteroids, that probably translates to an economic case for industrializing Mars. The Moon and the asteroids appear to be very rich sources of a very narrow range of raw materials, and you can’t build an industrial base on just steel, coal, ice, and rock. To get economically useful concentrations of the other stuff (e.g. copper for wiring, phosphorous for agriculture), you need some combination of plate tectonics, vulcanism, air, water, and maybe biology.
In the near term, that pretty much limits you to Earth, Mars, or handwaving, and Mars is energetically closer to most asteroids and moons than is the surface of the Earth. Indeed, if you are going to construct an economic case for industrializing “the moon”, you may find that the case is strongest when the moon is Phobos.
Just recently I had cause to look up how much the Shuttle and ISS cost in total. It turns out to be right around a quarter of a trillion dollars over 4 decades. Does anyone seriously imagine that in the hands of SpaceX that amount of time and money wouldn’t result in a Mars base?
A quarter of a trillion is an interesting figure as its nearly equal to the annual global spending on space commerce in 2011.
Which makes you wonder why New Space is so focused on NASA with its nickel and dime budget….
No-one has a clue how Elon intends to settle Mars. I imagine that includes Elon.
One element every plausible plan for space settlement needs is getting men and equipment into space more affordably. SpaceX is working on that.
Exactly. The jump from exploration to settlement is bigger than the jump from sitting on Earth to exploration.
I suppose, if everything went perfectly, we could have the following such chain of events:
SpaceX perfects re-usable rockets. Cost of lift to orbit decreases by order of magnitude.
In-space commercial infrastructure grows on strength of LEO tourism.
This commercial infrastructure, coupled with ever-decreasing launch/payload costs, helps spread tourism and mining attempts to Mars.
Martian mining proves economically sound.
Semi-permanent mining colonies on Mars.
But even beyond this incredibly rosy scenario, I struggle to see people (women, children, families) wanting to move to Mars and live out their lives in a bubble dome.
Alex,
And this assumes humans are able to reproduce in Mars Gravity. If not, then Mars settlement is a none starter.
Dear Mr. Musk:
For your next step, please buy the Collier’s brand and trademarks and set up an online magazine. You know what to do after that.
Robots are getting smarter and smarter. Send robots first, then people later.
An awesome and comprehensive article.
To mars, go Elon !
Greg, when a robot can build a house or go get my milk at the corner store, call me.
One can not ‘explore’ much less ‘settle’ a place with a robot. Mankind’s robotic space probes are magnificent technological achievements, but if people aren’t going to follow them, then I personally think the robotic discoveries are ultimately only of narrow scientific interest. Who really cares if there is water (or life!) on Mars if nobody will ever go there to see it, and use it, firsthand? I applaud Elon Musk’s vision and wish I could go along for the ride.
There’s a place for both robots and humans. Our robots are constantly getting more and more capable, and we should make full use of them. It’s cheaper than sending humans for initial exploration. The explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries would have used them if they had them.
But robots can’t “settle” space. Humans certainly should follow our robot trailblazers. Still, I think some kinds of work like asteroid mining will ultimately be done robotically.
Mission to Mars: Sponsored by Disney!
On a related note, Spaceflight Now has a pretty good article about the Dragon flight delays and software testing.
SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk said Friday the first Dragon spacecraft will likely reach the International Space Station in April, echoing a senior NASA manager’s comments earlier this week as engineers update the spaceship’s operating software after problems surfaced during a simulation in January.
Officials last month postponed the mission’s launch from Feb. 7, citing the need for additional work to optimize for the safety and success of the flight.
Describing an “insane amount of testing” on the Dragon’s control software, Musk said a sizable chunk of the work in the weeks ahead will wring out the capsule’s fault-tolerance capabilities, which are designed to respond to system failures without jeopardizing the space station astronauts or the spacecraft.
“The critical path task is verification of the systems failure/response matrix,” Musk wrote in an email to Spaceflight Now. “Dragon is designed to be tolerant of two failures of almost anything. We need to make sure that the failover systems work correctly in all scenarios.”
The craft’s fault-tolerance is critical, especially when the Dragon carefully flies in tight formation just a few dozen feet below the space station. Such times are sensitive to errors and failures.
Is there any economic case to settling on Mars? I’m all for commercial and even government exploration, but I don’t see the demand for settlement.
No, none that I have seen as its just too far away for the moment. Once the Earth-Moon system is developed you may have markets for it, but not near term.
“Is there any economic case to settling on Mars? I’m all for commercial and even government exploration, but I don’t see the demand for settlement.”
I would say there is as much “demand” for settling Mars as there is for government exploration of space.
Or if there was no demand for settling space, there wouldn’t be exploration of space.
