Author Topic: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony  (Read 54787 times)

Offline Alkan

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Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« on: 04/01/2018 02:24 am »
So, I'm interested in predicting some of the details of his colony. Each phase is looser and more speculative.

Phase I: Fuel Production

The methane fuel will be created by the Sabatier reaction using CO2 and water. Most likely, the electrolysis of water will produce oxygen and hydrogen. The sabatier reaction is exothermic, so it actually produces some heat. It takes some heat for the reaction to get going. The space station actually releases methane as a waste product from their oxygen-water contained system.

What else is needed is food. It won't be self-sustaining for a long time, so I don't see greenhouses to grow food being particularly useful for some time. Rather, several years worth of food would be sent. 7300 pounds of food would feed a person for five years. It might be safer to send 10,000 pounds of probably pretty lousy space food. Send a crew of 8 people and you can send them with enough food, water and oxygen to survive the process of waiting for the fuel production to go home. This is probably the primary goal of the first mission: set up solar panels to generate fuel with the Sabatier process. Some aspects of this would be easier than the space station: not having zero g means that stuff just doesn't float in the air freely.

Phase II: Increasing the Self-sustainability of the Base

So, you have water, sunlight and carbon dioxide. This may be the greenhouse phase. Simple, resilient plants would be grown. A cheap combination would probably be basically a simple vegan diet with some more complex foods shipped in from earth. But things like mashed potatoes and kale? Not so bad. Sea level is 14.7 PSI. Mars is virtually zero, but 14.7 PSI is like an underinflated bike tire. A large inflatable dome could readily be engineered. There are less engineering challenges to this than the ISS. No micrometeorites, reduced cosmic radiation and a gravitational well make this relatively safe. Information from Biosphere 2 would come in handy here. This step is actually comparatively easy and would provide a nice recreational environment on Mars if it were large enough, about the size of a tennis court.

Offline speedevil

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #1 on: 04/01/2018 04:33 am »
Information from Biosphere 2 would come in handy here. This step is actually comparatively easy and would provide a nice recreational environment on Mars if it were large enough, about the size of a tennis court.

Biosphere II really is not informative.
Biosphere II was an aesthetic design, which incidentally sort-of-produced enough food on a truly massive area.

You need pretty closely 3kW of electricity into good LED lights onto potatoes to feed a person, 6kW gives you a varied veggie diet, in around 100m^2.
Perhaps a total of 10kW for food + oxygen.
This is a tiny number compared to the amount of power you need for ISRU.



Offline guckyfan

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #2 on: 04/01/2018 07:27 am »
Atmosphere for breathing, including oxygen, will be provided as a byproduct of fuel ISRU.

Agree that the bulk of calories will be provided from Earth for a while. But a greenhouse for herbs and vegetables will almost certainly be part of the first manned mission. Just to supplement food, make it more palatable.

Offline docmordrid

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #3 on: 04/01/2018 08:03 am »
Information from Biosphere 2 would come in handy here. This step is actually comparatively easy and would provide a nice recreational environment on Mars if it were large enough, about the size of a tennis court.

Biosphere II really is not informative.
Biosphere II was an aesthetic design, which incidentally sort-of-produced enough food on a truly massive area.

You need pretty closely 3kW of electricity into good LED lights onto potatoes to feed a person, 6kW gives you a varied veggie diet, in around 100m^2.
Perhaps a total of 10kW for food + oxygen.
This is a tiny number compared to the amount of power you need for ISRU.

Theres a long thread covering Mars/space agriculture and aquaculture here.

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #4 on: 04/01/2018 09:49 am »
So, I'm interested in predicting some of the details of his colony. Each phase is looser and more speculative.

Phase I: Fuel Production

The methane fuel will be created by the Sabatier reaction using CO2 and water.
Welcome to the site.
You're behind the curve here. Substantial Methane deposits have been found. However PV solar is likely needed to electrolyse water to provide O2 for combustion.

Quote from: Alkan
What else is needed is food. It won't be self-sustaining for a long time, so I don't see greenhouses to grow food being particularly useful for some time. Rather, several years worth of food would be sent. 7300 pounds of food would feed a person for five years. It might be safer to send 10,000 pounds of probably pretty lousy space food. Send a crew of 8 people and you can send them with enough food, water and oxygen to survive the process of waiting for the fuel production to go home.
What makes you think 8?
Quote from: Alkan
This is probably the primary goal of the first mission: set up solar panels to generate fuel with the Sabatier process. Some aspects of this would be easier than the space station: not having zero g means that stuff just doesn't float in the air freely.
Musk stated first mission BFS precursor mission is to find landing sites with water, so first human missions will be to set up ISRU.
Quote from: Alkan
Phase II: Increasing the Self-sustainability of the Base
....
 No micrometeorites, reduced cosmic radiation and a gravitational well make this relatively safe. Information from Biosphere 2 would come in handy here. This step is actually comparatively easy and would provide a nice recreational environment on Mars if it were large enough, about the size of a tennis court.
Wrong.
The equivalent to having the same radiation protection on Earth is about a 3metre layer of regolith.

I do agree you'll need some recreational facilities on Mars, especially if you're planning to move there permanently.

Micrometeroites? IIRC Mars is hit by about 95 rocks that are >5m in diameter a year that are visible from orbit. There maybe more but they are below the resolution limit of the orbital cameras.

Others have pointed out the existing Mars agri & aquaculture thread but this video of NASA ex Flight Surgeon James Logan is also quite informative.
« Last Edit: 04/01/2018 09:52 am by john smith 19 »
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #5 on: 04/01/2018 11:49 am »
No, he’s correct. Micrometeorites are not a risk on Mars. Larger meteors are a risk, sure, but they’re far rarer.
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Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #6 on: 04/01/2018 12:51 pm »


So, I'm interested in predicting some of the details of his colony. Each phase is looser and more speculative.

Phase I: Fuel Production

The methane fuel will be created by the Sabatier reaction using CO2 and water.
Welcome to the site.
You're behind the curve here. Substantial Methane deposits have been found.

JS19: Methane deposits?  I missed that.

Are they usable?  What form do they take?  Do you have references?

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Offline Alkan

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #7 on: 04/01/2018 03:00 pm »


So, I'm interested in predicting some of the details of his colony. Each phase is looser and more speculative.

Phase I: Fuel Production

The methane fuel will be created by the Sabatier reaction using CO2 and water.
Welcome to the site.
You're behind the curve here. Substantial Methane deposits have been found.

JS19: Methane deposits?  I missed that.

Are they usable?  What form do they take?  Do you have references?

-----
ABCD: Always Be Counting Down

Elon Musk literally said they're going to use CO2 at ITS presentation, so that comment about me being behind is kind of funny. It's probably easier to find a lot of water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8unI6KHAocU?t=14m43s

The presentation on radiation on Mars was released before Elon Musk's Mars architecture was outlined. It will be an issue, though I don't think Elon Musk seems to think of it as such a big deal. It is a bigger deal than I think that Elon Musk thinks, but the risk of increased cancer is just going to be part of it.
« Last Edit: 04/01/2018 03:30 pm by Alkan »

Offline rakaydos

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #8 on: 04/01/2018 03:58 pm »
I still say expirimental cancer research will be mars's biggest unofficial export for some time. You're on mars, you're not going to spend your whole stay in a bunker driving an RC rover. And when the radiation starts giving you lumps, volunteer for expirimental therapies.

Offline speedevil

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #9 on: 04/01/2018 04:02 pm »
I still say expirimental cancer research will be mars's biggest unofficial export for some time. You're on mars, you're not going to spend your whole stay in a bunker driving an RC rover. And when the radiation starts giving you lumps, volunteer for expirimental therapies.

Experimental therapies are not generally very effective, compared to existing ones.
There is no huge bank of promising therapies that are certainly going to revolutionise treatment.
There are occasional exceptions, but most therapies in fact turn out to be more or less comparable with old ones, or not to work at all, with the very occasional breakthrough.

Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #10 on: 04/01/2018 04:38 pm »
The one thing that keeps bothering me is the question of power.

What's needed is an estimate of consumption based on the colony plans, a power system concept and design, and then an estimae of mass and manpower that passes a sanity check.

Just saying "solar" or "nuclear" is not enough, and SpaceX hasn't yet anything significant about it.

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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #11 on: 04/01/2018 04:45 pm »
Power is already solved compared to mining, though. Power is one of the only things that has already been demonstrated many times on Mars. Solar power in particular.

But SpaceX has discussed power many times. There were comments about special lightweighted deployment using inflatables, plus there’s CG of huge fields of solar arrays. Power has been addressed WAY more than actual mining of water has.
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #12 on: 04/01/2018 04:46 pm »
Additionally, we’ve discussed power many, MANY times on this site, with many threads (often dedicated ones). Few things have been rehashed here more times than Mars surface power. Crazy to say it hasn’t been given much attention.
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Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #13 on: 04/01/2018 04:55 pm »
I still say expirimental cancer research will be mars's biggest unofficial export for some time. You're on mars, you're not going to spend your whole stay in a bunker driving an RC rover.

There is more to setting up a civilization than "driving an RC rover."

Quote
And when the radiation starts giving you lumps, volunteer for expirimental therapies.

This assumes a lot of things that I don't think are likely to be available:

1. There are experts in the field of science and medicine that A) have the equipment necessary, and B) have the time necessary, to work on experimental cancer therapies.

2. A bigger population than what's available on Earth to do the same. Because we already do medical experiments on volunteers here on Earth around the world.

So while I think it's an important field of research, I don't think Mars will be a conducive place to do such research in the early days of setting up their colonies.
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #14 on: 04/01/2018 05:00 pm »
I still say expirimental cancer research will be mars's biggest unofficial export for some time. You're on mars, you're not going to spend your whole stay in a bunker driving an RC rover. And when the radiation starts giving you lumps, volunteer for expirimental therapies.
You can spend almost a full work day (~30 hours per work week) in an EVA suit without exceeding annual Earth Radiation worker standards, provided the rest of the time is well-shielded. Few people seem to realize this.
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #15 on: 04/01/2018 05:02 pm »


So, I'm interested in predicting some of the details of his colony. Each phase is looser and more speculative.

Phase I: Fuel Production

The methane fuel will be created by the Sabatier reaction using CO2 and water.
Welcome to the site.
You're behind the curve here. Substantial Methane deposits have been found.

JS19: Methane deposits?  I missed that.

Are they usable?  What form do they take?  Do you have references?

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Elon Musk literally said they're going to use CO2 at ITS presentation, so that comment about me being behind is kind of funny. It's probably easier to find a lot of water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8unI6KHAocU?t=14m43s

The presentation on radiation on Mars was released before Elon Musk's Mars architecture was outlined. It will be an issue, though I don't think Elon Musk seems to think of it as such a big deal. It is a bigger deal than I think that Elon Musk thinks, but the risk of increased cancer is just going to be part of it.
Presentations on radiation on Mars have been given for decades, the situation has not changed much except that Mars Curiosity has validated that surface radiation levels are much less than deep space and solar events are effectively neutralized (compared to deep space).
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #16 on: 04/01/2018 05:29 pm »
Power is already solved compared to mining, though. Power is one of the only things that has already been demonstrated many times on Mars. Solar power in particular.

But SpaceX has discussed power many times. There were comments about special lightweighted deployment using inflatables, plus there’s CG of huge fields of solar arrays. Power has been addressed WAY more than actual mining of water has.
Actually, compared to other things, it was all hand waving.

How about:
We estimate we will need x kWatt-avg (total or per person)

We estimate we need to ship y kg to generate a kWatt-avg

We estimate we need z man-hours to support that generation.

And a broad outline of a design that supports these estimates.


For BFR, we received that level of detail, down to engine chamber pressure and dry amd wet masses.

But BFR is impossible without ISRU and a ground power system.

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Offline joek

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #17 on: 04/01/2018 05:29 pm »
The presentation on radiation on Mars was released before Elon Musk's Mars architecture was outlined. It will be an issue, though I don't think Elon Musk seems to think of it as such a big deal. It is a bigger deal than I think that Elon Musk thinks, but the risk of increased cancer is just going to be part of it.

Presumably anyone migrating to Mars in the next 30+ years will be reasonably well informed and capable of making their own decision.  The potential Mars population will self-select.  If they are worried that much about radiation they won't go.  If they decide to go who are we to tell them otherwise?

In any case, I doubt that radiation-cancer-related-whatever will be among the top 10 causes of death for a Mars population for the foreseeable future.  Mars is likely to remain very dangerous place for humans for a long time for reasons unrelated to radiation.

Experimental therapies are not generally very effective, compared to existing ones.

Until, of course, they become non-experimental and part of the  norm.  E.g., chemo and charged particle treatment modalities were once "experimental", now they are mainstream.  But point taken; unlikely Mars will drive break-through treatments; likely the colonists will have more pressing issues to worry about.

Offline blasphemer

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #18 on: 04/01/2018 05:55 pm »
Presentations on radiation on Mars have been given for decades, the situation has not changed much except that Mars Curiosity has validated that surface radiation levels are much less than deep space and solar events are effectively neutralized (compared to deep space).

Please post a source. Mars has very weak magnetic field and very thin atmosphere. It should therefore receive almost half of deep space cosmic ray dose (like 200-300 mSv per year, other half shielded by the planet itself) and also most of solar flare doses. Not an issue if you only spend a dozen hours per week outside, but more than that and it becomes a serious concern, especially for actual colonists who will hopefully live for many years and decades on the planet, instead of year long missions.
« Last Edit: 04/01/2018 06:25 pm by blasphemer »

Offline blasphemer

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #19 on: 04/01/2018 06:21 pm »
Wrong.
The equivalent to having the same radiation protection on Earth is about a 3metre layer of regolith.

I would also like a source for this. Earth atmosphere has mass of 10 tonnes per square meter. Seems to me like equivalent mass of regolith would be significantly thicker than 3 meters. Also, this:
« Last Edit: 04/01/2018 06:23 pm by blasphemer »

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #20 on: 04/01/2018 06:37 pm »
The one thing that keeps bothering me is the question of power.

What's needed is an estimate of consumption based on the colony plans, a power system concept and design, and then an estimae of mass and manpower that passes a sanity check.

Just saying "solar" or "nuclear" is not enough, and SpaceX hasn't yet anything significant about it.

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I don't think SX have released any estimates for the settlement.

Historical estimates from various groups (which IIRC appeared on the Mars life support or Mars gardening threads) had figures of 6-60Kw/person/day with 60Kw being the number for LED lit greenhouses. 

The other data point is for large space rated solar arrays is that for the ISS at 200Kw.
Note it's not just the size of the array. It's the rate it has to grow as people come to the settlement.

At 6Kw/person well that sounds fairly doable doesn't it? less than 2/3 of a new Kilopower reactor.

But at 60Kw/person/day things get much tougher.  Every 4 people is equal to putting up another ISS array.
I've noted that concentrator PV arrays can hit efficiencies of 43%  (that's about 142 m^2 per person at 60Kw) but people reckon that using thin film PV arrays trade efficiency for low mass per Kw and resistance to dust storms diffusing the sunlight (which can cut insolation by 80% and last for months).

So at 43% every 100 people have to bring another 14200 m^2 with them.
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline blasphemer

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #21 on: 04/01/2018 06:46 pm »
I don't think SX have released any estimates for the settlement.

SpaceX Mueller has commented on power requirements for ISRU:

Quote
we’ll need to make about 1000 tons of propellant on Mars over a two-year cycle; bring it back; and that’s a tall order. You need about half a megawatt of energy to <inaudible> that much propellant <inaudible>

Quote
So if you’re taking it to Mars, it’s more efficient to ship reactors than it is to ship solar; it’s just that nobody’s really developed a space reactor yet. We’re working with NASA on that, and hopefully they’ll get funding to develop that. They’ve got a program called kilopower going that’s like, ten thousand watts, a 10 kilowatt reactor. We need a megawatt, but you know, you need to start somewhere.

Eventually, the right way to have power on Mars is fission, but initially, it’ll probably be solar. But in order to get the rockets back, we need a lot of power there to make propellant.

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/6b043z/tom_mueller_interview_speech_skype_call_02_may/dhiygzm/?st=jfh5m8bm&sh=81c1cd37

Offline speedevil

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #22 on: 04/01/2018 06:56 pm »
Quote
Mueller: we’ll need to make about 1000 tons of propellant on Mars over a two-year cycle; bring it back; and that’s a tall order. You need about half a megawatt of energy to <inaudible> that much propellant <inaudible>

Half a megawatt times two years is 3*10^13J.
The energy of combustion of 250 tons of methane is around 9*10^12J.
Implying an efficiency of the order of magnitude of 30%.


Offline john smith 19

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #23 on: 04/01/2018 07:04 pm »
Wrong.
The equivalent to having the same radiation protection on Earth is about a 3metre layer of regolith.

I would also like a source for this. Earth atmosphere has mass of 10 tonnes per square meter. Seems to me like equivalent mass of regolith would be significantly thicker than 3 meters. Also, this:
The video I linked talks about radiation at about 42:26. In fact 3m was excessive as Mars regolith is denser than the Moon. The actual figure is 2.67m. Earths atmosphere is non linear. A significant fraction of it supplies no protection. It's when high energy particles hit about 20Km they hit significant density to start cracking molecules and the rest of the atmosphere as an absorber to this "spallation." Start from around 38:00-40:00 for more details.

A couple of boring machines will come in very handy on Mars.
« Last Edit: 04/01/2018 07:07 pm by john smith 19 »
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline speedevil

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #24 on: 04/01/2018 07:13 pm »
Historical estimates from various groups (which IIRC appeared on the Mars life support or Mars gardening threads) had figures of 6-60Kw/person/day with 60Kw being the number for LED lit greenhouses. 

The hardest figure I could find for a reasonable minimum came from cultivation studies on potatoes. You need to carefully look at what's included.
Some, for example, are including in power needs the whole air-conditioning to remove heat from their inefficient light sources to hot florida, as part of the energy budget.

This post outlines some of the results - in short - counting the lighting load only, you can grow 100% of the calories as potatos required by one person in 3kW and 40m^2. (24h/day).
You need somewhat more than this - around double - to do oxygen too.
Other crops are slightly less - around half is common - as efficient as potatos in terms of calories per joule in.
If you want 5% of the diet to be meat, pigs have around 10% efficiency for example, so with some 6kW electrical power into lights, (constant, 150kWh/day) you can get a reasonably varied diet.

This assumes you can do the cooling fairly cheaply, using heat exchange with the outside air, and do not need expensive air conditioning.
But, 60kW is overkill.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #25 on: 04/01/2018 07:24 pm »
Presentations on radiation on Mars have been given for decades, the situation has not changed much except that Mars Curiosity has validated that surface radiation levels are much less than deep space and solar events are effectively neutralized (compared to deep space).

Please post a source. Mars has very weak magnetic field and very thin atmosphere. It should therefore receive almost half of deep space cosmic ray dose (like 200-300 mSv per year, other half shielded by the planet itself) and also most of solar flare doses. Not an issue if you only spend a dozen hours per week outside, but more than that and it becomes a serious concern, especially for actual colonists who will hopefully live for many years and decades on the planet, instead of year long missions.
The planet shields half the radiation, and the atmosphere (although "thin") is about 40 grams/cm^2 thick, which dramatically attenuates solar flares and also reduces dosage of GCRs somewhat. It's like a foot or two of regolith.

It only takes a small amount of shielding to make solar flares much smaller in impact.

As far as if it's actually a concern, I was referring to Earth radiation worker doses, not limits.
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Offline blasphemer

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #26 on: 04/01/2018 07:32 pm »
The planet shields half the radiation, and the atmosphere (although "thin") is about 40 grams/cm^2 thick, which dramatically attenuates solar flares and also reduces dosage of GCRs somewhat. It's like a foot or two of regolith.

But isnt low amount of shielding generally even worse that nothing when it comes to GCRs due to secondary radiation? Of course it may depend on exact shielding mass and elemental composition...

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #27 on: 04/01/2018 07:41 pm »
The planet shields half the radiation, and the atmosphere (although "thin") is about 40 grams/cm^2 thick, which dramatically attenuates solar flares and also reduces dosage of GCRs somewhat. It's like a foot or two of regolith.

But isnt low amount of shielding generally even worse that nothing when it comes to GCRs due to secondary radiation? Of course it may depend on exact shielding mass and elemental composition...
That’s only really for metals or other things with high atomic mass. CO2 per-atom (ie carbon and oxygen) is much lighter than aluminum.

Also, that’s only for thin shields. 40 g/cm2 is getting pretty thick.
« Last Edit: 04/01/2018 07:44 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #28 on: 04/01/2018 07:46 pm »
As you can see, even aluminum (which is terrible compared to CO2) can effectively eliminate all acute solar flare effects with just30g/cm2. But the Mars atmosphere provides thicker shielding than that.
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Offline docmordrid

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #29 on: 04/01/2018 07:49 pm »
Shield the planet. One of NASAs ideas is a ~1-2 Tesla dipole placed at Sun-Mars L1. 1.5-3 Tesla is about the field strength of a modern medical CT scanner.

