Getting to Mars is going to take way more money

[Anonymous No.15162745]

Only way to get to Mars is with an insane amount of money.
>Billionaires should start a “Sponsor a Martian” program
>Donate $2 BILLION per engineer/pilot
>10-20 Engineers in total because that all Space X Starship can hold on a trip.
>$40 Billion for the first and second trip to Mars.
>Several supply missions first
>Then launch the astronauts
>Next group will also require $2Billion/person to get to Mars
If it happens in this way, we might have a shot of getting humans to Mars by 2030. Otherwise it is unlikely to ever happen because Elon Musk is severely underrepresenting how expensive it’s going to be.

[Anonymous No.15162770]

Send better robots.

[Anonymous No.15162800]

>>15162770
Yup, no Mars colony unless robots build the bases first.

[Anonymous No.15162839]

>send robots to mars
>they start mining the fuck outta the planet
>producing a lot of materials
>nuclear reactor factory for making parts
>robots expand and reinforce the mine shafts for living quarters
>prepare and seed the greenhouses
>astronauts arrive a year later to a full course of salad

[Anonymous No.15162894]

>>15162745
Semi-Off Topic:
Why colonize Mars?
Isn't it Easier to create Space Stations?
Like Big Ones?
Sure Mine the Hell out of Mars, but a Space Station just sounds Safer, and more 'Earthlikable'

[Anonymous No.15162898]

>>15162894
What is it with online schizos and Capitalizing Random Words in every Sentence?

[Anonymous No.15162910]

>>15162898
I'm German.
We Capitalize.
It's drilled into you at the Age of 6...

[Anonymous No.15162912]

>>15162898
Also it's not random.
Nouns and Names get capitalized.

Also sometimes it's a Typo...

[Anonymous No.15162998]

>>15162894
A Space Station doesn’t have the ability to regenerate by itself.
At least with a planet, you can get materials and water from the surface.
I also think humanity needs to go to asteroids too, especially Ceres and 16-Psyche.

[Anonymous No.15163001]

>>15162839
We don’t even have robots on earth that can build a factory by themselves, let alone one on Mars.
But yeah it would be nice if we had that too.

[Anonymous No.15163064]

>>15162898
My phone autocorrects even what I don't want it to.

[Anonymous No.15163631]

>>15162745
Just curious what data you are basing your figures on. I haven't done any assessment yet on the cost of establishing a permanent Martian settlement.

The best way to handle the initial settlement phase would be in collaboration with a coalition of space agencies. Two crewed craft should be sent initially. Probably an evolution of SLS and a Starship. One civilian crew, one government crew.Their roles would be very different.

The SLS crew would be totally focused on getting the absolute maximum amount of science and exploration done while they are there.

The Starship crew would dedicate all their efforts toward establishing the initial footprint for a permanent settlement.

It will require a project like Mars One but nobody will trust anyone but Elon Musk to fill that role after the Mars One debacle.

[Anonymous No.15163641]

>>15162745
it's way too fucken far, if NASA even pulls off their sample return mission i'll be impressed. what we should worry about right now is a lunar base, to replace the ISS. that's a realistic step-up in difficulty.

[Anonymous No.15163752]

>>15163641
That's what's happening now.

No reason why people can't get excited about the next domino in line.

[Anonymous No.15163770]

You know, back in the day the CIA suspected the USSR would have humans on Mars by the end of the 90s, the early 2000s at the absolute latest.
Fucking Russians can't do anything right.

[Anonymous No.15163774]

>>15162894
Would you rather a small ship in the middle of atlantic ocean? Or land in the New World called Amer-I mean Mars and establish a civilization?

[Anonymous No.15163808]

>>15163774
I am very excited for the Martian Gold Rush. I think I will join in. I mean we know there used to be water there. Which means the easiest form of gold to collect, alluvial deposits, must exist.

It would be awesome to just blast through old riverbeds using compressed air to shift the sand so all the gold settles in drifts in front of you. Probably too energy intensive though. I don't know how many compressors you would need to gain useful pressure from the Martian atmosphere.

[Anonymous No.15163812]

>>15162745
"Colonizing mars" is just a recruiting scheme for SpaceX, to help them attract cheap talent from space fan rocket scientists.

[Anonymous No.15163851]

>>15163808
"Gold rush" would be digging and finding mineral spots for Martian economy. It would be a very interesting thing to see for sure.

[Anonymous No.15164023]

>>15163641
The Moon and Mars require similar amounts of fuel to reach. The only benefit the Moon has is shorter trip duration for supplies and crew transit but the fuel consumption is still similar. As long as you're good at scheduling mission pipelines, might as well go for Mars.

[Anonymous No.15164035]

>>15164023
Moon wins first place. Nobody wants any accidents but if they happen on the moon it's much easier to resolve and we can examine procedures. If anything were to go wrong with either mission public opinion could turn against us. It's difficult enough already to justify the expense. People just don't understand. They need to though because big money is behind this push.

In any case systems and techniques for establishing a base are much easier on the lunar surface and in lunar orbit. Much of the strategies and equipment will be similar in both cases but Mars has some additional considerations.

[Anonymous No.15164331]

Reminder that "moon" is a synonym for ASS.

