51–60 of 100 posts
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A simple use case would be mining asteroids for ice and selling it to NASA for use in the ISS.
The ISS isn't a big enough water market to merit this kind of activity. This might be viable if we had 100x more people in space.
So the 'steamroller' is now up to speed. Does anyone have any ideas if Spacex will actually grow the launch market, rather than just dominate. What new things become possible with lower cost access to space. Spacex are developing communications satellites for internet, what else? Edit: Thanks for all the replies so far, I was thinking more down to earth (di dum ch) things rather than theoretically possible. Eg I know…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ISS isn't a big enough water market to merit this kind of activity. This might be viable if we had 100x more people in space.
also asteroids generally orbit in the plane of the ecliptic, the delta-v needed to take water mined from a main belt asteroid and bring it to LEO, then match it with the inclination of the ISS orbit at 51.6 degrees inclination is non-trivial.
So the 'steamroller' is now up to speed. Does anyone have any ideas if Spacex will actually grow the launch market, rather than just dominate. What new things become possible with lower cost access to space. Spacex are developing communications satellites for internet, what else? Edit: Thanks for all the replies so far, I was thinking more down to earth (di dum ch) things rather than theoretically possible. Eg I know…
One thing not covered by existing comments but which has made a lot of difference, and most people don't even think to list since it's taken for granted everywhere else. Price discovery, we now actually know the cost.
Before Space X the costs of the launch industry were shrouded in mystery. Nobody would give you a quote without a meeting and an NDA, and certainly not post prices on a website[1].
Even if SpaceX had absolutely nothing to offer beyond ULA and Arianespace other than the exact same services at the same price but with public pricing it would already have been a big deal.
Businesses can now make plans for getting a payload in orbit without speculation about what the cost are going to be.
How much of this success is because of Elon?
SpaceX is a huge collaboration of many essential individuals who's absence would have made it impossible.
How much of this success is because of Elon?
How do you measure something like that? Without Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist (and in all likelyhood no comparable company would exist in its place), so all of it. Without everyone but Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist, so none of it.
Does SpaceX still need Elon? As a figure head, maybe. As a leader? More complicated, there's probably still some risky path-finding left but the biggest moon-shots are now out of the way and as long as it doesn't become a quarterly returns focused company anyone slightly bullish could probably do a good enough job.
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People keep say astroid mining but I've yet to see a convincing business case...
I agree that cheaper launches will not do much to directly change the business of astroid mining. The majority of the cost, even today, are not related to rockets.
"Even today". There is an opinion that payloads are so expensive because the launchers are expensive. I.e., you can't send replacements easily, because a launch is expensive, so you have to design the payload so that it wouldn't break, and last 9-s of reliability cost additional 0-s in price.
In other words, if launchers would become cheaper, that would encourage sending more payloads which isn't designed to be as reliable and serve as long. If something happens, just send a replacement. The issue of space junk comes to mind, but if launches are cheaper you can include into the launched mass the active means of dealing with space junk, like fuel for deorbiting.
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In addition to asteroid mining and other industrial activities, once pricing comes down, I think entertainment could be a large market. Space tourism is one possibility, but tourists have to deal with getting sick going up. I think entertainment produced in space but sold on Earth could be big - particularly space sports! You could design sports that are just not possible to play on a planet.
People keep say astroid mining but I've yet to see a convincing business case...
I can come up with other cases, but there is a lot of other technology that needs to be worked on before we are ready to build generation ships heading to other star systems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you measure something like that? Without Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist (and in all likelyhood no comparable company would exist in its place), so all of it. Without everyone but Elon, SpaceX wouldn't exist, so none of it.
A better spin on this question is probably along the lines of: Does SpaceX still need Elon? As a figure head, maybe. As a leader? More complicated, there's probably still some risky path-finding left but the biggest moon-shots are now out of the way and as long as it doesn't become a quarterly returns focused company anyone slightly bullish could probably do a good enough job.