Space X Interplanetary Transport System

[sferrin]

Sferrin - you fundamentally misunderstood my issue with Musk's proposal.

No, I understand exactly what you mean. Basically, he's smoking dope because nobody has operated a rocket like an airliner, or has 1700 flights on one design. That about it? My response to that is (again)- "and?" One has to start somewhere, and you can't really wait until you have 1700 launches under your belt before finally decided to undertake the mission. And they won't be going full rate right out of the gate but would ramp up over years, if not decades. The first Comet airliner didn't have the reliability of a 787. Should they have put the brakes on air transport until they'd achieved 787-levels of reliability?

His Mars colonization proposal requires changing the rocket launch paradigm from 'single-launches at a time' with very low launch rates to a reliability of a modern jet liner. It took 50 years of constant jet flights to reach today's jet-liner reliability. Space launches are nowhere near the reliability required for multiple heavy rocket launches in a week with sufficiently cheap infrastructure to make the whole system economical.

You can't seem to see the forest for the trees. He's not proposing going from 1 launch one month to 6 a week the next. What he's proposing is similar to the process airlines took but on an accelerated time frame. As for cost, space launches never will reach those levels without trying. Do you think air travel was as cheap in 1950 as it is today? Should we have stopped air travel until it was cheap enough for everybody? How exactly would that have been achieved?

This isn't a problem of accepting zero risk. This is a problem of understanding just what Musk is implicitly proposing. He implicitly proposes shifting space launch costs, via the development of low-maintenance high-reliability systems. That is the space-launch Holy Grail which has eluded developers for 50 years. He is following the underpants gnome school of development:
- design cutting edge rocket
- ...
- airline like reliability, operational cost, and safety to enable high-volume interplanetary travel!

There were those who thought similarly of flying people across oceans on airplanes. (On, not in, because in 1900 one "rode" those things.)

Musk never stated how he is going to fill in the '...' If we base rocket development upon the airline and automobile industry, it will take 50 years of relatively high-volume use to understand what is required. Rockets have barely begun to be designed for high-volume use. Nobody has the experience required to design for high-volume use. Musk gave no proposal about how to fill that knowledge and experience gap.

Why would he? Seriously. You think he'd lay out a mile long gantt chart for the public at a one hour media event?

However, all of the above is besides another point: why go to Mars in the first place? Is there anything of value there for people on Earth?

Oh, I don't know, how about survival of the species?

PS: Christopher Columbus got lucky.

No such thing. If he hadn't done it somebody else would have.

 

[DrRansom]

Sferrin - had Musk said words to the effect that: "I'm embarking ok a decade long quest to push rocket operations to airplane levels" I'd be ok. Instead, we get this nice "wow" picture of a rocket and a cool CGI video, followed by hordes of people saying "I'm so glad that at least someone is willing to try to dream." That same crowd conveniently passes over the revolution SpaceX will have to achieve before this Mars plan can work. They also ignore that Musk's dream has been the dream for spaceflight for the past 50 years. His dream was the dream of the Space Shuttle, the NASP, the Venture Star. All programs which failed to reach that goal.

Musk has demonstrated successful rocket landing, he hasn't demonstrated reuse and reliability with the vehicle compromises required for reuse. (this is a recent development)

I wanted to hear how he plans to reach the reliability, because that's the major problem. Him dreaming or laying out a plan makes him just like every other developer of a major new space-launcher. (Albeit, landing a rocket does give him credibility)

Re: Columbus - given that his math was wrong, it is an open question if anyone would have tried for another century, or until sailing ships had enough range to reach across the combined Atlantic and Pacific. There's an interesting counter-factual. And Columbus did get lucky, if there was no America, his ships would have starved before they reached his destination, Asia.

 

[blackstar]

I wanted to hear how he plans to reach the reliability, because that's the major problem. Him dreaming or laying out a plan makes him just like every other developer of a major new space-launcher. (Albeit, landing a rocket does give him credibility)

Keep in mind that his dream also left out a bunch of other things:

-the in-space element, including long-duration life-support.
-the on-Mars element, including life-support, spacesuits, habitation modules, etc.
-who is going to develop those other things (note that Musk did not say that SpaceX is going to do any of that other stuff).
-who is going to pay for it all.

