Musk's asset accrual and paying for Mars

[OTV Booster]

The point I was trying to make is that what it takes to cut costs using ISRU on Mars is literally a world different than doing it on Earth.

Provide examples.

OldAtlas covered much of what was rattlin round my brain but rather than go into specifics, I just skipped through the overview.

I thought their post was a good one, especially since it took me back to my early days where I ran a raw material warehouse that hosted our copper wire reduction facility. We made copper contacts on cold heading machines, and we drew down our own wire from copper raw stock we bought from Anaconda.

So when I hear talk about doing this type of stuff on Mars, I remember the number of people it took to do that, not only for set up and running, but all of the support staff. Then you have to find housing for them and their families (if they brought any), and the support for those people in housing, food, power, recreation, etc. You know, normal life for a factory worker.

I think one of the things that Mars colonist won't be is factory workers. I hope there are tool & die workers that go, since fixing stuff will be important and being able to make metal stuff will be critical. But there will be some job categories that will literally have to be grown on Mars, and until they get excess labor there will be some products they won't be able to make on Mars.

Power, habitat, propellant and food have be be locally produced or not even Musk, Bezoes, Warren Buffet and NASA pooling resources will be able to afford anything more that a glorified outpost.

Agreed. Though the method of generating power, habitats, and food doesn't have to be created on Mars. Power systems can be shipped to Mars, habitat material can be shipped to Mars, and food production equipment can be shipped to Mars. But generating power on Mars, and growing food on Mars, will be required.

I think abundant power is the linchpin to a solid kickstart and hauling all that PV from earth puts a decided crimp on growth.

Mars is a very cold planet for humans, so power will be critical. And for the same amount of energy that it takes to haul a PV plant from Earth, and the time and energy it takes to get it built, tested and running, it will be cheaper and quicker to just ship PV from Earth. Prices continue to fall, so why would you want to raise prices for them?

Remember Elon Musk plans on expanding the fleet of Starships going to Mars each 2-year cycle, so its not like there will be a lack of relatively inexpensive transport capability.

There are situations where giving someone a fish is better than teaching them how to fish... 

Examples: as per oldatlas and elsewhere. High tech triple junction is much harder than low end low efficiency cells. Low efficiency cells can mean more efficient production, especially if waiting for the perfect means that not even minimally acceptable gets done. With hydrogen, oxygen and carbon available for plastics producing PV substrate can be made locally with higher tech coming from earth.


The economics of any task is intertwined with available infrastructure and materials, and the value of the task, or more to the point, the fruits of the task. The infrastructure, available materials and local value of power infrastructure is different on mars and earth, thus the economics are different.


You actually hit the issue dead on with the fish/fishing metaphor but you see a different splatter pattern (fish splatter, ugh) than I do. With around 30 years of business if ventures behind me I very clearly differentiate between an expense and a capital investment. Sending PV is an expense. Sending the wherewithal to make PV is a capital investment. Mars absolutely need earth to expend treasure but more importantly, it needs earth to invest.


Investment is needed to develop ISRU for propellant, food, habitat and any number of things we've discussed over the years. The one thing common to it all is power. From this a sense of the value (not capital outlay) for PV arises.


You speak of available shipping as if it is near infinite. Every ship that is loaded with PV is not carrying something else. PV and batteries are critical and this can not be avoided in the short term.


I have no illusions about a ship landing and puking out an origami Gigafactory on the second or third mission. What I do expect is a high priority on exploring available materials and the R&D needed to figure how they want to dun it. Small scale with an eye to ramping up. Sorta like how that bozo did down in Texas with that ridiculous stainless steel rocket ship.


BTW, only tangentially related, in 2018 the cost of building and running a wind farm became less expensive than the cost of the fuel for equivalent natural gas generation. And natural gas prices were in the toilet in 2018. Whoda thunk 10 years ago?


https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/wind-power-prices-now-lower-than-the-cost-of-natural-gas/

[Coastal Ron]

The point I was trying to make is that what it takes to cut costs using ISRU on Mars is literally a world different than doing it on Earth.

