Poll

Should the poll be deleted?

Yes
38 (69.1%)
No
17 (30.9%)

Total Members Voted: 55

Voting closed: 08/20/2018 03:29 pm


Author Topic: Mars - The Rest Of The Story  (Read 33151 times)

Offline lonestriker

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #40 on: 05/13/2018 02:01 pm »
If NASA, or more importantly, NASA-like practices get involved, you've already lost.
If you can get stuff to Mars for $150/kg, and your rover looks anything like curiosity cost-wise, you've lost.
(or at least wasted wholly the opportunity)

Curiosity cost a couple of billion dollars.
For a couple of billion dollars, you can send 500 lightly modified tesla model 3s, as well as a crew to teleoperate them from orbit.

(assuming throwaway BFS, if ISRU was working, it's 5000)

Curiosity teaches us almost precisely nothing about what is desired for a rover that costs under $100K.
It is not repairable, the wheels are fragile little beautiful flowers that shatter on impact, ...
In many ways, if the choice is to send such a Rover, over sending 150 tons of water, I'd rather send the water.

Agreed.

What most people are mistaking is that it's not really valid to compare the Lunar Rover or the previous Mars rovers with anything that SpaceX will put on Mars.  The previous vehicles were both mass-limited and volume-limited, so they had to be super light and fold up like complex mechanical origami puzzles to make the transit and and survive landing.

If BFR performs as expected, it removes a massive amount of complexity and cost to designing things like rovers and solar panels for Mars.  You still want to optimize both mass and volume, but the problem is an order of magnitude simpler when your mass budget is massively increased.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #41 on: 05/13/2018 02:21 pm »
I note Elon’s recent estimate that Falcon 9 will launch maybe 300 more missions in its lifetime, before being replaced by BFR. I also note his statement that a reused F9 launch sells for around $50m, giving us a ballpark total revenue of maybe $15 billion from the remainder of F9’s planned useful life.

This $15 billion total is what will have to fund BFR development, construction and the mission costs up to the landing of the first pair of BFS ships on Mars.

Revenue from Starlink can likely be ignored in the interim, given that Starlink itself will require around $10 billion of investment to become operational.  So net contributions from Starlink is likely a longer term goal, after initial investment has been recouped.

Furthermore, much of the $15 billion F9 revenue will go into sustaining existing SpaceX costs, with profits being the more relevant number that can go into supporting Mars plans. So reinvested profits plus normal R&D budget gives you maybe $5-7 billion out of the $15 billion that can support the Mars plans until 2022.

That is barely enough to design and build BFR.

My point with the above being that SpaceX don’t have the funds to finance rovers, power generation, ISRU, and all the other developments needed for Mars colonization. They no doubt have conceptual plans for what is required, but they clearly mean it when they say others will have to come to the party to realize these plans.

Building the rocket and successfully landing it on Mars is the big leap forward that is meant to inspire others to jump on the bandwagon.
Youre double counting. Starlink costs would include launch costs, first on falcon and then on BFR. In the latter case, that would assist BFR development.
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #42 on: 05/13/2018 03:20 pm »
If NASA, or more importantly, NASA-like practices get involved, you've already lost.
If you can get stuff to Mars for $150/kg, and your rover looks anything like curiosity cost-wise, you've lost.
(or at least wasted wholly the opportunity)

Curiosity cost a couple of billion dollars.
For a couple of billion dollars, you can send 500 lightly modified tesla model 3s, as well as a crew to teleoperate them from orbit.

(assuming throwaway BFS, if ISRU was working, it's 5000)

Curiosity teaches us almost precisely nothing about what is desired for a rover that costs under $100K.
It is not repairable, the wheels are fragile little beautiful flowers that shatter on impact, ...
In many ways, if the choice is to send such a Rover, over sending 150 tons of water, I'd rather send the water.

Agreed.

What most people are mistaking is that it's not really valid to compare the Lunar Rover or the previous Mars rovers with anything that SpaceX will put on Mars.  The previous vehicles were both mass-limited and volume-limited, so they had to be super light and fold up like complex mechanical origami puzzles to make the transit and and survive landing.

If BFR performs as expected, it removes a massive amount of complexity and cost to designing things like rovers and solar panels for Mars.  You still want to optimize both mass and volume, but the problem is an order of magnitude simpler when your mass budget is massively increased.

One other dimension is available -- you can send orders of magnitude more rovers or solar panels or whatever.  Spending a decade and sending one (at a couple billion dollars) isn't going to cut it.  Spend 2-4 years and send dozens... or hundreds.
« Last Edit: 05/13/2018 03:24 pm by AncientU »
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #43 on: 05/13/2018 03:30 pm »
If they don't start designing and building stuff soon, even 2024 might come and go with a BFR available without a payload.
2022 is some time away.
Recently, it was stated the ambition is to get F9 down to $6M/launch incremental costs.
Even without BFS, 30 tons to Mars injection or so, with refilling of S2 in orbit would be plausible at under $100M/mission, for SpaceX, perhaps entirely without BFS.
I doubt they’ll develop refueling and very long duration for Falcon upper. And besides, the new recovery method proposed for the Falcon upper stage wouldn’t work on Mars (unlike for BFS) as it isn’t propulsive. And so with the cancellation (or indefinite postponement) of propulsive Dragon landing, there’s no way to get payloads to the surface (without super expensive NASA like methods by other contractors). So the only point would be for orbital assets. But don’t need upper stage refueling for that. Falcon Heavy is more than capable of sending satellites (such as the small Starlink-based satellites) to Mars. It probably can be fully reused, too, as there should be enough propellant in the upper stage to do a retro burn after TMI.

