Accelerating the SpaceX Long Term Goal

[HMXHMX]

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

I'd add, figuring out how to raise the G level to 1.

[Manabu]

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

I'd add, figuring out how to raise the G level to 1.

That is easy, just make a centrifuge!

[savuporo]

...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?

All of the above, and then some. They would do well by starting with top #10 priorities from here
www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/roadmaps/

Getting to Mars is not about propulsion, life support, radiation or BFRs. It's more about having a large organization full of people competent in all the necessary areas, especially areas that are new and risky.

[sugmullun]

It all hinges on leaving Earth.
So...without much thought given...
Invest in medium and high risk technologies with the goal of getting the cost to orbit down as far as possible.
Throw the money at it, with some form of moderating influence to keep it rational.
Metallurgy, structural research and dev., manufacturing technologies., exotic propellants, launch site developments, even a technical school to turn out launch support professionals...
Leave the trans-lunar part to whatever task group Musk is currently planning and the low risk, short term ROI stuff to the sissies at ULA 

[guckyfan]

It all hinges on leaving Earth.
So...without much thought given...
Invest in medium and high risk technologies with the goal of getting the cost to orbit down as far as possible.
Throw the money at it, with some form of moderating influence to keep it rational.
Metallurgy, structural research and dev., manufacturing technologies., exotic propellants, launch site developments, even a technical school to turn out launch support professionals...
Leave the trans-lunar part to whatever task group Musk is currently planning and the low risk, short term ROI stuff to the sissies at ULA 

They are building a Mars transport vehicle right now, beginning with the engines. They certainly have at least well thought out concepts for the full vehicle. I very strongly doubt that 30 Billion $ would cause them to significantly change their development stragegy. It would help to assure success though.

They also would not change their strategy to build commercially successful vehicles. It helps a lot with keeping concentrated on success and not getting on a tangent of pure engineering.

[Dave G]

Energy is the limiting factor for ISRU and environmental control, next priority would be robust, redundant repairable ECLSS systems.

Right.

Also, a colony would require food production, which means a plant-based life support system.  When you run the numbers, a greenhouse is probably not practical.  The amount of pressurized volume per person would be excessive.  So to save space, you would need strong artificial light running all the time.  Also, instead of growing plants in soil, hydroponics can be used to accelerate plant growth.  All of this requires significant amounts of energy.

So developing a lightweight nuclear power source would seem like a key requirement.

[Burninate]

30 gigadollars?  In the US in 2014?  You want the highest payoff strategy?

Start a PAC that uses a bunch of imagery involving our future in the stars, and spend $1B/year purchasing politicians through reelection campaigns, with a public stated purpose of increasing NASA spending by 10x to ensure we get to play our part in The Future.

We exposed the levers of government, and while SpaceX has the potential to disrupt existing arrangements, so would an increase in spending;  Its engineering capabilities do not exceed the mechanical advantage provided by these levers.  30 gigadollars of unilateral spending can do some great things, but the task here is enormous.  Creating a sustained commitment to public space spending through now-legal overt bribery outweighs any technical innovation that is practical inside the corporation.

[Jim]

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

Finally seeing what reality is.

[LouScheffer]

30 gigadollars?  In the US in 2014?  You want the highest payoff strategy?

Start a PAC that uses a bunch of imagery involving our future in the stars, and spend $1B/year purchasing politicians through reelection campaigns, with a public stated purpose of increasing NASA spending by 10x to ensure we get to play our part in The Future.

We exposed the levers of government, and while SpaceX has the potential to disrupt existing arrangements, so would an increase in spending;  Its engineering capabilities do not exceed the mechanical advantage provided by these levers.  30 gigadollars of unilateral spending can do some great things, but the task here is enormous.  Creating a sustained commitment to public space spending through now-legal overt bribery outweighs any technical innovation that is practical inside the corporation.

Agree completely.  $30G could perhaps fund solutions to several technical problems, but not all of them.  So you need to raise interest, and funding, if you want to accomplish Mars quickly.

