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I really really want to see us go to Mars. I want to see humanity become a multi-planet species and eventually have a colony on Mars. Still, I have to point ou

I really really want to see us go to Mars. I want to see humanity become a multi-planet species and eventually have a colony on Mars. Still, I have to point out and ask, what the hell is the financial incentive for SpaceX to go to Mars? This is still a private business, with investors! What money will be made from this?

vocatus_gate 11y ago
Not everything in life is because of financial incentive. Some people are driven by ideology, desire to do good, desire to accomplish something for the first time, etc.
cryptoz 11y ago
Musk has suggested that a Mars colony is most viable if you can sell tickets at a market price of about $500,000. Or rather, that a mid-to-upper class family in California might decide to move to Mars instead of buying a house on Earth. I've seen estimates that would place the number of early potential customers at 80,000[1]. So one very large revenue stream will be direct ticket sales to people like me. Another early revenue stream will be science done and paid for by governments, universities, etc. There will eventually be a Martian economy, and SpaceX will be well-suited to earning money from the colonies [2]. There will be lots of ways to make lots of money if you have a thriving Mars colony with millions of people moving there and a constant supply of materials going both directions. [1]: So that's people that will be able to afford to go in 20 years and who also want to move to Mars. [2]: How much value has America created since it was a colony? Sure, Britain didn't actually earn that money itself since there was a war over it - but establishing colonies in "new worlds" does seem like it could be a very profitable venture.
- overcast 11y ago
  Yes, but who in their right mind would choose to leave beautiful California, to live in desolation on Mars? Sure it's important to explore new worlds, but expecting a family to pack up and leave this world for one with absolutely nothing sounds a bit far fetched.
  - cryptoz 11y ago
    Well, I for one am extremely excited to go! I live in beautiful California right now, and I'm soaking it all up while I'm here just in case I get the chance to move to Mars. And I'm sure that the percentage of the population who'd want to go is small - but it's big enough to start a colony, that's for sure.
    - overcast 11y ago
      You're crazy man! Also, while that percentage is extremely small, the percentage that actually will qualify has to be insanely small. I'm sure everyone headed there is going to be subjected to rigorous testing, they aren't just going to ship off anyone.
    - prodmerc 11y ago
      I wonder how long it would take for you to realize you really miss Earth? Knowing you'll be confined to a closed space for years (assuming no return capabilities on the initial mission), even the awesome research you'd be doing will probably start to look very bleak. Just send robots and control them from Earth...
      - cryptoz 11y ago
        I'm sure I will miss Earth before we even leave Earth orbit! But that won't make me want to go to Mars any less. > Just send robots and control them from Earth... This idea makes me feel isolated and sad. What a dystopian future that would be, with everybody sitting on a single planet at risk of disease, nuclear war, asteroid impacts, global-scale climate change, all without a care, while you look into your VR headset and see the realistic landscapes of other planets. So sad :( I'll take Mars any day over that. And I'm also confident that return trips will be frequent if anyone wants to leave - that's the whole point of reusable rockets, afterall.
        james-watson 11y ago
        I cannot tell if you are serious, or seriously trolling. >What a dystopian future that would be, with everybody sitting on a single planet at risk of disease, nuclear war, asteroid impacts, global-scale climate change, all without a care, while you look into your VR headset and see the realistic landscapes of other planets. Have you done any reading on the habitability of Mars? I will guarantee that once you truly comprehend what life on Mars will entail, you will be BEGGING for the luxuries of disease, nuclear war, climate change, and all the other great things that life on Earth bring. Mars is a brutal, senseless struggle against a guaranteed DEATH. I recommend going to live in Antartica first, and see how long you can last there. Followed by building a capsule on top of Everest. Then by living in the ISS. Then by living on the Moon. ONLY THEN, would you have any idea of what Mars living will be like. But alas, even then it will be far, FAR more challenging than living on the Moon. The transit time between the Earth and the Moon is childish compared to Earth and Mars. Once you're on Mars, there will be no coming back for a LONG time. I'll take my VR tour of Mars any day, thank you.
- FatalLogic 11y ago
