/sci/ - Science & Math

>implying NASA will use there vehicles.

>>2689699
It does not matter if they do

Once Bigelow gets up and running SpaceX will have all the customers they need

bip bip

umad?

>>2690232
wat?

Bump for Private space awareness

>>2690232

That no matter what America does, the USSR already won.

"Bip bip" -> Sputnik

Let's hope Obama doesn't refuse to give them a fair deal.

>>2690919
Yes they got a satellite in space first.

But who ended up with better technology?


Also you who are going to try to work in the american space program, should not bad mouth it

>>2689657
SpaceX isn't turning a profit yet, is it?

>>2690930

>Also you who are going to try to work in the american space program, should not bad mouth it

Gee, I know, but it still annoys me that people think the Moon landing was the finish line of the space race.

>double spaces

Are you Scia with better capitalization?

>>2690931

It has since 2006.

>>2690919
>>2690930
>dur hur
Take it to either /new/, or hell.
Homo sapiens itt are too busy reveling in our accomplishments to pay attention to your faggotry.

>>2689657
elon musk is a rarity in capitalism. i don't think most people would have done what he did and i don't think capitalism is really to thank for him trying.

>>2690931
its been profitable for years

>>2690955

Moreover, why would he praise capitalism instead of Elon Musk himself? Isn't that what Randian heroism is about?

>>2690939
Yes it is me!

How did you know?

>>2690955
Its the system was allows him to succeed.

Also Robert Bigelow, Richard Branson, Burt Rutan, ect...

Are there any good articles to read on this subject?

>>2690985
>implying richard branson isn't a nigger

>>2690999
That there are good sir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_(spacecraft)

>>2690947
From what?

>>2691057
NASA contracts

>>2690985
yes and i see how that's true but still it defies capitalist logic what he did. capitalism puts lots of money in some peoples' hands and that can be a good thing when they decide that their pet project is going to be privatizing space travel despite the huge amount of risk involved. however, more often than not i think that person's pet project is going to be either moving their money around to turn it into more money or some ridiculous inane bullshit that the world could do without, like battlefield earth.

>>2691083
and yet its still better then any other system

>>2691101
indeed. i'm not trying to knock capitalism, just to give credit where it's due.

>>2691063
Sigh, I thought it was completely privately funded. I suppose we still have a long way to go.

>>2691083
Why is it bad, when money is being invested productively. Bad uses of money are using it to drink cheap alcohol or buying a car and crashing it into a tree.

Rich people do it with much smaller percentage of their money, therefore it is good, if money is in the hands of rich people.

Being totally serious here.

>>2691159
because no money is invested in enabling people to get drunk and drive as much as they want

Elon Musk is a rarity in capitalism, but he shouldn't be.

I hope to see his endeavors succeed.

>>2691159
if you really are serious then i just think it's an unfortunate byproduct of capitalism that wealth ends up distributed so unequally. i'm not a socialist or anything, it's just that, whether rich or poor, folks will spend within their means. that means that a poorfag with only a few dollars to his name will go out and blow a few dollars to have a good time whereas a billionaire goes out and drops a few million just for laughs.

basically what i'm trying to say is that if you give a guy 10 bux he'll go out and spend 10 bux. if you give a guy 10 million dollars, he'll spend 10 million dollars. the only difference really is that when you have 10 million dollars you're just looking for things to spend money on, you're not actually providing for yourself.

when people with that kind of money use it for philanthropic means or for pioneering new areas like spacex's ceo, then that's great. but it seems like most just end up hoarding it or squandering it, both of which are hugely unnecessary.

>>2691184
With freedom comes excess.

But if we curtail that waste then we stop the worthwhile endeavors

It's a little disingenuous to say that Spacex has been turning a profit since 2006

they've been getting NASA seed money, and not spending more than they've been given.

they're in a great position to start turning a real profit soon, and they aren't in debt, which is a big enough accomplishment.

there are also a whole bunch of other companies

>>2691216
shit, I didn't finish that sentence

there are a whole bunch of other companies doing the same thing, spacex just has the best PR department.

>>2691206
exactly. hence i believe the system we have is probably the best out there, it's just that saying that capitalism is responsible for spacex doesn't sit right with me...

>>2691206
Nope. We could tax the shit out of excess. People would find other entertainment.

So, what will be the first nonrenewable resource to run out and push corporations to look for additional supplies in space?

>>2691224
The fuck did you say?

>>2691227
Perhaps copper? Then again, finding an asteroid with a lot of gold would likely be a bigger draw.

