Accelerating the SpaceX Long Term Goal

[go4mars]

If SpaceX had 30 Gigadollars arrive today mandated to augment and accelerate their baseline plans (large-scale colonization of Mars), what would be the best areas to focus on? 

rocket tech in sub scale demonstrators?
BFR/MCT version 1.0?
ISRU
3D printing/manufacturing/designing technologies?
Food production, chemical cycles, life support?
Other?

I'm starting to feel concerned about pace of progress toward Mars colonization; specifically wondering about the impact of money constraints. 

[RocketGoBoom]

Figuring out how to create a planetary magnetic field ....

[Jim_LAX]

Make "The Case for Mars" required reading for every high school student.  And it wouldn't even cost that much to implement.

[Elmar Moelzer]

First, invest into advanced energy (fusion, advanced fission) and propulsion concepts as well as material science.
Energy (or lack thereof) is the biggest problem here in earth, in space and on future colonies.

[Joffan]

It depends to some extent whether you believe that SpaceX just wants to be a transportation company - enabling Mars colonization by providing the means to get bulk to the planet - or whether they want to build the colony.

But only to some extent - because either way the transportation is needed and while colony-build undoubtedly has some long-lead items, the transportation issue stlil needs solving before anything else is much use.

30 G$ is a large but not endless pot of money. It would be fascinating to hear Elon Musk's ideas about what he would undertake with that.

 - The BFR for sure, I'd say.
 - I'd love to see Elon adopt and push the magnetoshell technology
 - Perhaps set up an orbital assembly platform, "SpaceFab".
 - Trial of cargo deployment on the Moon (sorry Elon, it's too good to waste)
      - perhaps to make the case - deploy a lunar comms station for deep-space control.

And more prosaic stuff, no doubt, but those are enough exciting tickets to be working on.

[guckyfan]

It depends to some extent whether you believe that SpaceX just wants to be a transportation company - enabling Mars colonization by providing the means to get bulk to the planet - or whether they want to build the colony.

No doubt he wants to be the transportation company and others do the colony building. But I get the impression he comes around to the thought that there will be no one doing it unless he at least starts the colony building and that he now is aiming at doing that.

What would he do with the 30 Billion $ ?

Doing precursor missions like launching communication infrastructure instead of relying on the already burdenend NASA DSN.

Like sending landers for searching water at possible sites.

Develop and build a ISRU plant for water, fuel, air for breathing.

Develop concepts for producing food on Mars with an acceptable quality and taste. Unlike the ISS where astronauts can keep up with lack of taste, colonists need reasonable food.

Deploy that technology and start the core of a future colony, hoping to attract more funding because 30 billion $ will go only so far. Maybe he can get to a few hundred people for a decade with that amount.

[RocketGoBoom]

Deploy that technology and start the core of a future colony, hoping to attract more funding because 30 billion $ will go only so far. Maybe he can get to a few hundred people for a decade with that amount.

$30 billion would likely get the technology and hardware built for a handful of visits similar to the moon landings. We are talking about short visits measured in weeks, then a return before Mars & Earth orbits are too far apart. Not long term colony building at all.

Surviving for 2 years until the planets are close again would require a major habitation unit already be there waiting for the people when they arrive. The logistics of landing that much delicate hardware on Mars is ....... challenging.

[Mongo62]

The long pole in the tent is Raptor, in my opinion. You cannot build BFR without it, at least as currently planned. And developing a major new engine that pushes the limits of rocket technology to the extent that Raptor is intended to do, will take a long time.

The other key transportation technologies, such as reusability, appear to be well in hand and should be well-understood long before Raptor is ready.

The other possible long pole would be Mars-colony ECLSS. The Martian surface is months away from Earth support, and the Martian surface and atmosphere (dust in particular) seems likely to present some serious issues. Maintaining a habitable living volume for thousands of people, without any disruptions, could be surprisingly difficult.

[guckyfan]

Surviving for 2 years until the planets are close again would require a major habitation unit already be there waiting for the people when they arrive. The logistics of landing that much delicate hardware on Mars is ....... challenging.

Developing MCT is challenging. Once MCT is available, sending habitats, greenhouses and people is really doable. And I believe he mentioned that MCT itself can be the habitat for the first crew. It is big enough because it is designed for 100 and there won't be more than ~12 at that first trip. My guess is that after the first crew lands there will be a permanent presence of people. They will leave only when the next crew has landed or some of them will leave, some may stay.

[Roy_H]

First, invest into advanced energy (fusion, advanced fission) and propulsion concepts as well as material science.
Energy (or lack thereof) is the biggest problem here in earth, in space and on future colonies.

I believe the best energy source, both here on earth and in space is the LFTR. Simple, natural load following (no control rods), cheap and plentiful thorium power, inherently safe (requires artificial gravity in space, so spinning version), no long term radio-active disposal problems. http://energyfromthorium.com/

[butters]

The first thing SpaceX should do in this hypothetical is give a big chunk of the money (maybe 1/3) to Bigelow. Deep space and Mars surface ECLSS is the long pole. Longer than Raptor/MCT. And ECLSS is a prerequisite for Mars flyby precursor missions, whereas ISRU is only applicable to later surface missions.

