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It makes it cheaper, but still very expensive. A dozen or more launches of very large rockets to ready a payload large enough to do any work in the asteroid bel

It makes it cheaper, but still very expensive. A dozen or more launches of very large rockets to ready a payload large enough to do any work in the asteroid belt and come back, and that’d be like a tiny prospector-robot aiming to return a couple kg of material. Doing much more remains locked behind the expensive (to put it mildly) and unproven notion of getting industrial-scale fuel refining working in space (or at least in a much smaller gravity well) with minimal inputs from Earth. There are… a few challenges there.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago
Guess I was thinking if we did have 50 (from 70's onward) years of massive funding, that cheaper re-usable ships would have been developed earlier. We wouldn't have needed SpaceX, because re-usability would have been achieved earlier. The Space Shuttle was an attempt, but even that was pretty small funding, and later. If the funding had continued from the 70's onward then even the Space Shuttle would have looked antiquated. As mentioned there is a huge initial capital cost to enter into the Space Industry, that is why you need government to jump start it. SpaceX is great, but even that is decades later than it had to be.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  I think the experience with the Shuttle shows that NASA was fundamentally unable to produce an economically viable product. They simply aren't structured to be able to do that -- the political structure around them prevents it, regardless of the level of funding. It's the same reason private companies in competitive industries outperform government design bureaus.
- DennisP 2y ago
  If you haven't yet, watch the series For All Mankind. It's a look at how history might have played out if the Soviets had gotten to the Moon first and the space race just kept going. It's really well done, and for any space nut it's an odd mix of inspiring and poignant.
DennisP 2y ago
You'd likely start with the near-Earth asteroids. The easiest have the same delta-v requirement as the Moon. SpaceX is planning about a dozen refueling flights for a Moon landing but that's for a hundred tons of payload. For the main belt, it probably makes the most sense to use low-thrust high-ISP rockets rather than chemical.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago

Guess I was thinking if we did have 50 (from 70's onward) years of massive funding, that cheaper re-usable ships would have been developed earlier. We wouldn't have needed SpaceX, because re-usability would have been achieved earlier. The Space Shuttle was an attempt, but even that was pretty small funding, and later. If the funding had continued from the 70's onward then even the Space Shuttle would have looked antiquated. As mentioned there is a huge initial capital cost to enter into the Space Industry, that is why you need government to jump start it. SpaceX is great, but even that is decades later than it had to be.

pfdietz 2y ago
I think the experience with the Shuttle shows that NASA was fundamentally unable to produce an economically viable product. They simply aren't structured to be able to do that -- the political structure around them prevents it, regardless of the level of funding. It's the same reason private companies in competitive industries outperform government design bureaus.
DennisP 2y ago
If you haven't yet, watch the series For All Mankind. It's a look at how history might have played out if the Soviets had gotten to the Moon first and the space race just kept going. It's really well done, and for any space nut it's an odd mix of inspiring and poignant.

DennisP 2y ago

You'd likely start with the near-Earth asteroids. The easiest have the same delta-v requirement as the Moon. SpaceX is planning about a dozen refueling flights for a Moon landing but that's for a hundred tons of payload. For the main belt, it probably makes the most sense to use low-thrust high-ISP rockets rather than chemical.