PhysOrg...

Presentation video, this starts at 1:36:00

https://livestream.com/viewnow/vision2050/videos/150701155
« Last Edit: 04/01/2018 07:54 pm by docmordrid »
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #30 on: 04/01/2018 07:52 pm »
Shield the planet. One of NASAs ideas is a ~3 Tesla dipole placed at Sun-Mars L1. 3 Tesla is about the power of a modern medical CT scanner.

PhysOrg...

Presentation video, this starts at 1:36:00

https://livestream.com/viewnow/vision2050/videos/150701155
Doesnt help for solar flares because solar flare charged radiation doesn’t travel in a straight line from the Sun. Also, that idea is problematic on a few levels. It wouldn’t make hardly any difference to the Mars atmosphere in the near term.
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Offline docmordrid

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #31 on: 04/01/2018 07:57 pm »
If the plan is colonization then near term could be handled otherwise.

I also wonder about a magnetic 'mesh constellation' akin to StarLink with overlapping zones of influence.
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Offline cppetrie

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #32 on: 04/01/2018 08:01 pm »
Shield the planet. One of NASAs ideas is a ~1-2 Tesla dipole placed at Sun-Mars L1. 1.5-3 Tesla is about the field strength of a modern medical CT scanner.

PhysOrg...

Presentation video, this starts at 1:36:00

https://livestream.com/viewnow/vision2050/videos/150701155
You mean an MR scanner. CT scanners do not generate magnetic fields. And to your point 3T scanners aren’t even state of the art. 5T and 7T scanners are being used in research hospitals. They aren’t used routinely mostly because their greater expense isn’t worth it for routine clinical needs and also because those field strengths cause disorientation to patients that usually require sedation.

Offline speedevil

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #33 on: 04/01/2018 08:02 pm »
And to your point 3T scanners aren’t even state of the art. 5T and 7T scanners are being used in research hospitals. They aren’t used routinely mostly because their greater expense isn’t worth it for routine clinical needs and also because those field strengths cause disorientation to patients that usually require sedation.

Most MRI machines used in hospitals are slightly under several hundred kilometers in diameter.

Offline docmordrid

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #34 on: 04/01/2018 08:06 pm »


>
You mean an MR scanner. CT scanners do not generate magnetic fields. And to your point 3T scanners aren’t even state of the art. 5T and 7T scanners are being used in research hospitals. They aren’t used routinely mostly because their greater expense isn’t worth it for routine clinical needs and also because those field strengths cause disorientation to patients that usually require sedation.

Brain fart. Thought MRI, typed CT, but yes.
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #35 on: 04/01/2018 08:14 pm »
If the plan is colonization then near term could be handled otherwise.

I also wonder about a magnetic 'mesh constellation' akin to StarLink with overlapping zones of influence.
Just put superconducting cables around the equator on the surface. Bonus: global supergrid with multi-year energy storage (essentially making solar power immune to dust storms no matter how big.
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Offline speedevil

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #36 on: 04/01/2018 08:16 pm »
If the plan is colonization then near term could be handled otherwise.

I also wonder about a magnetic 'mesh constellation' akin to StarLink with overlapping zones of influence.
Just put superconducting cables around the equator on the surface.
You get very, very large currents flowing in the core, which act to cancel your imposed field essentially 'forever'.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #37 on: 04/01/2018 08:18 pm »
If the plan is colonization then near term could be handled otherwise.

I also wonder about a magnetic 'mesh constellation' akin to StarLink with overlapping zones of influence.
Just put superconducting cables around the equator on the surface.
You get very, very large currents flowing in the core, which act to cancel your imposed field essentially 'forever'.
Not really. You charge it up over decades. That’s slow enough that the core doesnt cancel out the field.  Additionally, core is above the curie point.
« Last Edit: 04/01/2018 08:18 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #38 on: 04/01/2018 08:19 pm »
Remember, we only care about atmosphere erosion over tens of millions of years.
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Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #39 on: 04/01/2018 08:23 pm »
You get very, very large currents flowing in the core, which act to cancel your imposed field essentially 'forever'.
I am not sure whether I understood your post correctly, but I want to point out that the newer high temperature super conductors such as YBCO do not have the current/magnetic field limitations of low temperature super conductors.

Offline cppetrie

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #40 on: 04/01/2018 08:23 pm »
And to your point 3T scanners aren’t even state of the art. 5T and 7T scanners are being used in research hospitals. They aren’t used routinely mostly because their greater expense isn’t worth it for routine clinical needs and also because those field strengths cause disorientation to patients that usually require sedation.

Most MRI machines used in hospitals are slightly under several hundred kilometers in diameter.
Why would it need to be several kilometers in diameter?

Offline speedevil

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #41 on: 04/01/2018 08:24 pm »
You get very, very large currents flowing in the core, which act to cancel your imposed field essentially 'forever'.
Not really. You charge it up over decades. That’s slow enough that the core doesnt cancel out the field.  Additionally, core is above the curie point.

Skin effect means 'slow enough' is many, many thousands of years, not decades unfortunately.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #42 on: 04/01/2018 08:43 pm »
You get very, very large currents flowing in the core, which act to cancel your imposed field essentially 'forever'.
Not really. You charge it up over decades. That’s slow enough that the core doesnt cancel out the field.  Additionally, core is above the curie point.

Skin effect means 'slow enough' is many, many thousands of years, not decades unfortunately.
I doubt such a calculation, although I haven’t had time to calculate it myself (Mars core is about 10^6 S/m). But thousands of years is still just fine for stopping erosion. Beefing up the atmosphere is a much greater priority and it’ll make a much bigger difference in surface radiation levels than the magnetic field would.
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Offline speedevil

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #43 on: 04/01/2018 09:22 pm »
I doubt such a calculation, although I haven’t had time to calculate it myself (Mars core is about 10^6 S/m). But thousands of years is still just fine for stopping erosion. Beefing up the atmosphere is a much greater priority and it’ll make a much bigger difference in surface radiation levels than the magnetic field would.
That is - when you turn on your coil around Mars, you induce an equal and opposite current in the surface of the molten core of Mars, which almost perfectly cancels out your induced field.

It takes longer than thousands of years for this cancellation to go away and your imposed field to be visible.
(Local fields that don't touch the core are not affected)

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #44 on: 04/01/2018 10:57 pm »
I understood your point, I just am not going to accept it as true without doing the calculation myself tonight. Doesn’t make much practical difference, tho, since erosion is only a concern over tens or hundreds of millions of years.
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Offline Alkan

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #45 on: 04/02/2018 06:10 am »
I doubt such a calculation, although I haven’t had time to calculate it myself (Mars core is about 10^6 S/m). But thousands of years is still just fine for stopping erosion. Beefing up the atmosphere is a much greater priority and it’ll make a much bigger difference in surface radiation levels than the magnetic field would.
That is - when you turn on your coil around Mars, you induce an equal and opposite current in the surface of the molten core of Mars, which almost perfectly cancels out your induced field.

It takes longer than thousands of years for this cancellation to go away and your imposed field to be visible.
(Local fields that don't touch the core are not affected)

If it really took thousands of years to become negligible, then all you would have to do is turn the magnet on for a split second and the current induced in the core would keep up a strong enough magnetic field for a long time.

It's kind of absurd, actually. Changing magnetic fields induce currents, steady magnetic fields do not. Currents decay almost instantaneously if nothing is driving it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_equations#Formulation_in_SI_units_convention

The third one, Maxwell–Faraday equation. The second one is easier to understand (DelXE=-∂B/∂t).
« Last Edit: 04/02/2018 06:18 am by Alkan »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #46 on: 04/02/2018 09:59 am »
But the core is really big. Gotta do the calculation.
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Offline TaurusLittrow

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #47 on: 04/02/2018 10:30 am »


So, I'm interested in predicting some of the details of his colony. Each phase is looser and more speculative.

Phase I: Fuel Production

The methane fuel will be created by the Sabatier reaction using CO2 and water.
Welcome to the site.
You're behind the curve here. Substantial Methane deposits have been found.

JS19: Methane deposits?  I missed that.

Are they usable?  What form do they take?  Do you have references?

-----
ABCD: Always Be Counting Down

Elon Musk literally said they're going to use CO2 at ITS presentation, so that comment about me being behind is kind of funny. It's probably easier to find a lot of water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8unI6KHAocU?t=14m43s

The presentation on radiation on Mars was released before Elon Musk's Mars architecture was outlined. It will be an issue, though I don't think Elon Musk seems to think of it as such a big deal. It is a bigger deal than I think that Elon Musk thinks, but the risk of increased cancer is just going to be part of it.

Agreed. There are serious issues surrounding reproduction in a high radiation environment. Based on measurements by the Curiosity rover in Gale crater, the average dose-equivalent rate of cosmic rays is about 0.64 milliSieverts (mSv) per day on the surface. Day by day, that adds up. One estimate of the annual dose-equivalent of cosmic rays in a regolith-shielded habitat on Mars ranges from 70 mSv (at solar maximum) to 260mSv (at solar minimum). A three-meter deep layer provides the maximum shielding from galactic cosmic rays.

At some threshold, the reproductive organs are at risk. With less protection, chromosomes inside male reproductive cells are more susceptible to radiation damage, especially since the male Y chromosome seems to be more fragile than the female X chromosome. Injury to male reproductive cells could provoke infertility or even change the ratio of girl to boy babies.

Unborn children are at even greater risk than their parents since serious health problems can arise at substantially lower radiation doses. Prenatal radiation can spark structural malformations, growth retardation, sterility, and central nervous system abnormalities, to name a few. The threshold for developmental abnormalities during the period when major organs form is about 100mSv acute gamma rays, and may be even lower for highly energetic neutrons and heavy nuclei in cosmic rays.

The developing central nervous system in the fetus is particularly sensitive to radiation. Statistics from A-bomb survivors exposed in utero at 8 to 15 weeks after conception show decreases in IQ scores of about 21 to 29 points per 1000 mSv. The lifetime risk of cancer also rises following exposure in utero or early childhood—substantially greater than the increased risk in adults.

The most critical health effect for human colonization of Mars may turn out to be infertility in women exposed to radiation before birth. The radiosensitivity of immature eggs in female fetuses—approximately half of developing eggs are killed by only 70 mSv of chronic beta (electron) rays. A female fetus exposed to this level could be born sterile or suffer premature menopause.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #48 on: 04/02/2018 10:43 am »
Sorry to interrupt your doomsaying, but you can shield a habitat on the surface to lower than Earth levels of radiation. Heck, a big enough habitat with enough floors will have enough shielding in the structure itself that the lower levels will have Earth-like radiation levels. That’s where children and pregnant families can hang out.
« Last Edit: 04/02/2018 12:18 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline speedevil

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #49 on: 04/02/2018 01:57 pm »
That is - when you turn on your coil around Mars, you induce an equal and opposite current in the surface of the molten core of Mars, which almost perfectly cancels out your induced field.

It takes longer than thousands of years for this cancellation to go away and your imposed field to be visible.
(Local fields that don't touch the core are not affected)

If it really took thousands of years to become negligible, then all you would have to do is turn the magnet on for a split second and the current induced in the core would keep up a strong enough magnetic field for a long time.

It's kind of absurd, actually. Changing magnetic fields induce currents, steady magnetic fields do not. Currents decay almost instantaneously if nothing is driving it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_equations#Formulation_in_SI_units_convention

The third one, Maxwell–Faraday equation. The second one is easier to understand (DelXE=-∂B/∂t).
Details matter.
Changing magnetic fields induce currents, steady magnetic fields do not.
But, if you have a conductor a thousand kilometers thick, it takes many, many thousands of years for that current to be 'steady' (the effect of the startup transient to be zero).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect


In practice, the modest shielding of the atmosphere, combined with well shielded living quarters seems to be pretty much adequate, without trying global magnetic field modification.
Modifying the local field is of course possible.


Offline Alkan

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #50 on: 04/02/2018 03:02 pm »
Without being driven and with an extremely high resistivity (which is NOT resistance), each volume element of the planet makes up a resistor. The thing is, there's not even a closed loop inside Mars to induce a current in. Any established potential inside of the planet is what would cause the induced current in the first place, and there isn't a loop - the charge is free to move across the planet's presumably metal core. You need to be thinking about concepts like current density and resistivity before you're thinking about current and resistance.

Quote
Modifying the local field is of course possible.

Putting a magnetic field up near your settlement would do absolutely nothing except for possibly deflecting a few charged particles. EM waves pass right through a magnetic field, which is why you don't see any blurring or any weird effects when you turn on powerful magnets. So, when a gamma ray comes in and happens to be the one that hits a strand of DNA and gives you cancer, that's where an electromagnetic field does nothing to act on the incoming EM-wave. This is because of superposition.

An easy way of modeling this is to imagine a solenoid around an insulating shell with an conducting sphere on the inside. You can assume little magnetization of the material in the insulator, which means you can basically ignore it, leaving a solenoid around a conducting sphere.

If you turn on a direct current, you will induce a small eddy current in the sphere. That will die off as soon as the magnetic field stops changing because the somewhat complicated circular electric potential inside of the sphere will dissipate as soon as the magnetic field running through it stops oscillating. Without a changing magnetic field, there won't even be a current moving in a direction.

Electric fields establish themselves at the speed of light, and the speed of electrons in an actual material is actually very, very slow, on the order of microns per second. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drift_velocity - see the numerical example at the bottom of the page.

So, really, the decay of this current is going to happen almost instantly.

Magnetic induction stoves use currents that oscillate at 100 Hz to 200 kHz. The skin effect doesn't even make sense as a concept without a driven oscillating electric potential.
« Last Edit: 04/02/2018 03:35 pm by Alkan »

Offline speedevil

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #51 on: 04/02/2018 04:57 pm »
Without being driven and with an extremely high resistivity (which is NOT resistance), each volume element of the planet makes up a resistor. The thing is, there's not even a closed loop inside Mars to induce a current in. Any established potential inside of the planet is what would cause the induced current in the first place, and there isn't a loop - the charge is free to move across the planet's presumably metal core. You need to be thinking about concepts like current density and resistivity before you're thinking about current and resistance.

The core is made of metal.
It is one solid piece of metal, with no insulation.
The loop is formed of the circumference of the core under your coil.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_theory Magnetism can make current move very, very slowly through large conductive bodies, before becoming 'simply' resistive.
This is however off topic here, as no plausible near-term colony is doing global scale geomagnetism attempts.
« Last Edit: 04/02/2018 04:59 pm by speedevil »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #52 on: 04/03/2018 01:04 pm »
Speedevil:
I moved my reply (with chris bergin’s help) to this thread: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=45398.0#new

You make a good and valid point BUT... (click that link :) )

Let this discussion continue about the Mars Nation (colony implies subjugation by Earth ;) ).
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #53 on: 04/04/2018 11:31 pm »
Sorry to interrupt your doomsaying, but you can shield a habitat on the surface to lower than Earth levels of radiation. Heck, a big enough habitat with enough floors will have enough shielding in the structure itself that the lower levels will have Earth-like radiation levels. That’s where children and pregnant families can hang out.

Just to follow up: based on my calculations, 900g/cm^2 of Mars regolith (about 6 meters) corresponds to radiation levels of about 3mSv/year, which is lower than Earth (which is about 4mSv/year).

A 10-20 storey building would have about that much vertical shielding just due to structure.
« Last Edit: 04/04/2018 11:36 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline docmordrid

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #54 on: 04/05/2018 12:22 pm »
Plant based meat substitutes tend to have 2 problems: many of the better ones are based on glutens, which make many peoplei ill, and in order to have an acceptable taste they contain ridiculous levels of sodium chloride.

Bioengineered meat; any chef will tell you the animal cell culture isn't near enough.The flavor is from the Maillard reaction, a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars, and the thermal degradation of a complex brew of animal lipids and collagens. Need to synthesize those too, and in the proper proportions. Some "meats" will need more collagen, as in roasts and stewing meats.
DM

Offline jpo234

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #55 on: 04/05/2018 12:37 pm »
Hi I couldn't find the mars agriculture thread for some reason.. just dumping this here.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=44465.0
You want to be inspired by things. You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great. That's what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It's about believing in the future and believing the future will be better than the past. And I can't think of anything more exciting than being out there among the stars.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #56 on: 04/05/2018 12:48 pm »
People forget we actually have a larger forum outside of SpaceX...

General Mars threads should go in the general Mars section, not in the SpaceX Mars section.
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Offline jpo234

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #57 on: 04/05/2018 02:48 pm »
People forget we actually have a larger forum outside of SpaceX...

General Mars threads should go in the general Mars section, not in the SpaceX Mars section.

Actually, there is not really a "general Mars section". The thread Scaling Agriculture on Mars  is under "HLV / SLS / Orion / Constellation", which is not really all that much better than "SpaceX Mars".
You want to be inspired by things. You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great. That's what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It's about believing in the future and believing the future will be better than the past. And I can't think of anything more exciting than being out there among the stars.

Offline JesseD

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #58 on: 04/05/2018 03:57 pm »

My theory is that we are going to be living in mars bases one way or another.. even if we stay on earth. This is just another example out of thousands of how the inexorable evolution towards efficient sustainable technology on earth brings mars bases closer.

As foreseen back in the 90s.

Offline Toast

Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #59 on: 04/05/2018 11:17 pm »
Plant based meat substitutes tend to have 2 problems: many of the better ones are based on glutens, which make many peoplei ill, and in order to have an acceptable taste they contain ridiculous levels of sodium chloride.

Gluten isn't some boogeyman, the vast majority of the population can eat it just fine. Unless by "many" you mean ~0.5-1% of the population. Plus there's plenty of other plant-based proteins out there for those that can't or won't eat gluten. As for sodium, I'd like to see a source for that because I've never had a problem keeping my sodium intake levels low while on a plant-based diet.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #60 on: 04/05/2018 11:29 pm »
Gluten is easy to solve: just don’t tell anyone (except those with a professionally diagnosed problem) that there’s gluten in it.
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #61 on: 04/05/2018 11:32 pm »
People forget we actually have a larger forum outside of SpaceX...

General Mars threads should go in the general Mars section, not in the SpaceX Mars section.

Actually, there is not really a "general Mars section". The thread Scaling Agriculture on Mars  is under "HLV / SLS / Orion / Constellation", which is not really all that much better than "SpaceX Mars".
It is the General HSF Mars section, my apologies. That is the place where non-SpaceX-specific Mars HSF stuff goes, as is noted by its title and subtitle: “Missions To Mars (HSF): Forum section dedicated on HSF Missions To Mars.”

That the broader grouping doesn’t mention General is kinda irrelevant (and somewhat a historical artifact) as the specific forum title is clear.

I agree it may be confusing, so have suggested a top section heading change.
« Last Edit: 04/05/2018 11:48 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline DaveH62

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #63 on: 04/26/2018 01:03 am »
Aren’t iodine supplements an option to reduce radiation exposure? Longer term changing the atmosphere seems to be his big design goal. I think Tesla and BFR are practice for terraform engineering.

Offline jg

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #64 on: 04/26/2018 01:15 am »
Aren’t iodine supplements an option to reduce radiation exposure? Longer term changing the atmosphere seems to be his big design goal. I think Tesla and BFR are practice for terraform engineering.

If you are exposed to radioactive iodine, for example, from fallout or a reactor accident.  Radioactive iodine is a byproduct of fission...

I don't think iodine is particularly useful when you have general radiation exposure....

Offline cppetrie

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #65 on: 04/26/2018 01:20 am »
Aren’t iodine supplements an option to reduce radiation exposure? Longer term changing the atmosphere seems to be his big design goal. I think Tesla and BFR are practice for terraform engineering.

If you are exposed to radioactive iodine, for example, from fallout or a reactor accident.  Radioactive iodine is a byproduct of fission...

I don't think iodine is particularly useful when you have general radiation exposure....
Yep. Iodine tablets are an attempt to limit thyroid uptake of radioactive environmental iodine during a fallout event. Radioactive iodine buildup in the thyroid will destroy the thyroid gland and cause death without substitute thyroid hormone. They do this intentionally to treat certain types of thyroid disorders. It won’t do anything to protect you from other sources of direct and indirect exposure of radiation such as increased cosmic gamma ray exposure during spaceflight.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #66 on: 04/26/2018 03:10 am »
There are some drugs that can reduce effects of acute radiation exposure, though.
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Offline cppetrie

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #67 on: 04/26/2018 05:04 am »
There are some drugs that can reduce effects of acute radiation exposure, though.
Certainly, but not iodine tablets. And in most cases the risks wouldn’t be for acute exposure levels but for chronic exposure levels where you see increased cancer rates, etc. Where acute exposure would probably show up most profoundly is with increased spontaneous abortion rate, miscarriages, and birth defects because developing fetuses are much more sensitive to radiation exposure levels. Same for childhood cancers for similar reasons. Acute radiation poisoning requires a pretty substantial acute whole body dose, levels that are unlikely on a Mars colony or in transit.

Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #68 on: 04/27/2018 08:32 pm »
There are some drugs that can reduce effects of acute radiation exposure, though.
Certainly, but not iodine tablets. And in most cases the risks wouldn’t be for acute exposure levels but for chronic exposure levels where you see increased cancer rates, etc. Where acute exposure would probably show up most profoundly is with increased spontaneous abortion rate, miscarriages, and birth defects because developing fetuses are much more sensitive to radiation exposure levels. Same for childhood cancers for similar reasons. Acute radiation poisoning requires a pretty substantial acute whole body dose, levels that are unlikely on a Mars colony or in transit.
There are people that live on earth in areas with very high background radiation levels and they are doing just fine. I think that the effects of radiation on the human body are generally exaggerated. If you look at the Lifetime study that observed people living in Hiroshima (and I believe Nagasaki too) after the atomic bombs were dropped, the effects were measurable, but not dramatic. The biggest effects are from radioactive particles that have been ingested or inhaled and that wont apply on a Mars colony.
« Last Edit: 04/27/2018 08:33 pm by Elmar Moelzer »

Offline cppetrie

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #69 on: 04/27/2018 11:11 pm »
There are some drugs that can reduce effects of acute radiation exposure, though.
Certainly, but not iodine tablets. And in most cases the risks wouldn’t be for acute exposure levels but for chronic exposure levels where you see increased cancer rates, etc. Where acute exposure would probably show up most profoundly is with increased spontaneous abortion rate, miscarriages, and birth defects because developing fetuses are much more sensitive to radiation exposure levels. Same for childhood cancers for similar reasons. Acute radiation poisoning requires a pretty substantial acute whole body dose, levels that are unlikely on a Mars colony or in transit.
There are people that live on earth in areas with very high background radiation levels and they are doing just fine. I think that the effects of radiation on the human body are generally exaggerated. If you look at the Lifetime study that observed people living in Hiroshima (and I believe Nagasaki too) after the atomic bombs were dropped, the effects were measurable, but not dramatic. The biggest effects are from radioactive particles that have been ingested or inhaled and that wont apply on a Mars colony.
I didn’t say the risks would be high, just that they would be increased. I tend to agree that the overall risk is still likely to be low, but it will be higher than it otherwise would be.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #70 on: 04/27/2018 11:20 pm »
Acute radiation is only a risk really for solar particle events. In a Mars settlement, this isn’t a risk as the Mars atmosphere is sufficient to reduce the dose by a large amount such that even the worst flares aren’t really detectable from acute symptoms.

If the Mars settlement is a very large building, the radiation levels at about 10 floors down will be low enough for children.
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Offline envy887

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #71 on: 04/27/2018 11:35 pm »
Acute radiation is only a risk really for solar particle events. In a Mars settlement, this isn’t a risk as the Mars atmosphere is sufficient to reduce the dose by a large amount such that even the worst flares aren’t really detectable from acute symptoms.

If the Mars settlement is a very large building, the radiation levels at about 10 floors down will be low enough for children.

And such a multi-floor building can be arbitrarily large and built in many smaller steps, with each intermediate being fully useful and entirely protected against depressurization. All those features, along with the radiation protection, are very difficult to get in a dome.

Offline cppetrie

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #72 on: 04/28/2018 12:09 am »
Acute radiation is only a risk really for solar particle events. In a Mars settlement, this isn’t a risk as the Mars atmosphere is sufficient to reduce the dose by a large amount such that even the worst flares aren’t really detectable from acute symptoms.

If the Mars settlement is a very large building, the radiation levels at about 10 floors down will be low enough for children.
Exactly. The most dangerous types of radiation (alpha and beta particles) are easily stopped by even small amounts of everyday materials. Gamma rays are much less dangerous per unit of exposure and would also be attenuated by even the thin atmosphere. With the exception of solar events, radiation should be a pretty manageable issue. And even solar events should mostly require timely detection and a safe shelter(s) for short duration use.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #73 on: 04/28/2018 02:59 am »
Acute radiation is only a risk really for solar particle events. In a Mars settlement, this isn’t a risk as the Mars atmosphere is sufficient to reduce the dose by a large amount such that even the worst flares aren’t really detectable from acute symptoms.

If the Mars settlement is a very large building, the radiation levels at about 10 floors down will be low enough for children.
Exactly. The most dangerous types of radiation (alpha and beta particles) are easily stopped by even small amounts of everyday materials. Gamma rays are much less dangerous per unit of exposure and would also be attenuated by even the thin atmosphere. With the exception of solar events, radiation should be a pretty manageable issue. And even solar events should mostly require timely detection and a safe shelter(s) for short duration use.
The main concern is actually galactic cosmic rays, i.e. protons and the occasional heavy ion. And that takes more shielding to fully eliminate (although the atmosphere helps). 15 feet of regolith or concrete or whatever would stop it, though.
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Offline Peter.Colin

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #74 on: 06/02/2018 10:20 am »
Suppose you would want to make a self sustaining city in space, Mars orbit would be more ideal to build it than in earth orbit.
How much more mass could one BFR Booster send to orbit on Mars compared to Earth?
(Also the future space elevator is constructed easier on Mars)

My estimation is that the majority of the one million people needed for self sustainability will live in Mars orbit, rather than on or bellow the surface.
Think of it like the space station in the movie Elysium, lush green, lots of water, 1G and even bigger.

The first 10.000 will live on and below the surface. They will start massive mining operations, massive fuel production and the a copy of the chemical industrial complex on earth.

After that it would be nice to Terraform Mars, but that’s longer term.
« Last Edit: 06/02/2018 10:21 am by Peter.Colin »

Offline john smith 19

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #75 on: 06/02/2018 11:23 am »
I still say expirimental cancer research will be mars's biggest unofficial export for some time. You're on mars, you're not going to spend your whole stay in a bunker driving an RC rover. And when the radiation starts giving you lumps, volunteer for expirimental therapies.
You can spend almost a full work day (~30 hours per work week) in an EVA suit without exceeding annual Earth Radiation worker standards, provided the rest of the time is well-shielded. Few people seem to realize this.
So just to be clear Mars surface operations will expose a person to 365x the radiation level of a worker in the nuclear power industry.

So 30-40 days of Mars surface operations will rack up a lifetime radiation dose for a person, and staying inside the BFS is unlikely to deliver much better protection than working on the surface?

That suggests building some well shield living space is not a luxury, but a necessity.
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #76 on: 06/02/2018 12:43 pm »
I still say expirimental cancer research will be mars's biggest unofficial export for some time. You're on mars, you're not going to spend your whole stay in a bunker driving an RC rover. And when the radiation starts giving you lumps, volunteer for expirimental therapies.
You can spend almost a full work day (~30 hours per work week) in an EVA suit without exceeding annual Earth Radiation worker standards, provided the rest of the time is well-shielded. Few people seem to realize this.
So just to be clear Mars surface operations will expose a person to 365x the radiation level of a worker in the nuclear power industry.

So 30-40 days of Mars surface operations will rack up a lifetime radiation dose for a person, and staying inside the BFS is unlikely to deliver much better protection than working on the surface?

That suggests building some well shield living space is not a luxury, but a necessity.
False.

Don’t intentionally take the most misleading interpretation of my post and twist it around with more incorrect facts.

« Last Edit: 06/02/2018 01:02 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #77 on: 06/02/2018 12:49 pm »
Annual dose limit for radiation workers is 50mSv per year.

Mars surface radiation dose is 0.64mSv/day, or .027/hour. So being outside unprotected for 30 hours a week for 52 weeks a year is just 42mSv/year, under the terrestrial radiation worker annual dose limit (astronaut limits are higher).
« Last Edit: 06/02/2018 12:51 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline niwax

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #78 on: 06/02/2018 05:23 pm »
Annual dose limit for radiation workers is 50mSv per year.

Mars surface radiation dose is 0.64mSv/day, or .027/hour. So being outside unprotected for 30 hours a week for 52 weeks a year is just 42mSv/year, under the terrestrial radiation worker annual dose limit (astronaut limits are higher).

How much of that can easily be reduced? Gravity on Mars is light enough that permanently wearing garments with some radiation protection like metallic strands woven in should be possible. Maybe protect the more important bits by wearing heavier hats and undershirts.
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Offline aero

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #79 on: 06/02/2018 11:25 pm »
Tin foil hats!
Retired, working interesting problems

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #80 on: 06/03/2018 12:15 am »
Annual dose limit for radiation workers is 50mSv per year.

Mars surface radiation dose is 0.64mSv/day, or .027/hour. So being outside unprotected for 30 hours a week for 52 weeks a year is just 42mSv/year, under the terrestrial radiation worker annual dose limit (astronaut limits are higher).

How much of that can easily be reduced? Gravity on Mars is light enough that permanently wearing garments with some radiation protection like metallic strands woven in should be possible. Maybe protect the more important bits by wearing heavier hats and undershirts.
Unfortunately, not much. The atmosphere at Mars already provides about 40g/cm^2 Of CO2 shielding (on average for a given random small solid angle). So if you add like a foot of water, you’ll reduce it some, but that’s cumbersome to wear. Denser materials (ie metals) are generally less effective at stopping the kind of radiation that you get on Mars and can possibly make it worse (ie with lead).
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Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #81 on: 06/03/2018 03:33 am »
Annual dose limit for radiation workers is 50mSv per year.

Mars surface radiation dose is 0.64mSv/day, or .027/hour. So being outside unprotected for 30 hours a week for 52 weeks a year is just 42mSv/year, under the terrestrial radiation worker annual dose limit (astronaut limits are higher).

A) numbers!
B) The solar component of the radiation is only present during the day, so the /day and /hr numbers are not simply a ratio of 24 - daytime level will be higher than night time.  Still tho, your point stands.

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Offline rakaydos

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #82 on: 06/03/2018 07:45 am »
Annual dose limit for radiation workers is 50mSv per year.

Mars surface radiation dose is 0.64mSv/day, or .027/hour. So being outside unprotected for 30 hours a week for 52 weeks a year is just 42mSv/year, under the terrestrial radiation worker annual dose limit (astronaut limits are higher).

A) numbers!
B) The solar component of the radiation is only present during the day, so the /day and /hr numbers are not simply a ratio of 24 - daytime level will be higher than night time.  Still tho, your point stands.
I read that as a 30 hour workweek, which can usually be expected to happen during daylight hours for general visibility reasons. If a blue collar worker could do their normal thing and not breach rad limits, (assuming they sleep and off-duty in the rad hardened base) then Radiation really isnt a problem.

It still more radiation than most people get exposed to, however. So, research opportunity.

Offline CuddlyRocket

Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #83 on: 06/03/2018 07:27 pm »
The solar component of the radiation is only present during the day, so the /day and /hr numbers are not simply a ratio of 24 - daytime level will be higher than night time.

Suggests consideration should be given to working on the surface only at night, where practicable.

Offline mgfitter

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #84 on: 06/03/2018 07:54 pm »
Is anyone (outside of SpaceX) actually working on a Mars Direct/Design Reference Mission architecture that baselines BFR as the prime transportation system to and from Mars?

-MG.

Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #85 on: 06/03/2018 08:18 pm »
Is anyone (outside of SpaceX) actually working on a Mars Direct/Design Reference Mission architecture that baselines BFR as the prime transportation system to and from Mars?

-MG.
Once SpaceX releases a BFR users guide then you might see more DRM like plans, MOUs and even contracts. Don't expect the BFR UG until the BFS does it's first hop. Which if SpacX plans are only 50% delayed such that the first hop happens late 2020, it is still not long to wait.
« Last Edit: 06/03/2018 08:19 pm by oldAtlas_Eguy »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #86 on: 06/04/2018 01:16 am »
Annual dose limit for radiation workers is 50mSv per year.

Mars surface radiation dose is 0.64mSv/day, or .027/hour. So being outside unprotected for 30 hours a week for 52 weeks a year is just 42mSv/year, under the terrestrial radiation worker annual dose limit (astronaut limits are higher).

A) numbers!
B) The solar component of the radiation is only present during the day, so the /day and /hr numbers are not simply a ratio of 24 - daytime level will be higher than night time.  Still tho, your point stands.
The solar component of radiation is present on both day and night as it doesn't just follow straight from the Sun. It spirals randomly around the magnetic field lines which itself is a big spiral, and the solar radiation can even bounce backward along the magnetic field lines. But regardless, the solar radiation component is tiny on the Martian surface (it's much lower energy than galactic cosmic rays, and therefore the 40 grams/cm^2 of atmosphere blocks it very well) and can be safely ignored for our purposes.
« Last Edit: 06/04/2018 01:17 am by Robotbeat »
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Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #87 on: 06/04/2018 02:04 am »
Annual dose limit for radiation workers is 50mSv per year.

Mars surface radiation dose is 0.64mSv/day, or .027/hour. So being outside unprotected for 30 hours a week for 52 weeks a year is just 42mSv/year, under the terrestrial radiation worker annual dose limit (astronaut limits are higher).

A) numbers!
B) The solar component of the radiation is only present during the day, so the /day and /hr numbers are not simply a ratio of 24 - daytime level will be higher than night time.  Still tho, your point stands.
The solar component of radiation is present on both day and night as it doesn't just follow straight from the Sun. It spirals randomly around the magnetic field lines which itself is a big spiral, and the solar radiation can even bounce backward along the magnetic field lines. But regardless, the solar radiation component is tiny on the Martian surface (it's much lower energy than galactic cosmic rays, and therefore the 40 grams/cm^2 of atmosphere blocks it very well) and can be safely ignored for our purposes.
You did well before by presenting numbers.

It is true that per photon energy is highest for galactic core type radiation, but flux matters too.  And only charged particles get affected by magnetic fields.

So if you've got a daily dose number, don't assume the hourly dose is 1/24 of that and then spread the hours over the course of a week.

Unless you find a graph of radiation dosage over the course of an average day - data which must exist since they did arrive at those daily totals somehow.

You can also argue that normal radiation limits on Earth are very conservative, and I am sure you can find a large gap between where normal limits are set and where danger begins.

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Offline guckyfan

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #88 on: 06/04/2018 04:33 am »
You can also argue that normal radiation limits on Earth are very conservative, and I am sure you can find a large gap between where normal limits are set and where danger begins.

I am looking forward to extensive tests on Mars with long term exposure to the real mix of radiation.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #89 on: 06/04/2018 11:17 pm »
Annual dose limit for radiation workers is 50mSv per year.

Mars surface radiation dose is 0.64mSv/day, or .027/hour. So being outside unprotected for 30 hours a week for 52 weeks a year is just 42mSv/year, under the terrestrial radiation worker annual dose limit (astronaut limits are higher).

A) numbers!
B) The solar component of the radiation is only present during the day, so the /day and /hr numbers are not simply a ratio of 24 - daytime level will be higher than night time.  Still tho, your point stands.
The solar component of radiation is present on both day and night as it doesn't just follow straight from the Sun. It spirals randomly around the magnetic field lines which itself is a big spiral, and the solar radiation can even bounce backward along the magnetic field lines. But regardless, the solar radiation component is tiny on the Martian surface (it's much lower energy than galactic cosmic rays, and therefore the 40 grams/cm^2 of atmosphere blocks it very well) and can be safely ignored for our purposes.
You did well before by presenting numbers.

It is true that per photon energy is highest for galactic core type radiation, but flux matters too.  And only charged particles get affected by magnetic fields.

So if you've got a daily dose number, don't assume the hourly dose is 1/24 of that and then spread the hours over the course of a week.

Unless you find a graph of radiation dosage over the course of an average day - data which must exist since they did arrive at those daily totals somehow.

You can also argue that normal radiation limits on Earth are very conservative, and I am sure you can find a large gap between where normal limits are set and where danger begins.

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Vast majority of suit-penetrating radiation of either solar or galactic origin is charged particles. Vast.
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #90 on: 06/04/2018 11:17 pm »
You can find data on oltaris.nasa.gov
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #91 on: 06/04/2018 11:21 pm »
Variation between day and night radiation levels is about 2-3%. In other words, irrelevant for our purposes here.
http://www.kennylevick.com/mars/
« Last Edit: 06/04/2018 11:21 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline LMT

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #92 on: 06/08/2018 03:12 am »
the solar radiation component is tiny on the Martian surface (it's much lower energy than galactic cosmic rays)

Flares can have higher surface peak proton energy than GCRs, so you'd want to scale shielding designs to catch that.



Fig. 10.  Omaha Field:  Shielding of Solar Flare and GCR Protons at the Martian Surface

Net shielding effect on Mars is shown, with 500 MeV and 1 GeV results marked in green and yellow-green.  Figures are from Mars cosmic ray model of Wilson et al. 1999.  Protons with z = 1.

Refs

Wilson, J. W., Kim, M. Y., Clowdsley, M. S., Heinbockel, J. H., Tripathi, R. K., Singleterry, R. C., ... & Suggs, R. (1999, January). Mars surface ionizing radiation environment: Need for validation. In Workshop on MARS 2001: Integrated Science in Preparation for Sample Return and Human Exploration (p. 112).
« Last Edit: 06/08/2018 03:12 am by LMT »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #93 on: 06/08/2018 03:30 am »
Units are not in the proper form of mSv that converts into biological dose. And altitude makes a huge difference. Mars landing sites are necessarily low altitude.

I don’t know why we’re arguing about this still. MSL provides data that shows that solar flares are attenuated to near-irrelevance and that the day/night radiation dose difference is on the order of 2-3%. I already showed this. Let’s move on.
« Last Edit: 06/08/2018 03:32 am by Robotbeat »
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Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #94 on: 06/08/2018 04:20 am »
Units are not in the proper form of mSv that converts into biological dose. And altitude makes a huge difference. Mars landing sites are necessarily low altitude.

I don’t know why we’re arguing about this still. MSL provides data that shows that solar flares are attenuated to near-irrelevance and that the day/night radiation dose difference is on the order of 2-3%. I already showed this. Let’s move on.
What are the units im that daily cycle graph?  (I like the graph but trying to understand what's being measured)

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Offline LMT

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #95 on: 06/08/2018 04:37 am »
Units are not in the proper form of mSv that converts into biological dose.

I was just correcting your energy statement, as given.  The Omaha Field design shields against the actual high-energy peak -- the flare peak -- because a shield should. 



Fig. 7.  Omaha Field: 500 MeV Shielding, Perspective

Shielding effect on 500 MeV protons, having energy exceeding solar flare peak energy.  Vertically-injected 500 MeV proton tracks in black, crater rim in red.  Nearly all 500 MeV protons are deflected away from the crater floor.

--

As for dosage, you might sum the previous figure's physical dose in mGy, then convert to equivalent dose and organ effective dose in mSv, as best you can.  That would be a nice addition to the thread.

Mars surface radiation dose is 0.64mSv/day

btw, the Sept. '89 flare dose rate was ~ 27 mGy/day, down at 20 g/cm2 atm depth.  That's more than 100x the typical dose recorded by RAD in Gale Crater, at about the same atm depth.  Your post, above.  Guo et al. 2018, Table 1.

Again, you'd want to scale shielding designs to catch that.

Refs

Guo, J., Zeitlin, C., Wimmer-Schweingruber, R. F., McDole, T., Kühl, P., Appel, J. C., ... & Köhler, J. (2018). A generalized approach to model the spectra and radiation dose rate of solar particle events on the surface of Mars. The Astronomical Journal, 155(1), 49.
« Last Edit: 07/29/2018 05:12 am by LMT »

Offline LMT

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aka "Omaha Field"
« Reply #96 on: 07/27/2018 02:26 pm »
 :)

« Last Edit: 07/27/2018 04:03 pm by LMT »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #97 on: 07/29/2018 03:21 am »
Units are not in the proper form of mSv that converts into biological dose.

I was just correcting your energy statement, as given.  The Omaha Field design shields against the actual high-energy peak -- the flare peak -- because a shield should. 



Fig. 7.  Omaha Field: 500 MeV Shielding, Perspective

Shielding effect on 500 MeV protons, having energy exceeding solar flare peak energy.  Vertically-injected 500 MeV proton tracks in black, crater rim in red.  Nearly all 500 MeV protons are deflected away from the crater floor.

--

As for dosage, you might sum the previous figure's physical dose in mGy, then convert to equivalent dose and organ effective dose in mSv, as best you can.  That would be a nice addition to the thread.

