SpaceX Mars colony predictions

[Spaceception]

I'm not trying to be mean, but have all of the naysayers read the article in the first post? Because it might change your mind.

Also, Frozen_Heart, they plan on paying for it through the people who want to go ($500,000 a seat. And how do you expect people paying for it you may ask? By selling everything they own of course! It's not totally crazy, seeing as how the first American colonists would do the same thing), as well as having rapid-reusable rockets

11 hours ago, The Yellow Dart said:

Just going by how Musk's off-the-cuff predictions usually turn out, I'd say late 2030s rather than right around 2030 as he says.  He is a really smart guy and a great problem solver, but he seems to make best-possible-scenario estimates that assume perfectly smooth sailing in the future and that usually isn't the case, especially when the time frame in question is well over a decade.

That's pretty good reasoning, but you never know the pages you haven't read yet.

6 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Not gonna happen. There are simply no reasons for society to spend billions on a Mars colony. The MCT is a bridge to nowhere. I think the business case won't close and Elon will be sad.

Read this page and the 5th page (On the article): http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html/4

[Gaarst]

25 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Also, Frozen_Heart, they plan on paying for it through the people who want to go ($500,000 a seat. And how do you expect people paying for it you may ask? By selling everything they own of course! It's not totally crazy, seeing as how the first American colonists would do the same thing), as well as having rapid-reusable rockets

Considering the fact that a one week stay on the ISS, in LEO costs about $20,000,000, I seriously doubt a ticket to Mars will cost 40 times less than that, and I also doubt they would even manage to pay for their program even if everyone on Earth payed.

Going to space costs a lot more than half a million per person, period.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Gaarst

[Spaceception]

2 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

Considering the fact that a one week stay on the ISS, in LEO costs about $20,000,000, I seriously doubt a ticket to Mars will cost 40 times less than that, and I also doubt they would even manage to pay for their program even if everyone on Earth payed.

Going to space costs a lot more than half a million per person, period.

Here's how they expect to bring the cost down to 500k a seat

1: Bring lots of people at once,

And 2: Rapid reusable rockets.

Go down to the bottom half of the post to "Changing the game" and read down from there. http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html/4

It shouldn't take too long.

 

[Nibb31]

42 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

I'm not trying to be mean, but have all of the naysayers read the article in the first post? Because it might change your mind.

Also, Frozen_Heart, they plan on paying for it through the people who want to go ($500,000 a seat. And how do you expect people paying for it you may ask? By selling everything they own of course! It's not totally crazy, seeing as how the first American colonists would do the same thing), as well as having rapid-reusable rockets

Mars is not America. The colonists that went to America did so escape persecution or poverty. They left because they were miserable and expected a better life for themselves and their families. They also expected to get rich(er) by growing/hunting/mining goods that would have a trade value, including with the home country. None of that applies to Mars. You won't find a better life. It will be dull, dangerous, and uncomfortable, unsuitable for raising kids, and there is nothing to trade.

If you have $500000, then you are likely not part of the population that is oppressed, persecuted, and poor. With that amount of start-up money, you could emigrate to a variety of nicer places than Mars and provide your children a decent education in a fairly comfortable environment.

So, Musk's business case for a Mars colony doesn't work. And that ticket price is unrealistically optimistic. It's very unlikely that he can bring the cost down to that level, even with reusable rockets. 

 

Quote

That's pretty good reasoning, but you never know the pages you haven't read yet.

Read this page and the 5th page (On the article): http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html/4

Mostly wishful thinking and kiddy-talk. TL;DR

 

Edited January 14, 2016 by Nibb31

[Spaceception]

15 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

10 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Mars is not America. The colonists that went to America did so escape persecution or poverty. They left because they were miserable and expected a better life for themselves and their families. They also expected to get rich(er) by growing/hunting/mining goods that would have a trade value, including with the home country. None of that applies to Mars. You won't find a better life. It will be dull, dangerous, and uncomfortable, unsuitable for raising kids, and there is nothing to trade.

If you have $500000, then you are likely not part of the population that is oppressed, persecuted, and poor. With that amount of start-up money, you could emigrate to a variety of nicer places than Mars and provide your children a decent education in a fairly comfortable environment.

So, Musk's business case for a Mars colony doesn't work. And that ticket price is unrealistically optimistic. It's very unlikely that he can bring the cost down to that level, even with reusable rockets. 

 

Mostly wishful thinking and kiddy-talk. TL;DR

 

I think that it's possible, but they'll only be providing launches and/or spacecraft. Even then it'd be like 2040/50/60 or never. SpaceX is a business, and there's not much of anything on Mars to profit from except people willing to pay them for hardware/services.