If BFS/R isn’t ready by 2022, I can see SpaceX sending Starlink derived satellites (which have plenty of propellant for Mars orbit insertion and perhaps even assisting TMI, which should make reuse much easier, perhaps even allowing a F9 to be used instead of FH) for data relay and perhaps navigation and reconn. NASA would happily assist (at least by providing an Electra relay radio) as NASA will need assurance of relay service since NASA doesn’t have any more orbiters planned for a while. 

SpaceX currently relies on GPS a LOT for landing. Using some Starlink satellites at Mars in a similar fashion could help significantly and may be worth the relatively small price.
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Offline Lar

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #44 on: 05/13/2018 03:30 pm »
I sort of suspect Tesla has a vehicle in their labs already, put together as a side project, with an investment of no more than a few hundred thousand or so. Doing rovers NASA style misses the point. What's needed is a general purpose chassis (like a skate) that can take lots of different equipment modules. It needs to be modular, repairable, reconfigurable, and transportable. But it doesn't need to fold up origami style and it doesn't need to sacrifice every single gram of weight.
« Last Edit: 05/14/2018 06:28 am by Lar »
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline testguy

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #45 on: 05/13/2018 03:56 pm »
This discussion is great.  However, as threads tend to wonder this thread seams to be absorbed with discussion about SpaceX's cash flow and their human resources to execute the Mars plan for cargo flights in 2022 and boots on the ground in 2024.  I added a poll to the beginning of the thread to gather your opinions in a numerical manner.

It was not my initial intent when starting this thread to address finance and in-house personnel availability.  I was thinking that we would just accept that BFR and BFS met their schedule milestones and were available.  With that I was thinking that we would address  "The Rest Of The Story" which appears to be missing.  What is missing, why and when is it needed.

That said, please continue with your input on finance and personnel because they too are part of the story.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #46 on: 05/13/2018 04:04 pm »
Cash flow for all those items is perfectly on topic. The only reason SpaceX can afford this stuff (particularly well before full Starlink is making a lot of money) is by finding dual uses. BFR has dual use. Rovers don’t. That’s why we have heard a lot more about BFR than rovers. If you start a thread asking why we haven’t heard more about “the rest of the story,” then be prepared for people to answer you.
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Offline meekGee

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #47 on: 05/13/2018 04:05 pm »
I suspect SpaceX simply doesn't have the time or money right now to build rovers when the rocket hasn't been built yet.

There are two things that are well-proven on Mars:

1) rovers
and
2) solar power

Scale is different, speed is different. But there's a real engineering experience base with now literally decades of elapsed mission time. We know what materials work, and what don't. We know that putting a solar array on top of a hill means it'll get cleaned regularly. We know not to use super thin aluminum wheels. We even know (from Phoenix) about digging in icy soil.

So honestly, if you're going to pick something to wait until the last minute on, it might be those two.
It's not whether they're building rovers right now.

It's whether they've done basic work towards "the rest of the story", and when will they share some of that, because 1at least the OP and myself are curious...

Solar is proven, but its de-facto performance is much much lower than what you'd get by cobbling together spec sheets.  Much can be done to improve it, no doubt.

I am curious to see what SpaceX, not fans, have figured.

If SoaceX is relying on Bigelow to build inflatables for them, I'd be surprised.

The rest of the players (Tesla, solat city) do not constitute "build it and they will come"

Further, any paid subcontractor is not really "coming".  Only a company interested in investing is really considered a partner in this.

-----
ABCD: Always Be Counting Down
« Last Edit: 05/13/2018 04:10 pm by meekGee »
ABCD - Always Be Counting Down

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #48 on: 05/13/2018 04:11 pm »
Of course they’ve done the basic work. This is perfectly clear based on years of L2.

As far as solar being not as good as on Earth, well that’s just how it goes. It’s an irrelevant point as BFS is still capable of landing plenty of mass to make solar still feasible for using for propellant production. And SpaceX knows how to integrate cheap silicon cells for space use. They do this for every Dragon mission.

As far as habs, SpaceX has already said BFS will be the first surface hab. BFS is enormous (almost ISS volume) and they are sending several of them.
« Last Edit: 05/13/2018 04:19 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline philw1776

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #49 on: 05/13/2018 04:18 pm »
Poll: Does SpaceX have an EXECUTABLE plan (both financial and human resources) for the 2017 Mars

I have no idea what this poll is asking

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #50 on: 05/13/2018 04:24 pm »
Doesn’t matter if they have a “plan.” As long as they have a strategy that can bring success.
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Offline kch

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #51 on: 05/13/2018 04:58 pm »
Poll: Does SpaceX have an EXECUTABLE plan (both financial and human resources) for the 2017 Mars

I have no idea what this poll is asking

One wonders what "the 2017 Mars" might be, and (if it's what it sounds like) how SpaceX might get then-and-there (unless Elon has a TARDIS handy) ... ;D

Offline speedevil

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #52 on: 05/13/2018 05:02 pm »
Rovers don’t.
Considering the flip-side - automated self-drive automobiles do.

