This talk was surreal.
SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]
41–50 of 287 posts
Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]
#42So what's the carbon footprint of one of these launches? Did I understand correctly that we can make the fuel by taking CO2 from the atmosphere? That would make the footprint negative, would it? That seems to good to be true.
Not negative, since you are creating just as much CO2 burning the CH4 as you removed in the first place. Carbon neutral though.
I suppose some of it would be lost to the vacuum of space, though it would have to be an impressively large space transport market for that to start making a global difference.
Also weird to think about the long-term implications of Earth's resources leaving Earth permanently/irrecoverably.
Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think personally I'd keep my seat belt on regardless even if there were restrooms
You kidding? There's no way I'm staying in my seat during zero gravity. I might pay more to do a couple of extra orbits and play around before coming down.
I reckon everyone would be out of their seats as soon as boost is done. Getting everyone back into their seats in time for re-entry might be the issue ("take the nearest available").
Earth to earth flights would be sub-orbital though, so no opportunity for extra orbits.
Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]
#44Considering Earth-to-Earth, can the BFR launch through most weather scenarios?
All rockets (during launch) are more sensitive to lightning strikes than planes. That's a given: the exhaust plume conducts electricity.
Compared to F9, BFR is fatter and would have less trouble with high-altitude winds at launch.
Now landing weather, that's another thing.
Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]
#45SpaceX is building the BFR and launch facilities, but who is going to build all the equipment and gear required to live there - who is building the cargo?
I think the idea is that by building the bus and announcing a schedule the rest will happen naturally.
The timeframes are pretty tight, so I hope there are companies already working on it. Anyone know?
Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]
#46Musk's public speaking skills (the stutters) give me hope as a non native English speaker.
Considering that he is often compared to Steve Jobs in terms of his impact and innovation, I find it endearing that he doesn't have any of Jobs' glibness
Makes him feel more authentic. Like an engineer talking about his stuff, not a marketing guy
Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]
#47Back of the envelope calculation for the price of an Earth-to-Earth ticket: Musk's stated goal is $500k/ticket to Mars. It's a shorter trip, so perhaps ~5x as many passengers in the same volume (i.e. 500 total; cf. a380 which seats 850). It takes five (?) orbital refuel trips for the martian journey, but we'd need none of those. Depending on how much less than a full tank the passenger vehicle needs (payload could be…
Ironically, I think SpaceX will have a lot more trouble with any E2E ambitions than they would with missions to Mars. So much red tape, no one's going to want a space-port in their backyard, different/difficult economics, safety concerns, terrorism concerns, etc. etc.
Thats why they show the spaceport out at sea, as it kills the standard NIMBY objections. Also the cities they want to fly out of don’t have enough room to easily build a spaceport.
Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]
#48One big limitation that was glossed over in the presentation is radiation exposure. The only time it came up was the mention of a 'solar storm shelter'. The radiation exposure during the Martian transit would be much greater than the same time spent on the ISS, somewhere on the order of 200mSv [0] (the composition of this radiation also contains significantly greater proportions of heavy-ion radiation, which appears to be more damaging, so this may need to be adjusted upwards). According to the wonderful xkcd chart [1], this would be in the 'probably no radiation sickness, but certainly not good for you' territory.
I would love to know what their plans are, since shielding is heavy. [2] seems to suggest electromagnetic deflection as viable (which would be insanely cool, and could probably reuse SpaceX's cryogenics work for superconductors).
Also, a quick search didn't turn up much on the anisotropy of interplanetary radiation, but I wonder how much a reduction would be achieved by angling the crewless area of the ship towards the solar wind (which I think Musk had touched on in an earlier talk).
[0]: http://www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE/ASC/DATA/bibliography/ICRC200... [1]: https://xkcd.com/radiation/ [2]: https://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d76205x/research/shieldin...
EDIT: Of course these sorts of talks are really exciting! This is just one more in a laundry list of crazy-cool engineering problems that have to be/are being solved.
Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]
#49Honestly, Elon's presentations are some of the most impressive, inspiring I've ever seen. And the way he just stumbles out words and sentences that are completely revolutionary... casually dropping these absurd, incredible statements. I find it incredible. If anyone else was saying this, was showing these graphics, you'd think it was just wish fulfillment; a fantasy. And I'm sure their timeline is a bit aggressive. B…
His presentation style usually seems to be pretty raw, in a good way. It's not as crisp/polished as Jobs' presentations were, or in fact others.
As in, it's not as marketable. It's doesn't seem like it's been a style of preparation for a pure sales/marketing kind of pitch.
Kind of interesting, in my opinion.
Re: SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video]
#50Musk's speaking is always a little awkward (in an endearing way), but did he seem significantly more nervous/emotionally affected than usual in the first part of this speech? It seemed that way to me, curious if anyone else interpreted it like that. He calms down when he starts talking about risk and it being the anniversary of a launch. edit: Good and fun presentation regardless! edit2: Thoughts: - Maybe he feels in…
He did seem way more nervous than usual.
I think it's weighing on him.. I think he'd like to move/iterate faster.. and the costs/stress of doing what he's doing when MANY keep saying 'Can't BE DONE' ... well.. to persevere through that.. takes some real strength of character and determination...but it's still stressful. I think you can hear that in his voice. I bet he's tired as fuck.