Provide examples.

Examples: as per oldatlas and elsewhere. High tech triple junction is much harder than low end low efficiency cells. Low efficiency cells can mean more efficient production, especially if waiting for the perfect means that not even minimally acceptable gets done. With hydrogen, oxygen and carbon available for plastics producing PV substrate can be made locally with higher tech coming from earth.

That is one example, but it is not proof that, in your words, "what it takes to cut costs using ISRU on Mars is literally a world different than doing it on Earth".

And while low efficiency cells may take less technology, that doesn't mean the tradeoff is worth it.

The economics of any task is intertwined with available infrastructure and materials, and the value of the task, or more to the point, the fruits of the task. The infrastructure, available materials and local value of power infrastructure is different on mars and earth, thus the economics are different.

People that live in remote places make these types of decisions all the time, so it isn't unique to Mars per se.

Sending PV is an expense. Sending the wherewithal to make PV is a capital investment.

From my perspective, as someone that has worked in factories, it is a labor liability. Meaning it is something I have to find qualified labor to staff and maintain over its lifetime. Where do I find the workers? Where do I find the support functions for the workers? Unless the workers come with the equipment, I don't see it working.

Mars absolutely need earth to expend treasure but more importantly, it needs earth to invest.

Which is why I think Elon Musk will create a non-profit focused on Mars colonization. That makes it easy to fundraise.

This is also why I see Mars as a humanitarian mission, and not something for investment. Because the ROI is not in monetary terms, it is in the ability of the human race to survive in case something happens to Earth. So no, we don't need Earth to invest, we need Earth to donate to the cause.

Investment is needed to develop ISRU for propellant, food, habitat and any number of things we've discussed over the years. The one thing common to it all is power. From this a sense of the value (not capital outlay) for PV arises.

Power will dictate everything. But setting up manufacturing facilities will divert labor from setting up the colonies, and if history is any judge, there will be many problems to overcome when setting up Earth equipment on Mars. So until they have an excess of labor, it won't make sense to transfer manufacturing to Mars from Earth.

You speak of available shipping as if it is near infinite. Every ship that is loaded with PV is not carrying something else. PV and batteries are critical and this can not be avoided in the short term.

OK, but you seem to think that setting up factories on Mars will be simple, and labor free. And we have no idea what ISRU we can actually do on Mars yet since we haven't done any mining surveys. We have a long ways to go before we can start thinking of turning feedstocks into finished products.

BTW, only tangentially related, in 2018 the cost of building and running a wind farm became less expensive than the cost of the fuel for equivalent natural gas generation. And natural gas prices were in the toilet in 2018. Whoda thunk 10 years ago?

Too bad wind farms don't work on Mars. Now if you had some statistics on nuclear power, that would be relevant... 

[Slarty1080]

Many thousands of tons of things will be needed on Mars and it will take decades to build Musk’s city. The whole situation will be a giant chicken and egg problem with a vast number of difficult tradeoffs. The only way out of it will be to throw a load of money at it and Musk will when the time comes.

But it’s a bit premature to start calling these tradeoffs before the first human landing. Obviously a lot must come from Earth, but the more that can be constructed on Mars the greater the leverage the Earth imports can provide. Who can say how long it will be before they are in a position to start manufacturing solar panels on Mars or what technology they might use in 10-20 years time? 

[GregA]

Power will dictate everything. But setting up manufacturing facilities will divert labor from setting up the colonies, and if history is any judge, there will be many problems to overcome when setting up Earth equipment on Mars. So until they have an excess of labor, it won't make sense to transfer manufacturing to Mars from Earth.

... you seem to think that setting up factories on Mars will be simple, and labor free. And we have no idea what ISRU we can actually do on Mars yet since we haven't done any mining surveys. We have a long ways to go before we can start thinking of turning feedstocks into finished products.

My disagreement with you is not what you say (because it makes sense) but that it's not what Musk will try to do. He is thinking vastly bigger.