  >that a mid-to-upper class family in California might decide to move to Mars instead of buying a house on Earth I don't know the details of what he suggested, but, when we talk about 'families' I think most parents would hesitate to subject their children to the rigors and risks of an early-stage Mars colony, even thought they might be keen themselves. Retirees, the childless, and people without plans to have kids soon would be a safer bet for early colonists
  - ifdefdebug 11y ago
    I'm not sure. If that was true, colonization of America by Europeans would not have succeeded. If they succeed to put up some bases and a workable, extensible agriculture (honestly I doubt I will see that within my life time), colonists will come - and bring in or have their children there.
  - kitsunesoba 11y ago
    This is kind of my line of thought. I wouldn't go today, but a couple decades from now once I've had kids and they're grown up? Sure, why not.
  - rwallace 11y ago
    If you don't have children, then you don't have a colony. At best, you might have a pathfinding expedition intended to prepare for a future colony, but then there's a case to be made that the money and time might be better spent improving various supporting technologies.
- grondilu 11y ago
  > How much value has America created since it was a colony? The comparison to America is terrible, if you ask me. If the american continent was looking anything like Mars, people would have never settled there and the value you're talking about would be very close to zero. If seems dishonest to me to compare mars with the American continent, especially considering that if we want to compare mars with the discovery of a whole continent, there is one that looks much more like mars : Antarctica. There is no record whatsoever of any long-term human occupation there. That has to prove that humans tend to dislike living in cold deserts. By comparison, the american continent has been inhabited for thousands of years, and its discovery by Europeans has brought many extremely appreciated plants and animals. What is there to bring from mars that there is not on Earth already? Apart from vast areas of rusted rocks and dust, not much, except perhaps for the possibility of fulfilling the fantasy of people who have read or watched too much science-fiction. I mean, a settlement on mars can have value, but it will only be the value that you'll bring there. For instance if you build an hotel or casino there (as I personally believe tourism is one of the very few business models that make sense for mars), then the fact that it is on mars will not bring much more value than the intrinsic value of your hotel or casino itself.
  - InclinedPlane 11y ago
    > "I mean, a settlement on mars can have value, but it will only be the value that you'll bring there." This is actually true for most countries. America's economic strength lies in the fact that it creates software, micro-chips, manufactured goods, entertainment, etc. Tell me, where in the ground do you dig up a micro-processor? Or a hollywood blockbuster? Or a Tesla Model S? Or the source code for google's search engine? Economic value is primarily created by human activity. Once there is human activity on Mars there is the potential for economic value there. And once human activity on Mars is relatively self-sustaining, which we can achieve through building up the local industry combined with certain technological innovations, then that human activity will indeed provide things of net positive value to the rest of human civilization. It seems so hard now, but in fifty or a hundred years we'll look back and it'll just seem normal and possibly even natural. We tend to discount the truly incredible and jaw dropping amount of labor and ingenuity that has gone into building the prosaic world we see out the window every day. Even something like providing water to New York City is itself a herculean effort beyond the capability of even the entire human race only a few centuries ago. What we've done to network the world together digitally, to build engines of mass trade of manufactured goods across and between continents, to travel across land/sea/air from point to point with minimal overhead beyond the raw requirements imposed by the laws of physics, all of these things are awe inspiring creations when you give yourself the opportunity to look at them in whole. And many of them are vastly more difficult and in some cases more questionably of long term value than colonizing Mars.
- jameshart 11y ago
  You'd need to be able to raise that as cash; you're going to have trouble persuading a bank to give you a mortgage for a $500,000 stake in a mars expedition.
  - cullenking 11y ago
    If the Portland real estate market is any indication, there are countless more people than you'd ever expect to be able to come up with $500k in cash.
    - MichaelGG 11y ago
      Can you explain this? Are banks not lending in Portland? Or the down payment is $500K? (Like 10% on a $5M loan?)
      - cullenking 11y ago