Mars surface radiation dose is 0.64mSv/day

btw, the Sept. '89 flare dose rate was ~ 26 mGy/day, down at 20 g/cm2 atm depth.  That's more than 100x the typical dose recorded by RAD in Gale Crater, at about the same atm depth.  Your post, above.  Guo et al. 2018, Table 1.

Again, you'd want to scale shielding designs to catch that.

Refs

Guo, J., Zeitlin, C., Wimmer-Schweingruber, R. F., McDole, T., Kühl, P., Appel, J. C., ... & Köhler, J. (2018). A generalized approach to model the spectra and radiation dose rate of solar particle events on the surface of Mars. The Astronomical Journal, 155(1), 49.
Look, even the thin Martian atmosphere is over 40 grams/cm^2 on average of CO2 (better than aluminum) and shields against the acute effects of worst-case flares at low altitudes. It's just not an important issue. The shield should be designed primarily against GCR, which is a tougher nut to crack (although it does seem to help).

On the surface: Flares. Barely. Matter. At all.



(Oh, and BTW, it's incorrect to use vertical column density for calculating atmospheric shielding. Even a single solar flare comes in at all sorts of angles as the particles are gyrating around the magnetic field lines, so it's simply not possible for the radiation to go straight down through the atmosphere... the vast majority of it will come in at a significant angle, even for a worst-case-placed flare, about a 45 degree angle, so you must increase the effective shielding by a factor of sqrt(2), or 1.4..... Additionally, nobody is going to place their Mars city at the Mars datum. They will place it at low altitudes which are easier to land at.


...oh, and you can't use worst-case flare numbers for ~1AU, because flares weaken as they travel outward. Intensity would be nearly halved.)
« Last Edit: 07/29/2018 03:23 am by Robotbeat »
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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #98 on: 07/29/2018 03:25 am »
BTW, just to repeat this, the Sept. '89 flare would be reduced to WELL below acute levels by Mars' atmosphere (on average greater than 40g/cm^2 at low altitude, and using CO2 which is a much better shielding material than aluminum) and by the greater distance the flare has to travel.
« Last Edit: 07/29/2018 03:25 am by Robotbeat »
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Offline LMT

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #99 on: 07/29/2018 04:57 am »
BTW, just to repeat this, the Sept. '89 flare would be reduced to WELL below acute levels by Mars' atmosphere (on average greater than 40g/cm^2 at low altitude, and using CO2 which is a much better shielding material than aluminum) and by the greater distance the flare has to travel.

Guo et al. 2018 does lay it out rather plainly:  the flare delivered ~ 27 mGy/day, down at Gale Crater elevation.

You disagree, but unless you spot a big problem with Guo's work, that's the dose rate to be addressed.

Have you read the paper, btw?  Your posts seem to ignore it.

--

This is the sort of cosmic ray flux the Omaha Field is designed to block. 

And it's what Elon has in mind.
« Last Edit: 07/29/2018 07:16 am by LMT »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #100 on: 07/29/2018 05:29 am »
BTW, just to repeat this, the Sept. '89 flare would be reduced to WELL below acute levels by Mars' atmosphere (on average greater than 40g/cm^2 at low altitude, and using CO2 which is a much better shielding material than aluminum) and by the greater distance the flare has to travel.

Guo et al. 2018 does lay it out rather plainly:  the flare delivered ~ 27 mGy/day, down at Gale Crater elevation.

You disagree, but unless you spot a big problem with Guo's work, that's the dosage rate to be addressed.

Have you read the paper, btw?  Your posts seem to ignore it.

I have now. Seems to agree with my earlier post (<10mSv for the Sep89 event, far below any acute effects), at least roughly speaking. Though I will note I believe he's still using a 1D code (or at least taking the greater path through the atmosphere into account), and I can't find evidence he's not. That makes a huge difference as the vast majority of the radiation will be coming in from a greater angle. It makes almost a factor of 2 difference in average shielding level.

edit:

If I'm reading this chart correctly (page 24), it appears the surface dose for the SEP89 event is about 2.3*10^3 microSv (trying to measure a value on a logarithmic graph is tricky), or 2.3mSv, which is less than a head CT scan (given the handy comparison in the chart). That makes sense, given my previous chart and the increased effectiveness of CO2. That probably also means he's using a proper angle for the radiation path.

If the worst case flare 2 hour exposure every few decades is just a CT scan on the surface, it's really not a problem.


...but notice that in deep space, the dose is "severe poisoning", i.e. you may die in short order.
« Last Edit: 07/29/2018 06:12 am by Robotbeat »
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Offline LMT

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #101 on: 07/29/2018 06:57 am »
BTW, just to repeat this, the Sept. '89 flare would be reduced to WELL below acute levels by Mars' atmosphere (on average greater than 40g/cm^2 at low altitude, and using CO2 which is a much better shielding material than aluminum) and by the greater distance the flare has to travel.

Guo et al. 2018 does lay it out rather plainly:  the flare delivered ~ 27 mGy/day, down at Gale Crater elevation.

You disagree, but unless you spot a big problem with Guo's work, that's the dosage rate to be addressed.

Have you read the paper, btw?  Your posts seem to ignore it.

I have now. Seems to agree with my earlier post (<10mSv for the Sep89 event, far below any acute effects), at least roughly speaking. Though I will note I believe he's still using a 1D code (or at least taking the greater path through the atmosphere into account), and I can't find evidence he's not. That makes a huge difference as the vast majority of the radiation will be coming in from a greater angle. It makes almost a factor of 2 difference in average shielding level.

edit:

If I'm reading this chart correctly (page 24), it appears the surface dose for the SEP89 event is about 2.3*10^3 microSv (trying to measure a value on a logarithmic graph is tricky), or 2.3mSv, which is less than a head CT scan (given the handy comparison in the chart). That makes sense, given my previous chart and the increased effectiveness of CO2. That probably also means he's using a proper angle for the radiation path.

If the worst case flare 2 hour exposure every few decades is just a CT scan on the surface, it's really not a problem.


...but notice that in deep space, the dose is "severe poisoning", i.e. you may die in short order.

Thanks for the read.

So you design shields that prevent the unwanted "CT scans". 

--

I note also that I took Guo's historical flares as benchmark for flare dose rate, but as you see in Fig. 10, Guo has also modeled additional power-law shaped flares (black circles).  The martian surface dose of the worst modeled flare lies between a CT scan and a radiation worker's annual limit.  Also Guo speculates 4He could increase that dose by a further 40%, worst-case.

It's all the same to the Omaha Field:  magnetostatic deflection works as well at high particle flux as at low.  But if these modeled flares were selected for benchmark, a physical shield would require greater thickness.
« Last Edit: 07/29/2018 04:01 pm by LMT »

Offline cebri

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #102 on: 08/06/2018 09:49 pm »
SpaceX organizes inaugural conference to plan landings on Mars

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/spacex-organizes-inaugural-conference-to-plan-landings-on-mars/

Quote
The meeting is expected to include an overview of the spaceflight capabilities that SpaceX is developing with the Big Falcon rocket and spaceship, which Musk has previously outlined at length during international aerospace meetings in 2016 and 2017. Discussion topics will focus on how best to support hundreds of humans living on Mars, such as accessing natural resources there that will lead to a sustainable outpost.

"It's kind of amazing that a window of opportunity is open for life to beyond Earth, and we don't know how long this window is gonna be open" Elon Musk
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Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #103 on: 08/13/2018 10:21 am »
I presume that the first few crew missions won't have full crew compartments. I suspect about 4 people on each of the two crewed BFS that land in 2024. The rest of the volume would probably be crammed with equipment, tooling, etc.
What bothers me is that they will have to stay for almost two years since the fuel processing plant won't be ready by the time they arrive and it will take a while to fuel the depot. Assuming 4 months trip times, they would be away for at least 30 months. And if something goes wrong with the fuel processing, they might be stuck there for another cycle after that. That seems really risky to me. I would prefer to see a fully fueled depot waiting for them by the time they arrive but I guess that a fully automated ISRU facility is a bit unrealistic for 2022.
According to the SpaceX presentation, the base will start with one ship.
I guess that one of the two ships will return with all 8 of the original crew and two more crew ships (plus 2 cargo) will arrive 2 months later.
The presentation is not quite clear about what happens with the 4 cargo ships. Will all return or will some (or all) stay there as part of the base? How much propellant can they make in 2 years (with the equipment from 4 cargo ships)?
Sacrificing 4 cargo ships is quite an expense and there are no cargo ships visible in the presentation, so I assume that they will return together with the crew in each cycle. So the base starts out with one crew BFS. Then two more arrive in 2027 and again one stays and one returns. That leaves two crew BFSs on Mars as habitats by 2029, when two more arrive and so forth. I could imagine the number of crew to increase with each cycle.
Assuming two cargo ships in each cycle, there will be 300 tons of cargo each time plus whatever is stored in the relatively empty crewed ships. So by 2029, they will have about 1500 tons of cargo and equipment delivered to Mars. Plus 3 permanent habitat- BFSs (and one return ship). That is quite a bit of equipment. For reference, a medium sized excavator is about 22 tonnes (source Caterpillar website).
An important part will be medical equipment. A fully equipped mobile surgery unit fits into a standard shipping container, which has about 25 tonnes payload capacity. That is certainly in the books with that much cargo delivered. That leaves plenty of mass for habitats, greenhouses, building materials, food, etc.
So the basics would all be there by 2029.
Let's assume that they will want to ship the first 100 "colonists" during the 2035 cycle. By then, they should have about 3,000 tons of cargo and equipment there. The base would consist of 6 Crew BFSs plus habitation modules greenhouses, a fully equipped hospital and other equipment. That is pretty nice for a start.

I think that 3D printing will be an important factor in early colonies. Extrapolating from where 3D printing is at now, I could see a lot of if not most manufacturing being done with 3D printing. The biggest "problem" will be raw materials. Even simple machinery for mining and processing something as basic as aluminum or silicon would require a significant mass to be transported to Mars. Carbon seems to be relatively easy to access and process compared to aluminum or iron. So I imagine that it will be an important raw material there. Maybe that is another reason (in addition to all the other benefits) why the BFS uses a lot of composites.

An interesting factor in all this will be robots. I think that the more work robots can do, the higher the chance of success of a Mars colony. Looking at the state of (e.g.) Atlas today and assuming that robotics keep progressing at the current pace until 2035, there should be very capable humanoid robots to help the initial crews and later the early colonists. The current iteration of Atlas weighs only 75 kg and already has pretty decent dexterity.
Currently a single Atlas robot is estimated to cost over a million dollars, but that cost could go down significantly in the next 15 years. Right now Atlas is a unique research project and not a product. Mass production could reduce the cost significantly.
One could assume several dozen of advanced Atlas (or whatever they may be) robots to be present by the time the first colonists arrive. If they can be programmed to fulfill a wide variety of tasks, it could offload a lot of work and responsibility from the colonists. I could imagine most of the hard labor and manufacturing to be done by robots. With this, many of the chicken and the egg problems could be mitigated. E.g. you won't need to bring an expert black smith or an expert capable of fixing a spacesuit, if you can program a robot to do the same thing (and other things, depending on need).
I could imagine the majority of the "inhabitants" of the colony to be robots, at least initially. If this works as I imagine, then the majority of the work of the first colonists would be supervising, programming and servicing robots, leaving the more dangerous tasks to robots .  E.g. I could see a dramatic reduction of required human EVAs.
It gets even better, once/if these robots are able to build and service other robots.
Plus, having a league of robots to take care of mundane, difficult, or dangerous tasks at your disposal, could make living on Mars more attractive to potential colonists.

Making life on Mars attractive could be the most difficult thing of all. The first people to live and work there will have to be adventurous types, willing to take enormous risks and endure a relatively boring and simple lifestyle.
Right now we do not even know yet, whether it will be possible to bear and raise healthy children on Mars. This is a big unknown and because of this I believe that most people will only stay on Mars for a few years, at least until we have a grasp of what it takes to do that (if it is at all possible).
Once we have figured this out, the real colonization can begin. Then you will want to have about half of the (now permanent) colonists to be women if you want the colony to be self sustaining. Too few women (or men) could be a source of rivalry and conflict. I think that this could be even worse while the population is still small and people have little chance to avoid each other.
"Managing" demographics will be "interesting" to say the least.

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #104 on: 09/21/2018 09:49 pm »
Elon tweeted the attached revised Mars Base Alpha render and then had this exchange with Chris:

Quote
Realistically, when could that view turn from a render into a real photograph?

"I need a ray of hope about the future" - (c) Gaius Baltar, former President of the Twelve Colonies.

https://twitter.com/nasaspaceflight/status/1043253088746971136

Quote
Probably 2028 for a base to be built

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1043253619485622272
« Last Edit: 09/21/2018 09:49 pm by FutureSpaceTourist »

Offline sanman

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #105 on: 09/22/2018 07:52 am »
Wow - 2028 is a pretty tight timeline - even though some will say that's just "Elon time".

Would base-building essentially commence with the first crewed landing?
What would have to be accomplished first, to get to that point?

Unmanned flight to Mars - possibly carrying a pilot plant for Methalox production?

Multiple equipment drops for resource exploration for ISRU? Rovers? Equipment to harvest water?

What would the timeline for these things look like?

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #106 on: 09/22/2018 09:56 am »
Wow - 2028 is a pretty tight timeline - even though some will say that's just "Elon time".

Would base-building essentially commence with the first crewed landing?
What would have to be accomplished first, to get to that point?
It depends - for a timeline that tight, in some ways perversely, 'not much'.
If you are doing it on a shoestring, what you want to do is to be concentrating on getting ISRU up very early, crew on the ground, and then shuttle the several BFS you've got back and forward every synod.
This lets you be very economical as you're amortising the cost of the BFS - but it gets you twenty loads in twenty years.

If you're doing it flush with cash, and ramping up the number of BFS each synod by triple, ISRU becomes much less important, for the simple reason that even if you have perfect ISRU that is free, you only get back half what you send, so at most it saves you 30%. And that 30% is before you take into account the cost of payload. Exlored further in Mars without ISRU

In the second scenario, you can not so much bother with fine design, or exploration, and concentrate on getting ISRU working and cheap in the lowest risk manner possible, rather than using methods which rely on any optimisation of finding the ideal resource.



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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #107 on: 09/22/2018 01:33 pm »
The exact year doesn't matter.

The important bit is that Musk believes that this level of base is within the immediate plan - he sees a way to build and finance it.

If 2028 depends on a 2022 first trip, and if the date means "hardware for the base delivered to the surface", then this base was delivered on synod 4.

We already know the first two have 2 and 4 ships, and that none of the ships will fly back until synod 6, and so synod 8 is still mostly new ships.

This to me means he intends to build LOTS of ships. If I could ever sneak a question in, it would be "how many ships/yr would the factory be producing in the coming years"

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Offline LMT

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #108 on: 09/24/2018 04:23 am »
2028



Quite the exchange.

And what are we looking at?  If Mars Base Alpha is to be realized by 2028, we might be looking at a mining camp.  One conceivable schedule, leveraging the 12 cargo bays of the new aft cargo system:



1.  Early 2023 - Cargo ship aerobrakes at Mars into elliptical capture orbit, and deploys a trio of gamma-ray spectrometer metal-prospecting smallsats (<180 kg) from aft cargo.

2.  Ship lands and smallsats circularize to LMO.

3.  Early 2024 - Smallsats complete initial metal survey of Mars.

4.  Assuming metal-rich prospects are found, a drone survey is undertaken.  Drones might be small-payload helicopters patterned after the Mars 2020 AeroVironment drones.  The drones are scaled with ~ 1.3 m rotor blades (hinged, stowed folded).  Aft cargo deploys a trio of gamma-ray drones after Parshin et al. 2018, and a trio of magnetometer drones after Cherkasov & Kapshtan 2018.



5.  Late 2024 - Drones complete detailed surveys of the richest prospects, mapping ore surface distributions and precious-metal concentrations.  (Conceivably the LMO smallsats act as relays to get the data to Earth.)

6.  Aft cargo deploys a trio of sampler drones, each equipped with electromagnet and sample tray.  Drones collect many small ore samples from the richest prospects.

7.  Early 2025 - Sampler drones return to the ship and land nearby, laden with ore payloads that await retrieval by the first crew.

8.  Early/Mid 2025 - The first crew retrieves ore samples and performs physical assay on the spot, to verify precious metal concentrations and, potentially, stake mining claims.

9.  SpaceX auctions memberships in the mining consortium.  This assembles expertise, establishes a joint legal office, and raises the financing required to build out ships and cargo for the first mining camp.

As for the mine itself, something like the notional Red Gold open-pit, open-air system is proposed.

10.  Mid 2027 - The second crew lands near the best mining prospect and begins siting and assembly of the mining camp - Mars Base Alpha.

Refs.

Cherkasov, S., & Kapshtan, D. (2018). Unmanned Aerial Systems for Magnetic Survey.

Parshin, A. & Grebenkin, N. & Morozov, V. & Shikаlenko, F. (2018). FIRST RESULTS OF A LOW-ALTITUDE UAS GAMMA SURVEY BY COMPARISON WITH THE TERRESTRIAL AND AERIAL GAMMA SURVEY DATA. Geophysical Prospecting. 66. 
« Last Edit: 09/24/2018 06:53 pm by LMT »

Offline Ludus

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #109 on: 09/24/2018 05:03 am »
The exact year doesn't matter.

The important bit is that Musk believes that this level of base is within the immediate plan - he sees a way to build and finance it.

If 2028 depends on a 2022 first trip, and if the date means "hardware for the base delivered to the surface", then this base was delivered on synod 4.

We already know the first two have 2 and 4 ships, and that none of the ships will fly back until synod 6, and so synod 8 is still mostly new ships.

This to me means he intends to build LOTS of ships. If I could ever sneak a question in, it would be "how many ships/yr would the factory be producing in the coming years"

-----
ABCD: Always Be Counting Down

That fits with the earth point to point idea. BFSs not just gas and go reusable like airliners but produced continuously in similar quantities at similar cost. They’re just airliners that happen to also be capable of going to the moon or Mars.

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #110 on: 02/07/2020 07:24 pm »
Here’s a tease

twitter.com/robert_zubrin/status/1225876236477620225

Quote
Hope & I travelled to Boca Chica yesterday to meet with Elon Musk. He explained #SpaceX’s extraordinary plan to begin the settlement of Mars,which was very much in evidence as hundreds of people were lined up outside to join his team building Starships.
#Mars #Space #MarsSociety

https://twitter.com/robert_zubrin/status/1225876531681153024

Quote
We asked what the #MarsSociety could do to help, and he told us: Spread the word on the unlimited future opened by making humanity spacefaring.
We will begin next week, by announcing an international contest to design a 1 million person #Mars colony.
#SpaceX #NASA #Space #Science

Offline rakaydos

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #111 on: 02/07/2020 07:36 pm »
Here’s a tease

twitter.com/robert_zubrin/status/1225876236477620225

Quote
Hope & I travelled to Boca Chica yesterday to meet with Elon Musk. He explained #SpaceX’s extraordinary plan to begin the settlement of Mars,which was very much in evidence as hundreds of people were lined up outside to join his team building Starships.
#Mars #Space #MarsSociety

https://twitter.com/robert_zubrin/status/1225876531681153024

Quote
We asked what the #MarsSociety could do to help, and he told us: Spread the word on the unlimited future opened by making humanity spacefaring.
We will begin next week, by announcing an international contest to design a 1 million person #Mars colony.
#SpaceX #NASA #Space #Science

"We asked what the mars society could do to help."

Elon: Can you weld? How's your environmental system design? Mining engineering talent? PR? Great, you can handle PR.

Offline Oersted

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #112 on: 02/09/2020 09:32 pm »
Nice, I spot a LEGO Saturn V in the control room... - If the SpaceX engineers can build that one then Starship shouldn't be a challenge...  ;-)

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #113 on: 02/22/2020 12:43 pm »
https://twitter.com/robert_zubrin/status/1231208590880301063

Quote
My article about my observations about @elonmusk’s plans to settle Mars following our recent meeting in Boca Chica was just published by National Review. @SciGuySpace @jeff_foust
#Mars #Space #Science #NASA #SpaceX #MarsSociety

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/mars-elon-musk-plan-to-settle-red-planet/

Quote
Elon Musk’s Plan to Settle Mars
By ROBERT ZUBRIN     February 22, 2020 4:30 AM

Last week my wife Hope and I traveled to Boca Chica, Texas, to meet with Elon Musk. While we talked inside the SpaceX onsite headquarters, a mariachi band played outside, providing entertainment for long lines of people queued up to apply for multiple categories of jobs building craft to take humans to Mars. Hundreds were already hired and at work in the complex. Soon there will be thousands.

