Four things SpaceX can do in 2017

[sdsds]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Well at least not in 2017. Which is ... the topic of this thread, right?

[meekGee]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Ok, that's settled then.

[Robotbeat]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Don't see how nuclear rockets improve that at all. Makes it worse.

[AncientU]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Starting from this premise, it is never going to happen because you (and people/companies like you) won't try.  Other pretty brilliant people are starting from the position that it is possible... they at least have a chance.  Reuse is another such example.

A string of successful launches is needed in 2017 so that cash flow will return to positive.
Reuse and Mars technology development can then continue and accelerate.

[LouScheffer]

In another thread, HMXHMX said that deep pockets and implacable will are needed to succeed. Hard to maintain implacable will to just do what Ariane and others are doing. Lose sight of Mars, and you lose the implacable resolve. Not just for Musk but for the employees as well. SpaceX isn't able to hire the best and the brightest while working them brutally hard just to launch comm sats. This fact is partly why others have failed and why Europe has not produced a SpaceX.

This can't be emphasized enough.  It's often been mentioned that part of the reason SpaceX undercuts the competition on launch costs is because they pay relatively low wages.  It's employees work very hard for those low wages, not because they're fools, but because their vision to colonize Mars is at least as strong as Musk's is, if not stronger.  Musk CAN'T back off from his Mars aspirations, even if he wanted to (I doubt if he wants to), because in doing that he would lose his workforce

Perhaps they're not fools but have been fooled.

Perhaps they're neither fools nor fooled, but they're taking a long view, and seeing their aspirations actually making forward progress.

This is often the case in scientific research.  The place I work studies the brain. Of course our ultimate goal is to understand the human brain, but that's way out of reach for today's technology - I'd guess at least as far out as Mars colonization.  But really smart people still choose to come here and work super hard on the problems we can attack today, for less money than they can make in industry.  They are not being fooled, they know exactly the tradeoffs, but they choose to make what progress they can for a cause they believe in.

[Lee Jay]

Starting from this premise, it is never going to happen because you (and people/companies like you) won't try.  Other pretty brilliant people are starting from the position that it is possible... they at least have a chance.  Reuse is another such example.

Reuse is a billion times easier.  Heck, it's been done before for over 35 years, and it doesn't require launching tens of thousands of people - and everything they need to support them - at every opposition to a planet with no ability to support their lives.

Landing tens of thousands of tons on Mars every two years economically with chemical rockets is just not going to happen.

[Lar]

Inexpensive, safe flying cars have been a similar pipe dream for over 50 years, and they are a far easier nut to crack than the colonization of Mars on chemical rocketry.

I actually think inexpensive flying cars are a far harder nut to crack, believe it or not.

Actually, I don't think flying cars carries quite the inspirational power that colonizing Mars does.  It's a convenience, but you'll never be able to cast it as "saving the species".

Gosh...I'd be a million times more interested in having a personal flying machine in my garage than in living in a desolate wasteland with no people, no services, no life and no air.  I suspect I'm in the 99+% on that demographic.

As long as it's not 100%...

1 million people out of 7 billion is 99.986 % ... and one million would be more than enough, we think, for a viable colony that grows to essential self reliance in a century or so.

It's always been so, or almost always... pioneers are a small fraction of the whole.

[Robotbeat]

Starting from this premise, it is never going to happen because you (and people/companies like you) won't try.  Other pretty brilliant people are starting from the position that it is possible... they at least have a chance.  Reuse is another such example.

Reuse is a billion times easier.  Heck, it's been done before for over 35 years, and it doesn't require launching tens of thousands of people - and everything they need to support them - at every opposition to a planet with no ability to support their lives.

Landing tens of thousands of tons on Mars every two years economically with chemical rockets is just not going to happen.

Doing with nuclear rockets is even less likely.

[meekGee]

There's a feasible rocket design that will carry ~100 people.

100 such ships is 10,000 people per synod. This already puts you in the ballpark, so impossible, it ain't. 

