Maybe the private sector will raise the money. Stranger things have happened. It has to MAKE money in the end though. Somehow.
Quote from: Lar on 05/17/2013 11:44 pmMaybe the private sector will raise the money. Stranger things have happened. It has to MAKE money in the end though. Somehow. No, it just has to convince potential investors it could make money in the end. Plenty of big projects get investment yet fail to ever realize their predicted returns. Some are later bought out for cents on the dollar, and operated at profit and/or benefit to humanity.
But I don't think that commercial ventures that start out as for profit but fail were what QG meant. I invite him to elaborate because I'm terrible at guessing.
Quote from: Lar on 05/19/2013 03:12 pmBut I don't think that commercial ventures that start out as for profit but fail were what QG meant. I invite him to elaborate because I'm terrible at guessing.I merely meant an organization with a goal other than making money. There's millions of them that are not run by the government. Random (completely unrelated) example: The Royal Automobile Club of Victoria has an annual budget of $443.3M and 2,623 staff. They don't make a dime and have no government subsidies.Something with less members, making a bigger contributions, could pay for a whole lot of crew training, hardware development, launches, etc, etc. Combine with a for-profit sister company to reap media rights, data selling, patent licensing, etc, for added funding.
Flight 1. Falcon Heavy puts Earth Return Vehicle into Mars orbit.Flight 2. Falcon Heavy puts Mars Ascent Vehicle on Mars surface.Flight 3. Falcon Heavy sends Crew Transfer Vehicle to Mars to precise landing.Crew spends 500 days on the surface, uses the MAV to ascend to the ERV and return to an ocean landing.
2. Regarding the 3rd flight, why not a Falcon 9/Dragon with rendezvous in Earth orbit? Why does Dr. Zubrin reject a Mars Transfer vehicle?
If a raptor upper stage is made and is made to work with the Falcon Heavy, then perhaps a more straightforward Mars Direct does indeed become possible.I don't want to wait for MCT to have people on Mars...this is one way it could happen sooner.
If Musk can get the BFR built, then NASA and other's may get involved. Even the FH with a methane upper stage might get people interested in doing something.
BFR could in theory throw so much mass that a relatively straightforward exploration type mission wouldn't need major new operational abilities, just bigger versions of existing or mostly-developed hardware.A 15 million lbf thrust BFR (which Musk has mentioned) with a mostly custom stack on top could throw a 6-person crew to Mars and back in one Apollo style shot, no ISRU or orbital refueling needed. The hardware riding on that BFR could be mostly BEAM, Dragon and Raptor derived: a triple Raptor LEO stage and single Raptor TMI stage; all propulsion past TMI done by SuperDraco (LMO insertion, Mars EDL, Mars ascent and rendezvous, TEI, Earth EDL).
Before i get all excited in terms of reactors on mars.. I need to see just how the reactor is to be cooled..