2 ms·

I’ll buy your argument for the sake of it. We are killing two orders of magnitude of cost. $14 per kg to get something to space. Well, right now a gallon of g

by dangus 9mo ago

I’ll buy your argument for the sake of it. We are killing two orders of magnitude of cost. $14 per kg to get something to space. Well, right now a gallon of gasoline all-in after extraction, refinement, transportation, and taxes retails for $3-4 in the US. So that gallon of gasoline isn’t worth transporting to and from space. That gasoline would cost $38 just to import it from space (2.7kg). Okay, fine, we’re just doing space mining to get stuff like precious metals: platinum, gold, etc. not sure what societal problems that solves, but hey, here we are. Here’s where I stop buying your argument for the sake of it: you’re telling me we are chopping 2 orders of magnitude off the price, but then you’d have to explain to me how sending material to space is going to be cheaper than UPS Ground Saver retail rates. Elon wants to launch solar panels into space and send power back to earth…sure fine but why is any utility company considering doing that rather than putting them in a former corn field in Nebraska? The amount of acreage the USA blows on fire ethanol production alone is enough land to power the entire country with terrestrial solar power, the cheapest form of energy on the market.

somenameforme 9mo ago
Deep space solar solves the intermittency problem of solar, benefits from an inverse square relationship with the distance meaning you can get way more power per panel, is directly applicable to SpaceX's primary goal of getting to Mars, and so on. The big picture goal is making humanity multiplanetary, of which every SpaceX project can tie into one one way or the other, even the ultimately unsuccessful Boring Company. As for how sending stuff to space could be cheaper than sending it by some retail delivery service - it's because the economy is extremely dysfunctional on many fronts, especially in the US. You pay dramatically more for a bottle of water in Michigan, home to a sizable fraction of the entire world's fresh water supply, than you do in the middle of the desert in Saudi Arabia. [1] [1] - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/bottled-water-cost-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/bottled-w...
- dangus 9mo ago
  Batteries also solve the intermittency problem, for less money, and their materials are essentially 100% recyclable. Solar+batteries together are already cheaper than any other form of grid scale electricity production. Entire islands with thousands of people on them have replaced their fuel-based power generation with solar+battery and are seeing lower costs and higher reliability. If the economy is dysfunctional on earth, why is SpaceX a special snowflake company that is not also dysfunctional? It’s a US-based company. It’s publicly traded just like UPS. UPS has more competitors than SpaceX (FedEx, USPS, DHL, Amazon fulfillment, numerous B2C couriers, international couriers) Using the price of bottled water is not meaningful to this discussion. Bottled water is a convenience product, the water is not a significant aspect of the retail cost of the product. Bottled water costs $5 inside the airport and $.15 at the Costco 2 miles down the road. The water is not the driver of the cost. We only have one proven habitable planet and we need to protect it. Multi planetary habitation is some combination of 4 things: 1. Billionaires’ excuse to extract the earth dry for profit. 2. Billionaires’ fantasy to escape the pitchforks at their doorsteps, to build a gated community in the cosmos 3. Billionaires’ pump and dump investment vehicle 4. Billionaires’ science fiction affirmation of their narcissistic belief in their own demigodhood.
  - somenameforme 9mo ago
    Batteries don't scale well when you're speaking of extremely high energy needs, especially given their deterioration over time. There's more clever things like artificial hydroelectric, but even that runs into scaling issues. Deep space solar, once established, has nice scaling potential. The inverse square distance:luminosity relationship really opens the door to some truly sci-fi type scenarios. SpaceX is not publicly traded. It's privately owned and operated, with Elon's motivation behind the company being consistently ideological in nature. The water prices were apples to apples comparisons - the cost of a 0.33 liter bottle of water in an average restaurant.

by dangus 9mo ago

somenameforme 9mo ago

Deep space solar solves the intermittency problem of solar, benefits from an inverse square relationship with the distance meaning you can get way more power per panel, is directly applicable to SpaceX's primary goal of getting to Mars, and so on. The big picture goal is making humanity multiplanetary, of which every SpaceX project can tie into one one way or the other, even the ultimately unsuccessful Boring Company. As for how sending stuff to space could be cheaper than sending it by some retail delivery service - it's because the economy is extremely dysfunctional on many fronts, especially in the US. You pay dramatically more for a bottle of water in Michigan, home to a sizable fraction of the entire world's fresh water supply, than you do in the middle of the desert in Saudi Arabia. [1] [1] - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/bottled-water-cost-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/bottled-w...

dangus 9mo ago
Batteries also solve the intermittency problem, for less money, and their materials are essentially 100% recyclable. Solar+batteries together are already cheaper than any other form of grid scale electricity production. Entire islands with thousands of people on them have replaced their fuel-based power generation with solar+battery and are seeing lower costs and higher reliability. If the economy is dysfunctional on earth, why is SpaceX a special snowflake company that is not also dysfunctional? It’s a US-based company. It’s publicly traded just like UPS. UPS has more competitors than SpaceX (FedEx, USPS, DHL, Amazon fulfillment, numerous B2C couriers, international couriers) Using the price of bottled water is not meaningful to this discussion. Bottled water is a convenience product, the water is not a significant aspect of the retail cost of the product. Bottled water costs $5 inside the airport and $.15 at the Costco 2 miles down the road. The water is not the driver of the cost. We only have one proven habitable planet and we need to protect it. Multi planetary habitation is some combination of 4 things: 1. Billionaires’ excuse to extract the earth dry for profit. 2. Billionaires’ fantasy to escape the pitchforks at their doorsteps, to build a gated community in the cosmos 3. Billionaires’ pump and dump investment vehicle 4. Billionaires’ science fiction affirmation of their narcissistic belief in their own demigodhood.
- somenameforme 9mo ago
  Batteries don't scale well when you're speaking of extremely high energy needs, especially given their deterioration over time. There's more clever things like artificial hydroelectric, but even that runs into scaling issues. Deep space solar, once established, has nice scaling potential. The inverse square distance:luminosity relationship really opens the door to some truly sci-fi type scenarios. SpaceX is not publicly traded. It's privately owned and operated, with Elon's motivation behind the company being consistently ideological in nature. The water prices were apples to apples comparisons - the cost of a 0.33 liter bottle of water in an average restaurant.