Musk calls his design the “Starship.” It’s a methane/oxygen-driven, stainless-steel, two-stage-to-orbit rocket with a payload capacity equal to the Saturn V booster that sent Apollo astronauts to the Moon. The Saturn V, however, was expendable, with each unit destroyed in the course of a single use. Starship will be fully reusable, like an airliner, and therefore promises a radical reduction in payload-delivery costs.

Offline oiorionsbelt

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #114 on: 02/22/2020 04:14 pm »
Ha,  "Flight by flight, ferociously."

Online Twark_Main

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #115 on: 02/25/2020 04:34 am »
Here’s a tease

twitter.com/robert_zubrin/status/1225876236477620225

Quote
Hope & I travelled to Boca Chica yesterday to meet with Elon Musk. He explained #SpaceX’s extraordinary plan to begin the settlement of Mars,which was very much in evidence as hundreds of people were lined up outside to join his team building Starships.
#Mars #Space #MarsSociety

https://twitter.com/robert_zubrin/status/1225876531681153024

Quote
We asked what the #MarsSociety could do to help, and he told us: Spread the word on the unlimited future opened by making humanity spacefaring.
We will begin next week, by announcing an international contest to design a 1 million person #Mars colony.
#SpaceX #NASA #Space #Science

"We asked what the mars society could do to help."

Elon: Can you weld? How's your environmental system design? Mining engineering talent? PR? Great, you can handle PR.

I know this is a joke, but it should be noted that Elon Musk has also donated generously to their Mars analog research stations.

https://mdrs.marssociety.org/mdrs-observatories/

https://www.space.com/37057-mars-rovers-compete-utah-desert.html

Quote
The facility also added a science lab (focusing on microbiology and geology), two electric ATVs to begin replacing the current gas-driven rover fleet, and a solar array to help generate electricity. The Hab itself has also undergone considerable renovations in the past year, including getting new furniture, new shelving, a new staircase and a new paint job on much of the interior. Next, the Mars Society plans upgrades to the MDRS telescope, which is called the Musk Observatory. The observatory is named after SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, who is a long-time advocate of human Mars exploration.

"Plans for the future include converting the Musk Observatory into a solar observatory and [to] build a new astronomical observatory near the station," Stoltz said. "The new [observatory] will be a robotic observatory, accessible online from anywhere on the planet. We have already made arrangements with several institutions to use the remote observatory for research and studies."

An anonymous donor paid for the upgrades, said Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society, in an e-mail to Space.com. The cost of the upgrades was not released.

Gee, wonder who that could be?  8)

https://www.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1007664788325818369

Quote from: Elon Musk
My donations are anonymous
« Last Edit: 02/25/2020 04:35 am by Twark_Main »
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Offline Ludus

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #116 on: 02/26/2020 12:56 am »
With Cargo Starships much less costly than was assumed a few years ago, it seems more likely that a number will be left on Mars.

This implies that used but fully functional Starships on Mars may cost not much more than the local cost of filling them with propellant.

One detail about the colony this predicts is a business opportunity to launch other exploratory missions rather than returning cargo Starships to earth.

This might include crewed missions of exploration around Mars. There would be many opportunities for human firsts. The first people on Phobos. The first on the summit of Olympus Mons. The first on the Martian North Pole. A cargo starship outfitted with hab quarters for a few crew and exploration gear might support a lot of rentals, tickets and cargo fees to Mars. Countries and corporations could back unique expeditions for comparatively low prices.

Cargo Starships might also launch one way robotic expeditions to asteroids and outer planets.

Expeditions would create paying customers for a Mars propellant and other supplies and facilities.


Offline rakaydos

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #117 on: 02/26/2020 11:05 am »
With Cargo Starships much less costly than was assumed a few years ago, it seems more likely that a number will be left on Mars.

This implies that used but fully functional Starships on Mars may cost not much more than the local cost of filling them with propellant.

One detail about the colony this predicts is a business opportunity to launch other exploratory missions rather than returning cargo Starships to earth.

This might include crewed missions of exploration around Mars. There would be many opportunities for human firsts. The first people on Phobos. The first on the summit of Olympus Mons. The first on the Martian North Pole. A cargo starship outfitted with hab quarters for a few crew and exploration gear might support a lot of rentals, tickets and cargo fees to Mars. Countries and corporations could back unique expeditions for comparatively low prices.

Cargo Starships might also launch one way robotic expeditions to asteroids and outer planets.

Expeditions would create paying customers for a Mars propellant and other supplies and facilities.
only if the martian scrapyards don't outbid you. Over 50 tons of stainless steel, space rated solar arrays, and they can sell the raptors back to SpaceX next synod.
« Last Edit: 02/26/2020 11:07 am by rakaydos »

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #118 on: 02/26/2020 02:46 pm »
With Cargo Starships much less costly than was assumed a few years ago, it seems more likely that a number will be left on Mars.

If you haven't yet listened to Dr. Zubrin's recent interview on The Space Show, I highly recommend it (link here).

On Zubrin's recent visit to Boca Chica, he asked Musk about this.  If I remember correctly, he said the first 5 cargo ships would remain on Mars, and then everything after that would return to Earth for reuse.

Online Twark_Main

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #119 on: 02/26/2020 03:14 pm »
With Cargo Starships much less costly than was assumed a few years ago, it seems more likely that a number will be left on Mars.

If you haven't yet listened to Dr. Zubrin's recent interview on The Space Show, I highly recommend it (link here).

On Zubrin's recent visit to Boca Chica, he asked Musk about this.  If I remember correctly, he said the first 5 cargo ships would remain on Mars, and then everything after that would return to Earth for reuse.

I just checked (it's at 6:20 in the podcast), and Zubrin didn't actually say that second part.

I don't think process-of-elimination holds here, because to support that logic we would have to start with the assumption that the "default" is to return every other Starship, but that's exactly what we're trying to show, which would be begging the question. So I think it's unwarranted to put that constraint on Starship conops based on Zubrin's comments.
« Last Edit: 02/26/2020 03:18 pm by Twark_Main »
"The search for a universal design which suits all sites, people, and situations is obviously impossible. What is possible is well designed examples of the application of universal principles." ~~ David Holmgren

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #120 on: 02/26/2020 08:47 pm »
Responding back to the original post on this thread:
So, I'm interested in predicting some of the details of his colony. Each phase is looser and more speculative.

First, I don't think this will be Elon Musk's Mars Colony.

Yes, I suspect Musk will build the initial Mars base.  By "Mars base", I'm talking a ballpark range of 10-20 people, more or less.
To me, the word "colony" implies something much bigger. Musk has made it clear that he doesn't want to build this larger colony.

Quote from: Elon Musk
Our goal is [to] get you there and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. A rough analogy is that we are trying to build the equivalent of the transcontinental railway. A vast amount of industry will need to be built on Mars by many other companies and millions of people.
(link here)

So I think it's somewhat impossible to predict what the Mars colony will look like, since we don't even know who will build it.
But we can make educated guesses about what Musk's initial Mars base will look like.

Offline DistantTemple

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #121 on: 02/26/2020 09:59 pm »
Responding back to the original post on this thread:
So, I'm interested in predicting some of the details of his colony. Each phase is looser and more speculative.

First, I don't think this will be Elon Musk's Mars Colony.

Yes, I suspect Musk will build the initial Mars base.  By "Mars base", I'm talking a ballpark range of 10-20 people, more or less.
To me, the word "colony" implies something much bigger. Musk has made it clear that he doesn't want to build this larger colony.

Quote from: Elon Musk
Our goal is [to] get you there and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. A rough analogy is that we are trying to build the equivalent of the transcontinental railway. A vast amount of industry will need to be built on Mars by many other companies and millions of people.
(link here)

So I think it's somewhat impossible to predict what the Mars colony will look like, since we don't even know who will build it.
But we can make educated guesses about what Musk's initial Mars base will look like.
OK its questionable to call it EM's colony... However at least at first it is likely to be very largely a product of his: 1- needs, 2- investment, and 3- Vision.
1- needs: It will be (I say) much more than 10-20 people. The intention to quickly be able to have large numbers of Starships go to Mars in early synods, requires a lot of preparatory work. This will require a lot of skilled people, and more people to support them as well! (Constructing landing pads, setting up habitats, deploying solar fields, and crucially setting up quite large scale ISRU.)
2- investment. Even if other organizations like NASA were to match SX's investments, unless funds are transfered to SX, SX is likely to be able to do 10X as much with its funds than anyone else! Therefore SX is likely to quickly setup habitation for 50 then 200, workshops, garages, landing pads, ISRU refuelling infrastructure, Starship transport, graded roads, ice mining, etc etc.... Where anyone else is likely to set up a small lab/HAB, (likely leased from SX), and linked to SX facilities.... etc.
3- vision. SX/EM's vision of how to build a city for 1M souls will drive the development. It will have lots of options for other providers, and national, scientific, commercial and institutional teams, and likely will contract other businesses to deliver services like servicing suits, or rovers, etc. but they will fit into SX's plan, as no one else has such a large scale vision.
It will then be hard to imagine anyone else catching up with SX/EM's head start, for many years, untill it really begins to blossom commercially etc.
We can always grow new new dendrites. Reach out and make connections and your world will burst with new insights. Then repose in consciousness.

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #122 on: 02/26/2020 10:02 pm »
With my previous post in mind, here are my guesses for Musk's initial Mars base.
As far as I know, Musk's latest plan for this is shown in the slide below. So I'll use this as a basis for my assumptions.

Confirm water resources and identify hazards:
I believe this will be done using relatively small rovers with solar panels that are built into the rovers themselves.
Rovers can identify sub-surface water and identify hazards without having to do any digging. No need for bulldozers here.

Solar arrays:
I believe these will be set up after the first crew arrives.  Trying to do this before hand will require a lot of development time.
Remember there's a 20 minute delay to Mars, so any robot that operates before hand will essentially need to be fully automated.
Yes, Tesla has been working on automated driving systems, but these are semi-automated, requiring driver's hands on the wheel.
Full automation will require a lot more testing/training, which could delay the first flights to Mars, something Musk wants to avoid.

Habitats:
After the solar arrays are set up, I suspect one of the first priorities will be digging underground living spaces.
Using Starship as a long-term living space would would expose the crew to too much radiation.
During the trip to Mars, propellant and/or water storage may be strategically placed between the sun and the crew,
but once Starship has landed, these will be in the wrong place to work as a radiation shield.

Water:
I believe water will need to be recycled for the trips to and from Mars. They may recycle water on the surface as well.
I'm not sure whether Mars water is safe for drinking and bathing. If they have to distill it, they may as well just recycle.

Food:
I suspect the first crews will bring enough dry food to last at least 2 years, probably more.
However, I also wouldn't be surprised if they try to grow some food on the first missions.
Not only will this be useful for expanding the colony, it will also help as a backup food source in case of emergencies.

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #123 on: 02/26/2020 10:14 pm »
1- needs: It will be (I say) much more than 10-20 people.
Remember, I'm talking about the first few missions to set up a Mars base.

2- investment. Even if other organizations like NASA were to match SX's investments, unless funds are transfered to SX, SX is likely to be able to do 10X as much with its funds than anyone else!
Maybe, but Musk seemed to indicate he's not interested in this. He seems to be focused on the transportation part.
And I think this is a smart approach.  Once we see a base on Mars, many other companies will want to invest in this.

3- vision. SX/EM's vision of how to build a city for 1M souls will drive the development.
Yes, I agree, but it will be very difficult for us to predict the details of how other investors will interpret this vision.

Offline DistantTemple

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #124 on: 02/26/2020 10:35 pm »
Since that plan, stainless steel has arrived, and Starship is much cheaper. You are correctly quoting SX/EM, but their plans have at times altered. The frenetic pace at BC, along with a lower price, may indicate a much faster roll out of the Mars invasion!

Autonomous and semi autonomous machines and vehicles will only occasionally need close control. There are many tasks like bulldozing landing pads where there is a low risk from reprogrammed and autonomous working. Many on NSF have explained how solar fields could be deployed simply and remotely or robotically.

EM has talked about setting up a production line for SS, and I think he said producing one a week!

He seems to be going faster on Starlink then we expected, which may be providing both a good funding stream in only a couple of years, and massively improving the value of SX, and making the raising of vast sums against only moderate share %ages possible.

Perhaps he knows there is something nasty coming for us in a few years!!!!! And although he looks healthy, the decades tick by. in 2022, he will have been at the SX project for 20 years!!!!!!!!!!!
----
I have just read your next post (above this). Perhaps you are right. My thought was that, if he wants to get a large base going quickly, the bast way is to start with the largest sustainable number he can manage. He said he's only interested in transportation and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. (from your quote of EM.) But if no one steps up, then SX will have to do it, and all I have said is encompassed by these bold words. Yes other investors may well interpret the vision differently. Including startups by ex-SX'ers. Musk open-sources patents to spur development. He is likely to again. So yes.... but not at first, as no one will be ready!

However other organisations could have their facilities and personnel transported to Mars by SX, and largely left to do their own thing..... with only a basic backup support agreement from SX in case of disaster. Which would spur more variation, if the takers are bold enough.
We can always grow new new dendrites. Reach out and make connections and your world will burst with new insights. Then repose in consciousness.

Offline Ludus

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #125 on: 02/27/2020 01:42 am »

This implies that used but fully functional Starships on Mars may cost not much more than the local cost of filling them.

Countries and corporations could back unique expeditions for comparatively low prices.

Cargo Starships might also launch one way robotic expeditions to asteroids and outer planets.

Expeditions would create paying customers for a Mars propellant and other supplies and facilities.

only if the martian scrapyards don't outbid you. Over 50 tons of stainless steel, space rated solar arrays, and they can sell the raptors back to SpaceX next synod.

Yep. I’d assume Passenger Starships are too valuable for return passage, habitats and emergencies. Most cargo ships the scrap yards would get the bid. I’m thinking just one pre-built for conversion to an expedition ship would support a lot of adventures and could beat out the scrap value.
« Last Edit: 02/27/2020 01:47 am by Ludus »

Online Twark_Main

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #126 on: 02/27/2020 04:22 am »
Responding back to the original post on this thread:
So, I'm interested in predicting some of the details of his colony. Each phase is looser and more speculative.

First, I don't think this will be Elon Musk's Mars Colony.

Yes, I suspect Musk will build the initial Mars base.  By "Mars base", I'm talking a ballpark range of 10-20 people, more or less.
To me, the word "colony" implies something much bigger. Musk has made it clear that he doesn't want to build this larger colony.

Quote from: Elon Musk
Our goal is [to] get you there and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. A rough analogy is that we are trying to build the equivalent of the transcontinental railway. A vast amount of industry will need to be built on Mars by many other companies and millions of people.
(link here)

So I think it's somewhat impossible to predict what the Mars colony will look like, since we don't even know who will build it.
But we can make educated guesses about what Musk's initial Mars base will look like.

Elon Musk said very much the same thing about building satellites, before Starlink was announced. Sorry, don't have a source handy (I've seen practically every EM talk/interview out there, so it's hard to keep track).
"The search for a universal design which suits all sites, people, and situations is obviously impossible. What is possible is well designed examples of the application of universal principles." ~~ David Holmgren

Online TheRadicalModerate

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #127 on: 02/27/2020 05:52 am »
Elon Musk said very much the same thing about building satellites, before Starlink was announced. Sorry, don't have a source handy (I've seen practically every EM talk/interview out there, so it's hard to keep track).

The difference is that Starlink had a slam-dunk business case associated with it, and was an obvious way to fund the R&D needed for Starship.  A Mars base has almost no medium-term business case driving it.

I expect that SpaceX will concentrate on refueling and Earth return capabilities first, because they're part of proving out the Starship model.  But that's an awful lot of R&D investment in and of itself.  Beyond that, SpaceX has to balance its suite of martian capabilities with its need to monetize Starship's other capabilities.  Given that there are a whole bunch of enabling technologies needed to monetize EO, BEO, and lunar surface missions--all of which have more money attached to them than Mars will, at least in the medium term--they'll have to pick and choose what pieces of infrastructure to develop.

Ultimately, I expect a Mars base to look at lot like some of the prospective lunar base models:  SpaceX will provide power, water, propellant, and launch operations, likely with crews living in their Starships, and others will come along and leverage those components to do nifty things for a lot less money than if they had to build the SpaceX-supplied components to go operational.  I expect that independent science personnel support and tourism are the first two pieces of low-hanging fruit for Mars.  After, that, we'll see.

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #128 on: 02/27/2020 11:58 am »
Beyond that, SpaceX has to balance its suite of martian capabilities with its need to monetize Starship's other capabilities.  Given that there are a whole bunch of enabling technologies needed to monetize EO, BEO, and lunar surface missions...

If you haven't yet listened to Dr. Zubrin's recent interview on The Space Show, I highly recommend it (link here).

During this interview, Zubrin essentially says that Starship isn't capable of landing on the lunar surface without a landing pad.
In other words, some other type of lander would need to establish a lunar base first,
and whoever funds those missions would have to want Starship badly enough to build a fairly large landing pad for it.
However, Zubrin did say that Starship / Super Heavy would make an ideal platform to throw other payloads to the moon.
« Last Edit: 02/27/2020 11:59 am by Dave G »

Offline rakaydos

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #129 on: 02/27/2020 12:00 pm »
Beyond that, SpaceX has to balance its suite of martian capabilities with its need to monetize Starship's other capabilities.  Given that there are a whole bunch of enabling technologies needed to monetize EO, BEO, and lunar surface missions...

If you haven't yet listened to Dr. Zubrin's recent interview on The Space Show, I highly recommend it (link here).

During this interview, Zubrin essentially says that Starship isn't capable of landing on the lunar surface without a landing pad.
In other words, some other type of lander would need to establish a lunar base first,
and whoever funds those missions would have to want Starship badly enough to build a fairly large landing pad for it.
However, Zubrin did say that Starship / Super Heavy would make an ideal platform to throw other payloads to the moon.
UIt also said that SpaceX disagreed with Zubrin's assessment.

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #130 on: 02/27/2020 12:08 pm »
Beyond that, SpaceX has to balance its suite of martian capabilities with its need to monetize Starship's other capabilities.  Given that there are a whole bunch of enabling technologies needed to monetize EO, BEO, and lunar surface missions...

If you haven't yet listened to Dr. Zubrin's recent interview on The Space Show, I highly recommend it (link here).

During this interview, Zubrin essentially says that Starship isn't capable of landing on the lunar surface without a landing pad.
In other words, some other type of lander would need to establish a lunar base first,
and whoever funds those missions would have to want Starship badly enough to build a fairly large landing pad for it.
However, Zubrin did say that Starship / Super Heavy would make an ideal platform to throw other payloads to the moon.
UIt also said that SpaceX disagreed with Zubrin's assessment.

I'm not going to try to argue who's right, but it's worth noting that Musk's slides did show a landing pad.

To be clear: We're talking about ways that SpaceX could monetize Starship's other capabilities in order to fund a Mars colony.
« Last Edit: 02/27/2020 12:52 pm by Dave G »

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #131 on: 02/27/2020 01:24 pm »
He said he's only interested in transportation and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. (from your quote of EM.) But if no one steps up, then SX will have to do it...

Going back to Musk's analogy of the Transcontinental Railway:
The railroad companies pretty much stuck with transportation and it's associated infrastructure (train stations, meals, etc.),
but it's worth mentioning that some of the people who ran these railroad companies were fabulously wealthy.
In some cases, their net worth was more than anyone alive today, adjusted for inflation.
So it was natural for some of these rich railroad guys to invest some of their private fortune into side projects around the railway.
But even with that, the vast majority of the investment that developed the Western U.S. came from elsewhere.

Similarly, I believe SpaceX will concentrate on transportation and it's associated infrastructure.
Musk himself may invest in some other areas of the colony, but the vast majority of the investment will come from elsewhere.
Once SpaceX starts getting large amounts of payload to Mars cost effectively, other investors will quickly jump in.
I think many people will be surprised how fast this happens.

Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #132 on: 02/27/2020 01:36 pm »
Musk in am industrialist that wants to build an entire civilization on Mars. He's iterated that many times.

Exact corporate structure not withstanding, do you really think he'll be like "ok, did transportation, your turn now"?

There will be an entire industrial foodchain to bootstrap... tunnels to dig, mines to develop, factories to build..

Of course he'll be all over that, and it doesn't matter whether the label will say SpaceX or MarsDevCo or whatever.

I'm fairly certain that the first major thrust after basic ISRU will be to make solar cells on Mars, with most of the feed-in processes, so that mass transported from Earth is minimized.

EDIT:  yes, agriculture too..
« Last Edit: 02/27/2020 01:37 pm by meekGee »
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Offline Tulse

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #133 on: 02/27/2020 02:29 pm »
Once SpaceX starts getting large amounts of payload to Mars cost effectively, other investors will quickly jump in.
I think many people will be surprised how fast this happens.
I'm not sure that's true, because I'm not at all clear on what the return would be for such investors. How does one make money on Mars? Musk is willing to spend money in Starship just because he personally wants humanity to go to Mars, and he sees that doing so will not be profitable in itself (that's what Starlink and presumably other profitable SX projects are for). I can potentially see that transport to and from Mars might eventually have a business case (for example, scientific exploration), but I don't see the business case for simply being on Mars, at least for a very long time.

