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The big picture for Musk and SpaceX is Mars. The more profitability yields more R&D. The more R&D yields more capable rockets. The more capable rockets yield

The big picture for Musk and SpaceX is Mars. The more profitability yields more R&D. The more R&D yields more capable rockets. The more capable rockets yields a better pathway to Mars. It's pretty much spelled out at the SpaceX website.

tsotha 14y ago
While that's all true, a Mars mission can't possibly funded by SpaceX itself, which means he's going to have to convince Congress or some international consortium that it's worth doing at probably $1T. I don't see that happening. Space buffs are all excited over SpaceX (with good reason), but the general public has pretty much lost interest in manned space. Manned launches to the ISS don't even make the general news anymore despite NASA's rather formidable PR machine. The first manned Dragon launch will make the news, but only the first. Politicians (particularly presidents) keep proposing Mars missions but always push funding decisions far enough into the future someone else is going to have to deal with paying for it. The public has caught on by now, so every new Mars mission proposal is greeted with a collective yawn.
- cryptoz 14y ago
  The idea that a Mars mission would cost on the order of $1T is absurd. More reasonable estimates place it around $50 billion. The rest of your comment is ridiculous as it's based on such an absolutely outrageous estimate. SpaceX could probably do it alone if they have to. For example, Apple has enough in the bank to afford it alone right now. And we're talking about 10-15 years of SpaceX development and revenue before a Mars mission. Also note that most Mars mission costs include R&D to build a rocket to go there, of which SpaceX has already done huge amounts. Your figures are absurd FUD. Space travel is nowhere near that expensive.
  - tsotha 14y ago
    >Your figures are absurd FUD. Space travel is nowhere near that expensive. This is what I hate about space enthusiasts. You do a back-of-the-envelop calculation ignoring all the political wrangling, the on-again, off-again political support, the inevitable development setbacks, etc. In other words, you ignore the cost drivers of every single other space program in history and come up with a number that's an order of magnitude (at least) too low. If you actually got political approval for such a thing taxpayers would (justly) feel hoodwinked as program costs spiral upwards. It would be lucky to survive to completion. Based on other big government projects (like the F-22, for instance), the $1T figure is probably a little on the low side. The idea you could send people to Mars and bring them back for $50Bn, less than it costs to build a HSR line from LA to San Francisco, is sheer stupidity.
    - cryptoz 14y ago
      The mission we're talking about does not require political support. All of your arguments stem from big government waste, taxpayer indecision, etc. And you'd be right, if we were talking about NASA. But we're not. Why are you comparing daring space missions to rail or airplanes?! How about comparing to other space missions? Take the Apollo program. The entire program, with six moon landings, cost about $100 billion in 2010 dollars, and it was done half a century ago. We have momentum, private industry that is not tied to taxpayer whims, and a half a century of technology and advancement. Yes, Mars is tougher than the Moon - but not that much tougher. Space travel just isn't as expensive as you think it is. Not anymore.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        When you look at the itemized breakdown of the Apollo program costs, and realize that much of the work is already done were we to attempt it again, the picture looks even better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Program_cost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Program_cost The launch vehicles that SpaceX would/will be using will be already completed and tested, as will most required facilities. The DSN is pretty mature these days, and could probably handle a manned mission to Mars without much overhauling. As a stupidly simplified analysis, assuming that the 125million estimated cost of a Falcon Heavy remains the same wherever you point it, 1 trillion USD will get you 8 thousand launches. Assuming you use one thousand Falcon 9 launches for the initial setup and manned mission to get there, which is absurd, you would still have enough money left over to do more than 10 support flights a month for the next 50 years. (I think it is fair to say that if you need that many support flights, you shouldn't be on Mars anyway. The ISS needs a fraction of that.) Again, stupidly simplified, 8000 Falcon Heavy flights would get you 112,000,000 kg into trans-Mars orbit. That is something like one and a half RMS Queen Mary's or almost two and a half Titanics. Of course the R&D/materials for the manned spacecraft itself, the continuous mission support, the R&D/materials of any habitat, etc are all going to be very expensive. But that expensive? I don't think so.
      - tsotha 14y ago
        >We have momentum, private industry that is not tied to taxpayer whims, and a half a century of technology and advancement. That's a pipe dream. For private industry to do this there has to be a profit motive, and in this case there isn't. There's no way you can make money going to Mars, and getting sponsored by Red Bull isn't going to defray the costs much. When Elon Musk says Mars is the goal, he means he's intent on providing a capability the rest of us will be expected to pay for. >Yes, Mars is tougher than the Moon - but not that much tougher. Space travel just isn't as expensive as you think it is. Not anymore. There's a hell of a lot more to a Mars mission than getting everything to Mars. We couldn't do it today even if the rocket was free. And it won't be. Even beyond the obvious engineering problems there are still a lot of things we just don't know how to do in the constraints of the vessel. We have no practical way of protecting the crew from the radiation they'll be exposed to, for example. We don't know how to build an environmental system that guaranteed (more or less) to work for five years. We don't know how to keep astronauts in good physical and mental condition over those kinds of time frames. The list is endless. Mars is like Apollo in the same way an Everest ascent is like camping in your back yard. You are grossly underestimating the difficulty of what you're proposing, which is why you find your tiny cost estimate credible.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  Hardly. The big cost of any manned space mission is launch, and SpaceX already has that licked. Even if they were to use the Falcon Heavy as the basis for a Mars mission they could easily do a several landing mission for less than $20 billion, this is well within the costs that various studies have shown is possible for a Mars mission. And that's potentially within their long-term accumulated profit margin over a period of several years. If they manage to bring costs down further, which is something they've already demonstrated competency at, then the idea of a $5 billion or cheaper Mars mission is well within the realm of possibility.
  - tsotha 14y ago
    >The big cost of any manned space mission is launch... Sure, as long as you want to go to LEO or the moon. Mars is different.

