3 ms·

"an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of travelling to space", provided you're an everyday billionaire :-D.

Shivetya 8y ago
I have zero issues with this. The rich tend to adopt or do what the rest cannot very early and a good many things do trickle down. Just look at all the safety features on entry level cars these days, most used to be pure luxury items. Even the idea of an affordable EV. the go into your home and see every day items and just look at the price changes on big ticket items. I remember the days in the 70s when flying was too expensive for families to consider. Even making a long distance call was reserved for special events. I don't suspect travel in space will be that way in my life time being that I am in my fifties but I can hope.
- andromedavision 8y ago
  > The rich tend to adopt or do what the rest cannot very early and a good many things do trickle down... I remember the days in the 70s when flying was too expensive for families to consider. Electricity as well. The very first few installations of electricity in homes by Edison were in Pierpont Morgan's home and soon followed by Morgan's friends' homes. It makes logical sense too that it should be this way because early on, tech is usually very expensive and highly experimental such that if it fails, only the rich can afford the losses and upkeep.
- lawlessone 8y ago
  >the rich tend to adopt or do what the rest cannot very early and a good many things do trickle down. I imagine the poor would adopt things too if they had money.
codeulike 8y ago
The eventual plan is for a ticket to mars to be 'affordable', thats what hes referring to. He sketched out how it _might_ be possible in that Interplanatary speech a few years ago
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Like everything to start with? Consider that whatever device you're writing your posts through is millions of times more powerful than devices that, in the living memory of some today, was something so exclusive that literally the only people capable of owning one were national governments. Then it became national governments and massive companies. Then it became national governments and massive companies and very wealthy individuals. Then it became .... anybody who can work for a few days at minimum wage.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  With an important difference that while over time it cost less and less effort to build a powerful CPU, a moon loop still costs about 3000 km/s of Delta-V. Since the first space flight, CPUs have changed in terms of cost and capacity worth several orders of magnitude, while spaceflight, despite the investments made, is still basically the same. I don't think spaceflight will be revolutionized in our lifetimes, making it affordable as much as computing power has.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    It has already been revolutionized. After all was said and done each Space Shuttle launch came out to about half a billion dollars. In modern times Air Force figures showed Boeing/Lockheed costs averaging out at $404million per flight, and that's just on the flights. We pay them to develop rockets and even pay them just to exist. Literally, known as the 'launch capability contract', we throw $800 million of taxpayer money to Boeing/Lockheed for absolutely nothing except agreeing to stay in business. Isn't lobbying and corruption fun! Factor all the real costs into their launches, and we're paying more for launches than we did during the Space Shuttle era. Now enter SpaceX. Today you can go buy a rocket contract and send whatever you want up into space for about $62 million. That has already been an enormous revolution in space access, and it's just the beginning. They haven't been landing rockets for shits and giggles. Relative to the cost of a rocket, fuel is practically free. The real cost is in the actual materials for the rocket and engines. And previously companies have just thrown those away. Even the Space Shuttle had 'reuse' only on paper rather than any significant reusability. But the Falcon rockets are genuinely reusable, and them autonomously landing rockets is now, amazingly, starting to become business as usual. Go for a flight proven rocket and the costs drop even further. This is only what has already happened. None of this is future or speculative. This is happening at this very moment. If you want to see what the plants are then look into the goals for the BFR and Mars. This is the thing that's so disappointing. We're currently going through one of the biggest revolutions in technology today, that will likely be a keystone moment for our species' entire existence, and most people have absolutely no idea the relevance or scale of what's happening - instead distracted by irrelevancies that nobody will even remember in 10 years, and in many cases - 10 months if not 10 weeks.
Lazeb 8y ago
I'm sure people thought the same way back when personal automotive transport was owned by very few people. Even trains were for the wealthy for a time.
- jeandejean 8y ago
  It's not like space flights are new, their price never dropped. We'd need an energy revolution for that to happen, very unlikely...

Shivetya 8y ago

I have zero issues with this. The rich tend to adopt or do what the rest cannot very early and a good many things do trickle down. Just look at all the safety features on entry level cars these days, most used to be pure luxury items. Even the idea of an affordable EV. the go into your home and see every day items and just look at the price changes on big ticket items. I remember the days in the 70s when flying was too expensive for families to consider. Even making a long distance call was reserved for special events. I don't suspect travel in space will be that way in my life time being that I am in my fifties but I can hope.

andromedavision 8y ago
> The rich tend to adopt or do what the rest cannot very early and a good many things do trickle down... I remember the days in the 70s when flying was too expensive for families to consider. Electricity as well. The very first few installations of electricity in homes by Edison were in Pierpont Morgan's home and soon followed by Morgan's friends' homes. It makes logical sense too that it should be this way because early on, tech is usually very expensive and highly experimental such that if it fails, only the rich can afford the losses and upkeep.
lawlessone 8y ago
>the rich tend to adopt or do what the rest cannot very early and a good many things do trickle down. I imagine the poor would adopt things too if they had money.

codeulike 8y ago

The eventual plan is for a ticket to mars to be 'affordable', thats what hes referring to. He sketched out how it _might_ be possible in that Interplanatary speech a few years ago

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

Like everything to start with? Consider that whatever device you're writing your posts through is millions of times more powerful than devices that, in the living memory of some today, was something so exclusive that literally the only people capable of owning one were national governments. Then it became national governments and massive companies. Then it became national governments and massive companies and very wealthy individuals. Then it became .... anybody who can work for a few days at minimum wage.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
With an important difference that while over time it cost less and less effort to build a powerful CPU, a moon loop still costs about 3000 km/s of Delta-V. Since the first space flight, CPUs have changed in terms of cost and capacity worth several orders of magnitude, while spaceflight, despite the investments made, is still basically the same. I don't think spaceflight will be revolutionized in our lifetimes, making it affordable as much as computing power has.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  It has already been revolutionized. After all was said and done each Space Shuttle launch came out to about half a billion dollars. In modern times Air Force figures showed Boeing/Lockheed costs averaging out at $404million per flight, and that's just on the flights. We pay them to develop rockets and even pay them just to exist. Literally, known as the 'launch capability contract', we throw $800 million of taxpayer money to Boeing/Lockheed for absolutely nothing except agreeing to stay in business. Isn't lobbying and corruption fun! Factor all the real costs into their launches, and we're paying more for launches than we did during the Space Shuttle era. Now enter SpaceX. Today you can go buy a rocket contract and send whatever you want up into space for about $62 million. That has already been an enormous revolution in space access, and it's just the beginning. They haven't been landing rockets for shits and giggles. Relative to the cost of a rocket, fuel is practically free. The real cost is in the actual materials for the rocket and engines. And previously companies have just thrown those away. Even the Space Shuttle had 'reuse' only on paper rather than any significant reusability. But the Falcon rockets are genuinely reusable, and them autonomously landing rockets is now, amazingly, starting to become business as usual. Go for a flight proven rocket and the costs drop even further. This is only what has already happened. None of this is future or speculative. This is happening at this very moment. If you want to see what the plants are then look into the goals for the BFR and Mars. This is the thing that's so disappointing. We're currently going through one of the biggest revolutions in technology today, that will likely be a keystone moment for our species' entire existence, and most people have absolutely no idea the relevance or scale of what's happening - instead distracted by irrelevancies that nobody will even remember in 10 years, and in many cases - 10 months if not 10 weeks.

Lazeb 8y ago

I'm sure people thought the same way back when personal automotive transport was owned by very few people. Even trains were for the wealthy for a time.

jeandejean 8y ago
It's not like space flights are new, their price never dropped. We'd need an energy revolution for that to happen, very unlikely...