If it is not SpaceX developing all that other stuff, then it's gotta be some combination of other space hardware developers, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, NASA, etc. And the people who are most rabid about SpaceX think that all those other actors are bloated, expensive, inefficient, and generally lousy (I've seen people on the internet who hate Boeing, NASA, et. al.). So does the overall dream collapse because SpaceX is not going to do all of it but needs other actors to come on board, or evolve?

And where is the magical funding going to come from if Elon is not going to pay for it all?

 

[sferrin]

Musk has demonstrated successful rocket landing, he hasn't demonstrated reuse and reliability with the vehicle compromises required for reuse. (this is a recent development)

Don't just gloss over that achievement, particularly the at-sea landings. Of all the major players, SpaceX has the most credibility.

Re: Columbus - given that his math was wrong, it is an open question if anyone would have tried for another century, or until sailing ships had enough range to reach across the combined Atlantic and Pacific.

Not really. There were other explorers. Had Columbus sailed off into the unknown, never to be heard of again, others would have tried.

"or until sailing ships had enough range to reach across the combined Atlantic and Pacific."

So never then right? After all, how would they ever know which ships had the range if they never made the trip, or if they could sail that far if they'd never done it before?

This seems particularly appropriate:

"31. (Mo's Law of Evolutionary Development) You can't get to the moon by climbing successively taller trees."

 

[DrRansom]

Don't just gloss over that achievement, particularly the at-sea landings. Of all the major players, SpaceX has the most credibility.

That's very true. He does have a ton of credibility in rocket building. That's why I'm not discounting him building the ITS rocket.

Not really. There were other explorers. Had Columbus sailed off into the unknown, never to be heard of again, others would have tried.

"or until sailing ships had enough range to reach across the combined Atlantic and Pacific."

So never then right? After all, how would they ever know which ships had the range if they never made the trip, or if they could sail that far if they'd never done it before?

This seems particularly appropriate:

"31. (Mo's Law of Evolutionary Development) You can't get to the moon by climbing successively taller trees."

People roughly knew the distance from Europe to Asia. They also would have had a decent idea about the range of their ships across open ocean. Combine those two facts and you have the necessary technological conditions for a proper exploration of the Atlantic route to Asia.

The historical analogy would be using a Titan II for moon launch missions and it working. I.E. using a totally unsuited vehicle and it working out by happenchance.

 

[Michel Van]

Oh yes, Musk is insane:
He co-invented PayPal
Then build up Green energy company Solar City, TESLA motors show the world Electric cars are Cool,
SpaceX landed the biggest rocket back to launch site and want send people supersonic true Tubes with Hyperloop.
next he working on Artificial Intelligence and VTOL that use electric motors and want to build a City on Mars

Oh you know also was labeled als insane ?
Thomas Edison ideal of Electric Light
Henry Ford idea to mass produce Cars for people
The Wright brothers idea to build airplanes
Nicholas Tesla concept of alternating current (AC)
Robert Goddard idea to build large Rockets, using liquid fuels and send scientific instrument near space.
Licklider and Welden Clark idea of "On-Line Man-Computer Communication"
Steven Jobs as he had idea too sell music online

Today i live in world with Electric Light with AC (Europe),
driving my affordable car, while listening music on Ipod and look on Internet how SpaceX launch rocket or Musk ideas for Mars City.

He is insane just like the others, who changed the World forever...

