On April 23 2017 11:13 LegalLord wrote: My guess was 20, looked it up and the answer was in the range of 18 to more depending on how you count. Close enough.
The point being that leaving one on Mars wouldn't materially impact the accuracy of your estimate.
Would probably be more like three to four - it's too far for remote control, and obviously you need a pilot. It would be remembered as the time that NASA basically left some of its best and brightest to just die on a dead planet because it was too hard to make it a round trip.
We're not yet at perfect reliability at getting rockets off the surface of earth, despite having the ability to choose launch site, conditions etc, having 40 years of practice, having the ability to repair or replace any component and having no practical limitations in terms of equipment or manpower. A Mars flyby involves one launch from Earth. Easiest launch from the easiest planet with the most access to materials and the least limitations where we have the most practice. A Mars launch, that's orders of magnitudes more complicated. It can't really be remotely operated, all systems would have to be operated by the crew and by automated systems and the weight restrictions would be absurd.
The Saturn V is 4% payload by weight, the rest being predominantly fuel to get it out of the atmosphere. What that means is that if we wanted to get a fully fueled Saturn V into space then we would need around 25 Saturn Vs to drag something that heavy up there. You need 24 tons of fuel to get a ton of payload into space. If it takes 24 tons of fuel already on Mars to get a ton of payload off the surface of Mars then it'd take 24^2 tons of fuel to get a ton of payload off the surface of Mars, assuming the fuel is shipped from Earth with the payload. Then we have to address the question of how we're going to land our Saturn V on Mars so that we can launch it to get back home. Just napkin maths here but basically a flyby is orders of magnitude less complicated than a return trip.
Give them some insanely cool 3D printers, the ability to make an underground hab with life support and some basic manufacturing/farming facilities. Get them back once we've worked out how to make rocket fuel on Mars.
Getting back to Earth from the Mars surface requires far less energy than the other way around. It's about 6.3km/s, while going there is 13.6 + 5.2km/s (the second part can be partially done with aerobraking, but Mars's atmosphere is pretty thin, so you probably need a fair amount of propulsion).
If you think about the exponential nature of the rocket equation 10-12km/s is a massive difference. It's about a factor of e^3, depending on the type of rocket engine.
Of course there's the difference of actually having an infrastructure on Earth, while not having any on Mars. But in terms of orbital mechanics Mars -> Earth is far, far easier, because most of the work can be done using Earth's atmosphere.
Point remains that whatever is used to do Mars -> Earth has to first go Earth -> Mars and Earth -> Mars is a colossal bitch. A rocket is mostly fuel, tiny bit of payload. A rocket carrying a rocket within its payload which in turn is mostly fuel, tiny bit of craft designed to get off of Mars, that's gearing the ratio of fuel to payload pretty fucking high.
Purely arbitrary numbers but let's say the payload to fuel ratio on Earth is 25:1 and on Mars it's just 10:1. If you assume a completely weightless vehicle that doesn't consume fuel to get you from Earth orbit to Mars orbit, no losses in landing on Mars, and the same weightless vehicle for the flight home we're still looking at a 275 units of fuel on Earth per unit of payload being launched on Mars.
Yeah, not claiming it's easy. You probably don't need to land a fully fueled Saturn V worth of mass on Mars though.
My guess is that any human mission will involve refueling on Mars. Probably even non-crewed sample return missions. SpaceX and Blue Origin are working on methane engines anyway.
It's not trivial, but neither is protecting your crew during an 8 month voyage. I just don't see the return part fundamentally more difficult than the rest of the mission. It's just another problem to be solved.
Manufacturing of any sort on Mars would be a much harder problem to tackle than getting enough fuel above the Earth to launch. And you're not really going to be able to do much better than chemical rockets with whatever you can pick up on a dead world.
Hell, there are even actively developing technologies for dropping off fuel in LEO. In a few decades that could do the trick.
On April 23 2017 12:02 micronesia wrote: I don't see 'one way to stay' as more feasible than 'round trip' right now, so I mean 'one way to die.'