Is there any way you could change your mind?

[Nibb31]

Again, launches and/or spacecraft to Mars is not a proper business plan. It's a bridge to nowhere. It would be like setting up daily 747 flights to South Georgia Island and expecting thousands of people to want to emigrate there.

The only thing that would change my mind is if someone could come up with an actual business plan that justifies the cost of sending populations to Mars to stay.

The barriers are not technological. When the need arises to send people to Mars, I have no doubt that we will figure out how to do it. In fact, that's the easy part. The real problems are social, economical, and political. There currently is no reason to colonize Mars. Proponents of Mars colonization are grasping at straws trying find justification for their science-fiction pipe dreams.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Nibb31

[Gaarst]

50 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Here's how they expect to bring the cost down to 500k a seat

1: Bring lots of people at once,

And 2: Rapid reusable rockets.

Go down to the bottom half of the post to "Changing the game" and read down from there. http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html/4

It shouldn't take too long.

Indeed, this shows how SpaceX could reduce the price of a ticket to $500,000.
Though I would like to make a comment on this, a short one, a single word actually:

Assumptions.

Reality is not a fairy tale. And SpaceX are not magicians. This article just makes too much ridiculous assumptions for its arguments to be realistic. Sure, what it says is possible, but I think that Mars spontaneously moving in Earth orbit is more likely than all these predictions coming true.

It would be a great thing if it happened, but there are just so much unpredictable variables that could knock down SpaceX's ambitions at any moment. Predicting technological advances of the next few years is almost impossible, let alone those up to over 20 years. Economists didn't see the 2008 economic crisis arrive. Astronomers were baffled by New Horizons' images of Pluto. Facebook came out of nowhere and has become one of the most powerful companies in less than 10 years. Ebola appeared from nowhere too, was supposed to wipe out humanity, and is now disappearing, all of this in 2 years. The Space Shuttle was supposed to lower the costs of space travel immensly (reminds me of something)... And I can go on.
Therefore, arbitrarily dividing costs by hundreds over the next ten years or so is fantasy.

 

Also, I find your "It shouldn't take too long" unnecessary and somewhat condescending. Interpreted it wrong, nevermind.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Gaarst

[Motokid600]

No offense Nibb, but I hope your wrong. For the survival of the species to be dependent on a lack of red tape... It's ashame. 

Does NASA profit from every mission they conduct? Or is that wondering too far into stawman territory?

Edited January 14, 2016 by Motokid600

[Spaceception]

12 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

Indeed, this shows how SpaceX could reduce the price of a ticket to $500,000.
Though I would like to make a comment on this, a short one, a single word actually:

Assumptions.

Reality is not a fairy tale. And SpaceX are not magicians. This article just makes too much ridiculous assumptions for its arguments to be realistic. Sure, what it says is possible, but I think that Mars spontaneously moving in Earth orbit is more likely than all these predictions coming true.

It would be a great thing if it happened, but there are just so much unpredictable variables that could knock down SpaceX's ambitions at any moment. Predicting technological advances of the next few years is almost impossible, let alone those up to over 20 years. Economists didn't see the 2008 economic crisis arrive. Astronomers were baffled by New Horizons' images of Pluto. Facebook came out of nowhere and has become one of the most powerful companies in less than 10 years. Ebola appeared from nowhere too, was supposed to wipe out humanity, and is now disappearing, all of this in 2 years. The Space Shuttle was supposed to lower the costs of space travel immensly (reminds me of something)... And I can go on.
Therefore, arbitrarily dividing costs by hundreds over the next ten years or so is fantasy.

 

Also, I find your "It shouldn't take too long" unnecessary and somewhat condescending.

"It shouldn't take too long" was for the article. And you're right, there are a lot of things that are unpredictable, but I have faith this will succeed, not just because SpaceX is doing incredible things (Even if they're not always on schedule), but because people all over the world will want to take part in humanity's greatest adventure, and if that sounds like MarsOne, I admit, it does, but SpaceX is much more trustworthy, with.lot's of credibility behind them, so this time, It'll be different. I guess it does sound like wishful thinking, but I believe this will succeed, one way or another, Elon Musk will make this work, just like when people said he wouldn't be able to make an electric car company, he made a electric car company, and it's working really well, or when he tried to make a new space program, people said it wouldn't work, and yet, it's one of the most notable space programs out there now, Musk will put a colony on Mars, I just know it.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Spaceception

[Kerbart]

12 hours ago, Temstar said:

It will be a flop, there's just no business case for it.