 

[blackstar]

Oh yes, Musk is insane:
He co-invented PayPal
Then build up Green energy company Solar City, TESLA motors show the world Electric cars are Cool,
SpaceX landed the biggest rocket back to launch site and want send people supersonic true Tubes with Hyperloop.
next he working on Artificial Intelligence and VTOL that use electric motors and want to build a City on Mars

Oh you know also was labeled als insane ?
Thomas Edison ideal of Electric Light
Henry Ford idea to mass produce Cars for people
The Wright brothers idea to build airplanes
Nicholas Tesla concept of alternating current (AC)
Robert Goddard idea to build large Rockets, using liquid fuels and send scientific instrument near space.
Licklider and Welden Clark idea of "On-Line Man-Computer Communication"
Steven Jobs as he had idea too sell music online

Today i live in world with Electric Light with AC (Europe),
driving my affordable car, while listening music on Ipod and look on Internet how SpaceX launch rocket or Musk ideas for Mars City.

He is insane just like the others, who changed the World forever...

You know who is also insane? Dr. Emilio Lizardo.

Nobody believed him either.

 

[Hobbes]

Keep in mind that his dream also left out a bunch of other things:

-the in-space element, including long-duration life-support.
-the on-Mars element, including life-support, spacesuits, habitation modules, etc.
-who is going to develop those other things (note that Musk did not say that SpaceX is going to do any of that other stuff).
-who is going to pay for it all.

If it is not SpaceX developing all that other stuff, ...

And where is the magical funding going to come from if Elon is not going to pay for it all?

Long-duration life support is being worked on. Wasn't part of the announcement because the company contracted (by SpaceX) to design the system wasn't ready to reveal much yet. A one-hour presentation, this early in the program isn't going to give complete details.

Dismissing the project based on what we know so far is as premature as buying a ticket to Mars right now.

 

[sferrin]

This weeks Aviation Week has a more detailed write up of SpaceX's plans. Pretty interesting.

 

[antiquark]

I think Elon's vision of ground processing is wildly optimistic. Made me think of these pictures from Wikipedia:

The original, simplified, vision of Space Shuttle ground processing

Actual, vastly more complex and much slower, Space Shuttle ground processing

via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program

 

[antiquark]

Detailed critique of the vehicle, along with some ideas for improvements...

http://jalopnik.com/heres-how-to-fix-the-big-problems-with-elon-musks-mars-1787163420

Lol...

 

[fredymac]

The dynamics of critiquing a private venture is different than for a government project. Public programs can be subjected to political pressure particularly as applied to budget and schedule. As long as Spacex is footing the bill, "recommendations" offered by 3rd parties can be given whatever consideration they merit. Of course Spacex could just press ahead and hope that one day they might be as famous and successful as Jalopnik. Personally, I find it odd how some people with no stake in the game get so insistent on forcing someone else to do something their way. I have no idea if Spacex will get anywhere close to succeeding on this. The scale of the project is incredible. However, I wish them luck and I also give them the benefit of a doubt that they have established their expertise with real world hardware and have more credibility than anyone else who hasn't.

 

[sferrin]

Detailed critique of the vehicle, along with some ideas for improvements...

http://jalopnik.com/heres-how-to-fix-the-big-problems-with-elon-musks-mars-1787163420

Lol...

A blogger at Jalopnik (home of the soon to be defunct Gawker Media) is gonna tell Elon Musk what's what huh? Maybe somebody should tell them it was 3D modeller who made the animation.

 

[blackstar]

One should never question Elon Musk. SpaceX does not make mistakes.

 

[sferrin]

One should never question Elon Musk. SpaceX does not make mistake.

I'm fairly certain Elon Musk didn't create that animation. (Or do you honestly believe he thinks it would only take 6 seconds to raise the 2nd stage from the ground and mount it on the 1st stage? This is a marketing tool designed to communicate an idea to the masses, nothing more.)

 

[Byeman]

One should never question Elon Musk. SpaceX does not make mistake.

I'm fairly certain Elon Musk didn't create that animation. (Or do you honestly believe he thinks it would only take 6 seconds to raise the 2nd stage from the ground and mount it on the 1st stage? This is a marketing tool designed to communicate an idea to the masses, nothing more.)

It is accelerated, look at the sun movement. So your premise is wrong. This is an approved SpaceX animation.

 

[sferrin]

One should never question Elon Musk. SpaceX does not make mistake.

