Can Elon Do It?

[Anonymous No.9949599]

Will it take the first humans to Mars? Will the SLS meme crash and burn?

[Anonymous No.9949614]

>>9949599
I hope it makes it without problems.

[Anonymous No.9949615]

>>9949599
Implying based Bezos won't get there first

[Anonymous No.9949738]

>>9949615
Bezos, while based, won't get their first.

[Anonymous No.9949746]

>>9949615
the paint for that feather will weigh 100s of kgs. They're not gonna waste precious mass on that

[Anonymous No.9949772]

He has done really well with Space X. Better than I thought. Congrats, Elon.

[Anonymous No.9949802]

>>9949599
Honestly I hope it does. It's not something I thought I'd see in my lifetime.

[Anonymous No.9949807]

>Implying that he hasn't already done it...

[Anonymous No.9949808]

[Anonymous No.9949811]

[Anonymous No.9949814]

>>9949746
They might for a maiden flight.

Anyway I think BFR is achievable if they can actually meet the re-usability goals they're aiming for.
31 engines seems like a lot but they already proved they can control 27 on the Falcon Heavy. Computers have come a long way since the N1.

[Anonymous No.9949855]

>>9949814
Yeah, not only that but you have to remember that with the N1 the launches were the tests. SpaceX was able to hotfire test their Falcon Heavy, and will no doubt do the same with the BFR, to actually ensure things are working fine before actually launching.
They hadn't fired the N1 all together until they tried launching it.

[Anonymous No.9949857]

>>9949599
>Mr. Musk, I don't feel so good...

[Anonymous No.9949859]

>>9949814
The N1 wasn‘t fucking indicative of anything except the fact that you need to test your fucking engines before putting them in a billion dollar rocket.
Hell, the Soviets expected that thing to fail a lot. Hence why they wanted to fly about a dozen before actually putting a moon mission on there.
Guess they didn‘t realize the thing would nuke their entire launchpad everytime though.

[Anonymous No.9949917]

>>9949814
Having 31 engines pumping fuel from 1 fuel tank is an entirely different thing as having 27 engines pumping fuel from 3 fuel tanks. I'm not saying the won't make it, but their experience with Falcon Heavy barely helps them, if at all.

[Anonymous No.9949921]

>>9949599
He can do it. But first he has to learn business.

[Anonymous No.9949965]

>>9949599
He has a better chance than anyone else right now. He needs to hurry up too so Mars can rebel and we can finally have our first space war.

[Anonymous No.9950000]

Dunno if he will make it to Mars, I really fucking hope so, but SLS will probably explode on the pad kek.

[Anonymous No.9950064]

>>9949921
Perhaps you could give him a few business tips, anon. I'm sure a multibillionaire would appreciate your safe advice.

[Anonymous No.9950076]

>>9950064
sage advice*

[Anonymous No.9950223]

>>9949859
Even testing the engines wouldn't have really helped.
The engines were basically fine. It's the fact you had to plumb all 31 of them perfectly in one go with no way to test them once it is done.

[Anonymous No.9950263]

>>9949599
Elon is selling dreams that he can't deliver.

There is no fucking reason to go to Mars in the first place. At least bezos is getting it right by aiming for the Moon.

[Anonymous No.9950267]

>>9950263
WHAT IF THE RUSSIANS OR THE CHINESE GET THERE FIRST?

[Anonymous No.9950303]

>>9950267
then we get to use the infrastructure their colonists built before they died

[Anonymous No.9950361]

>>9949599
>Will the SLS meme crash and burn?
If it never launches, yes.
If it launches, also yes.
Expendable rocketfags BTFO.

[Anonymous No.9950364]

>>9949746
The feather looks retarded anyway.

[Anonymous No.9950377]

>>9949917
>Having 31 engines pumping fuel from 1 fuel tank is an entirely different thing as having 27 engines pumping fuel from 3 fuel tanks.
Right, pumping everything from one fuel tank is much easier. You also don't have to deal with things like rotational flexing and longitudinal torques caused when the boosters have slightly different thrust outputs.

One booster, one thrust plate, two propellant manifolds (one oxidizer one fuel), 31 engines. It's quite a bit simpler and easier.

[Anonymous No.9950401]

>>9949855
>They hadn't fired the N1 all together until they tried launching it.

This is worth remembering. They were also using Soviet technology, and Soviet quality control.

[Anonymous No.9950409]

>>9949859
>Guess they didn‘t realize the thing would nuke their entire launchpad everytime though.

N1 only destroyed the pad once, the other launch failures occurred downrange

[Anonymous No.9950414]

>>9950223
Quality control and systems control were also issues.

[Anonymous No.9950419]

Everything can be done in marketing. Reality is a different matter and 3 superpowers have learned that the hard way.

You cant just build a scifi spaceship. And claiming you can while experiencing great difficulties and delays in launching nasa crew despite all he assistance and oversight the agency provides is just fallacious.

Lets keep it real. Space is hard enough as it is.

[Anonymous No.9950475]

>>9950419
>assistance and oversight
more like
>paperwork bumfuckery and requests for unnecessary hardware changes

[Anonymous No.9950494]

>>9949599
No. Elon's Mars meme is marketing campaign to promote his other products.

[Anonymous No.9950589]

>>9950494
You got that backwards; all his other products are test runs for stuff you would want on Mars. Tesla & SolarCity for the batteries, electric self-driving vehicles, and a way to charge them. The Boring Company will be handy for creating underground habitats. Starlink will allow planet wide communication for separate Martian colonies. Even the hyperloop is basically designed to run at Martian atmospheric pressure. Ol'Musky really wants to set up a Mars base.

[Anonymous No.9950648]

>>9950589
The man has a dream and wants to pursue it. All these projects he does might end up benefiting society in ways we cant foresee.

[Anonymous No.9950661]

>>9950589
His brother is also working on closed loop, indoor high yield hydro/aeroponics.

[Anonymous No.9950683]

>>9950419
>You can't just build a sci fi spaceship

That's where you're wrong kiddo. God I want eait until BFR takes off and absolutely annihilates all these fucking shills trying to short his companies.

[Anonymous No.9950753]

>>9949921
spaceX would not exist if musk followed "correct" business practices

[Anonymous No.9950822]

>>9950303
this
there's more to the solar system than mars

[Anonymous No.9950830]

>>9950822
based venus cloud cities when

[Anonymous No.9950837]

>>9950263
>There is no fucking reason to go to Mars in the first place.
It protects western civilization from existential events and mistakes so long as we found a city.

[Anonymous No.9950838]

spacex might be able to

elon musk needs to go, though

[Anonymous No.9950839]

>>9950822
So start your own company and go there.

[Anonymous No.9950845]

>>9950683
Watching short sellers burn is the best.

[Anonymous No.9950872]

>>9949917
>Having 31 engines pumping fuel from 1 fuel tank is an entirely different thing as having 27 engines pumping fuel from 3 fuel tanks.

You are right. It is easier.

The only potential technical showstopper for BFR is upper stage heat shield performance during repeated reentries, some of them form interplanetary velocities. Anything else is basically smooth sailing.

[Anonymous No.9950875]

>>9950661
it all makes sense now..

[Anonymous No.9950883]

>>9950419

>muh "space is hard" meme
>pls give more tax moneyz for oh soo hard space

Space is just a void. We would have been on Mars by now if NASA wasnt used as a jobs program by political hacks.

[Anonymous No.9951092]

>>9950838
>elon musk needs to go, though
Why?

[Anonymous No.9951101]

>>9951092
Narcissistic idiot who's beginning to fall apart, the company would be better if Richard Branson or McAffee took it over

[Anonymous No.9951108]

So are we all in agreement that SpaceX is an innovator and dynamic company completely BTFOing the aerospace industry and NASA simultaneously while saving the taxpayers money and achieving better results while Tesla is a meme company. 1/2 aint bad Elon

[Anonymous No.9951153]

>>9951108
I'll agree with that. Although I would have a much higher opinion of Tesla if they weren't gigantic cocks about maintennance and spare parts.

[Anonymous No.9951521]

>>9951092
he's the biggest liability the companies have. spacex will probably be fine but if tesla burns, musk's conduct will be a pretty major factor

[Anonymous No.9952098]

I WANT MY MONEY BACK MUSK!

[Anonymous No.9952115]

>>9950419
>You cant just build a scifi spaceship
Yeah you can, when you're not treating the whole thing as a welfare program.

[Anonymous No.9952235]

>>9951521
>he doesn't act the way I want to
>therefore he will fail
You shills are pathetic.

[Anonymous No.9952267]

>>9951101
>McAffee
Now that's just incorrect.

[Anonymous No.9952419]

>>9949615
you understand that new glenn is a FH competitor, right?

[Anonymous No.9952485]

>>9951101

[Anonymous No.9952496]

If NASA backed by the economy of the United States couldn't do it, why do you think some tiny private company will?

[Anonymous No.9952520]

>>9952496

Greatly increased efficiency.

[Anonymous No.9952612]

>>9952496
see
>>9952485

[Anonymous No.9952613]

>>9952496
Because NASA's actual motives were never their ostensible motives. Their profit (the salaries of its employees, the salaries of its contractors' employees, the profits of its contractors' owners) comes from leeching as many resources out of the US taxpayer as possible, not from achieving any of its stated goals. Their motivation, therefore, is to be as inefficient as will be tolerated.

SpaceX wants to build an orbital rocket that's as reusable as an airliner, because it's a private company and this would be both super cool and incredibly profitable. There's no conflict of interest. They can't make more money or have better lives by saying they're going to, and then not doing it. The company's full of people working weekends because they want to ride on the spaceship someday, and the boss both wants to go on the ride too and would make billions by successfully producing the first spaceliner.

[Anonymous No.9952637]

>>9950872
I know it’s a game, but my experience with kerbal has shown me that this will be the hardest part definitely. So many things can go wrong with reentry with such a large ship, capsules are waaaaaay simpler. Kinda makes me believe that a reusable capsule/disposable lander and fully reusable space tug that remains in space between voyages would be safer and more economic.

[Anonymous No.9952671]

>>9952637
>disposable
always less economic long term, as you now have to have a large supply of what ever the thing is, and need to set up resupply systems, increasing logistical complexity

[Anonymous No.9952691]

>>9952637
>fully reusable space tug that remains in space
Really fucking hard to make that work. If you use aerobraking, you've got the same problem. If you don't, you've got much higher delta-v maneuver costs. If it always lives in space, you never have it on the ground to do maintenance. Hard as entry, descent, and landing is, it's essential to master it.