[Anonymous No.15164408]

>>15163774
yeah... a new world... that you have to pump full of co2 to grow crops, has different gravity, different length of day...
oh yeah and getting off the planet is a giant hassle...

meanwhile being you could mine asteroids (or if you really want mars then mine that), and build gigantic space habitats.

dunno why you would restrain yourself to a small ship...?

it would admittedly take a huge amount of funding, however I simply believe that in the end it would be cheaper and better to have a functional space station than being stuck on a desert planet with nothing on it...

[Anonymous No.15165811]

>>15164408
None of that is especially difficult. Most of the Martin polar ice is CO2.

Mining asteroids is problematic because of the tiny gravity. This means any craft entering a close proximity to an asteroid and disturbing its surface is going to kick up a huge closed of debre around the asteroid. You have to be able to navigate within that cloud.

Then we have great difficulty moving things into, through and out of industrial processes because there is insufficient gravity.

So you end up with a very dangerous and energy intensive facility.

Nobody will be allowed free settler or rancher status on the Moon. Mars probably will offer such options.

So you can see larger bodies such as the Moon and Mars offer the easiest entry point to developing advanced orbital manufacturing facilities.

Simple industrial processes are better done within a gravity well.

[Anonymous No.15165875]

>>15165811
>This means any craft entering a close proximity to an asteroid and disturbing its surface is going to kick up a huge closed of debre around the asteroid. You have to be able to navigate within that cloud.
It's simple, just wrap it first. Wrap it up the whole thing with plastic cling wrap.

[Anonymous No.15165889]

>>15164408
>and build gigantic space habitats.
I should build a giant castle in the middle of the ocean while transporting all the shits from some place 1000000 miles away. At the same time, you need to build a fueling infrastructure system that needs to setup a fueling infrastructure to setup that infrastructure, which needs to its own fueling infrastructure as well. And son.

Making a castle in the middle of the atlantic ocean, then running between America/Europe for scraps of land/resources/fuel/etc, you just need to have food/air/people/place to park your ship while you work/with 0 g/etc. is a waste of effort.

With 1/10th the effort you can build an entire city of dome with all the infrastructure/fuel/electricity/air/water/food grown locally on the ground with moderate gravity. Without having to travel million miles left and right just to get water/air/food.

[Anonymous No.15165891]

>>15165875
Plastic is heavy and will not be readily available in the initial phases of our expansion beyond earth.

Asteroid mining is probably best done chemically. If it can be heated slowly you might even be able to form a baked clay/ceramic crystal shell to preserve deeper volatiles. Then you can warm the interior, drain volatiles, inject solvents, drain solvents into your processing facilities and then extract pure metals electrolyticaly or something.

[Anonymous No.15165893]

>>15162745
>>Billionaires should start a “Sponsor a Martian” program
Frankly not even that would be enough, a real mars colony would like cost 10s of Trillion even ignoring launch costs.
>Elon Musk is severely underrepresenting how expensive it’s going to be
Yes, yes he is

>>15163812
underrated post

>>15165811
>>15163774
>Or land in the New World called Amer-I mean Mars and establish a civilization
>free settler or rancher status on the Moon
You're not gonna have that on mars either because no where in space is going to be analogous to colonization of the Americas in any way expect in the broadest of terms.

[Anonymous No.15165894]

>>15162745
Gravity. Your health. Gone. Good, fuck off kids.

[Anonymous No.15165911]

>>15165893
It will be very similar. When people will go colonize mars, they will leave behind everything on Earth and live out the rest of their lives on mars, creating and building civilization in the process. They will die on mars as well.

The main thing Mars need is food, which can be transported with few starships in bulk and enough to support colony of few dozens for few years at a time. For example, on ISS, each astronauts eat ~1.8lb of food per day. A single astronaut needs 3285 lb of food for 5 years. Or around 1500 kg of food. That includes the packaging material weight which takes ~15% of that weight. Anyway, 1500 is 1.5 tons x 100 = 150 tons. So with 1 starship full of food, you can feed 100 people for 5 years. Even that may just the extreme case because in all likelyhood, they'll grow food on mars to self sustain themselves. Build greenhouse gas to keep air inside and nitrogen brought from chemical deliveries will be used as key ingredients to seed the colonies.

[Anonymous No.15165940]

>>15165911
>38% earth gravity
>almost no nitrogen
>radiation
>6-9 month trip through the weightless vaccum interplanetary space
>no native flora or fauna to eat/utilize
>no fossil fuels for energy or feed stock for vital industrial materials
>It will be very similar

[Anonymous No.15165945]

Going to Mars is a huge waste of resources.

[Anonymous No.15165952]

>>15165940
It took 4+ months to reach Jamestown in America back then. Oregon train is 6+ months of journey. Mayflower was 2+ months of journey. Back then death was nearly guaranteed. Now with modern days and technology, its very unlikely if supply lines keep running. With a prosperous SpaceX, that will all but guaranteed. If gov wants to come aboard to setup research outposts, they'll pay SpaceX premium to do so and help keep the system of infrastructure going for civilian colonists. Particularly American civilians.

[Anonymous No.15165961]

>>15165952
>It took 4+ months to reach Jamestown in America back then. Oregon train is 6+ months of journey. Mayflower was 2+ months of journey.
They didn't have to deal with bone and muscle loss
>Back then death was nearly guaranteed
Death is still a problem in interplanetary space, the NASA got lucky there weren't any major solar flares or CMEs during apollo.
>With a prosperous SpaceX, that will all but guaranteed
Musk's mars plans are and have always been nothing more than hype. If you think he's serious I don't know what to tell you.

