Nibb31

When it comes to colonization, you are including children. Imposing a 10% lifetime risk (which would actually be much higher for young children) can be considered unethical at best and probably criminal. There's still the ethical and legal question about imposing dangerous working conditions on the people you send. It will take decades if it ever reaches the $200000 and that won't include the cost of life support and habitation on Mars, so most people will be sent as employees with their company paying for the ticket, like expats, oil rig workers, antarctica scientists, and so on. These people might be volunteers, but so were coal-miners or people who worked with asbestos. We all know how that turned out it terms of life expectancy.

A "storm" on Mars is a light breeze on Earth. I doubt that the weather had anything to with it.

I don't know. It seems to have 3 sets of 3 thrusters, which should provide a decent level of fault tolerance.

The porkchop analysis is pretty good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porkchop_plot Luckily, MechJeb has this included. Not sure if it works with RSS.

The Russians successfully landed Mars 3 in 1971, but it stopped transmitting after 20 seconds on the surface.

The landing profile is a rather classic one. It's been used since Viking, and most other landers since. There aren't really many other ways to land a probe on Mars than aerobrake, chutes, and propulsive landing.

They've done several tests which didn't work really well, but the whole project is on a shoestring budget. It's not a heatshield. It's an intermediate device between a high altitude parachute and a heatshield.

Michoud was built as an aircraft factory during WWII. It built tanks (armoured vehicles) during the 50's and was transferred to NASA in the early 60s for the Saturn program.

I don't really see the point, beyond the novelty effect. Our brains have been trained used to 2D communication and representation since the invention of writing, and we have been able to convey 3D representations on a 2D surface for quite a while.

Similarly, there would be no such thing as a chicken or a cow without human intervention. We created those species through centuries of cross-breeding and artificial selection and now they only exist because they provide food. Most domestic animals would not be viable as wild animals. If we all went vegan, then pigs, cows, and chicken would go extinct. Ethics are subjective and depend on our cultural bias, but our treatment of farm animals can hardly be called "nice".

Until NASA gets a budget increase and clear orders from those-that-shall-not-be-named, NASA is not redirecting any asteroids or getting anyone to Mars. The "Journey to Mars" phrase that NASA appends to each of their press releases is just PR. There is no funding for it and no mandate from the powers above. They are not working on going to Mars.

You must be referring to the Boeing powerpoint with all sorts of fantasy missions for the SLS. It's wishful thinking, nothing more. Ideas are nothing unless they get funded by Congress. There is no funding, and no political will for any of those other missions at this stage. It takes at least 10 years to complete a complex aerospace program. Since none of those programs has received a green light from Congress, they are not going to fly in the next decade. Since SLS only has 3 actual flights manifested, it will be sitting in a hangar gathering dust (and wasting billions) for several years, if it isn't cancelled.

Why should NASA design and build a rocket like the Falcon 9 instead of just using Falcon 9 ? The only payloads that are funded are Orion and Europa Clipper.

Wishful thinking. Orion is a space Land Rover. SpaceX ITS is a space 787. Guess which one is better suited for exploration and which one is suited for existing trade routes. The problem is that there are no trade routes because there is nothing to trade. Columbus was funded by the Spanish government. You seem to be contradicting yourself here. SpaceX isn't going anywhere until: Either NASA decides to fund ITS and use it for exploration. Or someone comes up with a business plan that brings a return on investment in developing ITS There is no other possibility here. We've been exploring Mars for decades. We have found the route and the continent a long time ago. What is missing is a business plan. But this is all off-topic. The only use for Orion to Mars is as the dinghy for a much larger Mars exploration vehicle. Orion has always been scaled for cislunar exploration. As long as NASA is stuck with its stupid "Journey to Mars" mantra, it won't be going anywhere.

Who are they going to rent it to, and for how much ? Please don't tell me that there are people who actually believe that SpaceX can design and build interplanetary spaceships for less than an Airbus A330.

SpaceX isn't going anywhere without NASA paying for it either, you know.