Anyway, BFR is primarily a launch vehicle. While it has other applications, the main purpose is to dramatically lower the cost of Earth-to-orbit launch. I personally believe that the technical obstacles to a cheap disposable launch vehicle aren't prohibitive, it's politically infeasible to develop because nobody wants ICBMs to be that cheap.

[Anonymous No.9953513]

>>9950419
There is nothing about modern, bog-standard/off-the-shelf technology that precludes it happening even today. I say this as someone who takes the skeptical position as often as I can. A manned mission to Mars mostly comes down to money, competence and political will. The technology itself is almost the easiest part.

[Anonymous No.9953518]

>>9949615

>Amazon space team forced to work 25 hours a day and have mandatory catheters installed to prevent employees from creating negative publicity.

[Anonymous No.9953521]

>>9949599
No, he's going to be impeached by the SEC any day now.

[Anonymous No.9953523]

>>9949599
Slow and steady wins the race.

[Anonymous No.9953527]

[Anonymous No.9953563]

>>9953523
they're really trying to ram down everyone's throats that it MUST be hyper expensive expendable

[Anonymous No.9953576]

>>9952235
i dont think he'll fail because i dont like the way he acts. i think he'll fail because he has a bad habit of shooting his mouth off on twitter and generating bad press and legal problems for his companies

[Anonymous No.9953581]

>>9952496
Most of NASA's current expenditures are on non-spaceflight related research.

[Anonymous No.9953626]

>>9953523
ULA is part of the military pork complex. They'll make promises of futuristic PowerPoint rockets to placate the space cadets while pedaling the same overpriced, under-performing shit they've been flying since the 1970's. Robert Zubrin alluded to this in his book "Entering Space" when he proposed a launch vehicle with a reusable first stage for small sats and he was told that would take money out of his company's pocket because they have cost plus contracts with the US guvament. Uncle Sam pays for their expenses plus a certain percent for the company's profit. This gave the launch service industry incentive to keep their rockets expensive since they get more jew gold for a pricier rocket.

Elon Musk, OTOH, delivers. Elon Musk said would make a cheaper rocket and he did. Elon Musk said he would make that cheaper rocket even cheaper by recovering and reusing the first stage and he did. Elon Musk said he would slap two additional first stages and outlift the Delta IV Heavy for half the price and he did. Elon Musk has had a proven track record of making access to space cheaper with faster turnaround times. And it's because Elon Musk is in for Mars and not the money as there are easier and more profitable ways to get shekels than start a launch service company with the goal of making cheaper rockets and cutting into any potential profits.

[Anonymous No.9953818]

>>9953626

This.

Americans driven by market forces will always win.

[Anonymous No.9953840]

How hard would it be to create atmosphere around a planet like the moon? i'm assuming you would have to create a bubble around it but what would you need to add to create an atmosphere that would be able to hold air and other gases?

[Anonymous No.9954116]

>>9953840
Just keep topping it up. It won't leak away that fast.

[Anonymous No.9954147]

>>9953523
How do I get into asteroid mining? I just know this is going to explode and I'll regret not spending these next years of my life pushing to be apart of it.

[Anonymous No.9954166]

>>9954147
With expendable launch vehicles.

[Anonymous No.9954215]

>>9953626
>americans letting some eccentric private entity undermine national interests
No wonder your country elected the orange and is steadily pulling away from the status of superpower.

[Anonymous No.9954324]

>>9954147
Come and join me at Colorado School of Mines. We’ve got the world’s first legit space resources program

[Anonymous No.9954344]

9954215

[Anonymous No.9954353]

>>9950377
Tru, and double 7's

[Anonymous No.9954402]

>>9949615
>we could have had reusable rockets 20 years ago.

I heard Blue origin has a lot of engineers working on it that also worked on the DC-X

[Anonymous No.9954403]

>>9954147
How do I get into asteroid mining?
You don't. It'll never be cheaper to mine asteroids than it is mining on earth in your lifetime.

[Anonymous No.9954408]

>>9950377
>>9950872
You guys have no clue about rocketry. Pumping from one big fuel tank into 31 engines connected to it is way more complicated than having three small rockets connected to each other. Just keeping those gigantic amounts of fuel in a subcooled liquid state will already be way more difficult than anything SpaceX did so far.

[Anonymous No.9954416]

>>9953523
This is actually true. In the space race, the Soviets went for the high-risk, high-reward approach that gave them a head start, because the complexity of small and medium sized rockets actually allows to just have a few failures and then get a working rocket going. Wernher von Braun, who was the chief designer of NASA, was heavily critisized in his for time for not following the same approach, but instead go the more conservative road, which led to the US falling behind in the Space Race. In the end though, he definetely proofed his critics wrong: While the high risk-high reward approach of the soviets stopped working for super heavy lift launchers, since each super heavy lifter you are blowing up while testing is just too expensive to keep blowing them up, the more conservative approach of Von Braun proofed superior, with the Saturn rockets having no single failed start neither through development nor operation.

Basically, Elon is the Soviet Union, and BO and ULA is America. Elon is following the "let's blow it up until it works"-approach, while BO/ULA follow a more conservative approach. Elon's approach delievers quick results for smaller rockets, but is unfinancable for bigger rockets.

[Anonymous No.9954430]

>>9949615
>Bezos
>based
pick one

[Anonymous No.9954445]

>>9954416

>with the Saturn rockets having no single failed start neither through development nor operation.

And then promptly cancelled for being too expensive, while Soviet rockets continue to fly. Apollo was a cool stunt enabled by unlimited money, but not the template for a sustainable space program, quite the opposite. The only way to have a sustainable space program is through high launch rate.

[Anonymous No.9954450]

>>9953523
>Expendable rockets
What did they mean by this?

[Anonymous No.9954452]

>>9954416

>Elon's approach delievers quick results for smaller rockets, but is unfinancable for bigger rockets.

Unfinancable maybe, if you only use private money. However, if NASA or DoD decide to seriously pitch in, then the money question is solved. They spend more taxpayer money every year than the entire development budget of BFR.

[Anonymous No.9954470]

>>9954416
>In the space race, the Soviets went for the high-risk, high-reward approach that gave them a head start
No it didn't. Both sides prioritized building a missile that could carry a nuclear weapon to the other. The Americans could base their missiles at relatively close range to Moscow and other targets in the Soviet Union, but the Soviets needed ICBMs to reach American cities. The Americans deployed functional missiles earlier.

The Soviets were actually years behind the Americans in missiles. They launched a satellite into orbit rather than aimed at a target in the ocean because they lacked the guidance and re-entry capability for a practical weapon. The idea of a "space race" was conceived after Sputnik was launched. There was no race to launch the first satellite. There was a race to build a practical nuclear missile arsenal, which the Americans won.

However, after the western press invented this "space race" idiocy to sensationalize the reality of what was happening and get people's attention, they wouldn't back down and report that they had misled the public and raised a false alarm just to make more money. The dynamics of 20th century mass communication forced the US government to respond not to the reality, but to the public perception, even knowing that the public perception was false, and so they established NASA to demonstrate America's technological superiority.

[Anonymous No.9954476]

Elon Musk is a pseudo intellectual cuckold

[Anonymous No.9954499]

>>9954452
>Unfinancable maybe, if you only use private money.
They estimated a development cost of only $10 billion for ITR, before they cut BFR's size in half. Elon Musk's personal net worth is over $20 billion.

Now, what was that $10 billion going to include? Development of three upper stage variants including one that's an interplanetary spacecraft that can support a hundred people for at least half a year without resupply, and test missions to Mars.

Watch: they'll develop a cargo version for $2-3 billion, and after that it'll be self-funding.

[Anonymous No.9954589]

>>9954499
>They estimated

Who the fuck cares what they estimated, just for re-hashing a russian rocket (Falcon 9) they needed around 2 billion. Including all the upgrades, they have spent something between 5-7 billion on the Falcon 9.

[Anonymous No.9954609]

>>9954589
I can't tell whether you're just stupid enough to be this wrong, or a different but equal level of stupid where you think this is clever trolling.

Initial development for Falcon 9 was $300 million. Since then, they've spent maybe $1 billion on upgrades, including several major revisions, the reusability program, and Falcon Heavy.

[Anonymous No.9954724]

>>9954609
You must be seriously dense if you think SpaceX only spent 300 million across 12 years to develop a rocket. Just as an FYI: Even in 2014, SpaceX was already making 1 billion in revenue, while only having 6 launches in that year. Each costing them around 50 million, they had 300 million launching expenditures. What exactly do you think is happening with the other 70% of the revenue?

Now if you follow that calculation for every year from 2002 to 2017 (when BFR development started), you get 5-7 billion spending on Falcon 9 and all its iterations.

[Anonymous No.9954735]

>>9954403
No I'll figure out how to make it

[Anonymous No.9954741]

>>9954609
do not respond to paid shills
it just makes them keep going

[Anonymous No.9954745]

>>9954724
>>Initial development for Falcon 9 was $300 million. Since then, they've spent maybe $1 billion
>You must be seriously dense if you think SpaceX only spent 300 million across 12 years to develop a rocket.
The stupid, it burns.

>What exactly do you think is happening with the other 70% of the revenue?
So your assumption is that they've been spending every penny they make on Falcon 9? That's the dumbest shit I've ever seen in a SpaceX thread.

>2017 (when BFR development started)
BFR was under development for years before that. Where do you think Raptor came from? Or the ITS prototype oxygen tank? Or the BFR concept?

>>9954741
If someone's paying for this, they're getting seriously ripped off.

[Anonymous No.9954767]

>>9954745
>So your assumption is that they've been spending every penny they make on Falcon 9? That's the dumbest shit I've ever seen in a SpaceX thread.

So what else were they spending it for?

>BFR was under development for years before that. Where do you think Raptor came from?

Came from? You do realize it is still not a full scaled?

>If someone's paying for this, they're getting seriously ripped off.

Funny thing is Elon's companies are well-known to heavily invest in "viral marketing" (e.g. shilling the shit out of the internet).

[Anonymous No.9954777]

this shill isn't even trying to hide himself anymore
fucking hell, I am offended by this completely lack of quality
I'm having a word with your boss about this

[Anonymous No.9954786]

>>9954767
>So what else were they spending it for?
It's a for-profit, private company. They don't have to spend all of their earnings. They've also clearly been spending signficant funds on development of their next-generation rocket, and on construction of their own private spaceport.