[Anonymous No.15165969]

>>15165961
>They didn't have to deal with bone and muscle loss
Just starvation, death, diseases, storms/hurricane ripping the very ship apart, murder, rape, enslavement, etc were common too. Oh and malnutrition. Effectively leaving many to die on the journey alone and many more sick/weak when they arrived on land. Land itself wasn't hospitable either, as anyone in the town would die in droves for years to come.

Going on a Mars trip in the near future where the vehicle/infrastructure are being setup would be considered a step up.

[Anonymous No.15165971]

>>15165945
You're a huge waste of resources lmao

[Anonymous No.15165974]

>>15163001
We could have that on earth problem is its literally a million times cheaper to do it with people, however the cost is worth it to send robots that won't just die like humans

[Anonymous No.15165976]

>>15165961
>Musk's mars plans are and have always been nothing more than hype. If you think he's serious I don't know what to tell you.
All plans are hype until they're executed. Musk's plans are more than hypes because he's making the ship that he plans on executing as such.

There is a difference between you saying "I'll go to the moon in 10 years" and Musk saying the same thing. Even if he were to fail, he would have tried and gotten somewhere. 10 years ago he made the prediction, and where is he now? Did he fail? Or did he succeed well beyond anyone had imagined at the time? The answer is later.

The only reason you can't see that is because you've shifted the goal so far due to you being an utter failure in life and trying to bring down everyone else who has succeeded in life. Its both a self defense mechanism and a cynical view of the world stemming from your own inadequecy

[Anonymous No.15165997]

>>15165976
Aim for the stars and you will land on the Moon.

[Anonymous No.15166042]

>>15165961
>town would die in droves for years to come.
> a step up
They also had the luxury of local flora and fauna, natives to trade with, and a breathable atmosphere that didn't have to bring with them. We don't even know humans would function long term in 38% gravity, let alone if its possible to have healthy children.

>>15165976
If Musk was serious about going to mars he'd have a lot more ear marked for it, but its not that Space X is mass producing any habitation models or even something simpler but more fundamental like a crew training program. Starship, even if everything does work as hoped, isn't even half of what you need to building a mars colony. This isn't to bring up the various projects that Musk made a lot of noise about before they fell by the wayside. Presumably because they're not feasible.
>The only reason you can't see that is because you've shifted the goal so far due to you being an utter failure in life and trying to bring down everyone else who has succeeded in life
People really are this desperate to find an excuse as to why they shouldn't restrain their expectations, its sad really


>>15165974
>to do it with people
If robot labor is too expensive to be competitive with human labor on earth, where among other things energy is cheap, what makes you think its going to be cost effective on mars?
>however the cost is worth it
Why is worth it?

[Anonymous No.15166051]

>>15166042
>People really are this desperate to find an excuse as to why they shouldn't restrain their expectations, its sad really
NOOOOOO DON"T HIM, JUST GROVEL AT THE GROUND LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!!!! YOU SAID YOU'LL GO TO THE MARS AND YOU ONLY PUT HUMANS TO SPACE!!!! YOU'RE A FRAUD!! A FAILURE!!!!!

Do people really live like this?

[Anonymous No.15166073]

>>15166042
>its not that Space X is mass producing any habitation models

Time is a universal constraint. One man can only do so much. It's probably going to take a team to make this happen.

[Anonymous No.15166085]

>>15166042
I don't think habitation modules are a real bottleneck given that you can just stay in the ship.

[Anonymous No.15166099]

>>15166051
>Do people really live like this?
Unfortunately they do, 2008 ruined the "study hard, go to college, get a white collar job, buy a house, start a family" dynamic, so now people are desperate to get the future they felt was lost back. Its the same thing motivating speculation in cryptocurrency or "vitalists" sun tanning their balls in an attempt to "make it." As such space colonization, at least within the scope of this century, is just a day dream because there's no acutal pressing need for it, if were lucky and all goes well within our lifetimes we'll see antarctic style research stations on the Moon & Mars.

>>15166073
>It's probably going to take a team to make this happen.
And who's going to be on this team? I find it odd how all of the things that are needed in order to make mars colonization feasible are always vaguely alluded too, at best you get rehash of what Bob Zubrin wrote 30 years ago. Its not like current mars colonization proponents have drawn up design documents and done trade studies wr/t a mars colony like the L5 society did way back in the day.

>>15166085
Stay in the ship is fine you just want to explore for a while, but you're gonna need a lot of ground infrastructure if you're intent on serious colonization even if you do.

[Anonymous No.15166110]

>>15166099
Anon, by the time that humans are living full time on the Martian surface, I don't think investor interest will be in short supply.

The biggest bottleneck by far is transportation. By solving that, Elon is doing more than pretty much anyone else.

[Anonymous No.15166123]

>>15162745
Issue a new cryptocoin, each coin granting the holder ownership of 100km2 of Martian land, including all mineral and development rights. Use proceeds from the sale of the crypto to fund Mars mining, colony development, etc.

Apply the same model to mining the Moon, asteroids, etc.

