4 ms·

> 1. bigger and much more capable interplanetary probes One of the things I'd dearly love to see in lifetime is a return to the ice giants (ie Uranus and Neptu

by jmyeet 5y ago

> 1. bigger and much more capable interplanetary probes One of the things I'd dearly love to see in lifetime is a return to the ice giants (ie Uranus and Neptune). We've only visited once and it was in the 1980s with the limited tech of Voyager 1 and 2. Think of what we could learn with a Cassini-level mission and Cassini itself is now ~14 years old. But these missions take a long time to develop. We actually have a launch window coming up in the early to mid 2030s where we could feasibly reach the ice giants but the development period is so long and no proposals are at an advanced enough stage that we've likely missed it (which makes me sad). > 2. a much cheaper Webb telescope Would we make a cheaper version? Or would we take the opportunity to make an even bigger version? I suspect the latter. And JWST took 20 years to develop. > 3. build a base on the moon I actually believe we'll see a man on the Moon in the next 20 years. It could be much sooner but these are still government programs subject to change at any moment. I mean think where we could be if the SSC had been completed. Apollo was driven by Cold War era competition. Our appetite for risk has changed. This means we may not see a Moon mission until rescue in the event of a catastrophe is actually possible. That will delay things. > 4. make a mission to Mars possible There's a thread about this from earlier today. IMHO a manned mission to Mars makes almost zero sense. Despite Musk's wildly infeasible and impractical predictions about Mars colonization, I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see men on Mars before 2050. All of the things you've listed here though aren't really commercial enterprises. Or at least they're far from it. They're flagship missions by governments because they're so wildly expensive. This creates some demand but is it sufficient to justify the program? I don't know. I do suspect we need to find commercial enterprises to justify the Starship economics and I'm just not sure what that looks like yet.

WalterBright 5y ago
> And JWST took 20 years to develop. Likely a great deal of that was trying to optimize it for weight. Also, it was a government program - not known for cost or time efficiency.
- jmyeet 5y ago
  Are you imaginging a JWST or similar telescope that isn't a government program?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Why not? Capitalism has a record of funding a lot of scientific expeditions, for example. Let's say Microsoft wanted to generate goodwill in the scientific community? What could be better than funding a space telescope?
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      Microsoft has had many incidents in which generation of goodwill would've been very valuable, so where's the Microsoft space telescope? Goodwill isn't going to cut it. There needs to be a tangible incentive.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  When did private business pay for scientific instruments, like particle colliders and gravity enterferometers?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    They did before the government got involved in it. But if you want to spend $23 billion for a collider, you're probably going to need to forcibly take the money to do it. Of course, it's worth it if it's someone else's money.
  - codewench 5y ago
    Isn't that literally every major university ever?
cecilpl2 5y ago
> IMHO a manned mission to Mars makes almost zero sense. Whether it "makes sense" or not, there are a lot of people that want it to happen, and it also happens to be the express purpose of SpaceX and Starship. That's it's raison d'etre.
yazaddaruvala 5y ago
> I do suspect we need to find commercial enterprises to justify the Starship economics and I'm just not sure what that looks like yet. At $1 MM per launch with 100 t per launch puts Starship roughly at $10 per kg. Asteroid mining: Will be a huge industry. Especially with growing environmental concerns all around Earth. Waste can basically be disposed of very cheaply into the atmosphere or sun. Starlink, Kupier, etc constellations: will continually need maintenance. Including similar constellations across the Moon and also Mars. Entertainment: Assuming 500 kgs per human (because of life support, seats, luggage, food, etc), that is $5000 per ticket to LEO. This is a very reasonable price point for luxury vacations, especially considering an "all inclusive" trip like a cruise or resort. In line with this, a space hotel/casino is very reasonable to get constructed. > All of the things you've listed here though aren't really commercial enterprises. Or at least they're far from it. They're flagship missions by governments because they're so wildly expensive. You're using past data to predict the future. Which is typically a good heuristic. However, when it comes to game changing technologies you can no longer use past data to predict future performance. SpaceX will continue to make margins off Starlink and regular F9-like flights. These profits are all going to be reinvested until a Moon and Mars colonies exist and regular trade begins. Finally, other companies like Relativity Space are creating amazing 3D printers for rockets. These new technologies are only used in a small way in Starship, but could greatly reduce costs for Starship or the next ship. If the 2010s were about F9, and 2020s are about Starship, then the 2030s call for another SpaceX ship that gets even better tech advantages.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  The military wants a C-130 payload anywhere in the world in 1 hour. Military up the wazoo in contracts. Militarization of space is inevitable, they'll want bases up there. If the payload costs are true for starship, they'll put big ones up there. Starship will represent a total paradigm change in space superiority on economics alone. I'm surprised China and Russia aren't loudly complaining about this. It would enable an actual space fortress to some degree. 10 billion dollars for a 1000 tons of hardware in space? Um, that's less than an aircraft carrier. An aircraft carrier is 100,000 tons... As stated, space tourism will be HUGE. If 5g/ticket is true, I mean, who on hackernews wouldn't go on that trip? Even if 1% of people in the world take only one flight that in our lifetime that's 80 million people. How many people want to do the Red Bull parachute from space? I would guess: A LOT. Just wait for the private Starships. Hey they should be cheaper than megayachts. Show up at starport, anywhere on earth in an hour. My biggest dream: starship payloads to get a moon-launched 1.5 million ton Project Orion pulse nuclear ship. That is serious equipment payload to do real asteroid mining. One heavy metal/rare earth metal asteroid will pay for that round trip. But really, I'd argue we just need to enable: https://space.nss.org/technologies-for-asteroid-capture-into-earth-orbit/ https://space.nss.org/technologies-for-asteroid-capture-into... Why fly it out of the gravity well? Need material? It's out there. A bit hard to catch, but it's out there.
panick21_ 5y ago
> IMHO a manned mission to Mars makes almost zero sense That's certainty not an opinion most people interest in space agree with. And Musk doesn't want to start with a colony.