I think Musk will absolutely divert labor away from setting up colonies in order to setup manufacturing facilities.

If he had a choice of a larger colony with continual restocking from earth, or a smaller colony that was working more towards self sufficiency, he'd take the second in a heart beat. Otherwise as the colony grows the number of ships used just to keep people alive will get very large very quickly, which will slow the colony development longer term.

[Coastal Ron]

My disagreement with you is not what you say (because it makes sense) but that it's not what Musk will try to do. He is thinking vastly bigger.

We know what Musk has said in public, but what you are implying is that some know what Musk has not said in public. I'm not sure anyone can know that. We can all guess (and we all do), but we don't know.

I think Musk will absolutely divert labor away from setting up colonies in order to setup manufacturing facilities.

If he had a choice of a larger colony with continual restocking from earth, or a smaller colony that was working more towards self sufficiency, he'd take the second in a heart beat.

So one indicator of this will be if he is shipping mining equipment to Mars. We assume that he'll be shipping tunneling equipment for underground living, but that will be different from mining and processing equipment for resource extraction and processing.

Now we all know that growing food will be a high priority, as will propellant production. Those are not the type of manufacturing I'm talking about.

Otherwise as the colony grows the number of ships used just to keep people alive will get very large very quickly, which will slow the colony development longer term.

Musk plans on producing a very large fleet. SpaceNews quotes him as saying:

That production capability, he argued, is essential to the long-term development of the overall launch system. “Making a prototype of something is, I think, relatively easy,” he said. “But building the production system so that you can build ultimately hundreds or thousands of Starships, that’s the hard part.”

So yes, Elon Musk does plan to grow the number of ships used, and no doubt many of them will just be for sustaining the colony.

And yes, there will be a number of gating items that keep the colonization from expanding. Energy, the supply of nitrogen, their ability to grow food, and their ability to expand living and work facilities, sanitation capacity, etc. The term we all need to be familiar with is "carrying capacity".

Colonizing a new world is something new for humanity. In fact it has been quite a long time since humanity colonized any large swath of land, so we won't do it perfectly. And we don't know how quickly it can happen.

[GregA]

We know what Musk has said in public, but what you are implying is that some know what Musk has not said in public. I'm not sure anyone can know that. We can all guess (and we all do), but we don't know.

Sorry I didn't think I did that. I have tried to look at how he approaches other challenges, his attitude towards risk, and what he's disrupted... and extrapolate that to Mars. But yes I guess that doesn't mean he's explicitly said something, and he could certainly be more cautious (particularly where lives are at risk).

Now we all know that growing food will be a high priority, as will propellant production. Those are not the type of manufacturing I'm talking about.

Musk has said he wants total self sufficiency, to assume that the ships will stop coming from Earth.

Elon Musk does plan to grow the number of ships used, and no doubt many of them will just be for sustaining the colony.

And yes, there will be a number of gating items that keep the colonization from expanding. Energy, the supply of nitrogen, their ability to grow food, and their ability to expand living and work facilities, sanitation capacity, etc. The term we all need to be familiar with is "carrying capacity".

They'll have to be for decades even if they went faster than anyone imagines possible.

And even once they can be self sufficient, it doesn't mean they won't still get items from Earth. Just that if the ships stopped coming they could survive.

Colonizing a new world is something new for humanity. In fact it has been quite a long time since humanity colonized any large swath of land, so we won't do it perfectly. And we don't know how quickly it can happen.

Absolutely.

[Slarty1080]

It will be interesting to see the split between consumables and infrastructure items. They will be forced to send quite a lot of infrastructure mass right from the get go - namely Solar power and ISRU infrastructure. the rest being consumables, one-offs, contingencies, science kit and perhaps some technology demonstrators.

The problem is that a huge amount of infrastructure needs to be delivered to generate a small amount of consumable saving. I would assume that after the initial exploratory missions they will send infrastructure items sequenced in such a way that martian sourced materials are maximised. Another problem is that each additional crew member sent generates a very large consumables burden, so I doubt the crew size will build very quickly.