[Anonymous No.15166124]

>>15166110
>by the time that humans are living full time on the Martian surface
Big assumption, we don't know if humans can live full time in low gravity.
> I don't think investor interest will be in short supply.
What economic activity is there to do on mars that can't be done better on earth?
>The biggest bottleneck by far is transportation
Flawed logic, a cheap air line ticket can save you money in your vacation budget but its not going to make the stay at metaphorical the 5th star hotel any less expensive.

[Anonymous No.15166140]

>>15166099
>Its not like current mars colonization proponents have drawn up design documents and done trade studies wr/t a mars colony like the L5 society did way back in the day.

Yea but it's Moon, Moon, Moon right now. You won't see the designs coming out for Mars first. Most of the technology proven on the Moon will be applicable to Mars.

It's basically Minecraft in space. You need what, a set of vibrating screens, a ball mill, a magnet to seperate the magnetic ores from the powder, flocculation tank to wash the aluminium ores clean and then you need a furnace and hydrogen or methane to smelt the iron. The aluminium can be refined electrolyticly. Which might be easier to do with the iron too.

Some kind of extruder and you can start manufacturing struts in preparation for mirrors arriving from earth. Basic industry established. The seed planted and sprouted.

[Anonymous No.15166151]

>>15166124
>Big assumption, we don't know if humans can live full time in low gravity.

The longest duration that a human has currently spent in space is 437 days. And that was in 0G, not 0.4G. So most feasible Mars mission profiles are possible. If not, what's the point of even having a conversation about Mars colonization.

It's like the military or Antarctica. People do deployments and then go back home at the end of their term.

>What economic activity is there to do on mars that can't be done better on earth?

Governments wanting to see if there really was life there at one point, everyone wanting to see if there's platinum group metals and other minable resources, the possibility of using it as a staging area for asteroid mining and processing.

Keep in mind that Antarctica has enough interest for governments to send a few thousand people, and that's way more boring than mars.

>Flawed logic, a cheap air line ticket can save you money in your vacation budget but its not going to make the stay at metaphorical the 5th star hotel any less expensive.

A life support system capable of keeping people alive long enough to get to Mars is going to be capable of keeping them alive on Mars. Nobody is arguing that Starship is the only thing that will only be necessary, but by the time that it's inadequate and colonists want bigger and more complicated habitats, the process of colonization will already be well underway.

[Anonymous No.15166167]

>>15166140
>hydrogen or methane
Mars is poor in the hydrocarbons that make industrial civilization possible. Its rather absurd to say that you're going to have the energy to establish industry on mars when the EROI of natural gas and conventional oil is declining here on earth.

>>15166151
>And that was in 0G, not 0.4G
And all of the long duration flights have significant bone and muscle loss, as ewll as some other physiological problems. Even 6 month stays on the ISS leave astronauts in a state where they have to be carried out of the craft.
> If not, what's the point of even having a conversation about Mars colonization.
That's what I'm saying
>there's platinum group metals
Why would you bother for mining for resources on mars, when you can get the same ones on earth with a less complicated supply chain?
Prospecting on Mars is going to be more difficult than on Earth, there probably aren't going to be any economical veins even if the the cost of starship is on the order of millions of dollars. At best it'll be like how the shale boom was propped but by ZIRP, but is now coming to a close because easy money was propping up a poor EROI.
>Antarctica has enough interest for governments to send a few thousand people
That's because there's research that can be done in antarctic that's unique to the antarctic. Yes, the same thing applies to mars, but a semi-permanent research base for science and exploration doesn't necessitate a permanent colony.

[Anonymous No.15166176]

>>15166167
>And all of the long duration flights have significant bone and muscle loss, as ewll as some other physiological problems

And? If nobody dies it works. You can even test it in orbit around earth by building a spinning hab.

>Why would you bother for mining for resources on mars, when you can get the same ones on earth with a less complicated supply chain?

Because there's a place with the same square miles as the pacific ocean that has literally never been touched by humans.

>Prospecting on Mars is going to be more difficult than on Earth

Satellites can prospect well enough to find some deposits.

>there probably aren't going to be any economical veins even if the the cost of starship is on the order of millions of dollars

I'm pretty sure a hundred ton cargo bay full of pure gold or platinum is going to be pretty profitable.

>Yes, the same thing applies to mars, but a semi-permanent research base for science and exploration doesn't necessitate a permanent colony.

Is there any reason not to? You're going to be sending people either way, you may as well have a permanent base staff that slowly expands the facilities and conducts maintenance.

[Anonymous No.15166201]

>>15166176
>And? If nobody dies it works
Sickly colonists do not make for a prosperous colony.
>building a spinning hab.
If we could build a spinning hab to simulate mars gravity that implies that you have the space based industry to build one with earth gravity. In which case you don't really need to colonize other planets. This was the entire reason why the popular conception of space colonization shifted to O'Neil cylinders in the 70s, the recently discovered effects low gravity presented a problem to the common conception of the moon/mars being homesteaded in the 50s & 60s, when it was found out that building rotating habs would be laborious and expensive, we shifted to where we are now where we're pretending that the moon/mars can be homesteaded again.
>Because there's a place with the same square miles as the pacific ocean that has literally never been touched by humans.
And there are large parts of earth that have never been touched by humans, doesn't make them inherently valuable
>I'm pretty sure a hundred ton cargo bay full of pure gold or platinum is going to be pretty profitable.
That's assuming that you can economically mine and refine it on a planet that's going to be poor in energy. Solar is marginal at best on earth and would be woeful on mars, and nuclear energy is either going to be a big hurdle if you're building a NPP or a inadequate if relying on RTGs.
Yes, its a difference in scale that becomes a difference in kind.
Also
>that's way more boring than mars.
It doesn't matter if its boring or not. Mars being interesting to enthusiasts doesn't make it economical.