Yes I know, all eggs in one basket etc etc and I agree, having human presence all over the solar system is great insurance against being wiped out by another dinosaur killer rock. But still, money talks and b......t walks. If there's no economy reason to go to Mars then the money will not be forth coming and nothing will get done.

I get the impression that Musk is doing SpaceX because he wants to go to Mars, period. SpaceX helps because (a) it makes a lot of money and (b) it drives down the cost of going to Mars. It's not like he thinks going to Mars will bring in large profits for SpaceX; it's more that he wants to go there and SpaceX is the way to do that for him.

Whether the project will flop depends on what the goals are, and to what extend those are achieved.

[The Yellow Dart]

I think people who say it won't happen because there is no business-sense in it are ignoring the fact that SpaceX is a private company and Elon Musk is essentially the Captain of the ship. I'm sure he'd like to be able to make money on it, or at least come close, but Elon wants people on Mars. That was the sole reason he started a rocket company without any previous experience in the field. He saw that NASA had no plans to do it so he decided to use his own money toward doing it himself, and everything he has done with SpaceX has been working towards getting spaceboots on the ground on Mars. So even if the economics don't work out like he thinks, and the MCT never happens, and we never see 1 million humans on Mars, you can bet that as long as SpaceX is still in business, Elon Musk will keep trying to get people there.

As far as having enough business to make reusablility feasible, that is based on the cost of putting something into orbit before SpaceX. The aerospace market is slower than conventional markets, and is still reacting and adapting to SpaceX lowering the price of getting to orbit even before reusability. It is reasonable to assume that the number of potential Falcon9 customers will go up over the next decade in response to this. I don't know if it will go up enough for reusability (IMO, I think there is already enough business to make it work) but either way SpaceX will be at the very least financially secure for the foreseeable future.

[Nibb31]

12 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

No offense Nibb, but I hope your wrong. For the survival of the species to be dependent on a lack of red tape... It's ashame. 

Does NASA profit from every mission they conduct? Or is that wondering too far into stawman territory?

Survival of the species has nothing to do with it. If that's what you're worried about, then the best way to protect our species is to protect our planet. You can't make a "backup of humanity" by colonizing Mars any more than you can duplicate your computer by saving a few files to an old floppy disk.

What has NASA got to do with it?

Edited January 14, 2016 by Nibb31

[The Yellow Dart]

I also think that once SpaceX starts serious work on Mars, NASA and ESA will want to partner with them, pooling resources and making this more feasible. I think Elon would be more than happy to do this as he only cares about achieving the goal, not how it happens. NASA has thus far been very open to and encouraging of SpaceX's innovations and ambitions.

[Spaceception]

3 minutes ago, The Yellow Dart said:

I also think that once SpaceX starts serious work on Mars, NASA and ESA will want to partner with them, pooling resources and making this more feasible. I think Elon would be more than happy to do this as he only cares about achieving the goal, not how it happens. NASA has thus far been very open to and encouraging of SpaceX's innovations and ambitions.

Definitely, if SpaceX really gets serious putting humans on the red planet by 2030, NASA will want very much to be part of it, like the saying goes, "If you can't beat em' join em"

[Motokid600]

9 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Survival of the species has nothing to do with it. If that's what you're worried about, then the best way to protect our species is to protect our planet. You can't make a "backup of humanity" by colonizing Mars any more than you can duplicate your computer by saving a few files to an old floppy disk.

What has NASA got to do with it?

I'm saying that if any space mission in the past up until now needed a profitable "business plan" we wouldn't have gotten very far.

And protecting the planet won't save us from cosmic threats. 

[Spaceception]

4 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

I'm saying that if any space mission in the past up until now needed a profitable "business plan" we wouldn't have gotten very far.

And protecting the planet won't save us from cosmic threats. 

Exactly, Not worrying about interplanetary colonization, and only worrying about Earths problems is like not worrying about your heath until all of your bills are payed, there will always be problems here, but if we don't colonize space, fixing them will be useless.

[Frozen_Heart]

1 hour ago, Spaceception said:

I'm not trying to be mean, but have all of the naysayers read the article in the first post? Because it might change your mind.

Also, Frozen_Heart, they plan on paying for it through the people who want to go ($500,000 a seat. And how do you expect people paying for it you may ask? By selling everything they own of course! It's not totally crazy, seeing as how the first American colonists would do the same thing), as well as having rapid-reusable rockets

That's pretty good reasoning, but you never know the pages you haven't read yet.

Read this page and the 5th page (On the article): http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html/4

$500,000 x 100 people is 50 million. So you're expecting the largest rocket ever built to be one of the cheapest? Even the Falcon 9 costs $60 million to launch. You would need 10x as many ppl to make it work.

