5 ms·

Hopefully there is no slaves or gold on Mars ;)

by bikamonki 12y ago

theklub 12y ago
Hopefully there is a ton of gold, that'll get us there really quick.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Gold is heavy. How expensive would it be to send enough fuel to Mars to have enough fuel to return the gold to Earth? Or do we get fuel on Mars?
  - mikeyouse 12y ago
    I don't know the math offhand, but the return trip from Mars would take far less fuel than the initial trip. The atmosphere is almost non-existent and Mars' gravity is about 2/5 of Earth's. Similar to our experience on the moon, it took a Saturn V to get to the moon, but the Lunar Lander + CSM were enough to get back to earth from there.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    Solar panels and water gets you all the fuel you ever need. One of the things that is interesting is finding asteroids with water and parking a solar panel on them to quietly sit and make hydrogen so that you have loads of refueling stations zipping around the inner solar system.
  - peeters 12y ago
    You've got it all wrong. If there's gold on Mars, there's a financial incentive to send a million people to Mars to create a market for it!
  - lmm 12y ago
    An example I always found quite fun: if you knew how to turn lead into gold in LEO, for free, it still wouldn't be a profitable venture.
    - kgabis 12y ago
      Gold costs ~$38,000/kg [1], lead costs ~$4/kg, and launching 1 kg to LEO costs ~$4,000 [2]. It would be an extremely profitable venture. [1] http://goldprice.org/gold-price-per-kilo.html http://goldprice.org/gold-price-per-kilo.html [2] http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1989/what-is-the-current-cost-per-pound-to-send-something-into-leo/1991#1991 http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1989/what-is-the-cu...
      - lmm 12y ago
        Fair enough. I probably read the claim back when gold was ~$9k/kilo and there was no SpaceX.
- archagon 12y ago
  Ha, there's something absurd about the idea of sending a bunch of people to a distant planet just to get their hands on a bit of shiny, somewhat rare rock.

Hopefully there is no slaves or gold on Mars ;)

theklub 12y ago

Hopefully there is a ton of gold, that'll get us there really quick.

DanBC 12y ago
Gold is heavy. How expensive would it be to send enough fuel to Mars to have enough fuel to return the gold to Earth? Or do we get fuel on Mars?
- mikeyouse 12y ago
  I don't know the math offhand, but the return trip from Mars would take far less fuel than the initial trip. The atmosphere is almost non-existent and Mars' gravity is about 2/5 of Earth's. Similar to our experience on the moon, it took a Saturn V to get to the moon, but the Lunar Lander + CSM were enough to get back to earth from there.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  Solar panels and water gets you all the fuel you ever need. One of the things that is interesting is finding asteroids with water and parking a solar panel on them to quietly sit and make hydrogen so that you have loads of refueling stations zipping around the inner solar system.
- peeters 12y ago
  You've got it all wrong. If there's gold on Mars, there's a financial incentive to send a million people to Mars to create a market for it!
- lmm 12y ago
  An example I always found quite fun: if you knew how to turn lead into gold in LEO, for free, it still wouldn't be a profitable venture.
  - kgabis 12y ago
    Gold costs ~$38,000/kg [1], lead costs ~$4/kg, and launching 1 kg to LEO costs ~$4,000 [2]. It would be an extremely profitable venture. [1] http://goldprice.org/gold-price-per-kilo.html http://goldprice.org/gold-price-per-kilo.html [2] http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1989/what-is-the-current-cost-per-pound-to-send-something-into-leo/1991#1991 http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1989/what-is-the-cu...
    - lmm 12y ago
      Fair enough. I probably read the claim back when gold was ~$9k/kilo and there was no SpaceX.
archagon 12y ago
Ha, there's something absurd about the idea of sending a bunch of people to a distant planet just to get their hands on a bit of shiny, somewhat rare rock.