[Anonymous No.15166209]

>>15166201
>Sickly colonists do not make for a prosperous colony.

Just like the guys on ISS can't do their jobs, amirite.

>If we could build a spinning hab to simulate mars gravity

Two starships and a rope lmao. 2ez

>And there are large parts of earth that have never been touched by humans

There literally aren't lmao. Humans have been mining every available source of gold since the early bronze age.

>That's assuming that you can economically mine and refine it on a planet that's going to be poor in energy

A valid complaint, but not necessarily a show stopper depending on energy prices and the availability of resources.

>It doesn't matter if its boring or not. Mars being interesting to enthusiasts doesn't make it economical.

Not only wrong, but stupid. The US doesn't build ice runways in Antarctica or send people to the ISS because it's "interesting to enthusiasts" they do it because it provides key scientific and diplomatic advantages. Given that launch costs have dropped by more than 90%, it isn't at all infeasible that the US will send people to Mars for the exact same reason. After all, shuttle launches were two billion a pop and we still did those for much less benefit.

[Anonymous No.15166237]

>>15166209
>Just like the guys on ISS can't do their jobs, amirite.
Temporary stints vs a lifetime in low gravity aren't the same thing. Muscle atrophy isn't going to be conducive to the work that would need to be done to build a colony.
>Two starships and a rope lmao. 2ez
Only works if you're constantly burning RCS to keep the rope taut, and even if you do you'll only get the appropriate gravity at a particular radius, you won't be getting uniform acceleration throughout the whole ship. The fact that people keep touting this as a solution indicates they haven't actually thought it through.
>Humans have been mining every available source of gold since the early bronze age
The USGS says there's still about ~50k tons of gold in unexploited veins last time i checked, it would be easier to extract that than going all the way to mars and creating an ersatz mining industry.
>but not necessarily a show stopper
Even if energy was still relatively cheap like it was during the height shale boom a decade ago, it still doesn't make sense to try and send hydrocarbons to mars for industry there.
Energy aside we're still dependent on hydrocarbons as feedstock to make steel, concrete, plastics, and a whole host of other materials vital materials that keep industrial civilization foing. Making those materials on Mars isn't going to be very "insitu" and producing enough of them on earth to build a mars colony will easily defeat starship's aspirational cost savings.
>doesn't build ice runways in Antarctica or send people to the ISS because it's "interesting to enthusiasts"
That's my point, why did you bring up antarctic being more boring than mars as a point in mars' favor?

[Anonymous No.15166246]

>>15162839
What if the Mars robots serve you meat? Hmmmm

[Anonymous No.15166283]

>>15162894
If you want to expand your Mars settlement because some settlers arrived, you take 5 habitation module walls, attach them the current base, and rout a hose into it to pressurize it.
If you want to expand your space station because you have new settlers, you have an issue.

[Anonymous No.15166348]

>>15166283
Because???
Space Stations are not Extendable?
>>15166201
You my Man actually get it.
There is not really all that much benefit to colonizing Mars, if the Tech involved would make it viable to build Space Stations

[Anonymous No.15166354]

>>15162745
>He thinks $40 billion is a lot of money

[Anonymous No.15166363]

>>15162745
>we might have a shot of getting humans to Mars by 2030
>>15162745
>we
you're not a a participant in those activities, it might feel good for you to give yourself credit for being a participant, but taking credit for other people's achievements is intellectual property theft.

[Anonymous No.15166371]

>>15162910
I don't believe you. I have seen german newspapers and only the starting letter in a sentence or proper names are capitalized

[Anonymous No.15166383]

>>15166371
I would like a Source on that...
What Newspaper was it lol?

Though the absolute State of Germany...
Some speak a mish-mash of German with an Arab accent, interjected with MANY English Words...

[Anonymous No.15166481]

>>15166167
>methane hydrogen energy

Kek. Why are you in this thread lol. The hydrogen or methane reacts with oxygen in the smelter reducing the ore into gas and pure metal. Starship carries methane. This is nice.

Energy production is tremendously uncomplicated on the Moon and only fractionally more difficult on Mars.

Peaks of eternal light a phrase that means anything to you?

On Mars, near the poles, close to abundant sources of water and carbon dioxide ices, the wind is even strong enough to produce reliable wind power. Which is incredible considering how thin the Martian atmosphere is.

I haven't even begun on how NOBODY IS UP THERE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT NUCLEAR REACTORS!

Let me outta this gravity well.