For the record, yes I meant 'one way to stay'. Just sending some people there to do soil samples and a dozen tests is a colossal waste. But then I think that going to Mars is, considering the current state of technology, a colossal waste anyway. its a vanity project just for showing that we can do it. And while that in itself is no problem, its money we could better spend elsewhere.
The space program has brought a lot of useful technology and money spend on its research is money (generally) well spend but we can spend that money without sending people on a round trip to Mars just for the hell of it.
Bigelow Aerospace founder Robert Bigelow believes existing technology, NASA interest, and business opportunities are ready now for a return to the moon — and his company is ready to provide a space station there.
In an exclusive interview with FloridaPolitics.com Wednesday, the Las Vegas-based billionaire space entrepreneur made the argument that there already exists the technology, the opportunities for scientific research, a clear business case, and at least some NASA interest, for a return to the moon.
And he said his company has ongoing conversations with NASA and key rocket companies to make that happen quickly — by 2020.
Whether or not NASA wants to go back, there are private companies eager to mine the moon.
Bigelow’s company is eager to put a space station depot in lunar orbit, from which such activities and others can be initiated, as well as support onboard research.
“We do not have the technologies, and there is zero business case for Mars. We do have a business case for the moon. And that’s why the moon absolutely makes the best sense,” Bigelow said. “And we can do the lunar activities far sooner than we can with Mars, which stretches out to, NASA’s views are Mars may be in the 2040s.”
His “New Space” company, Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas, designs space habitats, including a fully self-contained space station with 330 cubic meters of living and working space, which he said is ready for a lower-Earth orbit or, in about three years given the expected advancements in rocketry, for lunar orbit.
Bigelow Aerospace is marketing its B330 station for combined use by astronauts representing private industry research and commercial exploration, NASA, pure science research, and space tourism. He would not disclose how much a B330 would cost but said it would be nowhere near reported estimates of $500 million.
Bigelow said he is picking up President Donald Trump signals that he wants to see something exciting happening with NASA in his first term, and Bigelow believes that is a signal to those inside NASA to start thinking moon again.
In his address to the joint session of Congress Tuesday, Trump made a vague reference to “American footprints on distant worlds.” Earlier reports citing unnamed administrative sources, according to SpaceNews.com and other industry news operations, said Trump was interested in NASA taking on bold initiatives right away.
Not really impressive in the grand scheme of things - I've seen more impressive sport rockets before. But it's impressive in that the Baltics never really participated in rocket works before now. So it's at least something.
WASHINGTON – Preparations are underway for SpaceX’s first big launch for the National Reconnaissance Office, a classified mission slated to lift off early Sunday from Florida.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will carry the hush-hush payload dubbed NROL-76 completed a static-fire test Tuesday, setting the stage for a morning liftoff from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A. The planned two-hour launch window is set to open at 7 am, but NRO has not announced what the exact planned liftoff time will be.
Neither SpaceX nor the spy agency has disclosed much information about the launch. However, satellite observers speculate that, based on the rocket’s trajectory, it may be carrying a data relay satellite to operate in a so-called Molniya orbit designed for increased dwell time over the Earth’s north and south poles.
While Sunday’s mission will be SpaceX’s first for the U.S. spy satellite agency since Elon Musk’s rocket shop was certified by the Air Force in 2015 to carry national security satellites to orbit, it might not be the first time the company has flown an NRO spacecraft.
A tiny NRO cubesat is believed to have flown as a secondary payload aboard a Falcon 9 as part of a NASA-funded demonstration flight of SpaceX’s Dragon cargo spacecraft.
WASHINGTON — Despite spending nearly $200 million on spacesuit development over the last eight years, NASA runs the risk of not having a next-generation spacesuit ready for testing on the International Space Station before the station is retired, the agency’s auditors warned.
In an April 26 report, NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) also warned that NASA’s declining current inventory of spacesuits, developed in the 1970s, pose a risk to continued operations of the ISS, particularly if its life is extended to the late 2020s.