        The Portland real estate market is extremely hot right now, and you can't get a decent house in a decent (or even not decent but "up and coming" neighborhoods) without an all cash offer, or way over asking price. Every friend that has been through the market in the last year has been beaten out of multiple bidding wars by all cash, no inspection offers 10+ % over asking price. Lots of bay area money moving up to PDX, tons of satellite offices opening up for tech companies, it's a big cultural shift that's happening pretty fast.
    - jameshart 11y ago
      What's the future earning potential of a mars settler?
- gozur88 11y ago
  But we don't have the technology for a self sufficient mars colony. We're not even close. Anything we put there is going to have to be expensively supported from Earth. What will you do if you're on Mars and the company that supplies you food, spare parts, and medical supplies goes out of business? The Americas worked as colonies because they could become self sufficient in a very short period of time and had enormous quantities of valuable resources. The trees alone were priceless to the parent countries where every tree was spoken for. Even then some of the colonies failed. What does Mars have that you couldn't obtain more cheaply on Earth?
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  To be fair, lets compare a colony on Mars with, say, a colony on top of Mt Everest. Little or no oxygen; massively inhospitable environment; staggeringly difficult to get there or get cargo there; radiation hazard due to thin atmosphere; negligible resources once you arrive. Except, of course, that Mt Everest would be childs play compared to Mars.
claar 11y ago
"SpaceX has entered into an agreement with NASA for a Dragon mission to Mars" -- NASA is footing the bill. Government contracts are often quite profitable, not to mention the technology and reputation gains SpaceX would realize from such a mission. I would expect investors to be thrilled with this announcement.
- kilroy123 11y ago
  It's hard to tell from the article if NASA is actually footing the bill. But I would assume you're correct.
- Joeri 11y ago
  “We’re particularly excited about an upcoming SpaceX project that would build upon a current ‘no-exchange-of-funds’ agreement we have with the company,” noted NASA deputy Administrator Dava Newman. “In exchange for Martian entry, descent, and landing data from SpaceX, NASA will offer technical support for the firm’s plan to attempt to land an uncrewed Dragon 2 spacecraft on Mars.”
nbaksalyar 11y ago
From selling tickets to travelers, I guess. People might get a chance to write their names in history and that well worth the money for some.
agildehaus 11y ago
This is not a publicly traded company, Musk has no need to satisfy shareholders. If he wants to pour profits from other areas into going to Mars, he can. With first stage reusability well on its way, and SpaceX being the only launch provider to have it, their margins for every launch are going to become huge.
- rhino369 11y ago
  >This is not a publicly traded company, Musk has no need to satisfy shareholders. You don't have to be a public company to be beholden to shareholders.
DavidSJ 11y ago
There's no law that says everything a company does must be profit-motivated. Even if there are investors. Even if it's publicly traded (though SpaceX is not), although in that case you must often make your intentions clear in advance to shareholders.
7952 11y ago
From Wikipedia: The goal of the business is to increase profitability and cashflow, to allow SpaceX to build its Mars colony. In more traditional terms that could equate to: The goal of the business is to increase return for shareholders. The shareholder happens to want to use those profits to build a Mars colony. The effect is that it can motivates staff, who want some greater purpose that just their own wealth.
InclinedPlane 11y ago
It doesn't matter. The purpose of the company is Mars colonization, not profit generation. That's why it's still private rather than public. Long term there will probably be a significant monetary RoI from various projects and technological advancements along the way, as well as being able to sell people (and governments) tickets to space and to Mars. But the company is set up so that even if that doesn't work out getting to Mars will still happen.
varjag 11y ago
Any financial planning there is an ad-hoc rationalization. It may or may not work, but the primary mission of SpaceX is to get Elon Musk on Mars.
Jeema101 11y ago
There is none, which is why it won't happen. The Moon on the other hand: it's orders of magnitude closer, and there's actual profit potential for tourism and possibly other things (producing fuel to deliver to low Earth orbit, for example).
swalsh 11y ago
Musks whole goal with SpaceX has been to get to mars. He accidentally built the biggest private space company in the process. I would say there's value in shooting for the moon in order to achieve smaller but large things. But the moon isn't a big enough goal for that saying to work here.