I'm fairly certain Elon Musk didn't create that animation. (Or do you honestly believe he thinks it would only take 6 seconds to raise the 2nd stage from the ground and mount it on the 1st stage? This is a marketing tool designed to communicate an idea to the masses, nothing more.)

It is accelerated, look at the sun movement. So your premise is wrong. This is an approved SpaceX animation.

Given that it's on both the SpaceX site and youtube channel, it's unlikely to be otherwise. Doesn't change the fact that it's a marketing tool. There are many, MANY other such videos, by other companies, that are just as easy to pick apart if taken for anything other than what they are.

 

[ZacYates]

Where do you sit?

 

[RyanC]

-the in-space element, including long-duration life-support.

That's what his comment about "Fleets of ships". It's so simplistically brilliant -- you don't need 5 nines reliability if you have spares. Ship A starts to have problems during trans mars coast? Redeploy the people from Ship A to others in the fleet, along with critical items and continue on with voyage.

As opposed to "it's just one ship, so reliability must be fantastic!"

 

[antiquark]

The SpaceX commentary never ends!

The top 7 ways a trip to Mars could kill you, illustrated

http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/9/30/13099898/mars-death-risk-illustrated

 

[Dragon029]

I didn't watch the full on-stage presentation, so this cleared a few things up for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyWtNbtW_-0

The BFR booster performs six launches over a few weeks - first is getting the ITS / MCT into orbit, then it launches the tanker 5 times to get enough propellant into orbit and into the manned system.

 

[sferrin]

The SpaceX commentary never ends!

The top 7 ways a trip to Mars could kill you, illustrated

http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/9/30/13099898/mars-death-risk-illustrated

Interesting social commentary. In the past when people had grand ideas people cheered them on. Now they eagerly crap all over them. Another left-wing rag of course.

 

[Bgray]

Interesting social commentary. In the past when people had grand ideas people cheered them on. Now they eagerly crap all over them. Another left-wing rag of course.

Actually, if it's a left wing rag it has a very conservative message-- let's not let enthusiasm lead us off the cliff. Getting the booster working is just the first step. Not properly analyzing risks and having an hard headed appreciation for them is the hall mark of sterotypical leftist thought.

And Vox isn't against it-- they're just pointing out the risks.

Going to Mars is unbelievably risky. But that’s no reason to shy away.

Early expeditions to Mars could prove as dangerous as any in human history. Anyone who signs up will have to know they’re venturing to another planet with the real expectation that they may never get there, or potentially, never come back.

Still, it’s unlikely this fact will deter every last volunteer. Humans are innately curious and love exploring new worlds; it's one of our greatest qualities. McKay recounts how he used to go down to Antarctica every year with a relatively small team to conduct research. About once a year, someone would die due to an unforeseeable accident — a helicopter crash, or a person falling down a crevasse, or a diver suffering an embolism.

Every death was awful and tragic. But it didn’t put a halt to research in Antarctica. "There was always a long line of scientists who wanted to go," McKay says. "We never, ever took safety casually. I certainly did not want to die. But we were working in an environment that was intrinsically hostile and didn’t have all the safety infrastructure they have back in civilization. So to do the things we wanted to do, we had to take risks."

 

[sferrin]

Actually, if it's a left wing rag it has a very conservative message-- let's not let enthusiasm lead us off the cliff.

"Risk" didn't use to be a 4-letter word. Now it sends people scurrying to their safe spaces. (In the West anyway. Russia and China seem to view it normally.)

 

[Michel Van]

The top 7 ways a trip to Mars could kill you, illustrated

yeah, there alway some one who badmouth around it

oh i wonder after Columbus proposed his Expedition westwards to India in 1490, came this pamphlet ?

The 7 ways a trip to west edged could kill you, illustrated

in the west lies the edged, the end of world you will fall down and die

before that Sea monster will eat your ship and you & crew

Sirens or worst Women will lure you into Doom

Malstrøms will devour your Ship

You will face sickness and SCURVY

You will face Mutiny

and Even you find land on edge of World it will be inhabited by CANNIBALS
Illustration not show, to atrociously


had this pamphlet be successful
all US Americans would not exist today also the authors about The top 7 ways a trip to Mars could kill you...