I don't know what their earnings are, and neither do you, but they've talked about what they've spent developing Falcon 9, and it's not multiple billions of dollars.

>You do realize it is still not a full scaled?
You mean it wasn't full-scale two years ago? You think that's a big deal? They worked out all of the hard problems when they got it running that well. For the BFR concept, they only needed about 50% scale-up. That's minor.

>Elon's companies are well-known to heavily invest in "viral marketing" (e.g. shilling the shit out of the internet).
Oh bullshit. Elon's opponents are well-known to heavily invest in shilling. Elon's stuff goes viral because people are interested.

[Anonymous No.9954798]

>>9954786
Oh yeah sure, Elon sure as fuck took all the money out of SpaceX to buy jewelery and fast cars. So, ones again. What exactly did SpaceX do with >8 billion in profits, subsidies and investment it generated and recieved until 2016?

[Anonymous No.9954815]

>>9954798
>What exactly did SpaceX do with >8 billion in profits, subsidies and investment it generated and recieved until 2016?
I'd say about $0.1 billion on Falcon 1 development, $1.3 billion on Falcon 9 development, maybe $4 billion on operations, facilities, fees, and overhead, $0.5 billion on initial Dragon 1 development, $1 billion on Dragon 1 upgrades and Dragon 2 development, and the rest went toward Raptor, BFR, their satellite business, paying interest on loans, and taxes.

There are a lot of expensive things for a rocket company other than development.

[Anonymous No.9954829]

>>9954815
Are you retarded or something? 12 billion in revenue, 100 launches. 5 billion for launching expenditures, so how exactly are they spending 4 billion on "operations, facilities and fees"? What exactly is that even supposed to mean? You are just a complete retard. SpaceX didnt even need to pay for launch pad because NASA just gave it to them.

[Anonymous No.9954888]

>>9954829
They haven't done 100 launches, you idiot. What is this "$12 billion in revenue" now after you said 8? They're not a publicly-traded company. They don't publish their financials. You're just making up numbers, trying to make some up that fit with your bullshit.

SpaceX has 7000 employees, mostly in production, and they have little use for cheap, low-skill labor. They don't order their rockets a la carte. They have to pay for the factory and pay their employees a salary and pay taxes and fees associated with running a factory and other facilities, whether there are production problems or not.

They don't get paid in full for their contracts until their services are delivered. They have done 60 launches. If the average launch price is $80 million, and if you're correct that the average cost to SpaceX has turned out to be $50M, then they've made $1.8 billion net income to date (not before 2016; up to the end of 2015, they had only done 20 launches, and had $600 million) to possibly spend on things like development, plus development contracts and investments. They'd have had to pay tax on that income.

They don't get paid up front in full to the maximum value of every contract when they sign it. They generally get a deposit, with the balance paid incrementally as they hit planning and production milestones toward the launch. They can't just spend that deposit on whatever they like, the requirement to actually perform is a liability, and they have to keep sufficient funds to actually perform it.

The big government contracts are more complicated. As of now, they'll have seen very little of the maximum $2.6 billion value of the Dragon 2 contract, because they haven't delivered the completed vehicle or flown any missions.

>SpaceX didnt even need to pay for launch pad because NASA just gave it to them.
SpaceX pays for a lease on each pad they use on government property, and they also had to adapt the pads for their rockets and have to maintain them.

[Anonymous No.9954907]

>>9954888
You are too dumb to read. I said at least 8 billion they made until 2016 in profits, subsidies and investments. You are literally too dumb to read and/or dont know the difference between revenue profit. Sad.

So you think spaceX is employing 7.000 people in production. Sad. They are mostly researchers, doing research.

[Anonymous No.9954910]

>>9954888
I told you hombre, it's a shill
he's hired by one of SpaceX's competitors to shit up places where SpaceX is discussed
just don't reply, since they're going to continuously ignore everything you say to get more (You)s, and thus another shekel

[Anonymous No.9954912]

>>9949599
I hope humans never go to Mars.

[Anonymous No.9955188]

>>9953523
I may be wrong but I think most of thoues expendable rockets are edits, seems too cluttered to be real.

[Anonymous No.9955190]

>>9954215
I didn't say one goddamn thing about Trump but somehow, you manage to shoehorn in a "fuck Trump" into a thread about space.

The world doesn't revolve around your butthurt over the results of an election. If I wanted to read shit posts about politics, I'd go to /pol/. In fact, feel free to go over there and tell them about your grievances because I sure as fuck don't want to hear it. That's why I'm here at /sci/ and not /pol/. Here, I'll post the link for you.

>>>/pol/

There you go. Now fuck off and go over there and bitch about Trump.

[Anonymous No.9955195]

>>9954910
sadly the temptation to argue is extremely strong. I just look at the FUD nowadays and sigh.

Hopefully that one anon will take your advice

[Anonymous No.9955203]

fucking hurry up Elon so I can post it

[Anonymous No.9955228]

>>9955190
>replying to a half day old shitpost
Can you follow him out?

[Anonymous No.9955239]

>>9955228
Fuck no, I won't. I'm here to talk about Space-X. I got my feel of politics years ago.

[Anonymous No.9955246]

>>9955228
Fuck no, I won't. I'm here to talk about Space-X. I got my fill of politics years ago.

[Anonymous No.9955480]

Probably not because SpaceX is in the business of making money. See Howard Hughes, who had all the tools for his own moonbase but chose against it due to the sheer cost. Also: in 2021 XS-1 flies and will dent SpaceX's market as DoD launches will return to Boeing vehicles, perhaps in a way that utterly fucks up SpaceX unless NASA gets serious about a lunar program to subsidize them with.

Realistically speaking any Mars landing isn't happening until after Pence leaves office in 2032, and this assumes he or Trump secures a huge funding increase in their first terms. Before any of this happens NASA needs to make a nuclear-powered transfer vehicle and some sort of orbital Mars lab as a base station/rally point/backup plan for an actual landing mission.

>>9950475

The only thing worse than a bureaucratic hell is a BFR blowing up on the launchpad and killing 100+ astronauts and destroying both the rocket and the launchpad. NASA is doing Musk a huge favor.

[Anonymous No.9955493]

>>9950589

Teslas are useless without a road, solar panels on Mars don't have half the power they do on earth. What's needed is a nuclear reactor (say an SMR the US is hoping to start building in the mid 2020s) complete with more exotic technologies like wireless power transmission. Likewise Tesla makes cars, not off-road trucks. You got something with the TBMs, but TBMs aren't going to Mars because they're big and heavy. At the very most a thermal penetrator (exposed nuclear reactor boring machine, which the AEC tested in the 60s) would be used as it'd have few moving parts and wouldn't wreck itself on launch.

As for Starlink, remember HughesNet? That was going to be the communications network between earth and our lunar cities by the millennium. We've been here before.

[Anonymous No.9955526]

>>9949599

If it works without too many unforeseen problems, it's the only actual design that's being made in rather quickly that can do it.

[Anonymous No.9955597]

>>9949859
>N1 rocket doesn’t have a single successful launch
>lunar lander and command module don’t actually hard dock to each other, require cosmonaut to spacewalk to lander in order to make it to lunar surface
>lander only fits one person, if something goes wrong (like that’s never happened in the Soviet lunar program before) you die as the loneliest human in the universe
What the fuck were they thinking.

[Anonymous No.9955671]

>>9950589
Starlink and the even more retarded "Earth-to-Earth"-rocket flights are being made up because there isn't much to do for a space company. What use does a rocket that can fly 1000 times have, if you have maximum 20 launches a year? SpaceX is trying desperately to increase their launch numbers so they came up with Starlink and "fly to australia on a rocket"-bullshit. Both are dogshit in economic terms, but dont let the fanboys know that.

[Anonymous No.9955679]

>>9955671
>10%+ of the entire ISP market
>government contracts as well
it makes perfect sense. Why do you think there are other competitors like OneWeb?
Also, the military has already shown interest in buying E2E flights on BFR.
Jeez, you remind me of the retarded Ariane-contract poster.

[Anonymous No.9955755]

>>9949599
>the SLS meme
Lrn2meme fgt pls

[Anonymous No.9955990]

>>9954912
Why?

[Anonymous No.9955998]

>>9955679
You are retarded if you believe you can serve 10% of the market via satellites. You would need hundreds of thousands for the US alone (1 satellite can serve roughly 30-40 households with high speed internet). OneWeb is going an entirely different road. They want a few hundred to a few thousand satellites to cover with low speed internet. The aimed market is underdeveloped regions. One OneWeb satellite will serve several thousand households. This can make sense economically. What Elon is doing is simply retarded.

[Anonymous No.9956081]

>>9955493
>solar panels on Mars don't have half the power they do on earth. What's needed is a nuclear reactor
Even on Mars, solar panels will give you far more energy per unit mass shipped to Mars than nuclear reactors, and also don't have catastrophic failure modes. They're not idiots at SpaceX, saying that they're going to deploy solar panels to make their propellant and run their base. They did the math.

[Anonymous No.9956082]

>>9955998
>1 satellite can serve roughly 30-40 households with high speed internet
Number pulled directly from ass.

[Anonymous No.9956091]

>>9955998
>What Elon is doing is simply retarded.
Retarded like a fox.

[Anonymous No.9956129]

>>9956082
One satellite has a theoretical maximum capacity of 28.000Mbit/s, however they can only operate on 60% of that due to weather and orbit, and some capacity needed for internal communications. That's 16.800Mbit/s per satellite, if you sell 500Mbit/s internet to the customer, you can serve roughly 33 users.