vocatus_gate 11y ago

Not everything in life is because of financial incentive. Some people are driven by ideology, desire to do good, desire to accomplish something for the first time, etc.

cryptoz 11y ago

Musk has suggested that a Mars colony is most viable if you can sell tickets at a market price of about $500,000. Or rather, that a mid-to-upper class family in California might decide to move to Mars instead of buying a house on Earth. I've seen estimates that would place the number of early potential customers at 80,000[1]. So one very large revenue stream will be direct ticket sales to people like me. Another early revenue stream will be science done and paid for by governments, universities, etc. There will eventually be a Martian economy, and SpaceX will be well-suited to earning money from the colonies [2]. There will be lots of ways to make lots of money if you have a thriving Mars colony with millions of people moving there and a constant supply of materials going both directions. [1]: So that's people that will be able to afford to go in 20 years and who also want to move to Mars. [2]: How much value has America created since it was a colony? Sure, Britain didn't actually earn that money itself since there was a war over it - but establishing colonies in "new worlds" does seem like it could be a very profitable venture.

overcast 11y ago
Yes, but who in their right mind would choose to leave beautiful California, to live in desolation on Mars? Sure it's important to explore new worlds, but expecting a family to pack up and leave this world for one with absolutely nothing sounds a bit far fetched.
- cryptoz 11y ago
  Well, I for one am extremely excited to go! I live in beautiful California right now, and I'm soaking it all up while I'm here just in case I get the chance to move to Mars. And I'm sure that the percentage of the population who'd want to go is small - but it's big enough to start a colony, that's for sure.
  - overcast 11y ago
    You're crazy man! Also, while that percentage is extremely small, the percentage that actually will qualify has to be insanely small. I'm sure everyone headed there is going to be subjected to rigorous testing, they aren't just going to ship off anyone.
  - prodmerc 11y ago
    I wonder how long it would take for you to realize you really miss Earth? Knowing you'll be confined to a closed space for years (assuming no return capabilities on the initial mission), even the awesome research you'd be doing will probably start to look very bleak. Just send robots and control them from Earth...
    - cryptoz 11y ago
      I'm sure I will miss Earth before we even leave Earth orbit! But that won't make me want to go to Mars any less. > Just send robots and control them from Earth... This idea makes me feel isolated and sad. What a dystopian future that would be, with everybody sitting on a single planet at risk of disease, nuclear war, asteroid impacts, global-scale climate change, all without a care, while you look into your VR headset and see the realistic landscapes of other planets. So sad :( I'll take Mars any day over that. And I'm also confident that return trips will be frequent if anyone wants to leave - that's the whole point of reusable rockets, afterall.
      - james-watson 11y ago
        I cannot tell if you are serious, or seriously trolling. >What a dystopian future that would be, with everybody sitting on a single planet at risk of disease, nuclear war, asteroid impacts, global-scale climate change, all without a care, while you look into your VR headset and see the realistic landscapes of other planets. Have you done any reading on the habitability of Mars? I will guarantee that once you truly comprehend what life on Mars will entail, you will be BEGGING for the luxuries of disease, nuclear war, climate change, and all the other great things that life on Earth bring. Mars is a brutal, senseless struggle against a guaranteed DEATH. I recommend going to live in Antartica first, and see how long you can last there. Followed by building a capsule on top of Everest. Then by living in the ISS. Then by living on the Moon. ONLY THEN, would you have any idea of what Mars living will be like. But alas, even then it will be far, FAR more challenging than living on the Moon. The transit time between the Earth and the Moon is childish compared to Earth and Mars. Once you're on Mars, there will be no coming back for a LONG time. I'll take my VR tour of Mars any day, thank you.
FatalLogic 11y ago
>that a mid-to-upper class family in California might decide to move to Mars instead of buying a house on Earth I don't know the details of what he suggested, but, when we talk about 'families' I think most parents would hesitate to subject their children to the rigors and risks of an early-stage Mars colony, even thought they might be keen themselves. Retirees, the childless, and people without plans to have kids soon would be a safer bet for early colonists
- ifdefdebug 11y ago
  I'm not sure. If that was true, colonization of America by Europeans would not have succeeded. If they succeed to put up some bases and a workable, extensible agriculture (honestly I doubt I will see that within my life time), colonists will come - and bring in or have their children there.
- kitsunesoba 11y ago
  This is kind of my line of thought. I wouldn't go today, but a couple decades from now once I've had kids and they're grown up? Sure, why not.
- rwallace 11y ago
  If you don't have children, then you don't have a colony. At best, you might have a pathfinding expedition intended to prepare for a future colony, but then there's a case to be made that the money and time might be better spent improving various supporting technologies.
