/sci/ - Science & Math

I'm not sure why so much of the criticism around SpaceX and Starship is focused on the feasibility (or lack thereof) of Mars colonization. If Starship can get people there as advertised, it'll be a transformative technology regardless of whether Mars actually turns out to be a good destination. There'll be a massive buildup in orbital infrastucture just a side effect of launch costs dropping and the capability to deliver a hundred tons to orbit every single launch. Mars is a nice bonus, but economically the real meat is in Earth orbit. I expect tourism and asteroid mining to grow pretty organically from that. AFAIK there's entire groups of materials (fiber optics, metallic glasses, monocrystalline materials, etc) that can only be manufactured in microgravity that are potentially worth the investment to build a dedicated space station. Likewise if you're a billionaire and can get an orbital hotel with your name on it built for a few billion bucks, *why not do it*? And we're not even talking about then possible shit militaries can do with this kind of launch capability.

I can absolutely understand why some people think Mars bases are a dumb meme, but surely you see that Starship helps with EVERYTHING space related?

>>11710075
>An average onshore wind turbine with a capacity of 2.5–3 MW can produce more than 6 million kWh in a year
I'll be using half that value so you don't sperg out at me. In 2019 the US consumed 100 quadrillion Btu. That comes out to roughly ten million wind turbines. A wind farm needs about an acre per megawatt, so you need an area around a quarter the size of Texas.
>>11710110
Ten percent baseload of daily energy consumption, 100kWh battery needs 10kg Lithium, throw those numbers together, we mine 77 metric gigatons of Lithium a year. Yeah, this will use up 15 years of global Lithium production. But more lithium is getting mined every year (increase by almost 50 metric gigatons from last year), so it should be faster.