[Anonymous No.9956149]

>>9955493
I don't necessarily agree with him but your arguments aren't perfect. So let's play devils advocate.
>Teslas are useless without a road... not off-road trucks
They also aren't sealed against vacuum. Tesla is about creating the requisite technologies and infrastructure for eventual rover designs, not dropping Model Xs on the surface. Rovers are needed, and electric rovers mean you can eliminate a lot of the additional infrastructure. The technology for off road vehicles was already here. It didn't need to be developed. It's the electric part needed to be developed, and thats what they did.
>solar panels on Mars don't have half the power they do on earth.
Eh close enough - less than half the insolation at the top of the atmosphere but with less atmosphere to go through. Something like 60%, surface to surface. But panels are comparatively easy to fabricate in situ and so are easily expansible, are modular meaning more fail-safe, installations are more easily divisible, and don't require fuel shipments. He wants to put a colony on Mars, not an outpost. A city of 1m on Earth powered by nuclear power would require about 40 tonnes of fuel per year. On Mars that will be higher, because they'll be far more reliant on technology and powered infrastructure, and that figure is assuming a single, efficient NPP which it can't be or you'd be over reliant and unable to branch off the main city at all. That's a lot of mass to be launching routinely, and who pays the ongoing Earth based cost?
> You got something with the TBMs
Funnily enough I'd say this is where he's most obviously wrong. You don't need to be that deep to be protected and tunnelers are very specialised and very heavy, even yours. It'd be easier to bring excavators to dig dugouts and bury them in the ~3m of shielding required.
>HughesNet lunar cities
I don't remember any claims about this, but I'm interested. Got links?

[Anonymous No.9956157]

>>9956129
Not the anon you're responding to, but sources on all those numbers? Because there's no more proof those are correct than the original post he was skeptical of.

[Anonymous No.9956159]

>>9956129
>One satellite has a theoretical maximum capacity of 28.000Mbit/s
Explain how ViaSat-1, with 2011 technology, provides 140,000Mbit/s then.

They're not going to use a single omnidirectional antenna and one frequency. They'll use an array of directional antennae to break up the area underneath.

>they can only operate on 60% of that
Another made-up number.

>capacity needed for internal communications
That'll be on a completely different system. In space, they can use optical

>That's 16.800Mbit/s per satellite, if you sell 500Mbit/s internet to the customer, you can serve roughly 33 users.
You don't need to provide the peak download rate all the time. 10 Mb/s sustained would satisfy most customers, and there's a big market for 1 Mb/s sustained. Most people's internet connections sit idle most of the time and work in short bursts.

[Anonymous No.9956162]

>>9956157
He’s eighth, but he’s also wrong. The overall throughput of an individual sat is like 2gbps. But, he’s assuming that people in cities will use it for some reason. The principle customers are rural areas and the government

sources in a sec

[Anonymous No.9956164]

>>9956162
*hes right

[Anonymous No.9956169]

>>9956162
*forgot a zero on the 2 there. Individual sat throughput is 20gbps

https://apps.fcc.gov/els/GetAtt.html?id=185534&x=..
http://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=1158349

[Anonymous No.9956244]

>>9954408
Wrong on all counts. Building one big cylinder is easier than building and connecting three separate, smaller cylinders. Keeping cold liquids cold is much easier the larger the volume of liquid you have.

[Anonymous No.9956249]

>>9954476
he's winning so what does that tell you

[Anonymous No.9956252]

>>9954499
>ITR
ITS

>>9954589
lol NASA verified that SpaceX spent around $300 million to develop Falcon 9, which was ten times less than what they estimated it'd take. Nearly all further development has been done on paid-for missions. Get fucked.

[Anonymous No.9956256]

>>9954767
>Came from? You do realize it is still not a full scaled?
Right, I forgot rocket engines don't cost anything until you develop the full sized version. When will they realize that if they design their rockets to use the sub-scale engines then the engines are totally free?

[Anonymous No.9956265]

>>9956162
>he’s assuming that people in cities will use it for some reason. The principle customers are rural areas and the government
While they are aiming for rural areas, SpaceX thinks they can get up to 10% of the traffic in major cities eventually.

>>9956169
>Individual sat throughput is 20gbps
That's the minimum technology they might deploy. They're planning to carry on upgrading.

You know, I think their first BFS will be designed for this mission. It'll only need a small door, like the manned BFS but without needing life support, and it can do useful work right away, unlike the tanker variant. It'll be the easiest thing to design and build. Even if they fail to recover the BFS, it'll still have done the work of multiple Falcon Heavy launches, and they'll have put up ~200 satellites for ~$100 million. If they recover it, they get to launch again.

This is their incremental development path for BFR. They need to build multiples per year anyway. Even without successful BFS recovery, they can launch the initial 1600 satellites by building 8 BFSes. They'll probably get bottlenecked by satellite production rather than BFS production.

[Anonymous No.9956270]

recent starlink news
>USAF has begun working with SpaceX to test the feasibility of using the company’s planned Starlink satellite internet constellation for military communications purposes

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-internet-testing-high-performance-govt-aircraft/

[Anonymous No.9956272]

>>9955480
>Probably not because SpaceX is in the business of making money.
This is the antithesis of SpaceX, which was created from the beginning to enable human colonization of the solar system. If Elon wanted to make money he'd have played the stock market, because as he said, you don't start a rocket company if you want to make money. The margins are simply too small and there's a huge risk involved, it's essentially a miracle that SpaceX turned out as successful as it did. Even so, SpaceX won't start making serious money until they finish BFR, and that comes with the caveat that the industries that build payloads for space will react to the low launch costs of BFR quickly and significantly. Falcon 9 launches are expected to slow down next year simply because SpaceX is chewing through launch backlog way faster than new contracts are being signed.

>2021 XS-1 flies and will dent SpaceX's market as DoD launches will return to Boeing vehicles
XS-1 has too little payload to orbit to make sense for the majority of the payloads the DoD wants to launch. Also, BFR may very well be fully operational by 2021, in which case the DoD will have to choose between a several-million-$ XS-1 flight or a several-million-$ BFR flight which can carry 100x the payload and go anywhere.

[Anonymous No.9956277]

>>9955480
>The only thing worse than a bureaucratic hell is a BFR blowing up on the launchpad and killing 100+ astronauts and destroying both the rocket and the launchpad. NASA is doing Musk a huge favor.
BFR has nothing to do with NASA and won't be needing to deal with NASA fiddling because it isn't being built for a NASA contract. As long as the FAA clears the launch (and they will, there's nothing that says launching with no LES or other escape system is against FAA regulations), then the launch will happen. Also BFR is supposed to be totally reliable in terms of reusability, which means it needs to be reliable in terms of launch as well. SpaceX isn't dumb, and even though BFR is bigger and has more engines, in terms of systems complexity it's actually simpler than Falcon 9 (no helium system, no TEA-TEB, no nitrogen thrusters). It's all methane and oxygen, two fluids.

[Anonymous No.9956282]

I just want to see the New Armstrong specs

[Anonymous No.9956301]

>>9956081
Nuclear beats solar on Mars as long as you use something with a high core temperature, like metal cooled or salt cooled. Kilopower won't beat solar but it'd not designed to, it's designed to be 100% reliable. High-power reactors have been built before, one of them for the aircraft reactor experiment and a few others for nuclear thermal engines. Aircraft reactor was a reactor the size of a mini fridge that output two million watts of heat, which at modern conversion efficiency is between 800 and 1000 kilowatts electric. Pewee was a nuclear thermal rocket reactor rated at two gigawatts of heat output, or 800 to 1000 megawatts electric, and weighed less than a ton.

The heavy parts of a nuclear reactor are not the reactor cores. The heaviest component by far is radiation shielding, but we can use compacted Mars dirt for that, so its mass is irrelevant. The second heaviest part is the cooling system, for which we'd need to send several thousand square meter's worth of radiators. However, if we decided instead to send the minimum amount of radiators that allowed the reactor to run and produce enough power for an aluminum smelter, we'd be able to build the rest of the radiators on Mars. Ignoring this however we'd probably need the mass capacity of a single BFR to send a 1 gigawatt-electric rated nuclear reactor to Mars, which would run continuously day and night and through dust storms.

At most solar power on Mars makes sense as a stopgap power supply, but for a real economy to kick in you need high capacity nuclear power.

[Anonymous No.9956306]

>>9956282
>it weighs 150% the mass of BFR but gets 100 tons into orbit in reusable mode because it spends 45 seconds hovering above the landing pad before touchdown
>it lands 600 km downrange on a ship instead of RTLS and can be reused once per month
> it's a two-stage-to-orbit with an optional third stage that allows Moon missions rather than having a refuel-able second stage vehicle like BFR
>third stage is expendable
>first stage uses hydrogen while second stage uses methane, third stage switched back to hydrogen but uses a unique engine
>second stage uses parachutes to descend over the west Texas desert, has a set of solid motors that fire to soften touchdown on airbags
>first launch slated for 2035

slow and steady guys :^)

[Anonymous No.9956348]

>>9956301
>Nuclear beats solar on Mars as long as you use something with a high core temperature, like metal cooled or salt cooled.
This is pure fantasy.

>Pewee was a nuclear thermal rocket reactor rated at two gigawatts of heat output
...with a service life measured in hours.

>or 800 to 1000 megawatts electric
No, a rocket doesn't generate electricity. Compare the mass and thermal output of a chemical rocket engine to the mass and electrical output of a long-term-reliable generator. It's the same basic problem: to get electrical power out of heat in the long term takes several orders of magnitude more mass off equipment than the same amount of heat in the short term.

Do you know what most of the power needed on Mars will be needed to drive chemical processes that can be done on an opportunistic basis, and that will create fuel that can be burned for essential power during dust storms? Do you know that they're now making reasonably efficient photovoltaic cells only a few atoms thick?

>the mass capacity of a single BFR to send a 1 gigawatt-electric rated nuclear reactor to Mars
1 GWe is not a portable reactor, that's a full-scale power plant, at least triple the output of a supercarrier's reactor, and you think it can be put on a rocket? This technology doesn't exist, and if it were invented today, it couldn't be relied on as a critical power source without decades of testing.

You talk about refining aluminum on Mars to make nuclear reactor parts. Do you not realize that it would be far easier to manufacture solar cells on Mars?

[Anonymous No.9956354]

>>9956159
Yes, people who pay for 500Mbit/s are going to be satisfied with 10Mbit/s. Get fucked.

And no, Starlink has said very often and very clearly that they, unlike OneWeb and Samsung, are planning to sell high-speed-internet access. They are not going into the 1Mbit market.

[Anonymous No.9956368]

>>9956354
>people who pay for 500Mbit/s are going to be satisfied with 10Mbit/s
A 500 Mbit/s residential connection does not generally mean you get to use 500 Mbit/s continously, transferring 54 terabytes per day. It means you get 500 Mbit/s peak, so pages load quickly during normal web browsing. 1 Mbit/s sustained is 3 terabytes per month, which is more than most people use on current high-speed-internet. 500 Mbit/s sustained is sufficient to host a major website.