[Elmar Moelzer]

First, invest into advanced energy (fusion, advanced fission) and propulsion concepts as well as material science.
Energy (or lack thereof) is the biggest problem here in earth, in space and on future colonies.

I believe the best energy source, both here on earth and in space is the LFTR. Simple, natural load following (no control rods), cheap and plentiful thorium power, inherently safe (requires artificial gravity in space, so spinning version), no long term radio-active disposal problems. http://energyfromthorium.com/

Yeah, I am familiar with those. I did not want to go into details here, sine it would be drifting too far away from the topic, I think.

[AncientU]

Development Tasks:
1. Raptor, with optimized BFR as soon as engine performance known
2. Big cargo lander
3. Meth/LOX depots in LEO and EML-2
4. EML-2 outpost (with Bigelow)
5. MCT
6. Martian depot(s) in HMO
7. More launch and downrange landing sites

Sequence:
1,2,3 in parallel development
4,5,6 when bandwidth permits
7 as needed throughout to optimize tonnage delivered/people embarked

Let others figure out how to build Martian surface infrastructure and deploy on Mars end.

[AncientU]

First, invest into advanced energy (fusion, advanced fission) and propulsion concepts as well as material science.
Energy (or lack thereof) is the biggest problem here in earth, in space and on future colonies.

Only problem with this approach is that the $30B will be gone and you'll still be flying EELV-class rockets. To LEO.
There is no 'energy problem,' just political/social/NIMBY problems.

[pagheca]

If SpaceX had 30 Gigadollars arrive today mandated to augment and accelerate their baseline plans (large-scale colonization of Mars), what would be the best areas to focus on? 

I wondered about that many many time. You can see this in a more general way.

I have not such a deep expertise to even try to answer this question, but I guess there must be lots of management studies about the relation between quality, delivery time and budget (sort of project management triangle). I guess, but I'm not sure, there is an upper limit where an increase in the budget not necessarily improve the quality and the delivery time of a project. What if 100 times more money were fed into the ITER project? Would fusion energy be promptly available today?

There are certainly some conjuntural issues playing their roles here, but for example one may ask as well: would the Apollo or the Manhattan projects be delivered earlier if their budget was twice? And what if it was one half? Would the US have been able to put a man on the Moon by the '60 as for the original plan if that was the case?

I have no clear idea about that, just some guesses, but would be extremely curious to know about that and I'm sure a lot of people worked on these questions.

[Elmar Moelzer]

What if 100 times more money were fed into the ITER project? Would fusion energy be promptly available today?

No. Tokamaks are complex and it is not certain that they will ever make economic reactors.

[Sean Lynch]

First, invest into advanced energy (fusion, advanced fission) and propulsion concepts as well as material science.
Energy (or lack thereof) is the biggest problem here in earth, in space and on future colonies.

I believe the best energy source, both here on earth and in space is the LFTR. Simple, natural load following (no control rods), cheap and plentiful thorium power, inherently safe (requires artificial gravity in space, so spinning version), no long term radio-active disposal problems. http://energyfromthorium.com/

Absolutely agree with Elmar and Roy, energy is the first consideration for a Mars mission (or moon).
Nuclear is the practical watt/kg payload choice but boiling water reactors aren't practical.
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors don't require heavy pressure or containment vessels and operate at extremely high temperatures perfect for ISRU recovery and use.
Energy is the limiting factor for ISRU and environmental control, next priority would be robust, redundant repairable ECLSS systems.
As others have noted, it will take a lot more than 30b.

[Robert Thompson]

Of that class of people who could afford to go to Mars one way, as is the stated business model, I doubt very many at all want to go to Mars one way. But they might remotely be persuaded to contemplate a non permanent stay, if and only if an assured return capability was demonstrated. From the business side this would necessarily paid for in advance, with the same import as paying the outbound trip. A launch pad to landing pad service, with one synodic cycle's provisions, as the very minimal baseline, before considering the options of staying on additional cycles. I predict return capability from Mars to be indispensable to responsible (and therefore credible) private business plans of Mars colonies. I predict discussion of Mars colonization won't get above forum level and news item until that capability is offered. It doesn't have to be offered to all - it has to be offered to enough to close the case.

The affiliated rabble of Mars-One does not give any data on the number of multi-millionaires willing to do anything like a permanent one-way trip, i.e., investing their considerably valuable lives in such a thin promise of continued cargo. If you can demonstrate Mars surface return, then the eyes, ears, and imagination open up to a class of investor entirely separate from Mars-One. If you can demonstrate Mars surface return, you are pushing on propulsion technologies that affect everything done to get there in the first place.

Does the new dragon capsule offer single stage to orbit from Mars? I did not think it did, even with methane isru.

Humbly, my $0.02.

[butters]

Does the new dragon capsule offer single stage to orbit from Mars? I did not think it did, even with methane isru.

No, not Dragon V2, but Musk has strongly implied that MCT will take off from Mars and land on Earth on a single prop load. MCT will not be just a scaled-up methalox Dragon. It will need a considerably higher propellant mass ratio, more like an upper stage with an integrated crew cabin (although we can only speculate about its layout and configuration).

[ThereIWas3]

I would prefer PB11-fueled Polywell fusion, but if doesn't pan out in time, liquid thorium would be next bet.

If it was me going, I would not insist on a guaranteed return;  I would insist on proven ISRU for all the essentials.