[Eylrid]

What are the consumables? Which ones will take up the most shipping capacity?

[Robotbeat]

...Another problem is that each additional crew member sent generates a very large consumables burden, so I doubt the crew size will build very quickly.

Disagree with this.

[GregA]

each additional crew member sent generates a very large consumables burden, so I doubt the crew size will build very quickly.

Somewhere there’ll be a graph that shows peak growth, where every human on Mars is devoted to growing the colonies self-sustainability, and less people or more people slows down that growth (due to more consumables etc).

Maybe it comes down to everyone efficiently doing something that supports sustainability (directly or indirectly), since anyone doing something that doesn’t help develop sustainability is using resources.

...That would imply that the key investment from Musk would need to be to anything driving sustainability (not flag waving or science), and then that investment would spend its money on a bunch of supporting companies on Mars (including pizza shops) that are needed in the pursuit of that goal.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Slarty1080]

...Another problem is that each additional crew member sent generates a very large consumables burden, so I doubt the crew size will build very quickly.

Disagree with this.

The main consumable will be food for 2-3 years. Additional consumables would include water and oxygen for the outbound trip, clothes and wipes for 2-3 years and presumably a surface space suit plus spares. There will also be ECLSS scaling to consider, some additional power and additional for contingencies. I suspect 1-2 tonnes / person.

But you can grow food on Mars…
Yes you can but a large facility will be required and it will take a long time to build it.

[Robotbeat]

...Another problem is that each additional crew member sent generates a very large consumables burden, so I doubt the crew size will build very quickly.

Disagree with this.

The main consumable will be food for 2-3 years. Additional consumables would include water and oxygen for the outbound trip, clothes and wipes for 2-3 years and presumably a surface space suit plus spares. There will also be ECLSS scaling to consider, some additional power and additional for contingencies. I suspect 1-2 tonnes / person.

But you can grow food on Mars…
Yes you can but a large facility will be required and it will take a long time to build it.

And the more people, the faster your can build that facility (also, vat-based foods are WAY more compact and can supply the vast majority of the food mass while still maintaining variety in the 10% of other food).

Backpackers pack about 1800 grams of food per day, and that's with much higher than average caloric needs (due to hiking around with a heavy pack in 1 gee). Some backpackers pack 570grams of food per day. Emergency rations about 300 grams per day (heavily fat-based). So 200kg per person per (Earth) year might be plenty for most people, and that's without any supplementation from greenhouses or vats. Let's say about 400kg per 26 month synod, before greenhouse and vat-based food (vat-based food requires about 1kW average power per person, plus micronutrients) where it'd be more like 40kg per person (but ignore any ISRU food, if it helps you understand the argument better).

Once you have the ECLSS system in place, additional capacity isn't that expensive. There's an enormous benefit of scale, and they'll need the extra labor.

So I think SpaceX could add people much faster, if they have the funding and if they're serious about their settlement project. Again, they'll need the extra labor.

[Robotbeat]

What's 400kg per person per synod?

Launch costs to LEO are about $10/kg for Starship. The gear ratio of cargo to LEO vs cargo to Mars is about 5:1. $50/kg, plus let's round that up to $100/kg because of the need to tie up a Starship on the way out.

$40,000 per person in food transport costs. That's pretty miniscule. Even if we assume the costs are 10 times as much, say, $100/kg to LEO and $1000/kg to Mars, that's still just $400,000 per person. Especially early on, that's basically a rounding error in the cost of the overall effort. $400,000 for 26 months is about the cost of living for a family in San Francisco LOL.

So it's not consumables mass cost that'll be limiting the early crew numbers. More likely would be livable space.

[Coastal Ron]

...So it's not consumables mass cost that'll be limiting the early crew numbers. More likely would be livable space.

I think this will be the moderating factor for scaling up colonization - how quickly can living and working space be created?

Once you have habitable living and work space then you can start adding things that reduce the overhead to keep colonists alive, like waste recycling, water recycling, air recycling, and as a byproduct of all of that, food production.