Those current spacesuits, formally known as Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs), are used for spacewalks outside the ISS. A key element of the suit is its Primary Life Support System (PLSS), the backpack-like structure that houses equipment to regulate levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide within the suit and control its temperature.
NASA built 18 PLSS units, but only 11 remain available for use today. Of those 11, four are considered flight-ready today and are on the ISS, with the other seven in various stages of disassembly or testing on the ground.
The OIG report warned that further losses of PLSS units, either from launch failures or because of irreparable damage, could jeopardize NASA’s ability to perform spacewalks outside the station, which in turn could affect station maintenance. The agency said that the current supply of spacesuits should be sufficient to support station operations, but auditors were not convinced.
“NASA will be challenged to continue to support the EVA needs of the ISS with the current fleet of EMUs through 2024 — a challenge that will escalate significantly if Station operations are extended to 2028,” the report concluded.
NASA has ruled out building additional PLSS units, citing a cost as high as $250 million per unit given their old technology. Instead, NASA has worked on new spacesuit designs, including those that could support future missions beyond Earth orbit. Those efforts, though, have suffered a series of problems, according to the OIG report.
Auditors were particularly critical of the Constellation Space Suit System program, which started with a 2009 contract to Oceaneering International to develop a spacesuit as part of the Constellation exploration program. NASA kept that contract active until January 2016 despite the cancellation of the overall Constellation program in 2010, spending a total of $135.6 million on it, including $80.8 million after NASA cancelled Constellation.
The report criticized NASA for extending the program, with a new focus on developing spacesuit technologies, in part because it duplicated work on another NASA effort, the Advanced Space Suit Project. Technologies being developed by that project were often more advanced than those being developed simultaneously by the Constellation suit program, auditors found, even though NASA spent nearly three times as much on the Constellation contract.
TLDW: 00 First talking point, why is musk boring? They are suggesting 3d networks of tunnels under LA for cars on a pad moving the pad with the car on it. Removing congestion by going down. To cut prices of digging down enough to make it viable. Make the tunnel much smaller due to the car not using its engine in it lowering requirements. Upgrade digging machines to dig and reinforce in one step and at the same time power them up.
Why not fly instead? wind force, anxiety of it falling down, sound level
07 Why not hyper loop? (The tunnel they built is biggest vacuum tunnel but is a hobby project it seems.) They have a pusher pushing the student trains and will try to get that to go fast without the trains. Seal against water table, 5-6 atmospheres, automatically possible to hold vacuum. No real length limit, DC to New York, go underground the entire way. If dug 3-4 tunnel diameters down you won't be able to detect the tunnel (people will pay for devices that easily and cheaply do it). Boring company is 2-3%, interns, part timers. Second hand machinery etc, slowly making progress.
(Electric) Automatic cars will increase congestion due to being cheaper then a bus. Thus amount of traffic increased. All auto makers doing electric cars/fuel cells etc. Havn't musk won and can quit? Dodging question and says he wants to stick to it.
13:30 Model 3. Auto pilot in the model. Showing model s using GPS and cameras moving. Autonomy is solved with vision. Vision neural net is their vision. Just cameras ~10x better than humans but not there yet. LA - New York at end of the year 2017. Fairly confident it can do it even if they don't use their normal Tesla routes that are internally mapped.
~2 years until it works so you can sleep at the wheel. Important to note it won't be perfect but unlikely to crash in 100/1000 lifetimes.
18, autonomy will mitigate crashes. Humans always has a crash chance at the wheel. How much better does autonomy be? Future will be shared autonomy fleet. Buy car exclusively, friends/family. Different sharing schemes, 5 star drivers, anybody etc (uber style).
20 Semi truck. Heavy duty, long range truck. Electrical truck can out torque any semi diesel (up hill). Flat torque RPM curve instead of a normal diesel curve. Can be driven as a sports car. Musk thinks it very spry for its size.