[Anonymous No.15166527]

>>15162745
>If it happens in this way, we might have a shot of getting humans to Mars by 2030. Otherwise it is unlikely to ever happen because Elon Musk is severely underrepresenting how expensive it’s going to be.
Next QE spree, Elon is just gonna get a shit ton of freshly printed money... That's what made Tesla, Obamas help to the automobile industry with diluted dollars from the fed.
Imagine all people and companies as slider bars, and then you have the print money slider, every time someone pushes the print money slider, everyone else slider goes slightly back, that's just how it works, literally the hidden tax. Weird thing is that people can't even vote them out, since central banks decide when to tax the people this way.

[Anonymous No.15166572]

>>15162894
Based

[Anonymous No.15166582]

>>15162839
based soience fiction midwit

[Aether king of sci No.15166591]

How come half the posters in this thread are retarded?

[Anonymous No.15166597]

>>15163812
Truu

[Anonymous No.15166655]

>>15166481
>hydrogen
Hydrogen is a pain to store and transport. Keeping it cryogenic means massive power consumption which defeats the point in most cases, and keeping it in a pressure vessel means shit like hydrogen embrittlement. Not to mention that fuel cells are rather expensive pieces of machinery, its the same reason why no one runs a water fueled car, its only practical in highly specific cases.
>methane reacts with oxygen in the smelter reducing the ore into gas and pure metal. Starship carries methane
Burning 1000s of tons of methane per starship (not only to launch starship into, but also to refuel it) to send ~100 tons of hydrocarbons isn't economical. Its the opposite of the fuel cisterns on that burn hundreds of gallons of gas to deliver several thousand gallons to gas stations.
>Peaks of eternal light
The few that are on on the moon that don't really alleviate the problems with solar.
> water
Ice gets stronger the colder it gets while most metals tend to become more brittle. Cutting large chunks of ice is going to be incredibly difficult, will cause cause massive wear on your equipment, and will be energy intensive.
> carbon dioxide ices
And? If you want to turnit into something useful you need to put energy into it in order to turn it into to fuel, its an energy sink
> wind is even strong enough
Wind is marginal at best on earth, and is still dependent on a grid that's mostly fossil fuels.
>NUCLEAR REACTORS
Nuclear reactors require a massive specialized infrastructure to build, run, and maintain. Even the boilers have to be custom built for NPPs and can't be the same ones that are used in a coal/gas plant. Not to mention how the nuclear industry in the western world has stagnated and withered since the 80s, but if earth's industrial infrastructure is as dependent on fossil fuels as much now as it was a 50 years ago because decarbonization isn't practical , why would mars be more favorable?

[Anonymous No.15166674]

>>15166655
>Hydrogen
Can be made locally on the Moon and Mars.

>Methane
The Moon has no carbon. This is a big problem. Smelting iron oxide using a solar furnace boosted by methane makes a lot of sense. Especially when your outputs are iron, carbon dioxide and water. Which you will need for growing fresh vegetables. Because without them you are going to get cancer.

For Mars methane makes sense because you can produce it locally via Sabatier process. This lets you get back to Earth.

>Solar
Not going to argue with you on this one. It has its place. Don't expect me to argue for any single energy source alone. It won't be used in the initial stages of industry anyway.

>Water
Melts. It's that easy. You have to melt it to split it into hydrogen and oxygen. Which is what we are going to do with it. We aren't going to make igloos. Or are we.

>NUCLEAR REACTORS
He hasn't read about KRUSTY. Oh, well, they are scaling these things up to something like 50Mw last I read. But when the gangsters come and demand their plutonium you better fucking have it because they will know if it's missing.

KRUSTY is plug and play. Besides which, if a boat can run a reactor so can a colony.

[Anonymous No.15166687]

Theres potential for some economic profit from space colonization. A colony can still be initially supported with government money as long as its diverse. I expect there will be pedo and vore parties on Mars and also dangerous biological and particle physics experiments and maybe chip manufacture in absolute vacuum.
Making steel and shit is possible with robot miners driving vehicles they themselves make.

[Anonymous No.15166701]

>>15166687
I think the total lack of oversight outside of the main spaceport will interest many groups for many reasons. A bit like Skyrim how you break into somebody's cave only instead of a necromancer or petty sorcerer it's a mad scientist instead. And he's holding something. It's pointed right at you.

[Anonymous No.15166756]

>>15166701
Mars is for people who want to be free from gov.

>>15166687
>Gov supported as long as woke ideology
No. We should never spread woke ideology outside of San Francisco polititics.

[Anonymous No.15166880]

>>15166674
>Can be made locally on the Moon and Mars.
It can't even be made on earth without it being massive energy sink
>via Sabatier process
Energy intensive see above
>Melts. It's that easy.
Melting ice takes enormous amounts of heat. The latent heat of fusion to take water at 0C to ice at 0C is ~300J/g, to melt ice on mars will take far more.
>He hasn't read about KRUSTY
I have, and its 50kW of thermal energy not 50 MW.
pdf rel

>>15166687
>chip manufacture in absolute vacuum
You don't need space colonies in order to do manufacturing in a vaccum, industrial scale pumps already exist, and no one has ever found a space product that could only be manufactured in 0g.

> A bit like Skyrim
Go away Todd, I'd post >>>/v/ but they don't want you either.