[JasonAW3]

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

Finally seeing what reality is.

"No bucks, No Buck Rogers...". Don't remember who first said this.

[pagheca]

Maybe, but I'm not at all so negative.

There are a lot of new things happening in the last few years. SpaceX and the commercial development stuff is just one. One thing that may went underlooked is the role of competition with the new emerging space powers like China and India. Whatever you say, I see an increased interest in space missions. Sometime I talk to students and people and I see some growing interst after a completely flat period. People may be triggered by pictures seen on the internet or by stupid comedies (e.g. "The Big Bang", that used at least one real cosmologist from CalTech to understand how "nerds" move and react), but develop later a genuine interest in science...

Maybe that Governments are slow to react, but things are evolving faster today and I guess that since something is starting to actually get some visibility - see, again, SpaceX new business model - someone will pick up the opportunity to exploit it politically, exactly like JFK did.

p.s. I would like to ask Chris if he saw some trend in the number of visitors to this website in the last few years or not.

[Aussie_Space_Nut]

First you mount a massive media campaign to make sure no one votes for either a Republican or a Democrat but rather promotes that local passionate independent politician who has actually achieved something with their life, who is able to bring genuine vision, wisdom & leadership into the government. After the landslide victory by real people, NASA will then be able to actually do its job without having its hands tied behind its back by pork barrel politicians.

Second, well now everything just works, simple really.

  All that money wont help if there are knucklehead pollies in the way.

  But all that money in an ethical media campaign may just be able to put America back on track if the right people were to get into office.

[Burninate]

First you mount a massive media campaign to make sure no one votes for either a Republican or a Democrat but rather promotes that local passionate independent politician who has actually achieved something with their life, who is able to bring genuine vision, wisdom & leadership into the government. After the landslide victory by real people, NASA will then be able to actually do its job without having its hands tied behind its back by pork barrel politicians.

Second, well now everything just works, simple really.

  All that money wont help if there are knucklehead pollies in the way.

  But all that money in an ethical media campaign may just be able to put America back on track if the right people were to get into office.

Independent parties in the US are not a thing.  We have structural elements of our political system that only permit two real parties - if a third were to come in, it would be a transformative change, one of the first two would wither on the vine.  As it is, "independent" candidates are fringe candidates who never expect to succeed, and in the few cases where all the planets align and they end up as influential-enough figures in some local election, they end up being de facto Democrats or Republicans, because they select one of those two to caucus with.

Lawrence Lessig is fond of the concept that fixing essentially anything that's wrong with the US requires campaign finance reform, because right now, campaign finance is how any private interested party with lots of money can redirect the politicians at will.

So...  rather than attempting to completely change/reform the United States Government, simply exploiting its known flaws to get a reasonable amount of space funding, is probably the most productive use of $30B.  There is a long list of technologies I would like to see developed, and $1T in government money over the next 10 years, purchased with $30B in campaign bribes, would be a hell of a lot more useful than my clever selection of which technologies are going to succeed.

[Joffan]

If this thread gets political, it will quickly be locked. In any case, as illustrated by Burninate above, the political arguments are largely a matter of turning a certain amount of money into a larger amount.

So I strongly suggest that, instead, we all discuss the technical innovations that 30 G$ applied adventurously could bring.

Some broad topic areas
 - Basic technology development
   o Launch capability
   o In-space technology
   o ISRU (including energy)
   o robotics
 - Infrastructure development
   o on Earth
   o in-space near Earth (orbit/L-point)
   o on Moon
   o remote
 - Human factors
   o Health
   o Psychology
 
... probably lots more areas too

[Burninate]

I concur.


"From February 1998 to 2007, NIAC received a total of 1,309 proposals and awarded 126 Phase I grants and 42 Phase II contracts for a total value of $27.3 million.[2]"

I suggest the first $100M/year goes into restructured NIAC grants - $10k-$100k for anything remotely promising (Phase I), $100k-$1M for tech development when phase I grants encounter success (Phase II), and $1M-$10M to develop smallsat mission demonstrators in the short term (Phase III).