grondilu 11y ago
> How much value has America created since it was a colony? The comparison to America is terrible, if you ask me. If the american continent was looking anything like Mars, people would have never settled there and the value you're talking about would be very close to zero. If seems dishonest to me to compare mars with the American continent, especially considering that if we want to compare mars with the discovery of a whole continent, there is one that looks much more like mars : Antarctica. There is no record whatsoever of any long-term human occupation there. That has to prove that humans tend to dislike living in cold deserts. By comparison, the american continent has been inhabited for thousands of years, and its discovery by Europeans has brought many extremely appreciated plants and animals. What is there to bring from mars that there is not on Earth already? Apart from vast areas of rusted rocks and dust, not much, except perhaps for the possibility of fulfilling the fantasy of people who have read or watched too much science-fiction. I mean, a settlement on mars can have value, but it will only be the value that you'll bring there. For instance if you build an hotel or casino there (as I personally believe tourism is one of the very few business models that make sense for mars), then the fact that it is on mars will not bring much more value than the intrinsic value of your hotel or casino itself.
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  > "I mean, a settlement on mars can have value, but it will only be the value that you'll bring there." This is actually true for most countries. America's economic strength lies in the fact that it creates software, micro-chips, manufactured goods, entertainment, etc. Tell me, where in the ground do you dig up a micro-processor? Or a hollywood blockbuster? Or a Tesla Model S? Or the source code for google's search engine? Economic value is primarily created by human activity. Once there is human activity on Mars there is the potential for economic value there. And once human activity on Mars is relatively self-sustaining, which we can achieve through building up the local industry combined with certain technological innovations, then that human activity will indeed provide things of net positive value to the rest of human civilization. It seems so hard now, but in fifty or a hundred years we'll look back and it'll just seem normal and possibly even natural. We tend to discount the truly incredible and jaw dropping amount of labor and ingenuity that has gone into building the prosaic world we see out the window every day. Even something like providing water to New York City is itself a herculean effort beyond the capability of even the entire human race only a few centuries ago. What we've done to network the world together digitally, to build engines of mass trade of manufactured goods across and between continents, to travel across land/sea/air from point to point with minimal overhead beyond the raw requirements imposed by the laws of physics, all of these things are awe inspiring creations when you give yourself the opportunity to look at them in whole. And many of them are vastly more difficult and in some cases more questionably of long term value than colonizing Mars.
jameshart 11y ago
You'd need to be able to raise that as cash; you're going to have trouble persuading a bank to give you a mortgage for a $500,000 stake in a mars expedition.
- cullenking 11y ago
  If the Portland real estate market is any indication, there are countless more people than you'd ever expect to be able to come up with $500k in cash.
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    Can you explain this? Are banks not lending in Portland? Or the down payment is $500K? (Like 10% on a $5M loan?)
    - cullenking 11y ago
      The Portland real estate market is extremely hot right now, and you can't get a decent house in a decent (or even not decent but "up and coming" neighborhoods) without an all cash offer, or way over asking price. Every friend that has been through the market in the last year has been beaten out of multiple bidding wars by all cash, no inspection offers 10+ % over asking price. Lots of bay area money moving up to PDX, tons of satellite offices opening up for tech companies, it's a big cultural shift that's happening pretty fast.
  - jameshart 11y ago
    What's the future earning potential of a mars settler?
gozur88 11y ago
But we don't have the technology for a self sufficient mars colony. We're not even close. Anything we put there is going to have to be expensively supported from Earth. What will you do if you're on Mars and the company that supplies you food, spare parts, and medical supplies goes out of business? The Americas worked as colonies because they could become self sufficient in a very short period of time and had enormous quantities of valuable resources. The trees alone were priceless to the parent countries where every tree was spoken for. Even then some of the colonies failed. What does Mars have that you couldn't obtain more cheaply on Earth?
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
To be fair, lets compare a colony on Mars with, say, a colony on top of Mt Everest. Little or no oxygen; massively inhospitable environment; staggeringly difficult to get there or get cargo there; radiation hazard due to thin atmosphere; negligible resources once you arrive. Except, of course, that Mt Everest would be childs play compared to Mars.