>>15166756
>living in a society that going to be highly regimented to escape the government
lmao

[Anonymous No.15166900]

>>15163774
Only this time the "New World" is a radioactive frozen hellscape devoid of life

If history is anything to go by the first attempt at a colony will be a disaster and everyone will die

[Anonymous No.15166936]

>>15166900
lol cry more fag

[Anonymous No.15167178]

>>15166900
Historically speaking heavier than air cannot fly in air. Rockets in space was impossible. Electricity didn't exist. Science didn't exist. Moon rockets didnt exist. Internet didn't exist. Cars didnt exist. Man didn't create fire. And so on.

Until it did.

[Anonymous No.15167230]

>>15162745
I don't know if you know this, but money isn't a real thing.
There isn't some money mine out there where a limited amount of money exists, it's an arbitrary concept.
If those that control resource extraction and manufacturing want to go to mars they'll go to mars.

[Anonymous No.15167245]

>>15167230
NOOO YOU JUST CANT!!! STOP LEAVING SHITHOLE PLANET LIKE EARTH AND ESCAPING TO PARADISE ON MARS!!!!! TAX THE RICH!!!!

[Anonymous No.15167256]

>>15162745
Im not convinced that this govt. could achieve it with infinite trillion dollars.

Giving money to a corrupt enterprise makes it more corrupt & accomplish less

[Anonymous No.15167266]

>>15167256
Private enterprise with private funding/worked out means of profit through service is the only way. Infinite black hole money gets you corruption/incompetency.

[Anonymous No.15167297]

We need to actually demonstrate we can manufacture at a large scale off-world before trying for a permanent settlement on the Moon or Mars. As far as I'm aware, the sum total of our experience in that field is a couple of 3D printed plastic trinkets on the ISS. We've got a long way to go before we can even think about reliably assembling habitats and infrastructure on another world. This is partly why I feel space habitats are a better place to start. You can just drag some small asteroids into a medium Earth orbit and practice turning them into rudimentary but functional shelters, that can sustain themselves off of sunlight and the materials in the rock. That means when something goes wrong, help is hours away rather than months.

[Anonymous No.15167312]

>>15162745
>it’ll cost a lot of money because, uh, I said so

[Anonymous No.15167315]

>>15165894
Humans don’t need gravity.

[Anonymous No.15167319]

>>15166655
Nuclear reactors aren’t sorcery. They use them in boats.

[Anonymous No.15167320]

>>15163812
This 100x
>”the first wave will consist mainly of scientists who volunteered to help colonize the new world” Elon musk 2024
It’s to cut down on employee cost and insurance risk, as the only people willing to take the risk/reward odds are people who will gain a great personal reward from going to another space rock. The pay will be lower than what anyone here expects.

[Anonymous No.15167323]

>>15166900
Who cares? Ooooo scary danger. No Faustian spirit in your soulless husk

[Anonymous No.15167335]

>>15167320
I think you've misunderstood my meaning, SpaceX is never going to send anybody to Mars, not any of their employees or anybody else. All the talk of sending their employees to Mars is a scheme to get those employees to work for sub-market wages. Part of their compensation is the HOPE that they'll get sent to Mars, but that's never going to actually happen.

It's not that Elon Musk will pay people less once they get to Mars. It's about Elon Musk ALREADY paying them less because he's merely promising to send them to Mars.

[Anonymous No.15167339]

>>15167335
>trust me bro

[Anonymous No.15167354]

>>15167339
SpaceX's compensation is already below market rate, they pay rocket scientists less than they'd get at other companies. This is the purpose of the "colonize Mars" talk.

The rocket that is obstensibly meant to bring them to Mars is almost complete, but what have they forgotten? They've forgotten to invest more than jack shit into developing the technology needed to actually create and sustain a Mars colony. Habitat development is nowhere to be seen. If Starship is to be considered a Mars rocket, they're building a bridge to nowhere because the plans for actually doing ANYTHING on Mars are decades away at best. The obvious conclusion is that Starship is NOT for going to Mars, despite what Elon Musk says. It's for satellite launches, which is SpaceX's true business. They're a satellite services company, not a Mars colonization company. They pretend to be a Mars colonization company because the best rocket scientists will work for pennies if you promise them a planet.

[Anonymous No.15167363]

>>15167323
>muh Faustian spirit
None of the "vitalists" talking about this have ever actually done anything wr/t to it.

[Anonymous No.15167370]

>>15167354
>Saturn V is just for launching satellites, cus I don’t see NASA building moon habitats

[Anonymous No.15167378]

>>15167363
Low energy cope.

[Anonymous No.15167396]

>>15167370
The Saturn V was for sending people on brief excusions to the Moon. This was obvious because they developed a lander but no long-term habitats. SpaceX is building nothing that would even get them to Mars, all they've got is a rocket that doesn't even have a manned capability in development or even on the roadmap.

[Anonymous No.15167398]

>>15167396
They’ll do that later.

[Anonymous No.15167409]

>>15167378
Weak retort, you never see anyone talking about their "faustian spirit" doing anything like homesteading in the taiga or illegally squatting in the middle of Antarctica despite all the bluster about how going to mars and taking the risks for its own sake..

>>15167396
This is actually one of the weird things about starship, its both an SHLV but its also a vehicle that needs multiple launches to go anywhere beyond LEO. A sort of worst of both worlds when it comes to a deep space mission in that you both have a large vehicle that's expensive and takes a long time to develop, and you have the difficulties of a mission archecture that requires multiple launches.

[Anonymous No.15167433]

>>15167398
Yeah sure, right.

