681–690 of 839 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://bigelowaerospace.com/
They laid off all their employees earlier this year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what I meant by "hold off". It isn't commercial until it is. Government-sponsored developmental programs may one day pave the way for commercial operations, but that hasn't happened yet. And the concept of space-mining likely will not involve people. We are already replacing men with machines in mines on earth because of associated costs. I imagine the first space miners won't be guys in spacesuits carrying sh…
Especially given that we'll need to leave the magnetosphere to access a lot of space mining. You either bring a ton of shielding+food+water+life support+crew quarters, or you advance autonomous operation. One of those is already happening and highly applicable to other fields. Imo what ever comes after homo sapiens inherits the solar system, not homo sapiens ourselves
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture. If we are talking pure commercial travel, it is a vehicle without a destination. The ISS is definitely not a commercial project. There are lots of reasons for the ISS to exist, and they have changed over time, but it has never been a money-making venture. While the dragons certainly do come in under budget, they are a more…
I thought mining was the big commercial reason to launch people into space.
Mining helium-3 from the moon has been suggested. It could potentially be used for fusion power. But we currently can't make a helium-3 fusion plant, and even if we could, it would have to compete with cheaper, more abundant fuels for fusion. So it's far from certain that helium-3 mining the moon will ever happen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your parent poster's point was that previously the IP was owned by NASA. The companies contracted to build Apollo or the Space Shuttle was unable to reuse the IP to sell rides to another company or fly private citizens, nor could they bundle and sell the IP. SpaceX owns the Crew Dragon IP and tooling, and they can sell flights to private citizens - in fact I believe they said today that they are contracted wi…
I can't imagine the thought process that feels that the IP being owned by a private company who answers to no one and has no accountability to anyone is 'more sustainable' than it being owned by the public through a non-military organization (NASA)...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture. If we are talking pure commercial travel, it is a vehicle without a destination. The ISS is definitely not a commercial project. There are lots of reasons for the ISS to exist, and they have changed over time, but it has never been a money-making venture. While the dragons certainly do come in under budget, they are a more…
> I just don't see any commercial reason to launch people into space Asteroid mining comes to mind. And sure, we can do that with robots, but it's incredibly convenient to have actual sapient personnel in close proximity to coordinate things, perform repairs, etc. And Ceres is a reasonable choice for such a colony (more so than Mars, IMO, though I know plenty of people might disagree), given the low escape velocity a…
The ISS in Earth orbit cost billions of dollars and was only possible because the Space Shuttle was an awesome utility vehicle that could act as an orbital work platform. Putting even trivial ore processing and refining infrastructure in a place where it could process mined ore from asteroids would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Every gram of refined asteroid ore would amortize that bootstrapping cost. It could never pay for itself.
Even if you want to use asteroid metals for space based manufacturing...that infrastructure is more hundreds of billions of dollars to bootstrap. Then there's the pesky problem of life support, water, and food for everyone working in space to build all that shit. Every kilogram coming from Earth, even in the best priced SpaceX rocket, costs hundreds of dollars. That's all besides the fact the technology to actually mine an asteroid doesn't exist and would need to be developed at great cost.
Even if you assume government space agencies will foot the bill for these expenses, that's still decades of their human spaceflight budget focused on nothing but bootstrapping infrastructure. That would preclude the establishment of off-Earth bases or colonies unless said space agency budgets were significantly increased. It ends up coming down to money because shit isn't free and in space humans need to take all of their air, food, water, and shelter with them everywhere they go.
You wouldn't cross the Sahara desert to go to some oasis to fill up a gallon bucket of water and take it home. Especially when the Nile is right there. If you try to build a new golden civilization around that oasis you'll spend tons of money bootstrapping doing so and then...you're in the middle of the desert. Conducting trade or doing anything eats into your scarce resources making the entire venture extremely expensive and inefficient. You've also got a significantly higher risk of catastrophe wiping out your oasis city since it is isolated, small, and resource starved.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much weight should I give the opinion of someone who calls someone who disagrees with him "the pedo guy"? It's a serious question. Elon may run some successful companies, but beyond that his credibility has taken a beating on any number of fronts. How much credit should Elon get for heading companies full of other people who do the actual work? Could another leader do a better job, given Elons unsteady behaviour?
> It's a serious question. Elon may run some successful companies, but beyond that his credibility has taken a beating on any number of fronts. People are seriously confused these days. It's like doubting Einstein's famous statement about the importance of bees and his credibility in general because there's a photo of him sticking out his tongue. > How much credit should Elon get for heading companies full of other p…
That's an unfortunate example to choose considering that famous statement ("If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left.") wasn't actually said by Einstein and also isn't true.
It is hard to convey how "sustainable" this feels to me. For the first time, humans have gone into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture. All of the NASA missions prior to this have an ambience of "uneconomical but useful". Even the shuttle, which was supposed to be this cost effective space truck, turned out to be not even close. And the last thing I'm feeling is the a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Deep under the ocean is a lot more difficult than Mars.
How do you figure? You need to build structures that can withstand pressure, but that's not a problem. We sent people to the deepest parts of the ocean 80 years ago. Bottom of the ocean is on average about 3.5 km deep. You can pump air in from the surface, which isn't an option on Mars. You have abundant water, which can be desalinated, or pumped in from elsewhere. You can communicate with the rest of Earth virtually…
Building structures that can withstand pressure, never fail catastrophically, and can be repaired is really hard. In contrast on Mars you only need a bit of dirt for radiation shielding and any atmosphere leaks can be repaired at a much more relaxed pace. People can walk around on Mars in simple suits, you can't leave your structures at the bottom of the ocean at all outside of a deep sea submarine. Building habitats on Mars is essentially just mining, and we have centuries of experience with that.
Getting energy at the bottom of the ocean is also difficult. Nuclear and geothermal are the only options, whereas on Mars you can use solar panels.