[Anonymous No.9956407]

The whole concept is flawed. Mars colonization will never be financially viable, and colony cannot be maintained for free. Many like to compare it to the new world, but that is simply ridiculous. Unlike mars, there was warmth, air,land, and food in the americas.

Dreaming is fine, hallucinating is not.

[Anonymous No.9956422]

>>9956407
>Unlike mars, there was warmth, air,land, and food in the americas.
>there's no land on Mars
Unlike the 17th century, the 21st century has electricity, biotech, systematic chemistry, and space ships.

[Anonymous No.9956445]

>>9956422
do not respond to shitposters

[Anonymous No.9956559]

>>9956272
Even if industry takes some time to catch up on building large payloads, there will be shitloads of small players like universities, research labs and big companies who will happily rideshare for dirt cheap tickets.

[Anonymous No.9956630]

I just want the SeaDragon

[Anonymous No.9956700]

>>9956630
>Expendable

Into the trash it goes.

[Anonymous No.9956819]

>>9956368
Yeah boy, people will pay premium to have 1mbits. How fucking retardes are you fanboys?

[Anonymous No.9956849]

>>9956700
>expendable
Refurbishable*

[Anonymous No.9956925]

>>9956819
It's not supposed to be premium. It's just supposed to be competitive in the cities and the clear winner in remote areas. And you're seriously confused about consumer internet if you think that 500 Mbps means actually being allowed to transfer 54 terabytes per day.

[Anonymous No.9957004]

>>9955493
Elon is supportive of nuclear power in space, and NASA is working on small modular reactors (1-10 kW) which are designed for use on automated, unmanned space probes.

[Anonymous No.9957035]

>>9954402
>we could have had reusable rockets 50 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwh8hjjzAKs

[Anonymous No.9957153]

>>9957004
Kilopower is quite literally only useful for probes, for the amount it weighs you could get a ridiculous amount of solar instead and simply use the Methane you are always making as a backup power source during dust storms.

[Anonymous No.9957175]

>>9957153
you could try a larger nuclear reactor
don't need to go fun sized for a colony

[Anonymous No.9957178]

>>9957175
Again the weight issue is a problem, especially if these new super thin panels pan out.

[Anonymous No.9957202]

>>9957178
solar panels get cucked by night and dust storms, things mars gets plenty of
nuclear runs 24/7 and takes a small amount of space compared to solar

[Anonymous No.9957211]

>>9957153
You mean the dust storms that last for months?

https://www.space.com/40952-mars-dust-storm-2018-covers-entire-planet.html

"The dust storm has knocked NASA's Opportunity rover offline for want of sunlight. The agency's nuclear-powered Curiosity, meanwhile, is snapping photos of the ever-darkening Martian sky. The two rovers are on opposite sides of Mars."

Sorry, but the solar panels should be saved for open space within the inner solar system.

[Anonymous No.9957320]

new service arm pic

[Anonymous No.9957333]

>>9957320
Damn SpaceX makes aesthetic shit.

[Anonymous No.9957394]

>>9957320
Halo 3 Valhalla

[Anonymous No.9957401]

Also white cladding like in the CGI renders confirmed. 39a will be one sexy pad

[Anonymous No.9957429]

>>9949599
>Can Elon Do It?
no

[Anonymous No.9957436]

>>9955597
>you die as the loneliest human in the universe

[Anonymous No.9957444]

>>9957436
the Apollo CSM pilot had to train for contingencies if the other two on the surface never returned. Freaky stuff.

[Anonymous No.9957489]

>>9957444
>Apollo CSM
Apollo Chaos Space Marine?

[Anonymous No.9957491]

>>9957489
command service module

[Anonymous No.9957685]

>>9956422
Unlike Mars, Earth has a magnetic field to shield people from radiation

[Anonymous No.9957791]

>>9957685
Short term people will just have to spend most of their time in underground habitats. Longer term, building an artificial magnetic shield for Mars looks to be surprisingly doable.

[Anonymous No.9957805]

>>9957791

that can protect against solar wind but it aint gonna do shit for galactic cosmic rays, which are the main radiation problem on Mars, you still need to spend most time underground

[Anonymous No.9957862]

>>9957805
I'm still holding out for radiation proof metamaterials.

[Anonymous No.9957873]

>>9957805
but it will prevent stripping the atmosphere. So with the magnetic shield allows more atmospheric, longterm seeding (comets) and the thicker atmosphere protects agains the galactic background rads.

[Anonymous No.9957895]

>>9957873
The L1 station is a cool idea anon but it is a bit of a pipe dream, the size of the field required as well as the thrust needed to keep the station steady against the tremendous force being exerted on the field is truly ridiculous. An easier solution is to band the planet in superconductors and create it that way, still a ridiculously large task but far, far easier than the L1 proposal.

[Anonymous No.9957990]

>>9957895
What sort of thrust would be necessary?
>>9957805
GCR on an otherwise unprotected celestial body would account for roughly 100 to 200 millisieverts (depending on natural variation) per year. For reference 50 millisieverts per year is the safety limit for radiation workers. The atmosphere on Mars, such as it is, provides the equivalent of only about 6cm of aluminum shielding. So those give you a baseline for what percentage of the time you need to spend shielded/what percentage you need to be shielded at all times.

[Anonymous No.9958033]

>>9956925
Starlink is not Oneweb, they have clearly said they are going for highspeed, you dumb fuck.

[Anonymous No.9958037]

>>9950419
Asinine comment

[Anonymous No.9958057]

>>9957685
The magnetic field only really matters in low Earth orbit. On the Earth surface, it's the thick atmosphere that protects us from space radiation. Mars also has an atmosphere, though it's much thinner. This would protect people on the surface from solar proton events, which are the worst threat of space radiation, which can cause acute radiation sickness and prompt death.

The threat that remains is cosmic rays, which are only a moderately serious cancer/mutagenic risk. Solid stone stops that, so on the Mars surface cosmic radiation is generally around half of what it would be in interplanetary space. Generally, it's line-of-sight into deep space, so if you're in a valley, your exposure is cut considerably, add a thick roof to your home, and you can get it as low as you like.

Living in tunnels underground or buried habitats is one simple, effective solution, but perhaps not an especially enjoyable one. The important thing is to have the sky blocked. If you wanted to enjoy the scenery, you could even live in a tower, you'd just need radiation shielding against the sky. Windows facing out over the land could be thin (though you might not want them to be, since they have to hold the air in), while windows facing the sky would need to be thick: you might basically live under a swimming-pool or ice-block ceiling (it would take some cleverness to get such a thick block of ice nicely transparent). Other options include solid transparent plastic or glass.

Another consideration is that medicine is going to continue to advance. Likely in the future we'll have much better cancer treatments and preventatives, so people living on Mars might have very little concern for radiation. In any case, some time can certainly be spent unshielded or in lightly-shielded vehicles without serious health risks.

[Anonymous No.9958117]

>>9956306
Well proven traditional design vs futuristic scifi space shuttle.
Even the proposed dry mass is insane - 85 tons. A single look at the comparable weight of heavily composite state of the art aircraft manufactured today makes that as unrealistic as promises of antigravity.

Either the weight grows massively or the size is reduced in kind. If it ever leaves the PR division it will experience both.

There is no need to reinvent the rocket wheel and overpromises are harmful as they warp public perception on the subject. I can't count how many times i've heard "why spend on NASA when spacex does it better". Manufacturing good pr by debasing those who do actual work in space is devastating to space exploration. The budgets are tight enough as it is.

[Anonymous No.9958147]

>>9958117
>the proposed dry mass is insane - 85 tons. A single look at the comparable weight of heavily composite state of the art aircraft manufactured today
BFS isn't an aircraft, it's a rocket. The engines have an order of magnitude more thrust per unit weight. The wings are tiny, essentially fins: it doesn't fly with them, they're just to stabilize it during atmospheric entry by means other than weight distribution. The body is a simple cylindrical pressure vessel. The landing gear is simple legs.

The dry weight is consistent with advanced upper stages, with the addition of heat shielding, stub wings, and landing gear.

[Anonymous No.9958157]

>>9958057
>atmosphere not magnetic field protects us

Source?

This goes HEAVILY against common sense.

[Anonymous No.9958200]

>>9958157
>>technical detail about space radiation
>This goes HEAVILY against common sense.
Congratulations: you win the dumbest shit in the thread award!

Space radiation (other than sunlight) is mostly charged particles. Why would you expect these to be able to fly for miles through a thick atmosphere without colliding with molecules and slowing down? If you're worried about kinds of radiation other than charged particles, why would you expect a magnetic field to do anything about them?

On Earth's surface, you've got the equivalent of over ten meters of liquid air between you and space. That's a very thick shield against ionizing radiation. This is what stops the cosmic rays that would be your main problem on Mars. The magnetic field mostly stops the solar protons, but if it wasn't there, the atmosphere would stop them easily, since they're much less energetic (and therefore easier to block) than the cosmic rays.

Consider the polar aurorae: that's the magnetic field channeling space radiation down into Earth's atmosphere at the poles. It's not just not protecting the Earth's surface at the poles, it's intensifying the radiation. Are humans at the polar surface in any danger from this radiation? No, because atmospheric shielding turns it into a pretty light show.

This is a good overview of the radiation conditions on Mars and the role of the Martian atmosphere:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930009920.pdf

[Anonymous No.9958342]

>>9957153
>use the Methane you are always making as a backup power source during dust storms.
this is the worst idea ever and also you should kill yourself. A Mars base is going to have a hard enough time producing enough propellant to refill a single BFS in the best case scenario, and you want them to rely on burning that stuff if their power supply drops out? May as well sell tickets to Mars as a one-way trip because thy're never gonna be able to refuel anything at that rate.

[Anonymous No.9958396]

>>9958342
The base's critical electricity needs are small compared to the fuel needs, therefore only a small percentage of the fuel would be burned to power essential systems on the base during dust storms, you innumerate fuck.

If they can supply propellant for a return trip, they can certainly also supply fuel for backup generators.

[Anonymous No.9958416]

>>9958396
>If they can supply propellant for a return trip
They don't need to supply for A return trip, they need to develop the capacity to supply for DOZENS of return trips, and there will be many sinodes when they miss that target and several ships are forced to stay.