>>2691227
that would be way too far in the future to tell right now

definitely not copper though

>>2691267
does gold really have that many applications in industry? the only reason it's inherently valuable otherwise is because it's rare but if we were to pull a fuckton of it out of an asteroid then that wouldn't really be the case so...

>>2690930

you say "ended up" as if this moment is somehow noteworthy. the game is still in play. others will come and go but the first will always be the first. russia won.

>>2691324
Ok we were the first on the moon

We won

fuck yeah, privatization

>>2691219
>there are a whole bunch of other companies doing the same thing, spacex is just the most successful

fixed that for you

"When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks."

>mfw

>>2691566
They can *try* and name it, but realistically people will just call it what they want.

I sure as hell ain't going to be referring to a planet as an "IBM Stellar Sphere".

>>2691566
lol, as if planet xg159182349 and galaxy c518g-z are any better

mfw

I for one don't care who dose it as long as it gets done, this is the 21st century I was suppose to be living on the fucking moon by now dammit!

>>2691584
same shit happens with stadiums, but the corps do end up getting some recognition.

>SpaceX will be the most advanced and capable space faring entity in the world.

>most advanced
No

>most capable
No

>Falcon 9 Heavy
>most powerful rocket currently in existence
[citation needed]

>spacecraft is completely reusable and has the most advanced hear shield in the world
[citation needed]

>dragon will be able to land on the earth like the LEM did on the moon using rockets
Nope

>The dragon can carry just as many people as the shuttle.
Seven people with no room for cargo or satellites? Achievement!

>cheapest
133 million per launch

Compare with some Ruskie launch systems (Soyuz) at 50 million

Quit hyping and go home Mr. Musk

>>2689657
>>2691708
Isn't the VASMR the most powerful rocket?

If it is, get your shit straight. It's first going to be used to get rid of space debris.

>>2691290
The only reason why gold isn't used for wiring instead of copper is because it is so rare. Its value may also be inflated because of its role in economic history as a staple currency, but it definitely is a very useful element. It is very malleable and very electrically conductive. It's also pretty. :3

>>2691275
Some very vital resources are going to run out within our lifetime.

>>2691771

VASIMR is actually very weak in terms of thrust, it's the isp that really makes it worthwhile if you can give it enough power.

In terms of largest takeoff thrust, Falcon 9 Heavy will be marginally more powerful than the biggest Atlas variant, I don't get what the big fuss is. Especially considering that we've had the shuttle lifting several hundred mt each year for the last thirty years.

>does gold really have that many applications in industry?
Yes

Optics
Low rust alloys
Medicine and anything Biology related
Conductivity, microchips etc
Nanotech
Radiation shielding and control (pic related)
As a catalyst

About every future and present high tech industry relies on gold in some way

>>2691911
>>2691829
this is the first time in ages that /sci/ has taught me something.

now lets go hunt some interstellar gold!

>>2691911
How fucked would you say the global economy is if a gold rich asteroid is mind out, saturating the market? Some objects out there contain trillions of dollars worth of minerals.

>>2691949
Not fucked at all, considering that just getting to the asteroid probably costs as much as simply buying that much valuable minerals

The point of mining in space is that the shit you mine STAYS in space for construction of ships, habitats and so on

Sending it down to Earth can be done, but it isn't that much more profitable than mining for it here

>>2691948
Just wait until we find space diamonds the size of buicks, and those are just the ones that are easy to take back with us!
http://www.universetoday.com/9295/astronomers-find-a-huge-diamond-in-space/

>>2691995
>Sending it down to Earth can be done, but it isn't that much more profitable than mining for it here.
Sooner or later the gold mines will run out.

>>2691997

Then the price of diamonds will dramatically fall?

>Dragon
>133 million per launch

>Soyuz
>50 million per launch

Before someone calls me out, I was off by ~15 million on the Soyuz one

Sources:
http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20081223
http://www.physorg.com/news5901.html

>>2691997
holy shit, it's just like playing crystal caves when i was a kid!

>>2691997
It's gonna be a cold day in hell before you find non-planetary diamonds in space.

Diamonds take pressure or other exotic conditions to form, you won't just find huge diamonds from a carbonaceous chondrite.

Necessity is the mother of invention

>>2692022
Yep. Let's go them!

>>2692002
Stars that end thier lives with mainly carbon and are too small to create black holes compress themselves into massive diamonds.

http://www.universetoday.com/9295/astronomers-find-a-huge-diamond-in-space/

itt: teenagers who don't realize that you can manufacture diamonds quite easily in a chemical vapor deposition reactor from graphite for a fraction of the cost of mined diamonds.