You're taking things too personally. I don't resort to ad hominems, so it would be great if you didn't either. None of my criticisms are directed personally to you. In most cases, I don't even look at the name of the person I'm replying to. I didn't even remember (or care) who brought those other subjects up. And it's not that the ideas are stupid. Some ideas are actually smart, but that doesn't mean they are practical. When you come up with a wall of text claiming that SpaceX should be using cyclers, then you are the one who is insulting. Any aerospace engineer knows perfectly well what a cycler is, and although there might be some benefits in using one, there are also some very strong reasons that make it impractical for the current architecture. But in this case, I'm not even criticizing your ideas. I'm just saying that your ideas have no place in a SpaceX thread, because they have nothing to do with SpaceX. So why don't you? You've literally spent hours in this thread, writing down your ideas of how SpaceX could do so much better. That time could have been so much more profitable if you had spent it directly writing to SpaceX. The problem is that you are assuming that when Elon Musk picked a bunch of smart folks at SpaceX to think about a Mars mission architecture several years ago, those people didn't go through the different options. They most certainly did consider cyclers and LMO rendez-vous. And they rejected thos ideas for reasons. There is no point in advocating the obvious, they already know what a cycler is or what the gains of a separate lander are. If they didn't choose those options, it's because they are not interested, not because they are ignorant or stupid. Which is why I'm asking you respectfully to move on and either start a different thread about alternative Mars mission profiles or to leave this thread to discussion about the Falcon, Dragon, and the ITS.

You missed the point. The point is that there is no point trying to convice us that Musk should use cyclers or separate landers. Musk's architecture is done. You might not like it, but that's what they are working on. If you want to change Musk's mind, then write to him, not to us. What he presented at the IAC is the result of several years of internal studies. The Raptor engin and the composite tanks are prototypes. The ITC is literally built around that tank and those engines. They are the core of the design. 5% of the workforce of SpaceX is 250 people. That's a pretty large team for a side-project at this stage, and that represents a lot of money invested already. Those people aren't stupid. They know about cyclers, landers, and orbital mechanics. They have done the math and come up with the current plan because that is what fits Musk's requirements and capabilities. There are dozens of problems that he hasn't started to tackle, and some of them are serious dealbreakers for the whole plan. But that's how he's decided to roll. It's his money to spend. It's not up to you or anyone of us to tell him otherwise. Musk has his architecture. You have yours, and it's not the same. You've made your point. At this stage, I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish in this thread. Musk doesn't read the KSP forums. And we can't do anything to change his mind.

Northstar, I think you really have to let it go. Musk's space program is Musk's space program. He's been working at it for years, employing thousands of bright people to think up the mission architecture, and this is what he has come up with. It complies to his requirements, which are dictated by SpaceX's business plan, technological capability, and schedule. And it also has to look cool. What it doesn't involve are cyclers, landers, and smaller vehicles with more frequent launches. You can discuss these things as much as you want, but those ideas are not part of Musk's vision, and nobody is going to make him throw away years of SpaceX studies and prototyping. His plan has plenty of flaws that make it pretty unrealistic for anyone who isn't a starry-eyed fanboy, but you're not going to change the basic architecture. Posting page after page of walls of text on the subject won't change his mind. I suggest that if you want to open a thread to discuss the Northstar Mars Colonization Architecture, you do so.

SpaceX claims that the ITS booster stage separates at around 2400m/s, which is around 8650km/h. That is when it's carrying the 2000-ton ITS spacecraft. It might be able to reach orbit if it didn't have a payload, but it won't be coming back because it can't reenter. There's no point in even discussing it.

Are you saying that all vegetarians are liars? That would be a gross generalization that might (or might not) be based on your own anecdotal evidence but simply cannot be applied to the billions of actual vegetarians (of which I'm not, btw)

They don't expect it to survive the blast from the LES. The LES is in the center of the New Shepard capsule. To separate, it fires against the top of the booster.

That does sound like a peachy future for the colonists who have sold their house to buy a ticket. I hope they like Tilapia fish.

Stripped down means no payload. He's not building these things to make them expendable. They are twice the cost of an F9.

I don't dismiss anything. I'm just observing that SpaceX's settlement initiative isn't backed by any political, social, or economical movement or organisation. Building a colony on Mars doesn't even register in the list of things that people worry about. Have you heard one of the US presidential candidates adding it to their platform? That's would be a dictatorship. Musk isn't keen on actually building a settlement himself, let alone governing it. I also don't think that a government where the head of state is also the local business mogul is very appropriate.