[Anonymous No.9958465]

>>9958416
Solar power is far more mass-efficient than nuclear, and easier to produce independently on Mars. If you believe it won't work with solar, then you should also believe it will be even farther from working with nuclear.

People have done the math. Energy supply isn't a problem with solar, even factoring in dust storms. You haven't done the math, because you're too fucking stupid to even do arithmetic, therefore you pick an option on a whim, and then make things up to pretend that it's the right one.

[Anonymous No.9958472]

>>9955671
Starlink is actually real, they got through all the government paperwork for it and if they don't have it operational by 2024 they'll get a hefty fine for wasting the frequency bands.
If the intention was not doing it then they're really really dedicated to creating some retarded cover up for no reason.
To launch all the satellites in time they only need 20 launches a year, they're already getting close to this number so its not unreasonable for them to do it.

[Anonymous No.9959392]

>>9949599
It will not only do it, it will do it from Texas.
>Florida Man BTFO

[Anonymous No.9959691]

>>9953626

[Anonymous No.9959693]

>>9954166

[Anonymous No.9959695]

>>9954166
>>9953523

[Anonymous No.9959699]

oops wrong one

[Anonymous No.9959713]

>>9949615
Implying Bezos could ever part with enough of his money for this company to be succesful.

[Anonymous No.9959721]

>>9959699
>Why can't I hold all these expendable launch vehicles???

[Anonymous No.9959735]

>>9949814
Also wasn't the N1 the one where one of the flights exploded because the pump for one of the engines went tits up?

[Anonymous No.9959776]

>>9955597
Probably "Better make the best of this completely bullshit deadline and have something to show off as the party guy above me breaths down my neck about bullshit" but in Russian

[Anonymous No.9959820]

>>9949615
>literally Slow and Steady: The Rocket Company
>First

[Anonymous No.9959826]

so where is that BFR update that Musk promised?

[Anonymous No.9959841]

>>9959735
The only reason the soviets went for the N1 design is because they literally didn't have bigger engines, and they thought developing them first would put them way behind the US in the moon race. It was a desperate decision they had no other option to. SpaceX however does. They are actually developing completely new engines for the BFR anyways. So why not make the Raptors five times larger than they are planned as? Have 6 engines instead of 31 with the same specs. I heard Elon say because "you can turn off engines to land" but then again the Raptors are designed to throttle anyways. No matter how you turn it, it's just a weird decision that doesn't really make sense. And it's making me think they are not really planning it to use them on a BFR, the BFR being nothing more than a scam to lure in investor money, and are going to instead use them on a smaller rocket.

[Anonymous No.9959854]

>>9950683
>>9950845
Tesla's fucked because Musk can't into factory automation and the competition is closing in. All his successful business ventures have dealt with semi-custom or non-physical products.
>>9950589
is a nice idea, but if hes right then I don't think Musk would actually care all that much if Tesla goes tits up given the industry response
when its clearly the opposite
(also Neuralink doesn't fit in; but thats going to go Extremely poorly due to management, can't say more without fucking over a friend)

[Anonymous No.9959860]

>>9957895
If we succeed in fusion I can see this happening, but until then the phrase "band the planet in superconductors" will only illicit hearty laughter.

[Anonymous No.9959911]

Why do people think Musk can make a successful colony when he has zero equipment to make anything on Mars and also has a massive power problem just for making rocket fuel there?

[Anonymous No.9959914]

>>9959911
>Why do people think Musk can make a successful colony when he has zero equipment to make anything on Mars and also has a massive power problem just for making rocket fuel there?

Because we've known for a while that they intend to send a whole bunch of ships on one way trips with the requisite equipment before they ever send the first crew.

[Anonymous No.9959951]

>>9958057
this post is correct

[Anonymous No.9959954]

>>9958117

>The budgets are tight enough as it is.

Budgets are large enough. You dont deserve a raise until you show that you can utilize the money in an efficient manner. So far with SLS it does not look that way at all. Burying inefficiency with countless $ billions is not what will enable humanity to sustainably expand into space.

[Anonymous No.9959956]

>>9958416

>they need to develop the capacity to supply for DOZENS of return trips

You need 1-2 megawatts of solar to refuel a single BFS over one synod. You can cram tens of megawatts of thin solar cells into a single BFS. It can be done.

[Anonymous No.9959958]

>>9959841

>Have 6 engines instead of 31 with the same specs. I heard Elon say because "you can turn off engines to land" but then again the Raptors are designed to throttle anyways.

Throttling is hard and they are not designed to throttle low enough. Additionally, many engines provide engine-out capability. There is nothing wrong with many engines. Economies of scale are a good thing.

[Anonymous No.9960071]

>>9959958
This must be the most retarded thing I read all week.

[Anonymous No.9960073]

>>9959914
Yeah but this equipment takes billions to develop.

[Anonymous No.9960124]

Impossible without massive international effort. Which is impossible because capitalism.

The pr dreams is all you will get

[Anonymous No.9960237]

>>9959735
The first flight failed because foreign object debris was ingested by one of the engines, which caused the pump to blow up and start a fire, which caused the rocket's other engines to automatically shut down.

The second failure was because the control software had a glitch that resulted in an uncontrolled spin that intensified until the rocket realized something was wrong and blew itself up mid-air as a contingency.

The third and final failure was a result of the engine shutdown sequence just before stage 1 cutoff. To limit G loading a number of the engines would shut down first, followed by the rest. However when this first group of engines shut down it proved to be too much of a shock and caused a liquid hammer in all of the propellant lines, bursting many of them and starting a fire which caused the rocket to blow itself up, again for contingency.

Ironically it's pretty likely that a fourth flight of N1 would have succeeded, because they had been able to test fire all of the other stages, it was only the first stage that was too big to test before flight. With the failure of the final launch and the fact that Americans had already landed on the Moon the entire Soviet Moon program was scrapped.

[Anonymous No.9960255]

>>9959841
Do you want to land on one engine or seven engines? Consider that your seven engines will be throttled down to about 1/2 of their total thrust, so that if even three of the seven engines fail they should still be able to land, whereas if you're trying to land on one engine and it fails to start up, you're hosed. Also consider that if you pick the seven landing engines option you can also use the exact same engine hardware on your second stage vehicle and still have engine-out capability because you're landing with three engines but can still land even if two of them fail.

The decision to shrink Raptor and go for a much bigger cluster of engines makes sense if you consider SpaceX's methods of recovery and basic economics. One of the key things SpaceX has done to keep costs down as low as possible has been to use as much of the same hardware throughout the vehicle as possible. This is why Falcon 9 and Heavy both use Merlin 1D engines on their first and second stages, instead of literally all other launch vehicles which use a completely different engine design between stages. It's also why all of SpaceX's rockets so far have used stages that are of equal diameter, simply to limit the amount of tooling machinery they need to buy in order to build their rockets. SpaceX solved the 'how do we efficiently land Falcon 9' problem by splitting what would have been an engine with as much thrust as an F-1 into nine smaller engines, allowing them to effectively throttle down the stage between 100% thrust and 4% thrust without having to develop an ultra-super-deep throttling engine (which would have been made even harder due to the simple fact of how big that single engine would have had to have been, large combustion chambers have less stable combustion even at full throttle). The second stage of Falcon 9 can't land because it has a single engine.

[Anonymous No.9960264]

>>9960255
(cont)
SpaceX needs BFR's upper stage vehicle to be able to land itself, and they chose the same solution for landing Falcon 9, which is to use a cluster of smaller engines rather than a single much larger engine. In fact, they went a little further, because the BFR upper stage will actually land on three throttled-down engines instead of just one, which means even if one or two fail the remaining ones or one can throttle up and safely land the vehicle regardless.

Since SpaceX wants a lot of safety margin on the upper stage vehicle, and they don't want to have to develop and build more than one engine design to save money, what this means is the first stage of the vehicle will need a large cluster of engines. This cluster will be so large in fact that the landing burn itself will take place with almost as many engines as are used to launch a Falcon 9. This is a good thing, because it's extremely unlikely that enough of these engines will fail during landing that the landing itself will be compromised. This means BFR doesn't have to worry about the reliability of landing burns at all, which is why SpaceX even considered launch-clamp-landings, let alone designed specifically for them.

Even the fact that they'll need almost 40 engines per BFR stack means that the engine will be mass-produced and thus be much cheaper per unit than otherwise.

Big clusters of small engines makes a lot of sense for reusable rockets.

[Anonymous No.9960265]

>>9960255
If an engine fails while landing there is nothing that is going to safe the rocket. That can be an argument for launching, but not landing. In launching however, one engine failing can still mean missing the orbit and therefore it makes no difference if one out of six failed or one out of 31, both will equally destroy the mission. It will only safe the mission if the rocket is loaded considerably below maximum capacity.

[Anonymous No.9960275]

>>9960264
>if one or two fail the remaining ones or one can throttle up and safely land the vehicle regardless.
Unless the F9 center booster situation happens again and they run out of ignition fluid. I suppose if each engine has its own supply it won't be as likely.

[Anonymous No.9960276]

>>9959956
>You need 1-2 megawatts of solar
That's a unit of power, not energy. A megawatt of power could equal any amount of energy depending on the time scales over which it is released.

Sustaining a megawatt of power for a hour is a significant amount of energy. Sustaining a megawatt of power for a nanosecond is a ridiculously tiny amount of energy. For fuel production, energy is the important metric. The total chemical energy contained in 1100 tons of methane and oxygen is measured in gigajoules, eg you could run a gigawatt power generator for hours with that amount of propellant. You only have roughly 600 Martian days to generate that much propellant per BFS, that's roughly a dozen megawatt-hours per day, every day, MINIMUM. Miss one day and you don't go home for another two years. Ideally you'd want at least 150% or more of minimum capacity to account for things like dust storms, down time, etc.

[Anonymous No.9960287]

>>9960265
>If an engine fails while landing there is nothing that is going to safe the rocket.

Wrong. three engines burning at 30% throttle for landing. One of them fails, the other two throttle up in less than a second to 45% to make up for the lost engine. Say now one of these two remaining engines also fails and shuts down. The final engine therefore throttles to 60% and performs the rest of the landing burn on its own. Even a single engine has a comfortable 40% range in throttle before it hits max thrust. This is the entire point of engine-out capability.