>>2692032

yeah that's pretty much what's expected from a privatized space industry

>>2692040
>Diamonds take pressure
Like asteroid and protoplanet collision kind of pressure?

There will be diamonds, oh yes, there will be diamonds.

>>2692032
Yes but you have to factor in the fact that the falcon 9 caries a lot more KG to orbit

>>2692066
Yeah. Let me go fire it up in my backyard. Gona make my sweetheart some diamonds!

>>2692002
When we pave every square inch of Earth with gold?
5kg of gold per 1 million tons of crust
There is 60000000000000 million tons of material of crust, so multiply that number by 5 to get the amount of gold in kg on Earth
Something around 300 billion tons of gold, and we have only dug up 0.03% of that

You are underestimating the resource potential of our planet
By the time we run out of it we'll be energy beings or something

>>2692066
The largest ever created was 1cm long and it wasn't anywhere near cost effective. And besides, diamond encrusted comets will just be icing on the space mining cake.

>>2692139
>energy being or something

>i'mokaywiththis.jpg

>>2692139
You are forgetting that the majority of Earth's valuable resources are buried too deep for mankind to gain access to. Sooner or later it will be cheaper to simply pick gold up off the surface of an NEO rather than drill 10 miles into the Earth's crust. It will be a lot easier to find too.

And gold was just an example. There are far more things out there than gold, some of which we don't have enough of on Earth.

>>2692098
>Progress
>2600kg

>Dragon
>1700-1800kg

Nop

>>2692188
it costs $49.9M to take 10,450 kg to LEO currently on a falcon 9

Sources:http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.php#pricing_and_performance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9

DEAL WITH IT!!

shit with prices that low i can't afford not to start my own moon colony!

>>2692239
Wait about 10 years

MOON PREPARE YOUR ANUS FOR CAPITALISM!!

>>2692247
You mean "COMMUNISM", right?

>>2692226
What is the price foe one passenger?

>>2692226
What is the price for one passenger?

>>2692247
>>2692275
You mean fascism.

>>2692275
Objectavists get the sea floor, Communists get the Moon. Fair is fair. But be warned, Nazi's get the far side.

>>2692345
heh, looks like they'll be burning moonjews for warmth

>>2692226
We are talking about the Dragon spacecraft compared to Soyuz

But ok, if we do simple rocket payload
Zenit carries ~3000$ per kg
Falcon costs ~5000$ for the same amount

>>2692340
You mean Nazi UFOs from Antarctica?

you guys are being shortsighted. sure it costs a lot to launch any rocket in our times but just think of how much of that we'll make back in sweet, sweet space gold. not to mention the diamonds!!

>>2692381

we went over it idiot

gold needs temperature and pressure to form, which you cant find in meteor

Privatization= Win
Governments could never keep a pace that Private and Commercial space companies are doing.

"We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard" -John F. Kennedy

History repeats itself in this case. This time with Private space leading the way

>>2692471
1) I think you meant diamonds.
2) HTHP collisions happened countless times in our solar systems history. Collisions between countless asteroids and protoplanets have likely littered the solar system with diamonds.

>>2692477
The government is funding SpaceX though.

>>2692477
>Private
>Kennedy
wat

CHINA STRONG

Yeah and thats all their good for.

The government is analogous to a person with down syndrome that just inherited all of bill gates money.

They are rich but can't run programs worth a fuck.

>>2692529

Will I be able to afford to go to space within my lifetime?

>>2692724
Yes

Regular commercial flights by 2060

Do you plan on living that long?

>>2692748
I do now.

>>2692724
Government SSTOs by 2020, commercial SSTOs sometime after that
Unless Ekylon comes through, then commercial might be earliest

After that it's something like 100$-500$ per kg, definitively below a thousand, so for a normal sized person it would be very affordable

http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/nano4/mckendreePaper.html

>>2692748
>>2692768
*puts away razor

>>2692832
Fuck yeah...

ESA is not run by government so it's better than NASA
checkmate america

>>2694210
>He thinks ESA is not run by the governments of Europe!

laughing_girls.png

Can't wait to ride this.

>>2695328

The thumbnail looks like a galleon.

Fuck year.

>>2695328
>ride this

You an astronaut?

>>2695328
Imagine a nautilus x powered by VASIMR rocketry

It could get to Mars easily, then use stuff there to produce more oxygen for the return trip, and then safely bring the crew back home, in well under a year.

>>2695328
That is an idea licensed from NASA. Has Bigelow been more efficient in development than NASA would have been?

>>2695358
no. bigelow has wasted inane amounts of money building launchers for their inflatable stuff