Can I ask overall were people surprised at this kind of response from him, as I've indicated up thread already I know I was?
What were the last estimates of what ITS development and initial production costs?One thing I don't like about the whole "SpaceX is going to privately fund Mars easy-peasy" narrative is that it seems to be based on the assumption that they are going to make huge sums of money with their Sat constellation. Unfortunately that assumption has some big holes in it, particularly that's it's usually not as easy to do rent seeking under competition and there is plenty of competition in the communications market and sat comm isn't a singular solution.So do the likes of Bezos have enough money left over to fund this? And please don't just use the value of Bezos' Amazon stock, he won't completely sell out for this and if he did Amazon would all of a sudden be worth only a fraction of what it's worth now so the maximum we might talk about is something like 10% his net worth or so.
Quote from: pippin on 05/03/2017 01:28 amWhat were the last estimates of what ITS development and initial production costs?One thing I don't like about the whole "SpaceX is going to privately fund Mars easy-peasy" narrative is that it seems to be based on the assumption that they are going to make huge sums of money with their Sat constellation. Unfortunately that assumption has some big holes in it, particularly that's it's usually not as easy to do rent seeking under competition and there is plenty of competition in the communications market and sat comm isn't a singular solution.So do the likes of Bezos have enough money left over to fund this? And please don't just use the value of Bezos' Amazon stock, he won't completely sell out for this and if he did Amazon would all of a sudden be worth only a fraction of what it's worth now so the maximum we might talk about is something like 10% his net worth or so.I think you're missing that Musk is going to lever up. Same as Tyson, you're looking at the expenditure as an all at once thing. We're already starting to see rates and reuses and finesse increasing, and the capabilities of the corporate entity increase in a virtuous cycle. Thinking about it from a conventional project funding perspective might just be the wrong way to look at it.
I find it odd he doubts it'll ever happen.The technology to do crewed mission to Mars has been around since the 1970s but it's finally becoming cheap enough plus there are more players than just the NASA now.The real question is who will send a crew to Mars first the US,the Russians,the Chinese, or a private entity?
Quote from: Lar on 05/03/2017 01:32 amI think you're missing that Musk is going to lever up. Same as Tyson, you're looking at the expenditure as an all at once thing. We're already starting to see rates and reuses and finesse increasing, and the capabilities of the corporate entity increase in a virtuous cycle. Thinking about it from a conventional project funding perspective might just be the wrong way to look at it.No, im not, neither is Tyson.Actually that's where his other point comes up: if you want to add leverage or any form of capital market investment you need a solid business case.I don't think there is one, which was Tyson's point, too.
I think you're missing that Musk is going to lever up. Same as Tyson, you're looking at the expenditure as an all at once thing. We're already starting to see rates and reuses and finesse increasing, and the capabilities of the corporate entity increase in a virtuous cycle. Thinking about it from a conventional project funding perspective might just be the wrong way to look at it.
Quote from: su27k on 05/02/2017 01:49 pmHis argument is predicated on the assumption that a manned Mars mission would exceed the current NASA HSF budget by a wide margin, Where did he say that?
His argument is predicated on the assumption that a manned Mars mission would exceed the current NASA HSF budget by a wide margin,
Again: how much does it cost?Everyone keeps claiming it finally became cheap enough. What's "cheap enough"? Where are the funds and the cost estimates?
Cost: $10B per Musk IAC speechFunds: 2/3 from NASA budget, using the funding opened up after Commercial Crew is finished. 1/3 from SpaceX, using the engineering resources opened up after F9/FH/Dragon 2 is finished.
Ah, so primarily government funding again.
And the 10bn are for what? Development? Building the first vehicle? First flight? 100 flights?
Given that Musk said they spent 1bn to go from F9 to FH alone, 10bn for more than a prototype sounds like quite a stretch.
Quote from: su27k on 05/03/2017 03:09 amCost: $10B per Musk IAC speechFunds: 2/3 from NASA budget, using the funding opened up after Commercial Crew is finished. 1/3 from SpaceX, using the engineering resources opened up after F9/FH/Dragon 2 is finished.If 2/3 from NASA budget means NASA buying a bunch of launches, or payloads delivered to Mars, sure[1]. But if you mean NASA put up the development money? That much? No. That's not the plan.
So, funding. We've thought about funding sources.And so it's steal underpants, launch satellites, send cargo to space station, Kickstarter of course followed by profit. So obviously it's going to be a challenge to fund this whole endeavor.We do expect to generate pretty decent net cash flow from launching lots of satellites and servicing the space station for NASA, transferring cargo to and from the space station, and then I know that there's a lot of people in the private sector who are interested in helping fund a base on Mars. And then perhaps they'll be interest on the government sector side to also do that.Ultimately this is going to be a huge public-private partnership, and I think that's how the United States established, and many other countries around the world is a public-private partnership. So I think that's probably what occurs, and right now we're just trying to make as much progress as we can with the resources that we have available, and just sort of keep moving both forward, and hopefully I think, as we show that this is possible, that this dream is real, not just a dream it's something that can be made real I think the support will snowball over time.And I should say also that the main reason I'm personally accumulating assets is in order to fund this. So I really don't have any other motivation for personally accumulating assets, except to be able to make the biggest contribution I can to making life multiplanetary.
And I should say also that the main reason I'm personally accumulating assets is in order to fund this.
Musk:QuoteAnd I should say also that the main reason I'm personally accumulating assets is in order to fund this."this" is colonization. The whole shebang. Not the initial transport. That's just a small part of the puzzle. I'm in the camp that believes as SpaceX ratchets up, as each flight grows their capability and fixed plant/assets and people, and bank account, that they'll do ITS itself almost wholly internally. The upper stage raptor money might possibly be the only government money invested. At all. And that is at 2:1, SpaceX puts up twice as much.
Quote from: Lar on 05/03/2017 04:09 amMusk:QuoteAnd I should say also that the main reason I'm personally accumulating assets is in order to fund this."this" is colonization. The whole shebang. Not the initial transport. That's just a small part of the puzzle. I'm in the camp that believes as SpaceX ratchets up, as each flight grows their capability and fixed plant/assets and people, and bank account, that they'll do ITS itself almost wholly internally. The upper stage raptor money might possibly be the only government money invested. At all. And that is at 2:1, SpaceX puts up twice as much.I don't think there is the slightest evidence that SpaceX will be able to do this internally. It's just wishful thinking.