Or the demand for settling space and therefore a need of first exploring space, has yet to be supplied- we had only a tiny amount of the government budget space budget spent on space exploration. If you include the cost of building and operating launcher, a large amount is spent of on exploration. NASA has spent a large part of it’s budget, being job program, and building and maintaining space infrastructure- being goverment operated ship builder. Whereas NASA has done little in terms of using ships to explore space.
The SLS is an extreme and obvious example of what NASA has been doing for decades- no mention what the rocket will used for, everything is about building the rocket- mainly justified as job problem on ship building.
As to the main question, is there any economic case to settle the Mars- the focus any amount robotic exploration doesn’t try to try to explore Mars with that idea being in mind. And this applies to all NASA “exploration” of anywhere in space from Apollo to the present time.
What is needed is for NASA to actually explore the Moon- explore in sense of looking for anything which would provide a economic case for going to the Moon. If that is done, then we see a possible economic case for going to Mars.
If lunar water in profitably mined on the Moon and the water is made into rocket fuel, one could also see it then possible to mine water on Mars to made into rocket fuel. With Mars you probably need nuclear reactors to make the electrical power.
If there rocket fuel available in earth orbits, one can get to Mars cheaper. If there rocket fuel at Mars surface. you can return to earth cheaper. With rocket at surface you also explore Mars easier- one go to numerous locations and quickly.
All exploration of Mars [or Moon] doesn’t need to be done by the government, and once there is rocket fuel available, it would enable such exploration or adventures. On the Moon there miles of lava tubes, and this also true of Mars. And there other types of caves, there caves tens km deep it either location and there could huge underground spaces.
And you have sample returns from both Mars and the Moon. And there could mineral finds which could be significant. Platinum group [PGM] worth billions could found on the Moon as well as Mars.
And if you have rocket fuel and it’s cheap enough [and large find of PGM could make it cheap enough] one economicaly return them to earth.
And the money made in California gold rush, wasn’t the gold, it was all the stuff, miner needed to find and mine the gold. Same applies to Moon and Mars. Making steel cable on the Moon and Mars could profitable business if something is found which worth mining.
Unfortunately NASA chooses to view exploration from the post WWII perspective of science rather then economic development. So they spend huge qualities money of pursuing questions that only scientists are interested in, like the existence of microscopic life, and nothing that will advance the development of a Solar System wide economy. That is why NASA has ceased to be relevant to the issue of space economic development and settlement.
This is the most impressive myopia in existence. Yes, there is an economic case for mars.
Start at the end (a very powerful solution method) and ask yourself; which is the larger economy: The earth with a handful of people in orbit or a solar system with as many people off earth as on? If you get the answer to that right it should color the answer to every other intermediate question.
The economic case for mars is simple. People would like to go. So…
It cost X to send someone to the surface of mars with supplies to last a few years. ISRU is required long term but we can see the end of that tunnel easily.
144 million sq. km. of unclaimed real estate exist on mars along with unspoiled mineral deposits waiting to be exploited.
It cost Y to develop a habitat suitable for life. Like on earth you can buy Y or build Y. Most people on earth buy. They would do the same on mars and this is known as a market.
A market makes the economic case.
Getting back to X… The case is made when profit is greater than X.
That’s just a matter of proper sizing of land claims. Some people think that’s the size of Alaska. I say it’s much better if it’s smaller individual sized plots… but regardless, somewhere in that range the economic case is made without the need to export a single thing.
People pay $80,000 just have a chance to stand on the top of Mt. Everest for 15 minutes.
Larry J’s link is a great example of SpaceX being swallowed into NASA’s “safety at any cost” mentality. I’m sure there will be safety benefits to the testing and code re-writes, but no privately funding entity would be able to do that and still turn a profit. I hope Elon built this assumption into the fixed-price quote for cargo service to ISS.
The article mentions that some problems were discovered during a prelaunch simulation. It doesn’t say anything about the kind or severity of the errors. Without that information, it’s impossible to know if the subsequent testing is excessive but I get the impression that the problem was pretty serious. A lot is riding on the success of this flight, more than is reasonable IMO. They really need to get it right.
Is there an economic case for having a child?
No. I have a puppy… same thing economically. Except my puppy is making smarter life decisions than my boy. 🙂
Alex, the economic case for settling Mars would largely be driven by the price would-be settlers are willing and able to pay for Elon’s Martian version of the Condestoga wagon. I don’t know that anyone has done the market research on that.
I think the case for permanent settlements on the Moon and the Lagrange points are more solid, because they can be driven by national concerns for controlling orbit and access to space-based resources. As asteroid mining, space-based solar and satellite servicing become major markets none of the great powers (especially the US and China) will want to be holden to the others. It’s just too important for national defense (especially the satellites).