You can think it won't happen, but that's a far cry from "can't"

And again, why would a nuclear ship be any different?

[vapour_nudge]

It's a nonsense point, to be honest. You can already get a very affordable paramotor trike. Just most people don't really want to learn how to fly. We'll probably get flying cars, too, if you can afford to pay for it. Or something like them, like small VTOL electric aircraft. But that's significantly off-topic.

The nonsense point is the theory about saving the species

[Robotbeat]

It's a nonsense point, to be honest. You can already get a very affordable paramotor trike. Just most people don't really want to learn how to fly. We'll probably get flying cars, too, if you can afford to pay for it. Or something like them, like small VTOL electric aircraft. But that's significantly off-topic.

The nonsense point is the theory about saving the species

Thank goodness not all of us have such narrow perspectives.

[AncientU]

Starting from this premise, it is never going to happen because you (and people/companies like you) won't try.  Other pretty brilliant people are starting from the position that it is possible... they at least have a chance.  Reuse is another such example.

Reuse is a billion times easier.  Heck, it's been done before for over 35 years (Note 1), and it doesn't require launching tens of thousands of people - and everything they need to support them - at every opposition to a planet with no ability to support their lives.

Landing tens of thousands of tons on Mars every two years economically with chemical rockets is just not going to happen.

Expensive, expendable chemical rockets that launch once or twice per year?  You are correct... even getting to Mars ain't going to happen. 

Rapidly reusable chemical launchers, refuelable on orbit chemical spaceships?  Different story.

SpaceX has to continue pursuing this technology suite and associated reductions in launch costs, plus increases in launch cadence.  Not going to be easy, but not impossible.
Fly early and often (as they say in Chicago).

Note 1: Investing in a single technology that worked, but turned out to be an economic dead end -- not impossible -- and giving up does not disprove the point.  Only a billion (maybe a million Note 2) times harder means there is a chance, right? 

Note 2: Six orders of magnitude improvement from shuttle is a few hundred times cheaper ($100/kg) x a few thousand times more delivered to orbit per year (300,000 tonnes/yr).  Hard, but not impossible...  This is close to what EM presented in September.

[laszlo]

It's a nonsense point, to be honest. You can already get a very affordable paramotor trike. Just most people don't really want to learn how to fly. We'll probably get flying cars, too, if you can afford to pay for it. Or something like them, like small VTOL electric aircraft. But that's significantly off-topic.

The nonsense point is the theory about saving the species

Thank goodness not all of us have such narrow perspectives.

Personally, I think that there are a lot more efficient ways to ensure the survival of the species in the event of a planetary catastrophe. Ways that need no further development of spaceflight, chemical or nuclear or reactionless. For example:

Digitize (at least) a few hundred thousand individuals' DNA sequences. Pack them into a spacecraft that also contains all the precursor chemicals to turn the digital data into human beings, as well as enough servos and AI to control the process. Put it into an orbit that extends out to the Kuiper belt, where the low temperatures will help preserve everything. As the spacecraft approaches the inner Solar System every few hundred years, its AI can wake up, look for human life signs on Earth and land and repopulate the Earth if needed. Kick out a few hundred or thousand of these things and there will always be a supply of human biological starter culture to repopulate the planet. All the heavy work will be in the fields of biochemistry, computer science, psychology, robotics, anthropology, orbital spacecraft design, etc. Every field except rocketry, really. There'd be no need to colonize and terraform a hostile planet. Instead, Earth would be colonized, which is a well-known process. The spin-offs would also be much more interesting. Any tech that could create a living human from just precursor chemicals and a digital map would be able to cure pretty much any physical disease as a side-effect.

All that off-topic stuff being said, it's Elon's company. If he wants to go to Mars, good for him. But if he wants it paid for he needs to stop matching my orbital success rate (since September he & I have put equal amounts of payload into low Earth orbit). Everything else is nonsense.