So I think that it is likely instead that Musk/SpaceX will have to do a lot of build-out and development of a settlement, to provide the foundation for a way for others to profit on Mars. And that build-out will largely be self-funded, and certainly not profitable in itself.

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #134 on: 02/27/2020 03:33 pm »
Musk in am industrialist that wants to build an entire civilization on Mars. He's iterated that many times.

In every example I've seen, Musk says he wants to enable an entire civilization on Mars.
That's quite different than wanting to build it himself.

For example, from the SpaceX website:
Quote from: SpaceX website
SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.
(link here)

Also, from the reddit AMA:
Quote from: Elon Musk
Our goal is get you there and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. A rough analogy is that we are trying to build the equivalent of the transcontinental railway. A vast amount of industry will need to be built on Mars by many other companies and millions of people.
(link here)

Can you provide one example where Musk actually says he wants to to build an entire civilization on Mars?

Offline RDoc

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #135 on: 02/27/2020 03:46 pm »
He said he's only interested in transportation and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. (from your quote of EM.) But if no one steps up, then SX will have to do it...

Going back to Musk's analogy of the Transcontinental Railway:
The railroad companies pretty much stuck with transportation and it's associated infrastructure (train stations, meals, etc.),
but it's worth mentioning that some of the people who ran these railroad companies were fabulously wealthy.
In some cases, their net worth was more than anyone alive today, adjusted for inflation.
So it was natural for some of these rich railroad guys to invest some of their private fortune into side projects around the railway.
But even with that, the vast majority of the investment that developed the Western U.S. came from elsewhere.

Similarly, I believe SpaceX will concentrate on transportation and it's associated infrastructure.
Musk himself may invest in some other areas of the colony, but the vast majority of the investment will come from elsewhere.
Once SpaceX starts getting large amounts of payload to Mars cost effectively, other investors will quickly jump in.
I think many people will be surprised how fast this happens.
Well they also made a huge amount of money by selling the land the government gave them as an incentive to build the lines. They got half the land within 1 mile of the line to sell and act as surety for loans to build the railroads.

I don't think there's any equivalent for Mars.

Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #136 on: 02/27/2020 04:19 pm »
Musk in am industrialist that wants to build an entire civilization on Mars. He's iterated that many times.

In every example I've seen, Musk says he wants to enable an entire civilization on Mars.
That's quite different than wanting to build it himself.

For example, from the SpaceX website:
Quote from: SpaceX website
SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.
(link here)

Also, from the reddit AMA:
Quote from: Elon Musk
Our goal is get you there and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. A rough analogy is that we are trying to build the equivalent of the transcontinental railway. A vast amount of industry will need to be built on Mars by many other companies and millions of people.
(link here)

Can you provide one example where Musk actually says he wants to to build an entire civilization on Mars?

The SpaceX website is only relevant to what SpaceX is doing right now.  It's customer facing - of course they're not talking about anything but the business at hand.

Musk's words already cover ISRU, which covers power and basic chemical plants.  Power can be "carrying solar panels from Earth", or "setting up PV cell production on Mars" (Since maybe carrying viable panels from Earth turns out to be too heavy)

Now, knowing Musk, do you really think that he will stop there?  He has never stopped, ever.

Suppose you make Methane.  The distance from there to making plastics is very short - why not capitalize on that?
Suppose you do ice mining.  You need to purify the water first, and then of course you have minerals at hand. Do you just throw them away?
Suppose you did for habitats..  what do you do with the spoil?

I have zero doubt that he'll pull other players into the game, but Musk is the last person in the world to stay back from this kind of activity.

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Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #137 on: 02/28/2020 04:31 pm »
Back in November Elon said:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1192551728597438465

Quote
So it will take about 20 years to transfer a million tons to Mars Base Alpha, which is hopefully enough to make it sustainable

Today he said:

https://twitter.com/sandra_i_erwin/status/1233427459959382017

Quote
Musk: building a city in Mars will require fully reusable vehicles to lift 5 million tons of cargo #AWS2020

I take it the latter refers to something beyond initial sustainable colony, so I think these statements are consistent.

Edit to add:

Have now heard the talk and Elon is still talking about (order of) 1 million tons on Mars, for self-sustaining Martian city.  He thinks that equates to about 5 million tons in LEO.
« Last Edit: 02/28/2020 09:40 pm by FutureSpaceTourist »

Offline geza

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #138 on: 02/28/2020 06:34 pm »
He said he's only interested in transportation and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. (from your quote of EM.) But if no one steps up, then SX will have to do it...

Going back to Musk's analogy of the Transcontinental Railway:
The railroad companies pretty much stuck with transportation and it's associated infrastructure (train stations, meals, etc.),
but it's worth mentioning that some of the people who ran these railroad companies were fabulously wealthy.
In some cases, their net worth was more than anyone alive today, adjusted for inflation.
So it was natural for some of these rich railroad guys to invest some of their private fortune into side projects around the railway.
But even with that, the vast majority of the investment that developed the Western U.S. came from elsewhere.

Similarly, I believe SpaceX will concentrate on transportation and it's associated infrastructure.
Musk himself may invest in some other areas of the colony, but the vast majority of the investment will come from elsewhere.
Once SpaceX starts getting large amounts of payload to Mars cost effectively, other investors will quickly jump in.
I think many people will be surprised how fast this happens.
Well they also made a huge amount of money by selling the land the government gave them as an incentive to build the lines. They got half the land within 1 mile of the line to sell and act as surety for loans to build the railroads.

I don't think there's any equivalent for Mars.

Moreover, people had reason to move to the West. First, because of the unoccupied agricultural land. Then, for the gold. In case of Mars, people assume colonists to give up a good life here on Earth and move to Mars for the excitement of establishing a colony on another world. The real colonists of the past did NOT go to make history.

Offline cailes

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #139 on: 02/28/2020 06:47 pm »
He said he's only interested in transportation and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. (from your quote of EM.) But if no one steps up, then SX will have to do it...

Going back to Musk's analogy of the Transcontinental Railway:
The railroad companies pretty much stuck with transportation and it's associated infrastructure (train stations, meals, etc.),
but it's worth mentioning that some of the people who ran these railroad companies were fabulously wealthy.
In some cases, their net worth was more than anyone alive today, adjusted for inflation.
So it was natural for some of these rich railroad guys to invest some of their private fortune into side projects around the railway.
But even with that, the vast majority of the investment that developed the Western U.S. came from elsewhere.

Similarly, I believe SpaceX will concentrate on transportation and it's associated infrastructure.
Musk himself may invest in some other areas of the colony, but the vast majority of the investment will come from elsewhere.
Once SpaceX starts getting large amounts of payload to Mars cost effectively, other investors will quickly jump in.
I think many people will be surprised how fast this happens.
Well they also made a huge amount of money by selling the land the government gave them as an incentive to build the lines. They got half the land within 1 mile of the line to sell and act as surety for loans to build the railroads.

I don't think there's any equivalent for Mars.

Moreover, people had reason to move to the West. First, because of the unoccupied agricultural land. Then, for the gold. In case of Mars, people assume colonists to give up a good life here on Earth and move to Mars for the excitement of establishing a colony on another world. The real colonists of the past did NOT go to make history.

I think you are missing a large population of idealists, escapists, start-overists, etc that are sick of the current state of humanity on Earth and would love nothing more than a blank slate to get up there.

Also, what makes you think that once up there, people won't begin to innovate for themselves and get away from the initial settlement? People are adventurers and explorers. We will want to get away and setup our own places, free of neofeudalism, patriarchy, _____ (insert your hated philosophy here).

People will figure out how to create their own rovers, building materials, life support systems once the basics have been established up there and it'll be the wild west all over again
« Last Edit: 02/28/2020 06:48 pm by cailes »

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #140 on: 02/28/2020 09:15 pm »
I think you are missing a large population of idealists, escapists, start-overists, etc that are sick of the current state of humanity on Earth and would love nothing more than a blank slate to get up there.

Also, what makes you think that once up there, people won't begin to innovate for themselves and get away from the initial settlement? People are adventurers and explorers. We will want to get away and setup our own places, free of neofeudalism, patriarchy, _____ (insert your hated philosophy here).

People will figure out how to create their own rovers, building materials, life support systems once the basics have been established up there and it'll be the wild west all over again

Pretty hard to fit an ECLSS system and all of its consumables in the back of a covered wagon.  And that ignores the fact that the mining of water and production of oxygen and arable soil requires a fairly massive industrial plant.

Offline rakaydos

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #141 on: 02/28/2020 09:28 pm »
I think you are missing a large population of idealists, escapists, start-overists, etc that are sick of the current state of humanity on Earth and would love nothing more than a blank slate to get up there.

Also, what makes you think that once up there, people won't begin to innovate for themselves and get away from the initial settlement? People are adventurers and explorers. We will want to get away and setup our own places, free of neofeudalism, patriarchy, _____ (insert your hated philosophy here).

People will figure out how to create their own rovers, building materials, life support systems once the basics have been established up there and it'll be the wild west all over again

Pretty hard to fit an ECLSS system and all of its consumables in the back of a covered wagon.  And that ignores the fact that the mining of water and production of oxygen and arable soil requires a fairly massive industrial plant.
Depends on what you're covering it with.
I've prediceted for awhile a modified Cybertruck with suitports replacing the doors. use the backseat for air processing equipment, the bed for survey gear and a trailer to bring home the paydirt.

Offline cailes

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #142 on: 02/28/2020 10:54 pm »
I try to keep in perspective the fact that technology is advancing so rapidly right now case in point... Starship.

There will be similar innovation between now and when we can actually get folks up there.

Also, I don't think for a minute that the Tesla truck in it's current form is going to be anywhere near suitable for using on the surface of Mars. If anything, you would have to turn it into a baja style truck with the type of suspension that could handle the never touched by humanity surface of another world. Figure out what wheels are going to look like. Propulsion. Braking... which wears out by the way even if you are counting on regenerative braking to handle most of it. These along with a host of other parts that have no application...

Anyway... I digress. Have a nice weekend everyone.

;)
« Last Edit: 02/28/2020 10:55 pm by cailes »

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #143 on: 02/28/2020 11:06 pm »
Elon Musk said very much the same thing about building satellites, before Starlink was announced. Sorry, don't have a source handy (I've seen practically every EM talk/interview out there, so it's hard to keep track).

The difference is that Starlink had a slam-dunk business case associated with it, and was an obvious way to fund the R&D needed for Starship.  A Mars base has almost no medium-term business case driving it.


Not much reason to buy a ticket to Mars if there's nowhere to stay.

I expect other businesses will be unable to move fast enough / be risk tolerant enough for Musk (see Starlink). Musk doesn't want to build everything, but he probably won't have much choice.

Either way it makes sense for Elon to say that SpaceX won't do it all, even if he really is willing to do so if necessary. The moment SpaceX announces they're working on surface systems, it takes the wind out of the sails of any company/startup that would otherwise take on some of the work. They will immediately face the counterargument (from the small fraction of investors, boards, etc that do comprehend and buy into Musk's activities and vision), "what makes you think you can compete with SpaceX?" Basically, don't shoot your potential allies.
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Offline geza

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #144 on: 02/29/2020 01:01 pm »

Moreover, people had reason to move to the West. First, because of the unoccupied agricultural land. Then, for the gold. In case of Mars, people assume colonists to give up a good life here on Earth and move to Mars for the excitement of establishing a colony on another world. The real colonists of the past did NOT go to make history.

I think you are missing a large population of idealists, escapists, start-overists, etc that are sick of the current state of humanity on Earth and would love nothing more than a blank slate to get up there.

Also, what makes you think that once up there, people won't begin to innovate for themselves and get away from the initial settlement? People are adventurers and explorers. We will want to get away and setup our own places, free of neofeudalism, patriarchy, _____ (insert your hated philosophy here).

People will figure out how to create their own rovers, building materials, life support systems once the basics have been established up there and it'll be the wild west all over again

I understand your point. My point is that going there by idealistic reasons is not exactly the same phenomenon as going there for gold and being rich asap. Beyond the idealist people, you also need a huge amount of idealist investment capital. In case of American West, the railway was the big investment. Everything else was done by the settlers themselves. They survived on their own. For Mars, establishing transportation infrastructure by Elon Musk from Starlink revenue is a minuscule fraction of the investment needed for establishing a colony. Martian colony will never pay back the investment from Earth.

About the "(insert your hated philosophy here)". Imagine that people hating e.g. capitalism unite in their hate with people hating anti-capitalists and decide together establishing the clean sheet. This is the best recepie for ending up with an even bigger mess.






Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #145 on: 02/29/2020 01:54 pm »
Once SpaceX starts getting large amounts of payload to Mars cost effectively, other investors will quickly jump in.
I think many people will be surprised how fast this happens.
I'm not sure that's true, because I'm not at all clear on what the return would be for such investors. How does one make money on Mars?

Why do some companies invest huge sums to put their names on sports arenas? There's no measurable direct profit in that.
When a Mars colony starts becoming real, it will become a huge media sensation that will captivate the public for years.
With this in mind, I can see companies wanting to put their names on large Mars structures .

Also, why is Yusaku Maezawa investing in the dearMoon project?  There's no profit in that.  He just wants to do it.
According to Forbes, there are 2,153 billionaires in the world, 1280 of whom are richer than Yusaku Maezawa.
If only 1% of these billionaires want to invest in Mars for personal reasons, that's still a lot of money.

And you don't have to be a billionaire.
With predicted Starship costs, many will be able sell all their stuff and move to Mars. Musk has mentioned this repeatedly.
There are 46.8 million millionaires worldwide, and collectively they're worth $158.3 trillion.
If only a small percentage of these millionaires decide to move to Mars and invest there, that's a huge amount of money.

For me, the relevance to this thread is obvious.  First, it's not at all clear that it will be "Elon Musk's Mars Colony".
In fact, Musk himself has made several statements that seem to contradict this notion.
He said he wants SpaceX to concentrate on the transportation part, and have others build out the colony.
In this case, it may be very difficult to predict what a Mars colony will look like, since we don't even know who will build it.

However, I believe the initial Mars base will be built by SpaceX. To be clear, I'm talking about the first few missions here.
By constraining the problem this way, I think we can make educated guesses on what this will look like, as I did here.
« Last Edit: 02/29/2020 02:11 pm by Dave G »

Offline cailes

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #146 on: 03/01/2020 06:27 am »

Moreover, people had reason to move to the West. First, because of the unoccupied agricultural land. Then, for the gold. In case of Mars, people assume colonists to give up a good life here on Earth and move to Mars for the excitement of establishing a colony on another world. The real colonists of the past did NOT go to make history.

I think you are missing a large population of idealists, escapists, start-overists, etc that are sick of the current state of humanity on Earth and would love nothing more than a blank slate to get up there.

Also, what makes you think that once up there, people won't begin to innovate for themselves and get away from the initial settlement? People are adventurers and explorers. We will want to get away and setup our own places, free of neofeudalism, patriarchy, _____ (insert your hated philosophy here).

People will figure out how to create their own rovers, building materials, life support systems once the basics have been established up there and it'll be the wild west all over again

I understand your point. My point is that going there by idealistic reasons is not exactly the same phenomenon as going there for gold and being rich asap. Beyond the idealist people, you also need a huge amount of idealist investment capital. In case of American West, the railway was the big investment. Everything else was done by the settlers themselves. They survived on their own. For Mars, establishing transportation infrastructure by Elon Musk from Starlink revenue is a minuscule fraction of the investment needed for establishing a colony. Martian colony will never pay back the investment from Earth.

About the "(insert your hated philosophy here)". Imagine that people hating e.g. capitalism unite in their hate with people hating anti-capitalists and decide together establishing the clean sheet. This is the best recepie for ending up with an even bigger mess.

I fully expect there will be messes. We are humans and that’s what we do. Once we’ve come to terms with this then we can agree to disagree.

If you’ve never read the books, the Mars Trilogy by Kim Robinson is a great inspection of just this issue.

If you’ve read it already, I apologize. Just makes for a good baseline understanding of these sorts of philosophical differences that we will face.

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #147 on: 03/02/2020 12:01 am »

Moreover, people had reason to move to the West. First, because of the unoccupied agricultural land. Then, for the gold. In case of Mars, people assume colonists to give up a good life here on Earth and move to Mars for the excitement of establishing a colony on another world. The real colonists of the past did NOT go to make history.

I think you are missing a large population of idealists, escapists, start-overists, etc that are sick of the current state of humanity on Earth and would love nothing more than a blank slate to get up there.

Also, what makes you think that once up there, people won't begin to innovate for themselves and get away from the initial settlement? People are adventurers and explorers. We will want to get away and setup our own places, free of neofeudalism, patriarchy, _____ (insert your hated philosophy here).

People will figure out how to create their own rovers, building materials, life support systems once the basics have been established up there and it'll be the wild west all over again

I understand your point. My point is that going there by idealistic reasons is not exactly the same phenomenon as going there for gold and being rich asap. Beyond the idealist people, you also need a huge amount of idealist investment capital. In case of American West, the railway was the big investment. Everything else was done by the settlers themselves. They survived on their own. For Mars, establishing transportation infrastructure by Elon Musk from Starlink revenue is a minuscule fraction of the investment needed for establishing a colony. Martian colony will never pay back the investment from Earth.

About the "(insert your hated philosophy here)". Imagine that people hating e.g. capitalism unite in their hate with people hating anti-capitalists and decide together establishing the clean sheet. This is the best recepie for ending up with an even bigger mess.

I fully expect there will be messes. We are humans and that’s what we do. Once we’ve come to terms with this then we can agree to disagree.

If you’ve never read the books, the Mars Trilogy by Kim Robinson is a great inspection of just this issue.

If you’ve read it already, I apologize. Just makes for a good baseline understanding of these sorts of philosophical differences that we will face.

While we're invoking Kim Stanley Robinson in regard to eco-utopian visions, it seems pertinent to consider this short video where KSR talks about his views on eco-utopian visions (and in fact, utopias in general):

« Last Edit: 03/02/2020 12:13 am by Twark_Main »
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Offline cailes

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #148 on: 03/02/2020 12:42 am »
I think the visions he lays out are possibly some of the most important reasons for going to Mars. Whether it’s NASA, SpaceX or other that get us there I think from the get go we will see people striking out to make their own just world.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #149 on: 03/02/2020 01:09 am »
Interesting talk by KSR. Almost identical to Elon Musk, but of course Elon is a billionaire which kind of unavoidably impacts his perspective (WRT capitalism, etc), and it seems clear to me it's unlikely they'd get along very well today.

Reminds me of the time I got Elon to say he was a socialist.
« Last Edit: 03/02/2020 01:22 am by Robotbeat »
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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #150 on: 03/03/2020 01:39 pm »
Interesting talk by KSR. Almost identical to Elon Musk, but of course Elon is a billionaire which kind of unavoidably impacts his perspective (WRT capitalism, etc), and it seems clear to me it's unlikely they'd get along very well today.

Reminds me of the time I got Elon to say he was a socialist.
Does his being a billionaire change that? Consider this tweet from last August:
Quote
I support Yang
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1160253482424684544
I've only had one 10-15 minute conversation with EM. It was back around when he was founding SpaceX. It wasn't on politics, but instead on rockets, EVs, and heads up displays. He was searching for rocket engineers. So I can't say what his politics is, but I will say there is a strong need to do good for humanity in him. He's been consistent in that.
We talk about creating a Star Trek future, but will end up with The Expanse if radical change doesn't happen.

Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #151 on: 03/15/2020 05:50 pm »
Back when SS was introduced, Musk was adamant that it fly back within the same synod.

The cost of this is propellant and payload.  Flying back in general costs much increased ISRU demand on Mars, and so much increased power budget.

Musk of course knows this, but figured it was worth it.

Except now he's talking about a $5M starship.  (And even if it's $15M...)

New Starships are made from stainless.

A colony/city on mars will need lots of large tanks for all sorts of industrial liquids and gasses.  They are going to be either made in-situ, or shipped from Earth...

And removing engines takes so little time...

So at this point I really can't see any reason to send most ships back.  You have to have the capability tondo so, but until making stainless steel on Mars is cheap and easy, it simply makes no sense to me..  They should convert most ships to tankage, and send what's easily strippable back with those ships that do go back.

(Though again, what's easier - make new Raptors, or ship them back from Mars for reuse 2 years later)

Basically, all the cost reductions and simplifications that came about with SS really move the working point.