A couple of years ago I stumbled across a study that some college or university had done concerning food production for a Mars colony. I lost the reference, and haven't been able to find it, but it looked intriguing. IIRC there were only 6-8 types of plants that would be needed to provide the entire range of human nutrition, and they were all applicable to the type of farming we'd likely be doing on Mars.

Luckily Elon Musk has a brother that has a startup working on indoor farming (Square Roots), but indoor farming as an industry has seen a lot of innovation taking place over the past few years, including automated farming, so I think food production should not be an issue once they figure out how to build enough habitable space.

[OTV Booster]

The point I was trying to make is that what it takes to cut costs using ISRU on Mars is literally a world different than doing it on Earth.

Provide examples.

Examples: as per oldatlas and elsewhere. High tech triple junction is much harder than low end low efficiency cells. Low efficiency cells can mean more efficient production, especially if waiting for the perfect means that not even minimally acceptable gets done. With hydrogen, oxygen and carbon available for plastics producing PV substrate can be made locally with higher tech coming from earth.

That is one example, but it is not proof that, in your words, "what it takes to cut costs using ISRU on Mars is literally a world different than doing it on Earth".

And while low efficiency cells may take less technology, that doesn't mean the tradeoff is worth it.

The economics of any task is intertwined with available infrastructure and materials, and the value of the task, or more to the point, the fruits of the task. The infrastructure, available materials and local value of power infrastructure is different on mars and earth, thus the economics are different.

People that live in remote places make these types of decisions all the time, so it isn't unique to Mars per se.

Sending PV is an expense. Sending the wherewithal to make PV is a capital investment.

From my perspective, as someone that has worked in factories, it is a labor liability. Meaning it is something I have to find qualified labor to staff and maintain over its lifetime. Where do I find the workers? Where do I find the support functions for the workers? Unless the workers come with the equipment, I don't see it working.

Mars absolutely need earth to expend treasure but more importantly, it needs earth to invest.

Which is why I think Elon Musk will create a non-profit focused on Mars colonization. That makes it easy to fundraise.

This is also why I see Mars as a humanitarian mission, and not something for investment. Because the ROI is not in monetary terms, it is in the ability of the human race to survive in case something happens to Earth. So no, we don't need Earth to invest, we need Earth to donate to the cause.

Investment is needed to develop ISRU for propellant, food, habitat and any number of things we've discussed over the years. The one thing common to it all is power. From this a sense of the value (not capital outlay) for PV arises.

Power will dictate everything. But setting up manufacturing facilities will divert labor from setting up the colonies, and if history is any judge, there will be many problems to overcome when setting up Earth equipment on Mars. So until they have an excess of labor, it won't make sense to transfer manufacturing to Mars from Earth.

You speak of available shipping as if it is near infinite. Every ship that is loaded with PV is not carrying something else. PV and batteries are critical and this can not be avoided in the short term.

OK, but you seem to think that setting up factories on Mars will be simple, and labor free. And we have no idea what ISRU we can actually do on Mars yet since we haven't done any mining surveys. We have a long ways to go before we can start thinking of turning feedstocks into finished products.

BTW, only tangentially related, in 2018 the cost of building and running a wind farm became less expensive than the cost of the fuel for equivalent natural gas generation. And natural gas prices were in the toilet in 2018. Whoda thunk 10 years ago?

Too bad wind farms don't work on Mars. Now if you had some statistics on nuclear power, that would be relevant... 

I think we're talking past each other and should just agree to disagree. ✌️

[Slarty1080]

...So it's not consumables mass cost that'll be limiting the early crew numbers. More likely would be livable space.

I think this will be the moderating factor for scaling up colonization - how quickly can living and working space be created?

Once you have habitable living and work space then you can start adding things that reduce the overhead to keep colonists alive, like waste recycling, water recycling, air recycling, and as a byproduct of all of that, food production.