tsotha 14y ago

While that's all true, a Mars mission can't possibly funded by SpaceX itself, which means he's going to have to convince Congress or some international consortium that it's worth doing at probably $1T. I don't see that happening. Space buffs are all excited over SpaceX (with good reason), but the general public has pretty much lost interest in manned space. Manned launches to the ISS don't even make the general news anymore despite NASA's rather formidable PR machine. The first manned Dragon launch will make the news, but only the first. Politicians (particularly presidents) keep proposing Mars missions but always push funding decisions far enough into the future someone else is going to have to deal with paying for it. The public has caught on by now, so every new Mars mission proposal is greeted with a collective yawn.

cryptoz 14y ago
The idea that a Mars mission would cost on the order of $1T is absurd. More reasonable estimates place it around $50 billion. The rest of your comment is ridiculous as it's based on such an absolutely outrageous estimate. SpaceX could probably do it alone if they have to. For example, Apple has enough in the bank to afford it alone right now. And we're talking about 10-15 years of SpaceX development and revenue before a Mars mission. Also note that most Mars mission costs include R&D to build a rocket to go there, of which SpaceX has already done huge amounts. Your figures are absurd FUD. Space travel is nowhere near that expensive.
- tsotha 14y ago
  >Your figures are absurd FUD. Space travel is nowhere near that expensive. This is what I hate about space enthusiasts. You do a back-of-the-envelop calculation ignoring all the political wrangling, the on-again, off-again political support, the inevitable development setbacks, etc. In other words, you ignore the cost drivers of every single other space program in history and come up with a number that's an order of magnitude (at least) too low. If you actually got political approval for such a thing taxpayers would (justly) feel hoodwinked as program costs spiral upwards. It would be lucky to survive to completion. Based on other big government projects (like the F-22, for instance), the $1T figure is probably a little on the low side. The idea you could send people to Mars and bring them back for $50Bn, less than it costs to build a HSR line from LA to San Francisco, is sheer stupidity.
  - cryptoz 14y ago
    The mission we're talking about does not require political support. All of your arguments stem from big government waste, taxpayer indecision, etc. And you'd be right, if we were talking about NASA. But we're not. Why are you comparing daring space missions to rail or airplanes?! How about comparing to other space missions? Take the Apollo program. The entire program, with six moon landings, cost about $100 billion in 2010 dollars, and it was done half a century ago. We have momentum, private industry that is not tied to taxpayer whims, and a half a century of technology and advancement. Yes, Mars is tougher than the Moon - but not that much tougher. Space travel just isn't as expensive as you think it is. Not anymore.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      When you look at the itemized breakdown of the Apollo program costs, and realize that much of the work is already done were we to attempt it again, the picture looks even better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Program_cost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Program_cost The launch vehicles that SpaceX would/will be using will be already completed and tested, as will most required facilities. The DSN is pretty mature these days, and could probably handle a manned mission to Mars without much overhauling. As a stupidly simplified analysis, assuming that the 125million estimated cost of a Falcon Heavy remains the same wherever you point it, 1 trillion USD will get you 8 thousand launches. Assuming you use one thousand Falcon 9 launches for the initial setup and manned mission to get there, which is absurd, you would still have enough money left over to do more than 10 support flights a month for the next 50 years. (I think it is fair to say that if you need that many support flights, you shouldn't be on Mars anyway. The ISS needs a fraction of that.) Again, stupidly simplified, 8000 Falcon Heavy flights would get you 112,000,000 kg into trans-Mars orbit. That is something like one and a half RMS Queen Mary's or almost two and a half Titanics. Of course the R&D/materials for the manned spacecraft itself, the continuous mission support, the R&D/materials of any habitat, etc are all going to be very expensive. But that expensive? I don't think so.
    - tsotha 14y ago
      >We have momentum, private industry that is not tied to taxpayer whims, and a half a century of technology and advancement. That's a pipe dream. For private industry to do this there has to be a profit motive, and in this case there isn't. There's no way you can make money going to Mars, and getting sponsored by Red Bull isn't going to defray the costs much. When Elon Musk says Mars is the goal, he means he's intent on providing a capability the rest of us will be expected to pay for. >Yes, Mars is tougher than the Moon - but not that much tougher. Space travel just isn't as expensive as you think it is. Not anymore. There's a hell of a lot more to a Mars mission than getting everything to Mars. We couldn't do it today even if the rocket was free. And it won't be. Even beyond the obvious engineering problems there are still a lot of things we just don't know how to do in the constraints of the vessel. We have no practical way of protecting the crew from the radiation they'll be exposed to, for example. We don't know how to build an environmental system that guaranteed (more or less) to work for five years. We don't know how to keep astronauts in good physical and mental condition over those kinds of time frames. The list is endless. Mars is like Apollo in the same way an Everest ascent is like camping in your back yard. You are grossly underestimating the difficulty of what you're proposing, which is why you find your tiny cost estimate credible.
InclinedPlane 14y ago
Hardly. The big cost of any manned space mission is launch, and SpaceX already has that licked. Even if they were to use the Falcon Heavy as the basis for a Mars mission they could easily do a several landing mission for less than $20 billion, this is well within the costs that various studies have shown is possible for a Mars mission. And that's potentially within their long-term accumulated profit margin over a period of several years. If they manage to bring costs down further, which is something they've already demonstrated competency at, then the idea of a $5 billion or cheaper Mars mission is well within the realm of possibility.
- tsotha 14y ago
  >The big cost of any manned space mission is launch... Sure, as long as you want to go to LEO or the moon. Mars is different.