 

[carmelo]

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3075/1

"As for cost, Musk said only a small fraction of the company’s resources are being spent on the Mars plan. “Right now the resources that are being put into the Interplanetary Transport System are pretty low: certainly well under five percent of the company,” he said. “Maybe we’re spending a few tens of millions of dollars on it right now. So, it’s relatively small.”

That will grow, he said, as engineers shift from the Falcon 9 and Heavy and the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the transport system. “Within a year and a half to two years, we should have most of SpaceX engineering working on the Interplanetary Transport System.” That would increase spending to $300 million a year, he said, with ultimately an investment “on the order of $10 billion” before it starts generating revenue. (At just $300 million a year, though, it would take decades to get to $10 billion, a slower rate than a vision he projected of Mars-bound spacecraft in the mid-2020s.)

And where does that money come from? “Obviously it’s going to be a challenge to fund this whole endeavor,” he said. Some of it, he said, would come from “a pretty decent net cash flow” from SpaceX’s launch and ISS transportation activities, and perhaps the company’s interest in developing a broadband satellite constellation. Private investors could step in, too.

He acknowledged, though, that private money alone won’t develop this transportation system. “Ultimately this is going to be a huge public private partnership,” he said. “That's probably what occurs.”

 

[sferrin]

Hopefully any public funding will be coming from the US instead of China. (They're not stupid. I could see them trying to get in on it if it's looking serious.)

 

[Archibald]

Reading Stephen Baxter Voyage I was never really convinced about Mars exploration missions that landed a maximum of 6 people for either a month or a year. Apollo to Mars wasn't going to get funded anytime soon.
That ITS architecture is the polar opposite: and a kind of return to von Braun's Colliers of 1952.
It is a brute force approach to Mars, perhaps the maximum that can be done with chemical propulsion.

 

[Yellow Palace]

Reading Stephen Baxter Voyage I was never really convinced about Mars exploration missions that landed a maximum of 6 people for either a month or a year. Apollo to Mars wasn't going to get funded anytime soon.
That ITS architecture is the polar opposite: and a kind of return to von Braun's Colliers of 1952.
It is a brute force approach to Mars, perhaps the maximum that can be done with chemical propulsion.

Remember, of course, that ITS isn't designed to generate tens to thousands man-days of science, which is the scale that most Mars expeditions are designed on. It's intended to result in a self-sustaining human population and industrial base, which inherently means an architecture built to a completely different scale.

At its' core, though, the architecture is quite simple - chemical EOR with ISRU for earth return. Not quite Mars Direct, but hardly a big step in complexity from that. You could easily conceive of a scaled down version with expendable launchers aimed at the more conventional exploration aims. Which, from the sounds of it, is more or less what SpaceX envisages for Red Dragon.

 

[dark sidius]

people of today are afraid by their shadow, exact there is a risk of death with the space exploration , and there is a risk of death to just living everyday , and you "little" VOX guy you know a day every body on earth will be die and may be it will be the Mars colony the only hope of humanity .

 

[fredymac]

Boeing vows to beat Musk to Mars. Of course he didn't say this was contingent on having a giant government program to finance it all but since there is no private Boeing venture to do anything that would be an obvious inference.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg sketched out a Jetsons-like future at a conference Tuesday, envisioning a commercial space-travel market with dozens of destinations orbiting the Earth and hypersonic aircraft shuttling travelers between continents in two hours or less. And Boeing intends to be a key player in the initial push to send humans to Mars, maybe even beating Musk to his long-time goal.

“I’m convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket,” Muilenburg said at the Chicago event on innovation, which was sponsored by the Atlantic magazine.