A couple of years ago I stumbled across a study that some college or university had done concerning food production for a Mars colony. I lost the reference, and haven't been able to find it, but it looked intriguing. IIRC there were only 6-8 types of plants that would be needed to provide the entire range of human nutrition, and they were all applicable to the type of farming we'd likely be doing on Mars.

Luckily Elon Musk has a brother that has a startup working on indoor farming (Square Roots), but indoor farming as an industry has seen a lot of innovation taking place over the past few years, including automated farming, so I think food production should not be an issue once they figure out how to build enough habitable space.

It's a real multi level chicken and egg problem with multiple complex trades. You need a large agricultural unit to produce the food, but the agricultural unit needs lots of power and pressurised controlled environment volume, which needs a lot of building work which needs lots of equipment and materials that needs lots of Starship flights and crew that needs propellants to return that needs power for ISRU and so on. The only solution is to bite the bullet and throw money at it and start building as best you can with the mass available.

[Robotbeat]

...So it's not consumables mass cost that'll be limiting the early crew numbers. More likely would be livable space.

I think this will be the moderating factor for scaling up colonization - how quickly can living and working space be created?

Once you have habitable living and work space then you can start adding things that reduce the overhead to keep colonists alive, like waste recycling, water recycling, air recycling, and as a byproduct of all of that, food production.

A couple of years ago I stumbled across a study that some college or university had done concerning food production for a Mars colony. I lost the reference, and haven't been able to find it, but it looked intriguing. IIRC there were only 6-8 types of plants that would be needed to provide the entire range of human nutrition, and they were all applicable to the type of farming we'd likely be doing on Mars.

Luckily Elon Musk has a brother that has a startup working on indoor farming (Square Roots), but indoor farming as an industry has seen a lot of innovation taking place over the past few years, including automated farming, so I think food production should not be an issue once they figure out how to build enough habitable space.

It's a real multi level chicken and egg problem with multiple complex trades. You need a large agricultural unit to produce the food, but the agricultural unit needs lots of power and pressurised controlled environment volume, which needs a lot of building work which needs lots of equipment and materials that needs lots of Starship flights and crew that needs propellants to return that needs power for ISRU and so on. The only solution is to bite the bullet and throw money at it and start building as best you can with the mass available.

Also, to eat as low on the food chain as possible to reduce power and reduce pressurize volume. That likely means single-celled organisms like bacterial protein and cyanobacteria.

[docmordrid]

SpaceX's private share price & valuation have spiked, largely based on StarLink...

NY Post...

“We just traded some at $340 a share,” a Wall Street source who brokers such deals told The Post. That’s up by a quarter from the stock’s $270-a-share value on Aug. 18, when ­SpaceX completed a weeks-long private share offering that raised $1.9 billion, the source said.

The dizzying rally implies a market capitalization for SpaceX nearing $58 billion — up from $46 billion in August and more than double its valuation in April 2018, when the shares were changing hands at $169 each.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

A good possibility is that the recent praise by WA Emergency Response teams for the WA fires about a system that works very well with only being in testing but operating in a real world situation where manpower and time is critical for the establishment of communications (Digital/Internet). Had some impact on shares demand. It shows that the system works and works well.

Another item of note is that SpaceX is rapidly closing in on Boeing's MRKT CAP of $95B.

[M.E.T.]

SpaceX's private share price & valuation have spiked, largely based on StarLink...

NY Post...

“We just traded some at $340 a share,” a Wall Street source who brokers such deals told The Post. That’s up by a quarter from the stock’s $270-a-share value on Aug. 18, when ­SpaceX completed a weeks-long private share offering that raised $1.9 billion, the source said.

The dizzying rally implies a market capitalization for SpaceX nearing $58 billion — up from $46 billion in August and more than double its valuation in April 2018, when the shares were changing hands at $169 each.

A perfect example of why capital raises should be delayed as long as possible. The $1.9B raised in August would have been closer to $2.5B if they waited just a month longer, based on the above numbers. For the same number of shares sold.

Wait 5 years and those same shares might be worth $20B.