22 future house. Electric car, 3x power walls, solar roof. Solar glass roof. Roof tiles, solar power adjust texture, colour at a fine level. Micro movers in the glass so when looking from street it looks the same with or without solar cells behind the tiles. From helicopter you can see them. Cost less than normal roof + electricity. Lifetime, (infinity) after house has collapsed the glass tiles will be there. Introducing now and next year. Eventually all houses will have solar roofs in 40-50 year scale. Replacement of roofs is normally 20-30 years. 15 years from now new roofs will normally be solar. Most houses in the US have enough roof area to power all their needs. (Not all)
26, background is falling price of lithium batteries that Musk has helped with. Giga Factory, diamond shape overall, looking like a diamond aligned true north when finished. 27 video of factory working with cells (slowed down to be viewable without strobe light). How many giga factories are needed for future vision of Musk? not 1, not 10, maybe around 100 giga factories. Building 2-4 new factories, to be announced this year.
29. Politics. Advising person that doesn't believe in global warming, why? Meeting every month or two where they go around the room giving an opinion on the issues discussed. Need people on the meeting that discusses the issues from the other side. (Immigration, global warming.)
30 Space X, landing of upper stage video, slowed down version. 8-9 times now. First re-flown has happened of Orbital time. Re-usable only relevant if rapid and complete, don't send airplane to Boeing between flights. 32 Dream of sending many people to Mars in the next 20 years. New rocket showed in scale to person. 40 stories height, a bit more. 4x thrust of Saturn V rocket (biggest rocket created before) in shown configuration. 747 1/4 million pounds of thrust. 127, 747 with all engines blazing. Could take a fully loaded 747 with maximum fuel, passengers and cargo, as cargo on the rocket. 34 Future vision, interplanetary transport system video. Aspiration of 8-10 year time frame. Future space ships will be truly enormous compared to current ones. Why Mars city? Important with appealing and inspiring future. What inspires you? If the future is not a multi planet civilisation it is depressing.
35:30. Space distraction from other issues (to be fair helping there with sustainable energy), why not work on other issues on Earth? Future is probabilities. Even if Musk didn't do it sustainable energy would happen, inevitably. Tesla is only an acceleration (by hopefully) a decade. Becoming multi planet and space faring is not inevitable. Progress of space, 1969 we sent people to the moon. Then Space Shuttle to low earth orbit. Then retired and then US could not send anything to space. A downward trend. Technology only improves if people work to make it happen. It degrades over time, pyramids and Roman aqueducts they forgot how to make them.
39, (Interviewer, Double motivation. One desire for humanities long term good and the other to do something exciting. Need one thing to drive the other. ) Value of inspiration is very much underrated. Musk isn't trying to be anybodies saviour, just wants to view the future and not be sad.
On May 02 2017 00:24 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote: When they launch and land Falcon Heavy, I'll be impressed.
They'll manage to launch and land it sooner or later. I'm certain enough of that since, although heavy rockets are a lot bulkier and more expensive, it's nothing particularly out of the scope of what they're already capable of doing.
I will be impressed when they demonstrate the economic viability of any of the shit they're doing. Because in typical Musk fashion, SpaceX gives all the indications of an unviable business being held up on hype and the countless millions that come with that. It's easy to look impressive when you have endless influxes of cash just because people "believe" in what you're doing.
On May 02 2017 00:49 ShoCkeyy wrote: Which will be soon no? the USAF launch in Q3 of this year?
Assuming no further schedule delays. SpaceX has a rather hefty backlog due to their two failures which is every reason to believe a delay could happen. Remember, they thought they could squeeze it in 2016 before more kaboom occurred.
But I don't think that they will fail to launch it sooner or later.
On May 02 2017 01:04 LegalLord wrote: Assuming no further schedule delays. SpaceX has a rather hefty backlog due to their two failures which is every reason to believe a delay could happen. Remember, they thought they could squeeze it in 2016 before more kaboom occurred.
They have a backlog because people want to launch with them
With the strike at Kourou grounding Ariane, ULA being horribly expensive and the Russians having their own problems, this is unlikely to change.
They have a backlog because their launches have been delayed a long time.
Having customers doesn't mean you have to have logistics issues. But SpaceX does because there's a good chance they will fail a launch and have six more months of delays.
EPT
