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The rockets for long haul flight is still a goal of SpaceX's. They are pursuing that as a kind of secondary market (which would have a LOT more demand than Mars

The rockets for long haul flight is still a goal of SpaceX's. They are pursuing that as a kind of secondary market (which would have a LOT more demand than Mars missions) for their Mars rocket. In fact, they're more serious about that now than ever. Hyperloop is making progress. It wasn't a priority for Musk; he didn't start a Hyperloop company, but open-sourced the idea and let others run with it. Those companies have kind of petered out for the most part. He did also start a student competition for Hyperloop, which IS continuing. There's a mile-long prototype vacuum tube outside SpaceX's headquarters where students tested pods going hundreds of miles per hour for several years (including 2019). He is now having a 10 kilometer long tube (with a turn) built to continue the competition and test speeds comparable to the original concept. He did start The Boring Company to try to address one of the main problems with Hyperloop (the extreme cost of boring tunnels), and that IS making progress. They're on-track (heh) for completion of tunnels in May for a mass transit system using pods (but at atmospheric pressure) based on stretched Tesla vehicles that will serve the Las Vegas convention center. Currently has dug about 3000ft of the first tunnel which is to be a bit more than a mile long. The cave bit was embarrassing to Musk, he made some gross mistakes, and while the submersible folk were definitely trying to help (like NASA had developed capsules to rescue trapped miners in past disasters), the feedback of crazy between Musk and the media was more a liability than a help. He lost a lot of credibility with the name-calling, even though I definitely think he had been trying to help. Musk is chief engineer at SpaceX, so he does similar systems engineering work as you'd expect for someone in his position. If you talk to people who have worked with him, they will tell you he has a good understanding and a deep technical involvement in both companies (especially SpaceX). Although that's hardly unique. I think the main strength is pursuing goals that are both important and challenging and empowering his employees to execute quickly on these challenges (and part of the reason he can empower them to act quickly is because he has enough technology knowledge to make command decisions on key technical questions which otherwise could end up in "analysis by paralysis" or even worse, continuing down a technical dead end just due to organizational inertia).

leto_ii 7y ago
Thanks for the comprehensive reply :D If at least the hyperloop project manages to get off the ground (pun sort of intended) that would still be a nice contribution to human progress. I'm not at all sure about the long-haul rockets though. I think having rockets near population centers is extremely dangerous to begin with. Secondly, I'm not sure the cost-benefit ratio makes sense. Transport aboard a rocket must be extremely expensive, but if you take the trip to/from the rocket-port into account the door-to-door time won't be spectacularly shorter than it is now.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Transport aboard rockets could be about the same price as a business class airline ticket over extremely long distances. But you're right about the safety issue. Rockets are just slightly better than Russian Roulette right now (about 98-99% reliable for the good ones). Part of the issue is the low margins, but also the munitions background of many rockets... and the EXTREMELY high costs of expendable rockets, which means flight rates must be low and you can't get the hardware back for inspection. But SpaceX intends to pursue fully and rapidly reusable rockets, which at least theoretically have the possibility of solving that problem by lowering launch prices by orders of magnitude, allowing greater improvement in reliability by returning the vehicles, and increasing the flight rates enough that you can prove out safety. I'm thinking probably a history of thousands or even tens of thousands of launches are necessary before the first point-to-point crewed launches (for specialized purposes, emergencies, charters) are feasible with reasonable safety, and maybe 100,000 or even a million launches before mass transit usage. Here's an article where a SpaceX representative addresses your exact point, i.e. safety of in-land launches of Starship and how many launches may be necessary to get to that point: https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-one-million-starship-rocket-launches-commercial-international-launches-2020-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-one-million-starship-... As far as door-to-door time, IMO, you would need to use like a seaplane or maybe an electric VTOL vehicle (or, heh, a Hyperloop) to get to the launch pad quick enough for the trip to be worth it. As far as energy usage, such long-haul rocket flights may be roughly comparable to Concorde flights by my calculation (if they fill the vehicle up with high capacity seating... which may be a challenge if the tickets are business class prices), and the fuel is planned to eventually be made with the same carbon-neutral solar-to-gas technology (electrolysis of water, then the Sabatier Reaction) that is required for Starship on Mars (which, of course, has no natural gas deposits or free oxygen).
  - njarboe 7y ago
    I think point-to-point launches with people could be happening much quicker than 100,000 launches. He already has a billionaire paying for a moon flyby. Maybe launch 25? People were signing up to pay $200,000k to go into space on spaceship two. People will pay even more to go on an orbital flight. You can keep up the demand by decreasing the price for quite awhile, I would imagine. Unless the FAA gets in the way and just bans people from flying. Hopefully they won't as it would be purely voluntary and probably way less risky than wing-suit flying.

leto_ii 7y ago

Thanks for the comprehensive reply :D If at least the hyperloop project manages to get off the ground (pun sort of intended) that would still be a nice contribution to human progress. I'm not at all sure about the long-haul rockets though. I think having rockets near population centers is extremely dangerous to begin with. Secondly, I'm not sure the cost-benefit ratio makes sense. Transport aboard a rocket must be extremely expensive, but if you take the trip to/from the rocket-port into account the door-to-door time won't be spectacularly shorter than it is now.

Robotbeat 7y ago
Transport aboard rockets could be about the same price as a business class airline ticket over extremely long distances. But you're right about the safety issue. Rockets are just slightly better than Russian Roulette right now (about 98-99% reliable for the good ones). Part of the issue is the low margins, but also the munitions background of many rockets... and the EXTREMELY high costs of expendable rockets, which means flight rates must be low and you can't get the hardware back for inspection. But SpaceX intends to pursue fully and rapidly reusable rockets, which at least theoretically have the possibility of solving that problem by lowering launch prices by orders of magnitude, allowing greater improvement in reliability by returning the vehicles, and increasing the flight rates enough that you can prove out safety. I'm thinking probably a history of thousands or even tens of thousands of launches are necessary before the first point-to-point crewed launches (for specialized purposes, emergencies, charters) are feasible with reasonable safety, and maybe 100,000 or even a million launches before mass transit usage. Here's an article where a SpaceX representative addresses your exact point, i.e. safety of in-land launches of Starship and how many launches may be necessary to get to that point: https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-one-million-starship-rocket-launches-commercial-international-launches-2020-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-one-million-starship-... As far as door-to-door time, IMO, you would need to use like a seaplane or maybe an electric VTOL vehicle (or, heh, a Hyperloop) to get to the launch pad quick enough for the trip to be worth it. As far as energy usage, such long-haul rocket flights may be roughly comparable to Concorde flights by my calculation (if they fill the vehicle up with high capacity seating... which may be a challenge if the tickets are business class prices), and the fuel is planned to eventually be made with the same carbon-neutral solar-to-gas technology (electrolysis of water, then the Sabatier Reaction) that is required for Starship on Mars (which, of course, has no natural gas deposits or free oxygen).
- njarboe 7y ago
  I think point-to-point launches with people could be happening much quicker than 100,000 launches. He already has a billionaire paying for a moon flyby. Maybe launch 25? People were signing up to pay $200,000k to go into space on spaceship two. People will pay even more to go on an orbital flight. You can keep up the demand by decreasing the price for quite awhile, I would imagine. Unless the FAA gets in the way and just bans people from flying. Hopefully they won't as it would be purely voluntary and probably way less risky than wing-suit flying.