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, Frozen_Heart said:

$500,000 x 100 people is 50 million. So you're expecting the largest rocket ever built to be one of the cheapest? Even the Falcon 9 costs $60 million to launch. You would need 10x as many ppl to make it work.

Elon Musk want's to expand the spacecraft to hold a few hundred people, also, the revenue from their satellite launches will also help pay for the mission, and the fact that they'll have rapid-reusable rockets, will make the price tag seem much more reasonable.

[SargeRho]

The BFR is meant to be fully reusable, so it may well be considerably cheaper. A transpacific flight on an A380 doesn't cost 370 million dollars, after all, while burning a comparable amount of fuel in the process.

[Frozen_Heart]

Just now, Spaceception said:

Elon Musk want's to expand the spacecraft to hold a few hundred people, also, the revenue from their satellite launches will also help pay for the mission, and the fact that they'll have rapid-reusable rockets, will make the price tag seem much more reasonable.

100 people is the max number that has been quoted. With it being more likely 10 or so to start. The BFR will never be launching for 50 million. The cost of the rocket is only one chunk of launch costs.

I never though I'd turn into Nibb :/

 

[Spaceception]

8 minutes ago, Frozen_Heart said:

100 people is the max number that has been quoted. With it being more likely 10 or so to start. The BFR will never be launching for 50 million. The cost of the rocket is only one chunk of launch costs.

I never though I'd turn into Nibb :/

 

Well, there is the possibility that the price tag will be higher in the beginning, and the $500k price tag doesn't come until the first few "Colonial fleets". Who knows? I guess we'll have to save our judgement until SpaceX lays down the plans in (Hopefully) a couple of months.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Spaceception

[Nibb31]

43 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

I'm saying that if any space mission in the past up until now needed a profitable "business plan" we wouldn't have gotten very far.

NASA is a government organization. Its return on investment is dictated by political goals: prestige, diplomatic bargaining chips, and subsidizing the districts of prominent congress members. It's a research and soft-power organization. Colonization is not part of its mandate.

Where is the political and social push to spend government money on colonizing Mars? Where are the ground-roots social movements who want taxpayer money to fund off-world settlements? Where are the politicians who have added it as part of their platform ? What benefit would any government expect from building a self-sufficient colony?

43 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

And protecting the planet won't save us from cosmic threats. 

Protecting the planet includes surveying and alleviating cosmic threats, which is still much cheaper than building colonies on other planets.

Besides, there aren't any credible cosmic threats that would leave less survivors on Earth than a colony on Mars. Even if you wipe out 99.9% of the World's population, there will still be more survivors than a Mars colony could ever support. If we have the technology to build self-sufficient habitats on Mars, then we can also build self-sufficient habitats on a scorched Earth. Having a colony on Mars has no effect on our chances of survival as a species. There is no backup. If we lose Earth, we lose everything, and there won't be anybody left to be sad about it, so it won't really matter anyway.

[Motokid600]

You should run for congress Nibb it sounds like you'd fit right in. What exactly do you look for in space travel? How does a pessimist such as yourself find his interest in such a thing? 

Not trying to insult or be rude I'm genuinely curious. I understand that a certain level of realism must be used when it comes to space travel and humanities future in the solar system. But a balance must be found between pessimism and optimism. We can't all hope for terraformation or interstellar space ships, no. But when it comes to what our society will do within the century a little optimism goes a long way. No there is no political incentive for a Martian colony. There may never be. But if certain people come forward who have too much money then what's to stop them?

 So where is your balance Nibb? What are you optimistic towards when it comes to space travel?

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, SargeRho said:

The BFR is meant to be fully reusable, so it may well be considerably cheaper. A transpacific flight on an A380 doesn't cost 370 million dollars, after all, while burning a comparable amount of fuel in the process.

A 6 month long flight on an A380 with supplies for the journey would cost way more than $500000.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Nibb31

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, Motokid600 said:

 So where is your balance Nibb? What are you optimistic towards when it comes to space travel?

I'd like to see a bright future as much as anyone else here, but I'm realistic. My opinions are fueled by my observations and my experience of how the world works. Being realistic only makes the small achievements more awesome. I was blown away by New Horizon's flyby or Philae landing on a comet. I'm blown away by the ISS. I'd be blown away by a new Moon landing, even if it is just a rehash of Apollo.

I've learnt not that we should be modest. Space is hard, and progress is made by accomplishing smaller goals that are actually achievable rather than dreaming about goals that are unrealistic.