Right now, we're barely compensating these people at all.


Next $2B goes into a fleet of ships (2-4) to serve as landing pads for F9 and FH first stages.


Vertical assembly / payload integration *seems to be* a near-term requirement for some portion of EELV program payloads, if Falcon 9 ever gets to compete on even footing with the Atlas V & Delta IV.  We're also short some launchpads, and ground-based landing pads.

$5B on infrastructure

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

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

Finally seeing what reality is.

"No bucks, No Buck Rogers...". Don't remember who first said this.

1983 film The Right Stuff.  Attributed to an unnamed NASA recruiter in talk with potential Mercury astronouts.

[sugmullun]

It all hinges on leaving Earth.
So...without much thought given...
Invest in medium and high risk technologies with the goal of getting the cost to orbit down as far as possible.
Throw the money at it, with some form of moderating influence to keep it rational.
Metallurgy, structural research and dev., manufacturing technologies., exotic propellants, launch site developments, even a technical school to turn out launch support professionals...
Leave the trans-lunar part to whatever task group Musk is currently planning and the low risk, short term ROI stuff to the sissies at ULA 

They are building a Mars transport vehicle right now, beginning with the engines. They certainly have at least well thought out concepts for the full vehicle. I very strongly doubt that 30 Billion $ would cause them to significantly change their development stragegy. It would help to assure success though.

They also would not change their strategy to build commercially successful vehicles. It helps a lot with keeping concentrated on success and not getting on a tangent of pure engineering.

  SpaceX is working at things like there'll never be any contribution from the outside for it's Mars plans; it's stated purpose for existence.  Money for all it wants to do can't even be in the books as a likely resource yet.  I'll bet a major a major motive for the lawsuit is needed cash flow.
  Get costs to orbit down and market grows...more money.
  I think that there's a tipping point which isn't even close yet. (and might not happen)
They've done and are doing, IMO, amazing things with the money that they've spent. I don't think any established aerospace group has done more with less (or even substantially more) money in a long time. That's why I'm a (fanboi?)
  The "cheap" access to space has to happen or nothing else worth getting excited about will. That's why my (sorta) list is all about that. Then the other startups will have a resource, the established aerospace "sissies" will become heroes again, seeing something worth heroic efforts.
  If SpaceX were to accomplish, or even enable that, then it'd leave it's mark on history. Even  if it fails financially.
 That's why I would have them spend their $30G on the big lift.

[Will]

Here's my list:

Reusable tug
Orbital cryogenic propellant depot
Asteroid Redirect Mission
Deep Space Habitat
Demonstrate ISRU from a C-type asteroid
Centrifuge Module
500 kw Solar Electric Propulsion

[cro-magnon gramps]

I'd be inclined to start with where we are and expand on that...

Build up the Brownsville, Tx site, pad and BFR/MCT factory and design facility
Invest / Collaborate in Google Internet Satellite Constellation
Collaborate with Bigelow on Internal Environment Controls for Space Station, and MCT v1, for commonality
Get 2 minimum Bigelow Space Stations up in LEO and 1 at L2, ASAP after IEC is working
Invest in power units for the MCT v1, Moon and Mars Surface Bases, again with Bigelow...
Establish a Inner Planet Communications Web,
Invest in 3D printing technology for experimenting with Lunar and In Space Robotic Factories...
begin work on establishing more launch sites for BFR/MCT v2

Not necessarily in that order... more than likely concurrently...

[gospacex]

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/

Thorium trolls start to be really annoying.

You do realize that not all claims from thorium crowd are true? That they aren't immune for pushing agenda?
For example, it is not really cheap. It may end up marginally cheaper than uranium reactors - AFTER many years and billions spent on R&D. Not today.

As for Mars colony application, just imagine how much effort it would be for Mars colony to mine its own thorium!!! There *are* energy sources which can be made self-sustaining much easier than that.