by jmyeet 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

> And JWST took 20 years to develop. Likely a great deal of that was trying to optimize it for weight. Also, it was a government program - not known for cost or time efficiency.

jmyeet 5y ago
Are you imaginging a JWST or similar telescope that isn't a government program?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Why not? Capitalism has a record of funding a lot of scientific expeditions, for example. Let's say Microsoft wanted to generate goodwill in the scientific community? What could be better than funding a space telescope?
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    Microsoft has had many incidents in which generation of goodwill would've been very valuable, so where's the Microsoft space telescope? Goodwill isn't going to cut it. There needs to be a tangible incentive.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
When did private business pay for scientific instruments, like particle colliders and gravity enterferometers?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  They did before the government got involved in it. But if you want to spend $23 billion for a collider, you're probably going to need to forcibly take the money to do it. Of course, it's worth it if it's someone else's money.
- codewench 5y ago
  Isn't that literally every major university ever?

cecilpl2 5y ago

> IMHO a manned mission to Mars makes almost zero sense. Whether it "makes sense" or not, there are a lot of people that want it to happen, and it also happens to be the express purpose of SpaceX and Starship. That's it's raison d'etre.

yazaddaruvala 5y ago

> I do suspect we need to find commercial enterprises to justify the Starship economics and I'm just not sure what that looks like yet. At $1 MM per launch with 100 t per launch puts Starship roughly at $10 per kg. Asteroid mining: Will be a huge industry. Especially with growing environmental concerns all around Earth. Waste can basically be disposed of very cheaply into the atmosphere or sun. Starlink, Kupier, etc constellations: will continually need maintenance. Including similar constellations across the Moon and also Mars. Entertainment: Assuming 500 kgs per human (because of life support, seats, luggage, food, etc), that is $5000 per ticket to LEO. This is a very reasonable price point for luxury vacations, especially considering an "all inclusive" trip like a cruise or resort. In line with this, a space hotel/casino is very reasonable to get constructed. > All of the things you've listed here though aren't really commercial enterprises. Or at least they're far from it. They're flagship missions by governments because they're so wildly expensive. You're using past data to predict the future. Which is typically a good heuristic. However, when it comes to game changing technologies you can no longer use past data to predict future performance. SpaceX will continue to make margins off Starlink and regular F9-like flights. These profits are all going to be reinvested until a Moon and Mars colonies exist and regular trade begins. Finally, other companies like Relativity Space are creating amazing 3D printers for rockets. These new technologies are only used in a small way in Starship, but could greatly reduce costs for Starship or the next ship. If the 2010s were about F9, and 2020s are about Starship, then the 2030s call for another SpaceX ship that gets even better tech advantages.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
The military wants a C-130 payload anywhere in the world in 1 hour. Military up the wazoo in contracts. Militarization of space is inevitable, they'll want bases up there. If the payload costs are true for starship, they'll put big ones up there. Starship will represent a total paradigm change in space superiority on economics alone. I'm surprised China and Russia aren't loudly complaining about this. It would enable an actual space fortress to some degree. 10 billion dollars for a 1000 tons of hardware in space? Um, that's less than an aircraft carrier. An aircraft carrier is 100,000 tons... As stated, space tourism will be HUGE. If 5g/ticket is true, I mean, who on hackernews wouldn't go on that trip? Even if 1% of people in the world take only one flight that in our lifetime that's 80 million people. How many people want to do the Red Bull parachute from space? I would guess: A LOT. Just wait for the private Starships. Hey they should be cheaper than megayachts. Show up at starport, anywhere on earth in an hour. My biggest dream: starship payloads to get a moon-launched 1.5 million ton Project Orion pulse nuclear ship. That is serious equipment payload to do real asteroid mining. One heavy metal/rare earth metal asteroid will pay for that round trip. But really, I'd argue we just need to enable: https://space.nss.org/technologies-for-asteroid-capture-into-earth-orbit/ https://space.nss.org/technologies-for-asteroid-capture-into... Why fly it out of the gravity well? Need material? It's out there. A bit hard to catch, but it's out there.

panick21_ 5y ago

> IMHO a manned mission to Mars makes almost zero sense That's certainty not an opinion most people interest in space agree with. And Musk doesn't want to start with a colony.