SpaceX has had just one engine shut down during launch on Falcon 9 or Heavy so far. They've had a few stages fail to ignite their engines during landing (notable the Falcon Heavy center core) because they ran out of ignition fluid, which is something BFR will not use and thus is a failure mode it will not have. Interestingly the FH center core had failed to ignite two of its three landing engines, something that the BFR upper stage would be able to compensate for and still land safely as I described. The BFR Booster on the other hand would have to lose more engines than have ever failed during a Falcon 9 or Heavy launch or landing combined in order to not be able to safely land itself.

[Anonymous No.9960289]

>>9960275
>Unless the F9 center booster situation happens again and they run out of ignition fluid

Impossible for BFR because Raptor has no ignition fluid. Instead Raptor uses spark ignition to light the preburners in its powerhead, and the gaseous propellants flowing from the powerhead are already hot enough that they are easily lit by a small torch igniter (which is like a tiny rocket engine that exhausts a small but very hot flame into the combustion chamber). for Raptor to run out of 'ignition fluid it would also have to run out of propellant completely.

[Anonymous No.9960292]

>>9960289
>Instead Raptor uses spark ignition to light the preburners in its powerhead
Score another one for methalox, then.

[Anonymous No.9960296]

>>9960265
> In launching however, one engine failing can still mean missing the orbit and therefore it makes no difference if one out of six failed or one out of 31, both will equally destroy the mission.

No because you can just throttle the remaining engines up and/or burn longer.

>It will only safe the mission if the rocket is loaded considerably below maximum capacity.

Rockets are rarely loaded to full capacity. BFR will be especially volume rather than mass limited.

[Anonymous No.9960304]

>>9960292
pretty much, doing that with kerosene is a lot harder because of the fact that it deposits soot on everything which gunks up the ignition system unless it's using a pyrophoric/hypergolic liquid system.

[Anonymous No.9960309]

>>9960276
Obviously he ment that solar panels outputting 1-2 megawatts at peak should be sufficient to refuel the BFR; it should be possible to cram at least 10 megawatts worth solar output ( could be several times higher, if the really thin film panels work out), giving a comfortable 5x safety margin at minimum.

[Anonymous No.9960350]

>>9960309
The tricky part (if they do the safe thing and send an unmanned landing to be there for the next go around) is getting the solar panels laid out. And if it's not producing fast enough, just launch another lander and give the first another two years.

[Anonymous No.9960373]

if ISRU initially doesn't work out, you can always just design cheaper BFRs to permanently stay on the surface. Perhaps turn them over on their sides and then connect them like tubular habitat things?

[Anonymous No.9960438]

>>9960287
Wrong. three engines burning at 30% throttle for landing. One of them fails, the other two throttle up in less than a second to 45% to make up for the lost engine. Say now one of these two remaining engines also fails and shuts down. The final engine therefore throttles to 60% and performs the rest of the landing burn on its own. Even a single engine has a comfortable 40% range in throttle before it hits max thrust. This is the entire point of engine-out capability.

It absoluetely does not throttle up 30% in less than a second. Plus, even less than a second can be too long.

[Anonymous No.9960441]

>>9960296
The engines will sure as fuck all fire at full power during launch. One of them fails, you lose 1/31 of the thrust. Doesnt sound like much, but can definetely fuck up your mission.

[Anonymous No.9960447]

>>9960438
If only another engine not of the original three could start up. Nope, can't have that.

[Anonymous No.9960455]

all of this talk about engine-out situations. It just isn't a realistic thing to be arguing about desu. if you look at the total seconds of firing time and relights, there is probably a greater variety in failure modes introduced by putting in contingency hardware (additional relightable engines whatever) than just building the damn things reliable in the first place — which they're doing currently

[Anonymous No.9960459]

>>9960438
>It absoluetely does not throttle up 30% in less than a second
SpaceX's Merlin engines can already do this. Raptor will be able to do this. Regardless, even if spooling up to a higher throttle takes 5 seconds, then just spool up to a throttle setting of 50% to make up for the time spent at reduced thrust, then spool back down to 45% to continue landing as normal. The BFR upper stage vehicle's landing burn takes 40 seconds, that's a huge amount of time margin compared to the Falcon 9 landing burn which takes around ten or 15 seconds.

[Anonymous No.9960466]

>>9960455
They're making the engines super reliable, but engine out capability doesn't mean you rely on a separate engine to start up, it means you can continue the mission/landing safely even if one or more engines fails. BFS can land on one engine, but it uses three with low throttle settings normally, because that means two can fail and not cause a total vehicle failure. Likewise the Booster lands with a cluster of (probably) seven engines, and it only needs three or four to actually work in order to land successfully.

It's like how Falcon 9 has engine out capability not because it carries a tenth engine that can start up if one of the other 9 fail, but because it can lose one or two engines during ascent and still complete the mission using just the seven or eight leftover.

[Anonymous No.9960471]

>>9960455
>additional relightable engines
If all the engines are the same, they should all be relightable.

[Anonymous No.9960472]

>>9960441
They will at liftoff but will most likely throttle down later in flight to limit G loads, just like F9 currently does for max Q. After max Q and especially once they're high up, having 100% thrust becomes less important because they're fighting less gravity. Also the engines produce more thrust as you get out of the atmosphere anyway.

A real world example of engine out capability was the first Saturn V launch, which had two out of five J-2 engines on the second stage fail, yet the rocket reached orbit just fine.

The only BFR mission that will actually launch with maximum weight will be Tankers, and since their cargo is just extra propellant even if they lose some engines during ascent they'll have so much performance margin it won't matter, it'll just eat into the delivered propellant mass a little.

[Anonymous No.9960504]

>>9960459
Merlins cant throttle at all, you idiotic fuck. Also, if you think a rocket engine can throttle 30% in less than a second you already showed you have zero clue what you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.9960508]

>>9960504
minimum throttle is 40% though https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/728753234811060224

[Anonymous No.9960509]

>>9960504
Also, forgot to say you have no clue how the landing looks like, 40 seconds is not long at all, even if you spent just 3 of these seconds going considerably faster than planned you are probably fucked. As already mentioned, you have no clue and are a fucktard.

[Anonymous No.9960515]

>>9960472
It reached orbit, but not the orbit needed to go to moon. You seem to think there is only one orbit. You are probably the same fucktard who thinks engines can throttle up in less than a second.

[Anonymous No.9960545]

>>9949599
He may get there but he will have wasted decades and billions of dollars for nothing if he does

[Anonymous No.9960626]

>>9960545
>technological development is wasted money

[Anonymous No.9960627]

>>9960441
>One of them fails, you lose 1/31 of the thrust. Doesnt sound like much, but can definetely fuck up your mission.

It does not sound much because it is not much. It will not fuck up your mission at all. Also any launch has quite a bit of margin for error. Rockets do not usually fly at the edge of their capabilities at all.

[Anonymous No.9960629]

>>9960545

spending money on high tech is probably the best use of money, period

and doubly so when it is used by an efficient private company like SpaceX rather than some NASA bureaucrat

[Anonymous No.9960654]

>>9960276
>That's a unit of power, not energy. A megawatt of power could equal any amount of energy depending on the time scales over which it is released.

That's the unit of power needed because the unit of energy needed is 16 Gigawatt Hours over a time span of 26 months for nothing but fuel operations.

[Anonymous No.9960736]

>>9960545
>t. nigger who wants mo money fo dem programz

[Anonymous No.9960806]

>>9960736
>marshmallow woman
I have a guess at the reason why her kids were hungry.

[Anonymous No.9960858]

>>9950263
There's no more reason to go the moon than there is to Mars. In fact, there may even be *less* – the moon's environment is going to be literal hell for any kind of industrial process due to conditions being so different there (mostly lack of gravity, but also razor sharp regolith wreaking havoc), where martian conditions are close enough to that of earth that most machinery designed to work here will also work there.

In other words, any kind of industry will be much easier to set up and maintain on Mars than on the moon. The only part that sucks is the distance/travel time, but that can be cut to 3 months or shorter with sufficiently powerful rockets, which is perfectly manageable.

[Anonymous No.9960881]

>>9952496
Because NASA is chronically underfunded and isn't autonomous from the rest of the government like it needs to be. Turns out it's hard to complete long, multi-year projects when the government jerks you around like a caffeine-addled ADHD monkey.

We'd have an active moon base right now if it weren't for presidents and congressmen steering NASA in a different direction every few years.

[Anonymous No.9960885]

>>9960504
>Merlins cant throttle at all, you idiotic fuck.
yeah they can though, they throttle down considerably during landing.

>>9960509
Your deceleration depends on engine throttle, if you spend some time decelerating too slowly then throttle up the engines to accelerate faster and make up the difference. Dumb.

[Anonymous No.9960888]

>>9960515
And BFR will be going to low Earth orbit. If it's going to the Moon or Mars it still goes to LEO first to be refueled by Tankers. BFR will ALWAYS have the margin to make orbit in the case that some number of engines fails.

[Anonymous No.9960891]

>>9960626
>implying these Elon hate posts/threads arent organized
>implying they didnt pop up only after he went after the media
>implying there wasnt anything but love for him on the forum before that

[Anonymous No.9960896]

>>9953840
Without a physical bubble of some kind, the only the way the moon would be able to keep an atmosphere is if the gasses involved were very heavy due to its lack of gravity. It'd be useful for increasing the pressure to levels that aren't deadly to humans as well as for radiation shield and producing winds and weather to erode regolith, but it wouldn't be breathable.

[Anonymous No.9960945]

>>9959854
>Tesla's fucked because Musk can't into factory automation and the competition is closing in. All his successful business ventures have dealt with semi-custom or non-physical products.
Tesla really doesn't have much to worry about until Toyota and Honda finally grow some balls and move their mainstream lines (think Camry and Accord) to full electric. That's the real threat, not the weird, low volume alien bug things mainstream automakers insist on making full electrics right now.

(As an aside, I hope Toyota and Honda do just that. We need boring reliable electric cars.)

[Anonymous No.9960951]

>>9960945
Fords already getting into the game in a serious way with their Jaguar marque

[Anonymous No.9960959]

>>9960945
>boring
Honda EV a cute. CUTE!

[Anonymous No.9961065]

>>9960073
>Yeah but this equipment takes billions to develop.
Exactly. Musk has none of this equipment.
His timetable for launching a rocket is impossible given the lack of equipment. I mean sure he can just load a rocket with off the shelf equipment, like solar panels, but things like he drill and oxygen generator are not things you can just buy at a store.