claar 11y ago

"SpaceX has entered into an agreement with NASA for a Dragon mission to Mars" -- NASA is footing the bill. Government contracts are often quite profitable, not to mention the technology and reputation gains SpaceX would realize from such a mission. I would expect investors to be thrilled with this announcement.

kilroy123 11y ago
It's hard to tell from the article if NASA is actually footing the bill. But I would assume you're correct.
Joeri 11y ago
“We’re particularly excited about an upcoming SpaceX project that would build upon a current ‘no-exchange-of-funds’ agreement we have with the company,” noted NASA deputy Administrator Dava Newman. “In exchange for Martian entry, descent, and landing data from SpaceX, NASA will offer technical support for the firm’s plan to attempt to land an uncrewed Dragon 2 spacecraft on Mars.”

nbaksalyar 11y ago

From selling tickets to travelers, I guess. People might get a chance to write their names in history and that well worth the money for some.

agildehaus 11y ago

This is not a publicly traded company, Musk has no need to satisfy shareholders. If he wants to pour profits from other areas into going to Mars, he can. With first stage reusability well on its way, and SpaceX being the only launch provider to have it, their margins for every launch are going to become huge.

rhino369 11y ago
>This is not a publicly traded company, Musk has no need to satisfy shareholders. You don't have to be a public company to be beholden to shareholders.

DavidSJ 11y ago

There's no law that says everything a company does must be profit-motivated. Even if there are investors. Even if it's publicly traded (though SpaceX is not), although in that case you must often make your intentions clear in advance to shareholders.

7952 11y ago

From Wikipedia: The goal of the business is to increase profitability and cashflow, to allow SpaceX to build its Mars colony. In more traditional terms that could equate to: The goal of the business is to increase return for shareholders. The shareholder happens to want to use those profits to build a Mars colony. The effect is that it can motivates staff, who want some greater purpose that just their own wealth.

InclinedPlane 11y ago

It doesn't matter. The purpose of the company is Mars colonization, not profit generation. That's why it's still private rather than public. Long term there will probably be a significant monetary RoI from various projects and technological advancements along the way, as well as being able to sell people (and governments) tickets to space and to Mars. But the company is set up so that even if that doesn't work out getting to Mars will still happen.

varjag 11y ago

Any financial planning there is an ad-hoc rationalization. It may or may not work, but the primary mission of SpaceX is to get Elon Musk on Mars.

Jeema101 11y ago

There is none, which is why it won't happen. The Moon on the other hand: it's orders of magnitude closer, and there's actual profit potential for tourism and possibly other things (producing fuel to deliver to low Earth orbit, for example).

swalsh 11y ago

Musks whole goal with SpaceX has been to get to mars. He accidentally built the biggest private space company in the process. I would say there's value in shooting for the moon in order to achieve smaller but large things. But the moon isn't a big enough goal for that saying to work here.