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Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

bbc.com

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Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#121

Post by boredpudding »

kingkawn wrote: post #68
raverbashing wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, only the crew mission would return, the rest would be several one-way cargo missions

Pretty sure Musk said the crew mission would not return

He did not. This is a common myth with Mars missions that was started by a company called Mars One. This company was the first to announce a mission to Mars, but they never had a single piece of flight hardware, and only had fancy 3d animations. They did however have a lot of 'applications' for becoming an astronaut while the applicants had to pay money to apply. While I'm sure the founders of Mars One had good intentions, it resulted in eventually being a scam.

This unfortunately resulted in people thinking Mars is a 'one way' mission. Elon Musk has repeated that to make live on Mars sustainable, you need roundtrips. You can't keep making new rockets, eventually you need them back. Otherwise it would become too expensive.

Info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_One

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#122

Post by AshleyGrant »

whatshisface wrote: post #104
sandworm101 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not just twice ...; it's twice squared" So "twice"(2) and "twice squared" (x^2^2) = 2^2^2 = 16

Where are you getting the third two to put in for x? Your number would be phrased as "twice squared twice."

English is a strange language. "Twice squared" could be interpreted both as "Twice as hard, squared" or "Twice as hard, squared two times."

Think of the sentence, "A man, twice fooled, shall not be fooled again."

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#123

Post by the_duke »

sandworm101 wrote: post #51
pansa2 wrote: post #3

> "This is not just twice as difficult as any typical Mars mission; it's twice squared" So, four times as difficult?

>> So, four times as difficult? Or, by "twice squared" they mean to say "It has been squared ... twice". That would be 16x, which is probably more in line with the total deltaV requirements.

Well, if the original difficulty is 1, and we square it twice, that is 1^2^2, which ... is still 1.

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#125

Post by hinkley »

rsynnott wrote: post #114
throw1234651234 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can call him Musk "master of the dubious marketing promise" anymore now that Tesla is meeting production goals, SpaceX is landing boosters, re-supplying the ISS, and has brought astronauts to the ISS. His promises are far more reliable than most at this point.

> now that Tesla is meeting production goals Where's the magic cross-country self-driving car that was meant to show up in 2016? And just how 'self driving ready' are those Model 3s? > SpaceX is landing boosters A mere decade or so after promised. I think both of these are examples of dubious marketing promises, though the Tesla one is more egregious (the SpaceX one is merely extremely late). But either way, I wouldn…

Where are my flying cars? Where is my fusion reactor?

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#126

Post by Inu »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #105
rsynnott wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think even Musk, master of the dubious marketing promise, has claimed that; the first ones would be one-way jobs AIUI.

I don't think you can call him Musk "master of the dubious marketing promise" anymore now that Tesla is meeting production goals, SpaceX is landing boosters, re-supplying the ISS, and has brought astronauts to the ISS. His promises are far more reliable than most at this point.

https://elonmusk.today

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#128

Post by rsynnott »

hinkley wrote: post #125
rsynnott wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now that Tesla is meeting production goals Where's the magic cross-country self-driving car that was meant to show up in 2016? And just how 'self driving ready' are those Model 3s? > SpaceX is landing boosters A mere decade or so after promised. I think both of these are examples of dubious marketing promises, though the Tesla one is more egregious (the SpaceX one is merely extremely late). But either way, I wouldn…

Where are my flying cars? Where is my fusion reactor?

Neither were promised to you by Airbus under a specific contract.

I mean, if you're saying that Musk's claims are less extravagant than those of newspaper columnists playing at futurology, then, yes, that's true. But it's the lowest of low bars.

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#129

Post by pharke »

itsoktocry wrote: post #56
bufferoverflow wrote: post #41

> The joint American-European project is expected to cost billions and take just over a decade to implement. I'm 99% sure that if SpaceX's starship takes off, it will fly to Mars and back within a few years. But still, competition is good.

> I'm 99% sure that if SpaceX's starship takes off, it will fly to Mars and back within a few years. Define "a few years" and I'll bet you it won't, with whatever odds you want.

I think 10 (+/- 2) years is a fair estimate but I would start counting from when Starship reaches orbit. It would be close enough to their historical development timeline of the Falcon which went from Falcon 1 reaching orbit in 2008 to a crewed Falcon 9 mission to the ISS in 2020, with a propulsive landing of the first stage to boot. I would expect a number of missions within that timeframe that could possibly satisfy the condition of "fly to Mars and back" but I think they will be able to do a full surface of Earth to surface of Mars and back to surface of Earth crewed mission at the end of that period. Call me an optimist but I'm pretty sure that's what they're aiming for.
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