 

[jeffb]

Boeing vows to beat Musk to Mars. Of course he didn't say this was contingent on having a giant government program to finance it all but since there is no private Boeing venture to do anything that would be an obvious inference.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg sketched out a Jetsons-like future at a conference Tuesday, envisioning a commercial space-travel market with dozens of destinations orbiting the Earth and hypersonic aircraft shuttling travelers between continents in two hours or less. And Boeing intends to be a key player in the initial push to send humans to Mars, maybe even beating Musk to his long-time goal.

“I’m convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket,” Muilenburg said at the Chicago event on innovation, which was sponsored by the Atlantic magazine.

Given the amount of work they've put into designing systems for Mars missions over the years, maybe they're hoping to convince Musk that they've got a better design that's ready to go sooner than his. A partnership between them probably couldn't hurt.

 

[flanker]

I think Elon's vision of ground processing is wildly optimistic. Made me think of these pictures from Wikipedia:

The original, simplified, vision of Space Shuttle ground processing

Actual, vastly more complex and much slower, Space Shuttle ground processing

via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program

Good thing Elon has a very strict control and understanding of the whole rapid part of reusability, unlike NASA. JCSAT-14 booster has experienced some of the highest stresses and temperatures during re-entry they have ever done. And they have test fired it 8 times, where atleast 4 was day after each other. Want to guess how much refurbishment they did? Or the fact that they have done some of the testing with higher throttle setting than what was done in flight, as part of qualification to uprate the engines again.

Elon is fully aware of what Shuttle's issues were - which is why he is referring to it as able to be refurbished, not reusable. Will spacecraft part be harder to refurbish and prepare to flight? Yes, and clearly SpaceX thinks so too. But it wont be anywhere close to Shuttle levels and before ITS ever flies they will have experience with reused Dragon's. As soon as next year they will be flying a CRS mission with a reused pressure vessel from a previous mission.

 

[blackstar]

Good thing Elon has a very strict control and understanding of the whole rapid part of reusability, unlike NASA.

http://spacenews.com/spacexs-shotwell-on-falcon-9-inquiry-discounts-for-reused-rockets-and-silicon-valleys-test-and-fail-ethos/

Gwynne Shotwell now saying SpaceX will offer only a 10% discount for customers flying on a reused F9 booster, much less than the 30% number being discussed earlier.

So, maybe their "understanding" of reusability is evolving, and the cost advantages are disappearing.

 

[sferrin]

Or, in the true capitalist way, they'very determined that's as much as they need to discount to get the business.

 

[red admiral]

Or, in the true capitalist way, they'very determined that's as much as they need to discount to get the business.

Indeed - but that goes against the ethos of the company. Even if you come up with a much cheaper space launch system then there is little incentive to charge much less - only enough less to fulfill investment.

We'll see whether Musk wants to make himself poor

 

[blackstar]

I just got a Barnes & Noble coupon in the mail. It's for 20%.

10% doesn't get people into the stores. But I'm sure rockets are different and 10% for a "pre-enjoyed" rocket will grab lots of customers who are not at all worried about it blowing up.

 

[sferrin]

I just got a Barnes & Noble coupon in the mail. It's for 20%.

10% doesn't get people into the stores. But I'm sure rockets are different and 10% for a "pre-enjoyed" rocket will grab lots of customers who are not at all worried about it blowing up.

Whoa. You mean nobody else has ever blown up a rocket? Color me shocked.

 

[antiquark]

Good thing Elon has a very strict control and understanding of the whole rapid part of reusability, unlike NASA.

http://spacenews.com/spacexs-shotwell-on-falcon-9-inquiry-discounts-for-reused-rockets-and-silicon-valleys-test-and-fail-ethos/

Gwynne Shotwell now saying SpaceX will offer only a 10% discount for customers flying on a reused F9 booster, much less than the 30% number being discussed earlier.

So, maybe their "understanding" of reusability is evolving, and the cost advantages are disappearing.

So instead of $1,233 per pound, it's $1,109 per pound?

Hardly the stuff of revolutions.

 

[Orionblamblam]

So instead of $1,233 per pound, it's $1,109 per pound?

Hardly the stuff of revolutions.

Successful revolutions are rarely cheap in the beginning.