>inb4 he can't buy a drill
The drills on Mars for water (actually ice) have to be completely sealed so the ice doesn't sublimate/evaporate back into the atmosphere.

[Anonymous No.9961082]

>>9961065
Or you can deal with the 0.001% loss of water due to ice sublimation as a given and work accordingly.

[Anonymous No.9961133]

>>9961065
>Electrolysis machines
>Not readily available

>>9961082
This, it's not like it's a super rare resource, it's fucking everywhere.

[Anonymous No.9961157]

>>9961065
>>9961133
The weirdest thing here is assuming that if you can't buy it off the shelf, they can't possibly make it themselves, or find a supplier to build it.

[Anonymous No.9961363]

>>9961157
Paid shills are a hell of a drug

[Anonymous No.9961394]

>>9961363
It's been particularly bad recently after his tweet about the media and then calling that dude a pedo, especially with all the Tesla shorting going on. I just wish he would hand off Tesla to someone else and focus on SpaceX, it's just such a massive drain all for a fucking car.

[Anonymous No.9961661]

>>9960881

>Because NASA is chronically underfunded

It has more than enough money for a Mars mission. $20 billion every year. The issue is gross inefficiency and political interference.

[Anonymous No.9961670]

>>9961661
not exactly. the 20 billion gets split between science, space operations, aeronautics, safety, security, mission services, construction and environmental compliance and restoration, the inspector general, and explorations. NASA does a lot of stuff

[Anonymous No.9961766]

>>9961363
>Paid shills are a hell of a drug
And sabatier processing equipment isn't some sort of voodoo that's out of reach of everyone without DOW Chemical's R&D Department.

[Anonymous No.9961787]

Hopefully another challenger into corporate America

[Anonymous No.9961883]

>>9961133
Water ice on Mars is absoluetely an extremely rare ressource. Also, it is not pure and extremely cold and hard, so that drilling it is more like drilling a rock and filtering the water out of the rock. Elon better bring a lot of drills with him, because he is going to go through a lot of drills for the amount of water he is going to need for fuel production.

[Anonymous No.9961902]

>>9961883
>Water ice on Mars is absoluetely an extremely rare ressource.

No it isn't. Based on radar returns, there's shittons of it buried not far below the dusty surface.

[Anonymous No.9961918]

>>9961902
Most of that is kilometres deep. You seem to think drilling is easy and will be no challenge. Drilling is really, really hard. You can probably drill a few litres a day to cover human consumption of H2O and O2. But to produce enough rocket fuel for a return trip within 1,5 years, you would need thousands of litres a day, which is completely impossible. Unless you drill 24/7, in which case you are going to need so many drills, that you probably end up better just bringing another BFR with you that is loaded with fuel.

[Anonymous No.9961926]

>>9961918
>Most of that is kilometres deep
The spectrographic data suggests that its only meters deep, Anon, not kilometers.

[Anonymous No.9961933]

>>9961926
Some of it, but most of it is kilometres deep. You are going to dry up all the easily accessible water ressources with a few dozen return trips.

[Anonymous No.9961934]

>>9949599
>overflow valves for non hypergolic fuel in interplanetary section
DROPPED

[Anonymous No.9961936]

>>9950263
gotta have a house that niggers can't get into

[Anonymous No.9961943]

>>9957791
>I can afford 90% of my spacecraft to be fuel trying to stay in an unstable Lagrange point

[Anonymous No.9961951]

>>9961933
>Some of it, but most of it is kilometres deep. You are going to dry up all the easily accessible water ressources with a few dozen return trips.

The Mars colony is already looking at nuclear power just to have enough energy to run the refueling operations, and most of it is for refrigeration. Doubling it for metals refining for large scale mining operations probably won't be a big deal in the already massive logistical undertaking that will be a self-sufficient Mars colony. Besides, importing water from other bodies in the solar system, like asteroids, can always be an option for kickstarting it.

[Anonymous No.9962070]

>using inefficient as fuck methane fuel instead of the far superior and cleaner hydrogen
>in a field where efficiency is everything

Yep. He's retarded. No other reason to pursue this and the wasteful meme landings.

[Anonymous No.9962074]

>>9962070
Want to know how I know you're a dilettante?
>hydrogen
That's how. You just looked up the max ISP and went with it.

[Anonymous No.9962081]

>>9962070
Storing methane, which is already one of the simplest hydrocarbons with greatly reduced complications over metal-brittling, container-seeping, ultra-deep-cryo hydrogen, is still a bitch and a half. Try harder.

[Anonymous No.9962082]

>>9962074
So all the qctually real rockets that used it before musk were made by dilletantes.

Now thats some serious fanboism.

[Anonymous No.9962091]

>>9962082
Methane makes no sense whatsoever for a super heavy lift launcher. Don't let the Musk-shills dazzle you. Super heavy lift launchers are so big, that the issue of big tanks is irrelevant. Only in smaller rockets it is hard to get a hydrogen tank to work.

Methane is mainly being pursued just for the sake of doing something different. They are hoping that they can combine the upsides of hydrogen and cerosene (good performance with easy storage) while they might as well ending up combining the downsides (low performance compared to Hydrogen and still pretty hard to store compared to cerosene). This is the reason why methane was never seriously considered by rocket engineers. You wanted a dense, easy to handle fuel, you went with cerosene. You wanted high performance, you went with hydrogen. Methane sits inbetween. Also, the selling point that methane can be synthesized on Mars is a non-point, because Hydrogen can be synthesized much easier. In fact, in order to synthesize methane, you first synthesize hydrogen.

Hydrogen tanks also are really good by now and designing smaller rockets like the Delta 4 is possible.

[Anonymous No.9962107]

>>9962091
Hydrogen fucks tanks, big or small. Like your mom with Puerto Ricans.

[Anonymous No.9962108]

>>9962107
>mom jokes

the absolute state of this board.

[Anonymous No.9962127]

>>9961933
There's glaciers hundreds of meters thick, of relatively pure ice (as in its an ice glacier, and not crystals mixed into in frozen regolith), in the latitudes of about where the Copenhagen would be on Earth.

[Anonymous No.9962130]

>>9961943
Use breakthrough starshot style propulsion from Mars' surface to keep it in position?

[Anonymous No.9962135]

>>9962130
Or position it slightly sunwards of L1 so that it wants to fall towards the sun.

[Anonymous No.9962347]

>>9950263
why climb the highest mountain?

[Anonymous No.9962488]

>>9962091
>>9962082

You dont know what you are talking about. Hydrogen is a huge bitch to store and the only reason why it is used widely in rocketry is a combination of technological inertia (not any rational reason) and upper stages being expendable with only a few hours of lifetime at best. Using hydrogen in a reusable vehicle is idiocy.

[Anonymous No.9962490]

>>9962070

>in a field where efficiency is everything

Cost and practicality is more important than efficiency in rocketry.

[Anonymous No.9962496]

>>9949615
I want neither of them to win though
Space Exploration should be a public venture

[Anonymous No.9962501]

>>9952496
Because the gov't stopped to actually give money to NASA, and said companies completely leached out of NASA contracts AND had much less R&D to do.

[Anonymous No.9962516]

>>9962488
No, actually cerosene can't be used in upper stages because it freezes. Hydrogen can be used just fine for weeks or months.

[Anonymous No.9962533]

>>9962496

it was a public venture for last 50 years and the results are pathetic

[Anonymous No.9962534]

>>9962516
As proven by all of those missions that have demonstrated this exactly zero times, ever. Meanwhile, Liquified Natural Gas, which is very similar to methane, is shipped overseas in ships. Kerosene is easier to keep warm than hydrogen is to keep cold, but its density works against you in an upper stage.

[Anonymous No.9962535]

>>9962516

it is fucking kerosene, seriously you cannot even spell it and expect us to believe you are some kind of an aerospace expert? lol

[Anonymous No.9962538]

>>9962516

>Hydrogen can be used just fine for weeks or months.

Nope, and especially not in a reusable vehicle, because the low temperature is punishing and it leads to embrittlement. Methane is the sweet spot between hydrogen and kerosene.

[Anonymous No.9962564]

>>9962091

>Also, the selling point that methane can be synthesized on Mars is a non-point, because Hydrogen can be synthesized much easier.

Wrong, the hard part is getting water and splitting it. Once you have hydrogen, turning it into methane is very easy.

This is advantageous because methane has much lower boil-off, it does not lead to embrittlement, you do not need very low cryogenic temperatures, and also methane has higher density than hydrogen, which almost completely offsets its disadvantage of lower specific impulse. Build two equally massive hydrogen and methane stage, and the resulting delta-v would be within 5-10% of each other, despite much higher isp difference.

[Anonymous No.9962584]

>>9949746
Feathers are light, so the weather wont weigh anything on the rocket ship.

[Anonymous No.9962630]

>>9962584
good /sci/ence

[Anonymous No.9962635]

Reminder to report shills
Paid shilling is a rule violation

[Anonymous No.9962637]

>>9962635
what about unpaid shills

[Anonymous No.9962647]

>>9962635
>>9962637
>Defends BFR on technical merits
>muh shills
>muh shilling
>muh cryo rocket chilling

[Anonymous No.9962656]

Photos from SpaceX presentation at Mars Society Convention 2018

possible colony locations

[Anonymous No.9962659]

>>9962656

Resource Utilization on Mars

[Anonymous No.9962746]

>>9962656
Can't see shit son

[Anonymous No.9962753]

>>9962533
They landed a robot on a comet

[Anonymous No.9962773]

>>9953523
>cislunar
>cis
even in space...

[Anonymous No.9962784]

>>9962753

cool I guess.. but where is my Mars colony?

[Anonymous No.9962790]

>>9962784
5 words
Not of scientific interest (yet)

[Anonymous No.9962841]

>>9962790
And that's why they're worthless

[Anonymous No.9962936]

>>9950494
It amazes me how people can be this completely oblivious to the obvious. I guess you've never met a dreamer in your life. Musk simply is not the sort of person who gives a single fuck about monetary gain in itself. You'd do well to go college, you'd meet people like that and stop being confused.

[Miniature Spacecraft No.9963664]

Elon is a fraud, an anti-science and a pro-Trump. Not a good guy.

[Anonymous No.9964159]

>>9952496
nasa barely gets enough money for passive study.

[Anonymous No.9964288]

>>9962496
I'd upvote if it was possible here.

Letting capitalism rule space is the gratest mistake humanity can make after organized religion.

And it might happen.