Offline geza

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #53 on: 05/13/2018 05:03 pm »
The centrally important question is this: Given a product X here on Earth, what should be modified on it to allow Martian use?

Thermal is the No 1 issue. Then, lubrication, I guess. Dust, esp. with electric contacts.

So, is it possible to develop the universal rover chassis form an existing Tesla product? With robotized recharging. Cranes? Earth movers?

The surface Powerpack comes obviously from Tesla Powerpack via redesigning the thermal control.

Offline speedevil

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #54 on: 05/13/2018 05:06 pm »
The centrally important question is this: Given a product X here on Earth, what should be modified on it to allow Martian use?

Thermal is the No 1 issue. Then, lubrication, I guess. Dust, esp. with electric contacts.

So, is it possible to develop the universal rover chassis form an existing Tesla product? With robotized recharging. Cranes? Earth movers?

The surface Powerpack comes obviously from Tesla Powerpack via redesigning the thermal control.
To a large extent, the question should also be asked if you should just operate it inside the pressurized environment.

This may be the case for for example the batteries.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #55 on: 05/13/2018 05:07 pm »
Rovers don’t.
Considering the flip-side - automated self-drive automobiles do.
There’s not a lot in common. If Tesla made autonomous mining equipment, you’d have a point. It’s a little like saying Tesla should build the octograbber just because the octograbber has wheels.

(Also, you cut out too much of the context of my quote so it doesn’t make any sense.)
« Last Edit: 05/13/2018 05:14 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #56 on: 05/13/2018 05:16 pm »
I just hope SpaceX finds the right balance regarding work force management. BFR/S and Mars is a marathon, not a sprint.

On the one hand they cannot overwork and burn out their trusted work force which by now has gained unprallelled experience with the Falcons.

On the other hand it won't be economically feasible for SpaceX if the project turns into a rudderless slow-moving money pit. Governments can sustain that, not private companies.

I think Human Resources will be the key for this endeavour. SpaceX will have to ensure sustainable work force management. They can't just wing it.

1. I don't think Mars is a marathon -- certainly not a sprint -- it's more like an Iron Man triathalon because there are many legs of the challenge (transportation, setting up shop on the surface, living off the land).

2. It won't be feasible if rudderless, but also fails if too slow... so it needs to be an Ironman World Championship, where the athletes are basically super-human*.

3. Governments cannot sustain the slow-moving slog as evidenced by governments not sustaining it over past many decades.

4. Vision, competence, and balls are needed, not some soft, sustainable 'work environment' or workforce management. 

People with talent and drive will be available to sustain this challenge if someone can lead; the depth of human character is remarkable when an inspirational goal internalized.  (Watch an Ironman...)
So far, that inspiration has made all the difference.


* Thing is, they are not super-human.  They are human!  Our expectations and many times our daily lives are sub-human.
« Last Edit: 05/13/2018 05:23 pm by AncientU »
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Offline testguy

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #57 on: 05/13/2018 05:32 pm »
Cash flow for all those items is perfectly on topic. The only reason SpaceX can afford this stuff (particularly well before full Starlink is making a lot of money) is by finding dual uses. BFR has dual use. Rovers don’t. That’s why we have heard a lot more about BFR than rovers. If you start a thread asking why we haven’t heard more about “the rest of the story,” then be prepared for people to answer you.

Please reread the last line of my last post.  Am I missing something?

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #58 on: 05/13/2018 05:36 pm »
Cash flow for all those items is perfectly on topic. The only reason SpaceX can afford this stuff (particularly well before full Starlink is making a lot of money) is by finding dual uses. BFR has dual use. Rovers don’t. That’s why we have heard a lot more about BFR than rovers. If you start a thread asking why we haven’t heard more about “the rest of the story,” then be prepared for people to answer you.

Please reread the last line of my last post.  Am I missing something?
Ah! Nothing, we’re in agreement. :)
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Offline butters

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Re: Mars - The Rest Of The Story
« Reply #59 on: 05/13/2018 05:45 pm »
Back when Red Dragon was still a thing, NASA was expressing interest in funding an ISRU demo payload for the second synod. If SpaceX is going to punt on leading development of any item critical to an uncrewed round trip and seek NASA involvement, ISRU would be the top candidate.  Batteries, solar modules, and wheeled vehicles seem well within the Musk constellation of technology resources.

If SpaceX is really going to hit the 2022 window for the initial cargo missions, then the development process for at least the solar modules needs to be underway by the end of 2019. But I think they'll slip to 2024. So I don't think we'll see any evidence of surface hardware in development for a couple years at least.

 

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