Maybe, in the 1000 ship view, there will be a small numbers of manned ships (more expensive) that do fly back, and a large number of cargo ships that are designed to be consumed on the surface.
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Offline cdebuhr

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #152 on: 03/15/2020 06:47 pm »
Back when SS was introduced, Musk was adamant that it fly back within the same synod.

The cost of this is propellant and payload.  Flying back in general costs much increased ISRU demand on Mars, and so much increased power budget.

Musk of course knows this, but figured it was worth it.

Except now he's talking about a $5M starship.  (And even if it's $15M...)

New Starships are made from stainless.

A colony/city on mars will need lots of large tanks for all sorts of industrial liquids and gasses.  They are going to be either made in-situ, or shipped from Earth...

And removing engines takes so little time...

So at this point I really can't see any reason to send most ships back.  You have to have the capability tondo so, but until making stainless steel on Mars is cheap and easy, it simply makes no sense to me..  They should convert most ships to tankage, and send what's easily strippable back with those ships that do go back.

(Though again, what's easier - make new Raptors, or ship them back from Mars for reuse 2 years later)

Basically, all the cost reductions and simplifications that came about with SS really move the working point.

Maybe, in the 1000 ship view, there will be a small numbers of manned ships (more expensive) that do fly back, and a large number of cargo ships that are designed to be consumed on the surface.
I've been thinking this for a while now ... the initial cargo ship are essentially made of payload.  Lots of useful SS sheet, plumbing, electrical, batteries, electric motors, valves, computers, etc.  It's helpful that methane and oxygen are both so benign - essentially no decontamination required.  I highly doubt very many of them will be coming back.  Even the raptor engines may be scavenged for useful and exotic (on mars) metals and alloys, and perhaps even engine components that might find other use outside of a rocket engine.  Perhaps a pre-burner/turbine assembly could be modified and used a source of mechanical power?  Initially it doesn't have to be an optimal solution - it just has to be good enough to accomplish some needed task until more appropriate solutions can be fabricates locally or imported.

Even the some of the manned ships may meet this fate, particularly if they're designed with modular/repurposeable modules, rather than everything being so specific to Starship that none of it has much use in another scope (think things life support modules, control interfaces, communications equipment, entertainment systems, etc.).

Offline Ionmars

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #153 on: 03/15/2020 07:04 pm »
clap - clap- clap...clap - clap - clap......

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #154 on: 03/15/2020 07:38 pm »
When Musk spoke with Zubrin last month, he said the first 5 Starship cargo versions would remain on Mars (link here).

Note: Due to radiation, Starship can't be used to house people. In fact, Starship may make the radiation worse (link here).
To shield people from radiation, Gwynne implied they'll need to dig underground tunnels (link here).
« Last Edit: 03/15/2020 07:41 pm by Dave G »

Offline DigitalMan

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #155 on: 03/15/2020 08:06 pm »
When Musk spoke with Zubrin last month, he said the first 5 Starship cargo versions would remain on Mars (link here).

Note: Due to radiation, Starship can't be used to house people. In fact, Starship may make the radiation worse (link here).
To shield people from radiation, Gwynne implied they'll need to dig underground tunnels (link here).

It might be useful to cut them up.  The upper section is pressurized crew area, underneath that is unpressurized cargo, then propellant tanks under that.

So cutting at the unpressurized layer means you can have propellant tanks to use for possibly whatever you like, moved to a tank storage area.  Then you could perhaps put the crew area most (or all) of the way down a hole and cover the rest with regolith.  Tunnels connected to nice pressurized compartments could be pretty nice.

Offline Phil Stooke

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #156 on: 03/15/2020 08:18 pm »
"...we will see people striking out to make their own just world"

Don't forget the other people striking out to make their own unjust world. 

Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #157 on: 03/15/2020 08:42 pm »
When Musk spoke with Zubrin last month, he said the first 5 Starship cargo versions would remain on Mars (link here).

Note: Due to radiation, Starship can't be used to house people. In fact, Starship may make the radiation worse (link here).
To shield people from radiation, Gwynne implied they'll need to dig underground tunnels (link here).
Wasn't think habitation, though each new settler will need his own cot and storage locker etc - things that are already on SS and why lug along an extra set and then lug the first set back?

Even if the SS cot is a bit sturdier, still - strip your cabin bare when you disembark...

But mainly, tankage.  You need to store an immense amount of ISRU product, various water/mineral solutions, gasses, etc.  Tens if not hundreds of tanks.  Long before you can make new tanks on Mars.
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Offline su27k

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #158 on: 03/16/2020 03:35 am »
So at this point I really can't see any reason to send most ships back.  You have to have the capability tondo so, but until making stainless steel on Mars is cheap and easy, it simply makes no sense to me..  They should convert most ships to tankage, and send what's easily strippable back with those ships that do go back.

(Though again, what's easier - make new Raptors, or ship them back from Mars for reuse 2 years later)

Basically, all the cost reductions and simplifications that came about with SS really move the working point.

Maybe, in the 1000 ship view, there will be a small numbers of manned ships (more expensive) that do fly back, and a large number of cargo ships that are designed to be consumed on the surface.

I thought about this, the problem is the amount of cargo needed to be transported far exceeds the ship production rate.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1192551728597438465

Quote
So it will take about 20 years to transfer a million tons to Mars Base Alpha, which is hopefully enough to make it sustainable

So that's 100k tons per synod, or 1000 ships per synod just like he predicted. But if you expend the ship, then you'll need to build a new ship every 17.5 hours, that's lower than even the most optimistic Musk estimate. So I think you still need most of the cargo ships back to be reused, it can't work otherwise.

Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #159 on: 03/16/2020 03:46 am »
So at this point I really can't see any reason to send most ships back.  You have to have the capability tondo so, but until making stainless steel on Mars is cheap and easy, it simply makes no sense to me..  They should convert most ships to tankage, and send what's easily strippable back with those ships that do go back.

(Though again, what's easier - make new Raptors, or ship them back from Mars for reuse 2 years later)

Basically, all the cost reductions and simplifications that came about with SS really move the working point.

Maybe, in the 1000 ship view, there will be a small numbers of manned ships (more expensive) that do fly back, and a large number of cargo ships that are designed to be consumed on the surface.

I thought about this, the problem is the amount of cargo needed to be transported far exceeds the ship production rate.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1192551728597438465

Quote
So it will take about 20 years to transfer a million tons to Mars Base Alpha, which is hopefully enough to make it sustainable

So that's 100k tons per synod, or 1000 ships per synod just like he predicted. But if you expend the ship, then you'll need to build a new ship every 17.5 hours, that's lower than even the most optimistic Musk estimate. So I think you still need most of the cargo ships back to be reused, it can't work otherwise.
But you'll need to ship storage tanks..  so that adds back to your cargo.

If you want to enable getting the ships back quickly, then for each ship you need a ship's worth of tankage on the surface, just for propellant...

And for a growing colony, if you want to process gasses for ISRU, and downstream industrial base gasses, store water, store slurries on the way to extracting minerals etc - you need these before you can start making tanks in-situ...

So either use the cargo ships, or fly them back, but find a different way to ship tankage...  Like maybe attach engines to them and make them into ships :)
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Offline Eka

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #160 on: 03/16/2020 04:30 am »
Enough ships can be built each synod to transport 100k tons of cargo. One just has to build the production lines. I personally see need for a larger SS built for containerized cargo hauling, and transporting much heavier loads.

Tanks can be shipped as kits, then assembled on Mars.

I still think ISRU fuel production and the returning of many cargo SS will be done because the solar capacity needed for the fuel production provides emergency power during dust storms. Also it makes fuel for Mars and outer planet exploration. Cargo SS can be returned to earth with scientific and research cargo. A few shipments of Mars regolith would go a long ways towards helping mineral extraction machinery design. There will also be lots of scientific samples to send to Earth.
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Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #161 on: 03/16/2020 10:17 am »
So that's 100k tons per synod, or 1000 ships per synod just like he predicted. But if you expend the ship, then you'll need to build a new ship every 17.5 hours, that's lower than even the most optimistic Musk estimate. So I think you still need most of the cargo ships back to be reused, it can't work otherwise.

Exactly.

We know some Starship cargo versions will stay on Mars.
When Musk spoke with Zubrin last month, he said the first 5 Starship cargo versions would remain on Mars (link here).
So it's not an all-or-nothing type thing, but if you run the numbers, it seems most Starships will need to return to Earth.
« Last Edit: 03/16/2020 10:18 am by Dave G »

Offline cdebuhr

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #162 on: 03/16/2020 12:23 pm »
So that's 100k tons per synod, or 1000 ships per synod just like he predicted. But if you expend the ship, then you'll need to build a new ship every 17.5 hours, that's lower than even the most optimistic Musk estimate. So I think you still need most of the cargo ships back to be reused, it can't work otherwise.

Exactly.

We know some Starship cargo versions will stay on Mars.
When Musk spoke with Zubrin last month, he said the first 5 Starship cargo versions would remain on Mars (link here).
So it's not an all-or-nothing type thing, but if you run the numbers, it seems most Starships will need to return to Earth.
Still not really convinced of this ... They may not all stay on mars for salvage, but there will be a hell of a lot more than five that meet that fate.  If the plan is to build a city, there's too much useful (on Mars) stuff in a Starship to send them all back to Earth.  It would also massively reduce the amount of ISRU prop production needed on Mars if effectively the entire landed mass of a cargo ship was considered payload, and (mostly) only people haulers needed to be fueled and sent back.  If thy can hit the build price point Musk is talking about (a very big if!), or even five times that, it seems like it may be faster/more efficient to use them (or their bits and pieces) on Mars.

If the problem is we can't build Starships fast enough, the solution is obvious ... build more shipyards.  Remember that the shiny steel artifacts being built in BC are, as cool and important as they are, kind of a distraction to outsiders as to whats really going on there.  The principal prototype(s) isn't SNx, its the shipyard itself.  I cant help by notice that most of the site is built of industrial Lego.  Most of the tents, Sprung structures, high bays, etc. weve seen so far could be taken down and reconfigured/moved/redeployed quite easily.  Once SX settles on a final configuration for SS/SH Shipyard SN1, it will be a lot faster/cheaper to create more build sites.

Just my Ill informed opinion (obviously).  The actual outcome will probably be somewhere in between.
« Last Edit: 03/16/2020 01:48 pm by cdebuhr »

Offline DigitalMan

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #163 on: 03/16/2020 01:59 pm »
So that's 100k tons per synod, or 1000 ships per synod just like he predicted. But if you expend the ship, then you'll need to build a new ship every 17.5 hours, that's lower than even the most optimistic Musk estimate. So I think you still need most of the cargo ships back to be reused, it can't work otherwise.

Exactly.

We know some Starship cargo versions will stay on Mars.
When Musk spoke with Zubrin last month, he said the first 5 Starship cargo versions would remain on Mars (link here).
So it's not an all-or-nothing type thing, but if you run the numbers, it seems most Starships will need to return to Earth.
Still not really convinced of this ... They may not all stay on mars for salvage, but there will be a hell of a lot more than five that meet that fate.  If the plan is to build a city, there's too much useful (on Mars) stuff in a Starship to send them all back to Earth.  It would also massively reduce the amount of ISRU prop production needed on Mars if effectively the entire landed mass of a cargo ship was considered payload, and (mostly) only people haulers needed to be fueled and sent back.  If thy can hit the build price point Musk is talking about (a very big if!), or even five times that, it seems like it may be faster/more efficient to use them (or their bits and pieces) on Mars.

If the problem is we can't build Starships fast enough, the solution is obvious ... build more shipyards.  Remember that the shiny steel artifacts being built in BC are, as cool and important as they are, kind of a distraction to outsiders as to whats really going on there.  The principal prototype(s) isn't SNx, its the shipyard itself.  I cant help by notice that most of the site is built of industrial Lego.  Most of the tents, Sprung structures, high bays, etc. weve seen so far could be taken down and reconfigured/moved/redeployed quite easily.  Once SX settles on a final configuration for SS/SH Shipyard SN1, it will be a lot faster/cheaper to create more build sites.

Just my Ill informed opinion (obviously).  The actual outcome will probably be somewhere in between.

It seems to me if more than one Starship arrives on Mars, the required return mass should dictate how many could remain.  The marginal cost of keeping a Starship on Mars to be disassembled for use in the colony or as an emergency craft are pretty darn low. 

I think if you wouldn't send a palette of crack cocaine back why would you send Starship at its expected cost?
« Last Edit: 03/16/2020 01:59 pm by DigitalMan »

Offline rakaydos

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #164 on: 03/16/2020 04:11 pm »
The fuel plant, solar panels, digging machines, and so on, needed to refuel one star ship over one synod, can be thought of as one unit mass.

The number of units on Mars is the number of starships that can return each synod. And that number will increase each synod.

Let's say for the sake of the argument, each cargo starship can carry 1/2 a unit mass. (So, each fuel plant/waterminer/solar field combination totals around 250-ish tons)

For the first wave, 2 cargo ships land essential supplies and early surveyers
For the second wave, 2 crew ships and 4 cargo ships deploy the first 2 units of fuel production. Only 1 starship is scheduled to return, but the extra is overcapacity to assure that that one starship can return.
If all goes well, the 3rd wave brings 4 cargo ships, 2 new crew ships, and the returning crew ship. There is now enough capacity to return 4 ships to earth, and only 2 crew ships need to go, so 2 cargos return as well.
On the 4th synod, there is 5 new cargo, 2 returning cargo, 1new crew, and 2 returning crew. Refueling capability is now up to 7 ships, plus margin, and 2 crew and 5 cargo return.

On the 5th synod,5 new cargo 1 new crew, 5 returning cargo and 2 crew land, bringing the totalrefueling units to 12, and almost the entire convoy can return the next synod.

These numbers are pulled out of my ass, but you can see how this is working. It's just like a retirement account, compounding interest plus fixed input

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #165 on: 03/16/2020 06:13 pm »
The fuel plant, solar panels, digging machines, and so on, needed to refuel one star ship over one synod, can be thought of as one unit mass.

I like your analysis.

One additional point: The fuel plant, solar panels, digging machines, and so on may be used for more than just refueling.

For example, to form an effective shield against Mars surface radiation, they'll need several feet of Martian rock.
So as they dig for ice, they may also be creating habitats at the same time.

Another issue: Dust storms can last weeks. During that time, solar panel output may go down to 10% of max output.
So having way more solar power than you would need for normal living may be required for prolonged dust storms.

Also, to cover contingencies, a relatively small methalox generator can act as an emergency backup power source.
Obviously, you wouldn't want to use this very much, but as a short-term emergency backup, it makes a lot of sense.
So the fuel plant itself can double as an emergency backup power source.

Offline OTV Booster

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #166 on: 03/31/2020 02:31 am »
He said he's only interested in transportation and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. (from your quote of EM.) But if no one steps up, then SX will have to do it...

Going back to Musk's analogy of the Transcontinental Railway:
The railroad companies pretty much stuck with transportation and it's associated infrastructure (train stations, meals, etc.),
but it's worth mentioning that some of the people who ran these railroad companies were fabulously wealthy.
In some cases, their net worth was more than anyone alive today, adjusted for inflation.
So it was natural for some of these rich railroad guys to invest some of their private fortune into side projects around the railway.
But even with that, the vast majority of the investment that developed the Western U.S. came from elsewhere.

Similarly, I believe SpaceX will concentrate on transportation and it's associated infrastructure.
Musk himself may invest in some other areas of the colony, but the vast majority of the investment will come from elsewhere.
Once SpaceX starts getting large amounts of payload to Mars cost effectively, other investors will quickly jump in.
I think many people will be surprised how fast this happens.

There’s an interesting side note on railroad development. The AT&SF and others were were granted 10 mile square blocks alternating from one side of the right of way to the other. The railroads then sold this land off to farmers and ranchers where possible and created an instant market.

Elon will need to create the market for his transportation system. People can’t  just go to mars and build a little house on the prairie. It needs a kickstart unlike anything that earth has ever seen.

Phil

We are on the cusp of revolutionary access to space. One hallmark of a revolution is that there is a disjuncture through which projections do not work. The thread must be picked up anew and the tapestry of history woven with a fresh pattern.

Offline geza

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #167 on: 04/02/2020 02:54 pm »
There’s an interesting side note on railroad development. The AT&SF and others were were granted 10 mile square blocks alternating from one side of the right of way to the other. The railroads then sold this land off to farmers and ranchers where possible and created an instant market.

Elon will need to create the market for his transportation system. People can’t  just go to mars and build a little house on the prairie. It needs a kickstart unlike anything that earth has ever seen.

Phil

This is a key point. SpaceX have developed already a partially reusable space launch system, which is much cheaper than the competing possibilities. However, there is no sufficient demand for it, which would justify the investment. Therfore, they established StarLink, which want to lauch a huge number of satellites. The hope is, that StarLink itself will have an unsaturatable market: connectitity. Starlink will justify economically the development of a new, fully resusable lauch system, Starship. That is, connectivity will have the ultimate market, which is NOT created, but existing. LEO turism, or p2p can be another markets. When Starship technology and Starlink revenue are in existence, then Mars transportation, including a moderately-sized base on Mars, serving as a refueling station, will not be so difficult.

The question remains, what will be the business model for establishing a significant city on Mars when transportation is up and running? What is the ultimate market, the ultimate justification? In case the American West, it was agricultural production on the new land. As far as we know, Occupy Mars has no such economic justification.

Occupy Mars is a societal movement, not an economic one. I can assume an economic bootstrapping effect, however. IF it is generally assumed that Mars is The Next Big Thing, then nations and big companies will want to be part of it for prestige. Tesla Mars will never pay back the investment to Tesla Earth in money, but Tesla Earth will call itself as a Martian company, which will be perceived, as cool. Is this enough?

Offline Tulse

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #168 on: 04/02/2020 03:17 pm »
Presumably one source of revenue for a Mars settlement, at least early on, will be research. Consider all the billions that are spent on sending orbiters, landers, and rovers to Mars, and then consider how vastly greater the amount of science research could be done with people on the ground. (For example, Curiosity has travelled about 9km in total in 8 years, a distance a person could walk in couple of hours.) Having primarily a science focus would make the settlement much like Antarctica, at least at the beginning, but without be hampered by the development restrictions that outposts there face. Once there is a significant research presence, I would imagine that other secondary needs of the settlement would prompt new revenue opportunities.

Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #169 on: 04/02/2020 05:29 pm »
There’s an interesting side note on railroad development. The AT&SF and others were were granted 10 mile square blocks alternating from one side of the right of way to the other. The railroads then sold this land off to farmers and ranchers where possible and created an instant market.

Elon will need to create the market for his transportation system. People can’t  just go to mars and build a little house on the prairie. It needs a kickstart unlike anything that earth has ever seen.

Phil

This is a key point. SpaceX have developed already a partially reusable space launch system, which is much cheaper than the competing possibilities. However, there is no sufficient demand for it, which would justify the investment. Therfore, they established StarLink, which want to lauch a huge number of satellites. The hope is, that StarLink itself will have an unsaturatable market: connectitity. Starlink will justify economically the development of a new, fully resusable lauch system, Starship. That is, connectivity will have the ultimate market, which is NOT created, but existing. LEO turism, or p2p can be another markets. When Starship technology and Starlink revenue are in existence, then Mars transportation, including a moderately-sized base on Mars, serving as a refueling station, will not be so difficult.

The question remains, what will be the business model for establishing a significant city on Mars when transportation is up and running? What is the ultimate market, the ultimate justification? In case the American West, it was agricultural production on the new land. As far as we know, Occupy Mars has no such economic justification.

Occupy Mars is a societal movement, not an economic one. I can assume an economic bootstrapping effect, however. IF it is generally assumed that Mars is The Next Big Thing, then nations and big companies will want to be part of it for prestige. Tesla Mars will never pay back the investment to Tesla Earth in money, but Tesla Earth will call itself as a Martian company, which will be perceived, as cool. Is this enough?
I think that's a common misconception.

An economy has worth just by existing, so of it is growing, then you don't need to export in order to justify investment.

Think about a European person investing in a small Rickshaw business in China in 1970.  Today that business has a fleet of 1000 cars, servicing only the Chinese market.

The investment paid off, even though no export left China.

The trick here is that the investor remains outside China.  In a way, the value (as defined by the desire of other European investor to buy his shares) was the export.

This model will easily work with a Mars colony.
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Online Twark_Main

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #170 on: 04/03/2020 04:05 pm »
I think that's a common misconception.

An economy has worth just by existing, so of it is growing, then you don't need to export in order to justify investment.

Think about a European person investing in a small Rickshaw business in China in 1970.  Today that business has a fleet of 1000 cars, servicing only the Chinese market.

The investment paid off, even though no export left China.

The trick here is that the investor remains outside China.  In a way, the value (as defined by the desire of other European investor to buy his shares) was the export.