[Anonymous No.15167519]

>>15167409
The refueling in orbit is only important for human passengers. Civilian passengers won't care about the delays and neither will the bulk freight from Earth upon which the early colonies will depend.

Also there is no available gold or other resources in Antarctica or other areas.

Carrying capacity of the earth is basically reached unless we accept lower rates of consumption and lower standards of living. We need to leave if we want to continue the pursuit of knowledge.

[Anonymous No.15167848]

>>15167519
Refueling in orbit is important to get anywhere outside of Earth in anything meaningful way.

[Anonymous No.15167880]

>>15167848
SLS can do the same thing but hydrogen is a much more difficult fuel to work with.

100t of cargo is enough to lift two pretty ordinary size mine site dump trucks. Not that you would do that to start with. 400t of carrying capacity is overkill for an initial base on the Moon or Mars.

It's probably enough to carry some small scale mining, refining and manufacturing plants.

[Anonymous No.15167909]

>>15167880
SLS can't do shit because theres no means to land that thing and reuse it. Thats a loss of safety, economic cost and an opportunity cost rolled into one. It costs $4.1 billion to launch a single expendable rocket one way. There's no means of landing safely back. And it takes 2 years to make a single throwaway rocket.

Its got 45 ton to TLI but not to orbit, which means it needs a second craft to carry anywhere to deep space. The Orion for example can only hold ~4-6 people to the moon, but will be limited by its inability to get back to Earth. A small studio room size floating in orbit with no way to get home.

[Anonymous No.15167923]

>>15166687
>chip manufacture in absolute vacuum
This is retarded for many reasons.

First - Mars isn't an absolute vacuum, that's why they have yearly dust storms lasting weeks. You would need heavy-duty vacuum pumps and air purifiers to make a cleanroom, just like you need on Earth too.

Second - all the dust that the storms kick up is electrostatic. That's a recipe for disaster. If any of the air purifiers or vacuum pumps fails, it'll completely ruin a whole batch of chips until someone figures out what happened. And one WILL fail, because the dust particles will stick to any metal object, like vacuum pumps, air purifiers, and chips. (And due to low atmospheric pressure, they'll also stay in the air longer.)

Third - Due to the electrostatic dust, anyone needs to come into the cleanroom, they'll need to go through a TON of prep procedures - at minimum, removing their spacesuit, going through an air shower, changing their clothes, and then putting on another spacesuit for the carbon-dioxide heavy air in the cleanroom.


The only thing that'd be economically useful about Mars is getting precious metals. And sending material back from Mars would be expensive - Mars doesn't have methane and it'd need to made using the Sabatier process (17 MWh/ton). Starship will use 1550 tons of methane, so 26350 MWh of power are needed per launch.

If they use solar power and the power costs ten times what it does on Earth, it comes out to $4M/launch (payload 100 metric tons), so roughly $18 per pound of payload. That's at a bare minimum and excluding every other cost (higher cost to run a mine on Mars than on Earth).

And there's only so much gold or platinum that a colony can mine without crashing the market.

[Anonymous No.15168028]

>>15162745
Elon Musk is scamming people with impossible promises they are too stupid to see through? I'm shocked anon, shocked to my core. We must alert the media.

[Anonymous No.15168030]

>>15162839
This is your brain on "retard" kids.

[Anonymous No.15168090]

>>15166123
based idea

[Anonymous No.15168095]

>>15166383
Stop writing like this, retard.

[Anonymous No.15168363]

>>15167433
Yes.

[Anonymous No.15169130]

>>15168095
sToP wRiTiNg lIkE tHiS, rEtArD.

[Anonymous No.15169488]

>>15167923
>And there's only so much gold or platinum that a colony can mine without crashing the market.
At then you reach the point where the precious metal markets crash due to a lack of scarcity the colony will likely be abandoned. There are many a mining town in the western US that became abandoned once the prices of precious metals collapsed.

[Anonymous No.15169506]

>>15169488
>ywn be a raider looking through the remains of an abandoned martian mining town for anything you can scrap

[Anonymous No.15169509]

>>15169506
That actually would make a decent sci fi novel, colonists on mars scavenging a colony that was abandoned decades/centuries prior because it was uneconomical and impractical at the time.

[Anonymous No.15169953]

>>15162745
And its not even that exciting. I mean yeah some cool sky there. And rocks, a lot of them. I'm sure scientists can make many "amazing discoveries" there but its basically boring shithole.

[Anonymous No.15171275]

>>15166880
Yeah, KRUSTY is small, but you can use more than one of them. It's a bit of a hurdle for sure. I think it's around 6kwh per kg to get from iron ore to raw steel. 17 per kg for aluminium. My preferred option is the solar furnace for thermal energy. It's not available all of the time but that's becoming less of an issue. Anyway, you won't be able to turn on all of the light switches at once.

I'm confident mirrors sufficient for industrial purposes can be manufactured locally. So can struts and plates. So you could use a few KRUSTYs to provide the means to manufacture solar furnaces. Then they can be used as stable electrical energy for the base.

You would have to accept that industry is going to be seasonal.

In any case I as sure I had read that KRUSTY would be developed into an SMR but I can no longer find this. In any case SMRs are in development, though I have yet to see a design as simple as KRUSTY.