There are some of us who would pay almost anything to be forever beyond the reach of the thieving, busybody rest of us…
MfK,
The problem with that market is if you have enough to pay to go to Mars, you have more then enough to pay the right folks on Earth to leave you alone, so why go to Mars? 🙂
Why would I pay someone to leave me alone? Especially when I could go someplace really cool. I don’t pay extortionists.
MfK,
And what’s to stop them from going to Mars to bother you? After all, if it becomes cheap enough for you to go, then its cheap enough for the bureaucratics to follow 🙂
If your goal to escape bureaucratics you need to follow the Daniel Boone model and always keeping on the move, packing up when they show up in your neighborhood.
Or you could follow the banker’s model of just creating refuges like the Bahamas and Grand Caymans, both of which are much more reachable then Mars.
Yes, but on Mars, it’d be easier for them to have an unfortunate “accident” just as finding themselves outside an airlock with a leaky spacesuit.
Yes Thomas, you’ve identified the real problem…
“The bureaucrats on mars strike back.” [Queue evil empire music.]
Simple, wage war on the “Terran bureaucratics” and win the spacebattle against them between Mars and Earth Orbits. There’s no such thing as Mutual Assured Destruction in Interplanetary War.
If your goal to escape bureaucratics you need to follow the Daniel Boone model and always keeping on the move, packing up when they show up in your neighborhood.
He was only able to do that because he had a new frontier to flee to.
There aren’t any frontiers left on Earth.
One could actually conceivably construct an economic case for industrializing the moon and the asteroids. Mars, probably not so much.
If you’ve got an economic case for industrializing the moon and/or asteroids, that probably translates to an economic case for industrializing Mars. The Moon and the asteroids appear to be very rich sources of a very narrow range of raw materials, and you can’t build an industrial base on just steel, coal, ice, and rock. To get economically useful concentrations of the other stuff (e.g. copper for wiring, phosphorous for agriculture), you need some combination of plate tectonics, vulcanism, air, water, and maybe biology.
In the near term, that pretty much limits you to Earth, Mars, or handwaving, and Mars is energetically closer to most asteroids and moons than is the surface of the Earth. Indeed, if you are going to construct an economic case for industrializing “the moon”, you may find that the case is strongest when the moon is Phobos.
Just recently I had cause to look up how much the Shuttle and ISS cost in total. It turns out to be right around a quarter of a trillion dollars over 4 decades. Does anyone seriously imagine that in the hands of SpaceX that amount of time and money wouldn’t result in a Mars base?
A quarter of a trillion is an interesting figure as its nearly equal to the annual global spending on space commerce in 2011.
\http://www.thespacereport.org/files/The_Space_Report_2011_exec_summary.pdf
Which makes you wonder why New Space is so focused on NASA with its nickel and dime budget….
No-one has a clue how Elon intends to settle Mars. I imagine that includes Elon.
One element every plausible plan for space settlement needs is getting men and equipment into space more affordably. SpaceX is working on that.
Exactly. The jump from exploration to settlement is bigger than the jump from sitting on Earth to exploration.
I suppose, if everything went perfectly, we could have the following such chain of events:
SpaceX perfects re-usable rockets. Cost of lift to orbit decreases by order of magnitude.
In-space commercial infrastructure grows on strength of LEO tourism.
This commercial infrastructure, coupled with ever-decreasing launch/payload costs, helps spread tourism and mining attempts to Mars.
Martian mining proves economically sound.
Semi-permanent mining colonies on Mars.
But even beyond this incredibly rosy scenario, I struggle to see people (women, children, families) wanting to move to Mars and live out their lives in a bubble dome.
Alex,
And this assumes humans are able to reproduce in Mars Gravity. If not, then Mars settlement is a none starter.
Dear Mr. Musk:
For your next step, please buy the Collier’s brand and trademarks and set up an online magazine. You know what to do after that.
see: http://bit.ly/ywS5Ot
Robots are getting smarter and smarter. Send robots first, then people later.
An awesome and comprehensive article.
To mars, go Elon !
Greg, when a robot can build a house or go get my milk at the corner store, call me.
One can not ‘explore’ much less ‘settle’ a place with a robot. Mankind’s robotic space probes are magnificent technological achievements, but if people aren’t going to follow them, then I personally think the robotic discoveries are ultimately only of narrow scientific interest. Who really cares if there is water (or life!) on Mars if nobody will ever go there to see it, and use it, firsthand? I applaud Elon Musk’s vision and wish I could go along for the ride.
There’s a place for both robots and humans. Our robots are constantly getting more and more capable, and we should make full use of them. It’s cheaper than sending humans for initial exploration. The explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries would have used them if they had them.
But robots can’t “settle” space. Humans certainly should follow our robot trailblazers. Still, I think some kinds of work like asteroid mining will ultimately be done robotically.