This model will easily work with a Mars colony.

That only works because China itself already has an existing, viable economy. But that's what we're trying to prove, so it can't be one of our initial assumptions (otherwise we're begging the question).
« Last Edit: 04/03/2020 04:09 pm by Twark_Main »
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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #171 on: 04/05/2020 06:38 pm »
I think that's a common misconception.

An economy has worth just by existing, so of it is growing, then you don't need to export in order to justify investment.

Think about a European person investing in a small Rickshaw business in China in 1970.  Today that business has a fleet of 1000 cars, servicing only the Chinese market.

The investment paid off, even though no export left China.

The trick here is that the investor remains outside China.  In a way, the value (as defined by the desire of other European investor to buy his shares) was the export.

This model will easily work with a Mars colony.

That only works because China itself already has an existing, viable economy. But that's what we're trying to prove, so it can't be one of our initial assumptions (otherwise we're begging the question).

More exactly, it works, if an exchange rate has already been established between Chinies and European moneies. Then the European investor has the option to repatriate his profit, or sell the company and reptriate the so earned money. As these options are expected to remain open for the future, the investor may choose not to sell the company and not to repatriate the profit. In turn, existence of a reliable exchange rate is a consequence of an established commerce between China and Europe.

Offline geza

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #172 on: 04/05/2020 06:51 pm »
Presumably one source of revenue for a Mars settlement, at least early on, will be research. Consider all the billions that are spent on sending orbiters, landers, and rovers to Mars, and then consider how vastly greater the amount of science research could be done with people on the ground. (For example, Curiosity has travelled about 9km in total in 8 years, a distance a person could walk in couple of hours.) Having primarily a science focus would make the settlement much like Antarctica, at least at the beginning, but without be hampered by the development restrictions that outposts there face. Once there is a significant research presence, I would imagine that other secondary needs of the settlement would prompt new revenue opportunities.

I very much agree with this point. I expect a Martian Reasarch Base for a significant period. "Research", as a government sponsored activity, may incude search for reasources, developing tachnological solutions, etc. Some companies may invest some money without the hope of return, as sponsorship, or for prestige. After some time...

Offline meekGee

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #173 on: 04/06/2020 05:38 am »
I think that's a common misconception.

An economy has worth just by existing, so of it is growing, then you don't need to export in order to justify investment.

Think about a European person investing in a small Rickshaw business in China in 1970.  Today that business has a fleet of 1000 cars, servicing only the Chinese market.

The investment paid off, even though no export left China.

The trick here is that the investor remains outside China.  In a way, the value (as defined by the desire of other European investor to buy his shares) was the export.

This model will easily work with a Mars colony.

That only works because China itself already has an existing, viable economy. But that's what we're trying to prove, so it can't be one of our initial assumptions (otherwise we're begging the question).

More exactly, it works, if an exchange rate has already been established between Chinies and European moneies. Then the European investor has the option to repatriate his profit, or sell the company and reptriate the so earned money. As these options are expected to remain open for the future, the investor may choose not to sell the company and not to repatriate the profit. In turn, existence of a reliable exchange rate is a consequence of an established commerce between China and Europe.
No need for an exchange rate or even for a Chinese currency to exist.

The model works for Englishmen investing in an Indian colony too, all using British pounds.

The only requirement is that the perceived value of the investment, to other British gentlemen, will increase with time.

Hence the idea that an economy has a value in and of itself, without having to export. 

It happens because ownership transcends the boundaries.  Mars can make money to Earth investors simply by increasing in "Earth worth", which will occur with the growth of the population and the slow slog towards self sufficiency.
ABCD - Always Be Counting Down

Offline geza

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #174 on: 04/06/2020 08:28 am »
I think that's a common misconception.

An economy has worth just by existing, so of it is growing, then you don't need to export in order to justify investment.

Think about a European person investing in a small Rickshaw business in China in 1970.  Today that business has a fleet of 1000 cars, servicing only the Chinese market.

The investment paid off, even though no export left China.

The trick here is that the investor remains outside China.  In a way, the value (as defined by the desire of other European investor to buy his shares) was the export.

This model will easily work with a Mars colony.

That only works because China itself already has an existing, viable economy. But that's what we're trying to prove, so it can't be one of our initial assumptions (otherwise we're begging the question).

More exactly, it works, if an exchange rate has already been established between Chinies and European moneies. Then the European investor has the option to repatriate his profit, or sell the company and reptriate the so earned money. As these options are expected to remain open for the future, the investor may choose not to sell the company and not to repatriate the profit. In turn, existence of a reliable exchange rate is a consequence of an established commerce between China and Europe.
No need for an exchange rate or even for a Chinese currency to exist.

The model works for Englishmen investing in an Indian colony too, all using British pounds.

The only requirement is that the perceived value of the investment, to other British gentlemen, will increase with time.

Hence the idea that an economy has a value in and of itself, without having to export. 

It happens because ownership transcends the boundaries.  Mars can make money to Earth investors simply by increasing in "Earth worth", which will occur with the growth of the population and the slow slog towards self sufficiency.

Separate Chinese money is not the condition, but the problem in the example. Exchange rate is the solution for the problem.

The very essence of money economy is that anything valuable can be exchanged to anything else valuable through money. Money have value in this context. Exchange rate exists because export/import exists between the countries. When export/import is imballanced then exchange rate rearranges. When the British colonies used British money, export/import existed between the parts of the Empire, connecting value here to value there.

I am a Hungarian. In the old times Hungarian (state) export to the SovietUnion was paid for in "transferable rubel", a namesake of the Soviet internal currency. It was not a currency for the Western world. We could not buy anything from the West in exchange of our Soviet export. Instead, we had to export something to the West to earn dollar first. This was a huge problem for us that time.

Of course, value is perceived value in practice. When people assumed that investing in .com was an investment into the future, then anything .com became perceived highly valuable. However, they expected a huge returm in the not-so-far future in universal value, money. The bubble bursted, when people started to realise that .com was overvalued relative to its future money return.

Elon Musk can invest all his wealth into the Martian colony without any expectation of personal return other than glory. Or, he can become a shareholder of the Martian economy and continue to perceive himself, as rich in the Martian way. A pension fund cannot do this, because it exists and invests for paying pensions here on Earth in the foreseeable future. A pension fund will be able to invest into a Martian company only after the Martian company will have found a way to pay the dividend in Earthly money.

That is, Elon Musk and a pension fund are essentially different entities in this respect. Without existence of (or an informed hope for) a bidirectional commerce between Earth and Mars, investing into Mars has no universal value for an Earthly Homo economicus, who value nothing else than future profit in home money. Of course, Homo economicus is just an abstraction. The real Homo sapiens can behave differently. As Bill Gates can spend most of his wealth on charity, Elon Must can invest in Mars.

The nightmare scenario is that the bubble of Martian investments bursts when a significant number of people are living on Mars already, but they are not self-sufficient yet.

In my opinion, Martian economy will not start to bootstrap itself exponentially immediately after the transportation problem will have been solved. There will be no rush for empty land and gold. My hope is that a limited human presence on Mars will be supported from Earth for a significant period of time by reasons other than direct profit expectation of a Homo economicus. Althurism, sponsorship, belief in multiplanetary human future, supporting basic science, supporting technological development, national/company prestige, technological prooving ground, etc. Some companies will earn a limited amount of Earthly money along the way. A fraction of humans will value Martian ownership, despite the understanding that it cannot exchanged for Earthly ownership.

When the small human population will become more and more self-sufficient, the limited amount of support from Earth can sustain a larger and larger Martian activity. More and more people will find a job in Mars as a natural option. More and more people will find investing on Mars a rational choice. Maybe, at some point in the future the exponential growth of Martian economy will commence.


Offline Eka

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #175 on: 04/07/2020 03:17 am »
That is, Elon Musk and a pension fund are essentially different entities in this respect. Without existence of (or an informed hope for) a bidirectional commerce between Earth and Mars, investing into Mars has no universal value for an Earthly Homo economicus, who value nothing else than future profit in home money. Of course, Homo economicus is just an abstraction. The real Homo sapiens can behave differently. As Bill Gates can spend most of his wealth on charity, Elon Must can invest in Mars.
I see making humanity a multi planetary species as a extremely huge gift to humanity. In a sense a charitable contribution worth far beyond it's cost.

I see Mars' first big export is "Life on Mars" reality TV. As others have said information is an easy low cost export, and what is entertainment but a form of information.
We talk about creating a Star Trek future, but will end up with The Expanse if radical change doesn't happen.

Offline zbeeblebrox

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #176 on: 04/08/2020 12:50 am »
Kind of a random place to make a first post I know, but I've been lurking for a while and this is the first conversation I actually feel qualified to jump into.

We have a word for settlements founded for economic reasons: "boom towns". And 9 times out of 10 that leads to exactly what you expect it does. Any Mars colony whose primary goal is economic viability will become a ghost town. Economy is important in the very long run, but it's a secondary concern for a new colony. In fact, it should be a tertiary concern. They should completely deprioritize economic viability. It shouldn't even be a thought in their head. Because they won't be, not even close. They'll be dependent on Earth charity for decades or even centuries. So if in any way profit is something they care about, they're gonna peace out fast. Anything you can produce on Mars you can get a better ROI for on Earth.

Additionally, any Mars colony whose primary goal is scientific research will never be a true colony. It will be the equivalent to an Antarctic base. Research is great to have, but it's a poor reason to set down roots.

Ultimately, when it comes to settling in difficult and undesirable locales, what separates success from failure is not striking gold or finding any external value within the area, it's ideology. If those in the community have deeply held beliefs that this is where they're meant to be, the settlement will outlast all its difficulties and shortcomings. Even if the colonists are ill prepared for what the location will throw at them.

SpaceX seems to be a great candidate for being ideologically-driven colonists. It's covered in Mars-obsessed employees, lead by a Mars-obsessed CEO, and has planetary settlement in its very mission statement. They might not outright admit it, but it's basically their religion. And that's why it has a strong chance of lasting. The business person will leave when the angry investors start calling. The scientist will visit but they'll never stay. The people who stay on Mars will be the people who desperately want to be FROM Mars, who are there for no other reason except to be Martian, because they believe zealously that this in-and-of-itself matters the most.

If you don't have that, it doesn't matter what reality show or novel Mars product or fancy scientific equipment you've got up there, you'll never get a colony off the ground. But if you do, then that's all you need.*

*life support, biomaterial, plastics, radiation protection, etc not included

Offline GregTheGrumpy

Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #177 on: 04/08/2020 06:46 am »
Kind of a random place to make a first post I know, <snip/>

Welcome to the forums, great first post!

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #178 on: 04/08/2020 09:22 am »
Ultimately, when it comes to settling in difficult and undesirable locales, what separates success from failure is not striking gold or finding any external value within the area, it's ideology. If those in the community have deeply held beliefs that this is where they're meant to be, the settlement will outlast all its difficulties and shortcomings. Even if the colonists are ill prepared for what the location will throw at them.

Yes, exactly.

And by the way, your wording above also perfectly describes some of the first settlers in America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrims_(Plymouth_Colony)

But unlike the Pilgrims, people on Earth will be able to see the first settlers on Mars, and many will be inspired by this.
I believe this will create an economy of sorts.

As an analogy, many large companies have spent gobs of money to put their names on sports arenas.
Spectator sports inspire people. They create a good feeling. Companies want their brand associated with that feeling.
If a Mars settlement is similarly inspiring, large companies may be willing to pay to get their brand associated with that.

I also think there will be millions of Mars fans on Earth who aren't willing to make the trip,
but who may be willing to invest part of their wealth to allow others to do so, even with little hope for any ROI.
Again, this will be more about ideology than economics.
« Last Edit: 04/08/2020 09:25 am by Dave G »

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #179 on: 04/08/2020 07:55 pm »
Kind of a random place to make a first post I know, <snip/>

Welcome to the forums, great first post!

Well of course it is, he's got two heads to think with! ;)
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Offline zbeeblebrox

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #180 on: 04/09/2020 12:28 am »
Thanks for the welcome!
(I might have two heads, but one's drunk all the time, so don't expect much from him)

I also think there will be millions of Mars fans on Earth who aren't willing to make the trip,
but who may be willing to invest part of their wealth to allow others to do so, even with little hope for any ROI.

That's a good point, the presence of humans on Mars is going to be enough for certain people to invest in colony development and getting others up there. That's part of why leaning into the whole "go to Mars because it's Mars!" ideology is so important, since that's really the greatest present value Mars has for us - that's it's Mars - so that's what will drive investment, commercially.

Although it's not clear what the cost will be for people who plan on being long-term colonists. For visitors, I know Musk estimated ~$200k on the optimistic side, and that makes sense for that use case. But it would be a very strange place if that first outpost of colonists was made up entirely of people who consider 200k pocket change.

Offline Dave G

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #181 on: 04/09/2020 10:21 am »
Although it's not clear what the cost will be for people who plan on being long-term colonists. For visitors, I know Musk estimated ~$200k on the optimistic side, and that makes sense for that use case. But it would be a very strange place if that first outpost of colonists was made up entirely of people who consider 200k pocket change.

Right.

I suspect the dearMoon project is just one example of a new norm for funding space missions.
According to Forbes, there are 2,153 billionaires in the world, 1280 of whom are richer than Yusaku Maezawa.

And you don't have to be a billionaire.
There are 46.8 million millionaires worldwide, and collectively they're worth $158.3 trillion.

In other words, there's a group of people that have a significant amount of wealth. Let's call them Group A.
And there's another group of people who are passionate about Mars. Let's call them Group B.
The overlap between Groups A and B may not be a high percentage, but it's still a lot of money.

As Starship becomes more real, I think we'll see that money start to flow.

Offline Oersted

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #182 on: 04/09/2020 10:56 am »
If there was a reality show on called "Life on Mars" (as in "everyday life"...) I would be glued to the tube. It would be like "Alone" with a side order of "Mythbusters" and James May. On steroids. Count me in! (as a viewer).

Offline Ionmars

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #183 on: 04/09/2020 11:56 am »
...
...
In other words, there's a group of people that have a significant amount of wealth. Let's call them Group A.
And there's another group of people who are passionate about Mars. Let's call them Group B.
The overlap between Groups A and B may not be a high percentage, but it's still a lot of money.

As Starship becomes more real, I think we'll see that money start to flow.
It’s already flowing.  :)

Offline 50_Caliber

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #184 on: 04/09/2020 12:23 pm »
If there was a reality show on called "Life on Mars" (as in "everyday life"...) I would be glued to the tube. It would be like "Alone" with a side order of "Mythbusters" and James May. On steroids. Count me in! (as a viewer).
It wouldn't even have to be a reality show, I would keep the video feed running constantly if they simply had a Go Pro feed on an EVA as they are walking around Mars, I'm already watching it all of the time as they construct the Starship in Boca Chica, I would definitely be checking it out if they were on Mars or the Moon.

Offline Ionmars

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #185 on: 04/09/2020 01:59 pm »
If there was a reality show on called "Life on Mars" (as in "everyday life"...) I would be glued to the tube. It would be like "Alone" with a side order of "Mythbusters" and James May. On steroids. Count me in! (as a viewer).
It wouldn't even have to be a reality show, I would keep the video feed running constantly if they simply had a Go Pro feed on an EVA as they are walking around Mars, I'm already watching it all of the time as they construct the Starship in Boca Chica, I would definitely be checking it out if they were on Mars or the Moon.
Mars reality show could be a 24/7 production exclusively available through Earth Starlink service. An additional funding source for colonization.

Added: Also a good motivation for more people to join Starlink Service.
« Last Edit: 04/09/2020 02:07 pm by Ionmars »

Offline Morgun

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #186 on: 04/09/2020 04:25 pm »
What sort of transmitter would be necessary to stream live HD (ignoring the lag from distance) all the way from Mars?

Offline Oersted

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #187 on: 04/09/2020 04:44 pm »
I am guessing a laser link from Starlink-like satellites orbiting Mars to similar sats orbiting Earth won't need terrible amounts of power. But I'm no expert...

Offline LMT

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #188 on: 04/09/2020 06:26 pm »
What sort of transmitter would be necessary to stream live HD (ignoring the lag from distance) all the way from Mars?

DSOC was designed with that capability:  one DSOC device per HD stream.

Notably, storms would block the DSOC IR signal - calling for alternate transmission methods in those dangerous months.

Offline Tulse

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #189 on: 04/09/2020 06:28 pm »
If there was a reality show on called "Life on Mars" (as in "everyday life"...) I would be glued to the tube. It would be like "Alone" with a side order of "Mythbusters" and James May. On steroids. Count me in! (as a viewer).
I'm extremely dubious that watching the quotidian activities of Mars settlers would be all that gripping. Does anyone watch the astronauts on the ISS with any regularity? Or scientists at Antarctica? Most of what people do is boring, no matter what environment they're in.

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #190 on: 04/09/2020 07:49 pm »
If there was a reality show on called "Life on Mars" (as in "everyday life"...) I would be glued to the tube. It would be like "Alone" with a side order of "Mythbusters" and James May. On steroids. Count me in! (as a viewer).
I'm extremely dubious that watching the quotidian activities of Mars settlers would be all that gripping. Does anyone watch the astronauts on the ISS with any regularity? Or scientists at Antarctica? Most of what people do is boring, no matter what environment they're in.

So have you watch a reality show with the initials KUWTK that have a huge audience for many years?  :P

Offline BZHSpace

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #191 on: 04/22/2020 01:57 pm »
My thoughs are :

I SpaceX's part of the process :

1/ Starships are the backbone of his project so many ideas will be centred on this ship, but Starship is not design to serve just as a crew transportation ship. It lets more options such as telecomunication sat transportation and cargo of course. So the starship could sent telecom sat on Mars' orbit two connect the future martians with earth and with other people on Mars or devices

2/ Martian colony needs a great power to functionning many devices such as oxygen recycler or light needs electric power but I think the roofs of the habitation modules will have capability to provide power to the system. About habitation modules which are essencial to the life on Mars the challenge will be to understand how reduct mass on the structural parts. Gravity on Mars is lower than on Earth => less material is needed on Mars to bear the same load

My own though is using celts' roundhouses is a very clever concept because he has the same structure as many space hab module. (links bellow)

https://external-preview.redd.it/EBrTlugAYpi4dWxbJaLVMzDAc8PVzpdPIxOOpDLi0D8.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c733ce6253548013eb50923487cac84b917e16bc
https://exarc.net/sites/default/files/main2_51.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/45/73/c8/4573c8e9cff6aa5f230f9b23d2272d8f.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9f/4d/cd/9f4dcdf900dfa012ab315af876bd5582.jpg

3/ An other thing is the transportation device on the surface the Telsa rover will be the main "car" on Mars, maybe the car could be adapted by it's mass to the martian environment. Car will have a GPS system connected to a sat com on the 2050's when travel to Mars will be well known by SpaceX.

4/ In fact many steps of the colony will follow what Von Braun said in his books The Mars Project in which he developed his own vision of what the Mars colony will be.

II. Exterior patnerships and competitors

1/ Because It's absurde to think that if Musk achieve to land multiple Starship on the surface of Mars that no companies or states will try to do the same things E.M does before so many competitors will come first competitor I see is of course B.O which follow the path of SpaceX on the last five years with B.O it will come ULA and other companies such as Northcorps and probably Virgin because all the big company will come to profit of the success of E.M and the SpaceX's experience on Mars travels.


2/ When I thought about states I thought of course about China and maybe EU and Russia, so many companies in the chinese new space will be on the race to Mars. If China will come to the race US could answer and make a common respond with all of american companies in space industry so patnership between SpaceX and B.O/ULA/NG to respond to what China will propose.

3/ Many things could happen, economic situation will be important and the actual situation is very stressful



Space will be ours soon.

Offline meberbs

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Re: Predicting Details of Elon Musk's Mars Colony
« Reply #192 on: 04/23/2020 07:26 pm »
Here seems as good of place to put this as any, this seems to be one of the more recent threads for details of Mars habitats:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1253381481075965954

Quote
I’m dying to do super efficient, quiet home HVAC with HEPA & water distillation. It’s weird, but I really want to do it.

As he says this interest is totally "weird" I am sure it has absolutely nothing to do with efficient life support and water purification or recycling on Mars. He certainly isn't wanting to have Tesla further refine their technology in this relevant direction so that SPaceX can later purchase or license it for use on Mars and/or Starship. This would not at all be supported by a previous history of new business ventures from Musk which include a direct possibility for applications towards colonizing Mars./sarc

Of course as usual this seems likely to be truly a "killing 2 birds with 1 stone" plan, since more efficient and better HVAC is good, as is water systems that would help people in remote areas get better quality water. There should be an actual profitable market, at least enough to be a self-supporting business area. Another example of things developed for space having applications on Earth and vice versa.

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