[The Amazing Catstronaut]

LeeJay, with all due respect, you're at the point of re-iterating your opinion, not elaborating on it. The point of the thread is possibility of the (speculative) four things SpaceX can do this year, and you're getting tangential. You're a moderator - self-moderate.


I believe SpaceX most likely will launch Falcon heavy in 2017. They'll have 0 launch failures once they build up a cadence with the final F9 variant ("fuller thrust" or whatever name we're going with). Re-launch(s), plural, will likely occur. We're at a natural cumulation point, yes, but I'd say that most of the risk for the F9 architecture is behind us in terms of launch operations, providing that they've learnt all lessons that have occurred on the way up. Every manufacturer and operator of OLVs has had similar or higher LOV rates whilst in the early stages of architecture development. We're now at the maturing point.


One datapoint for 2017 will be hearing more about the red dragon mission. We'll likely need to see red dragon sometime before next December if it is going to go skyward in 2018 - there's no reason to be reserved with RDs PR if they believe they can make reasonable operational readiness.

Damn, it's good to be back on this forum. I think I'll pour myself something.

[laszlo]

Damn, it's good to be back on this forum. I think I'll pour myself something.

Flying saucer of milk? 

[vapour_nudge]

Good point. Straying off topic and yes, I'm guilty too.  So here we go again:

1) Fix the broken launch pad so they can launch more often
2) Focus on RTF. Reliability is far more important than several successes interspersed with the odd failure. That's Proton's job
3) Then cautiously ramp up flight rate and deal with the backlog
4) Finally - reuse a stage and get that process working fine. FH is a distraction, get reusability going first

I don't consider myself a fan. I really want them to go well. No more silly talk about saving us all by going to Mars please.

[Robotbeat]

SpaceX was doing fine with flight rate until the accident. So if they can avoid another accident, I think flight rate will mostly take care of itself. Probably not QUITE as fast as we'd all like, but one a month, maybe one every 2-3 weeks towards late 2017 if the rest of the year goes well.

[llanitedave]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Chemical rockets are getting cheaper.  Wouldn't work for the outer solar system, but Mars seems to be doable with them.  Nuclear rockets will be better suited to the asteroid belt, and the economics of THAT will probably be what makes Mars profitable.  I don't think anyone envisions that technology will remain static throughout this process.

[meekGee]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Chemical rockets are getting cheaper.  Wouldn't work for the outer solar system, but Mars seems to be doable with them.  Nuclear rockets will be better suited to the asteroid belt, and the economics of THAT will probably be what makes Mars profitable.  I don't think anyone envisions that technology will remain static throughout this process.

It'll be interesting to see if fuel production on Mars will open up the asteroids.

All these plans requires a lot of energy. I think nuclear on Mars will be necessary sooner rather than later.

Nuclear rockets, OTOH - what are we discussing?  (So I know which thread to take this to...)  Thermal?  Electric?

None of these exist in a "near term" kind of way, nor do they promise a solution ro something that is currently a show stopper.

[llanitedave]

A few people on a Mars base are indeed not helpful.  Even a single million will do the trick though, and this can be done in under 100 years.

Not under anything close to a rational economic model, and not with chemical rockets.  Never going to happen.  Not even close.

Chemical rockets are getting cheaper.  Wouldn't work for the outer solar system, but Mars seems to be doable with them.  Nuclear rockets will be better suited to the asteroid belt, and the economics of THAT will probably be what makes Mars profitable.  I don't think anyone envisions that technology will remain static throughout this process.

It'll be interesting to see if fuel production on Mars will open up the asteroids.

All these plans requires a lot of energy. I think nuclear on Mars will be necessary sooner rather than later.

Nuclear rockets, OTOH - what are we discussing?  (So I know which thread to take this to...)  Thermal?  Electric?

Yeah, those are well beyond the scope of anything SpaceX has to do soon.  It's just here to get the process rolling.  After that, development should take care of itself.


As I said earlier, the things that SpaceX needs to do next year are the things it plans to do.  No insights from this particular peanut gallery are going to improve on that.