Falcon Heavy for moon shot

[Nibb31]

Listen, if you remove the heatshield, the aeroshell, the parachutes, redesign the pressure vessel, redesign the super dracos, add bigger tanks, change the legs, add fuel cells, add EVA support, add a ladder, add comms and navigation equipment, and rewrite the software... Then it is no longer a Dragon, it's a LM.

If NASA sends out an RFP for a manned lunar mission, then SpaceX could submit a proposal with Super-Draco-based LM, why not. But SpaceX doesn't charter their own missions. They have a launch business to run, and a growing backlog of customers who are getting more and more impatient with their incessant delays. They can't afford to throw away 3 Falcon cores and a precious launch slot, while diverting precious R&D resources, when they have paying customers waiting.

Even if they could, it would be a bad business decision. Have you ever seen Airbus or Boeing build a new airliner or a fighter jet just to prove they can? Or ULA land a probe on the Moon on their own money, just for kicks? Sure, they can make CGI videos and powerpoint studies to attract government money, but the business model of all these companies (including spaceX) is to work as contractors for paying customers. If there is no customer willing to pay for a Moon landing (or a Mars landing for that matter), then it's not gonna happen. Let it go.

Edited March 20, 2016 by Nibb31

[Rakaydos]

SpaceX will design planet specific landers for the same reason railroad companies historically lay new track- more destinations is more customers. by bringing down the price of X tonnes of cargo to Lunar surface, or Y tonnes of lunar material returned to orbit, SpaceX would be enabling entirely new industries, lowering the bar a startup would have to cross to get started.

[Nibb31]

Bad analogy. Railroad companies laid new track between cities because there were thousands of people in those cities who were willing to buy tickets to travel to another city. The demand preexisted the railroads. The same is true for just about every form of transportation that has been invented.

I don't see people exactly queuing up to buy tickets to the Moon or Mars. When that does happen, the technical barriers will be trivial. The problem right now isn't technology, it's demand.

Edited March 19, 2016 by Nibb31

[Rakaydos]

While there were some people in the west before the railroads, the railroads were one of the biggest drivers of westward expansion.

Being able to send robotic probes cheaply will result in many more robotic probes. College campuses will pool money to put rovers on the moon, even on mars. People wont come for some time, it's true- but robots are just as much paying passangers as a 19 century pioneer.

[fredinno]

38 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

While there were some people in the west before the railroads, the railroads were one of the biggest drivers of westward expansion.

Being able to send robotic probes cheaply will result in many more robotic probes. College campuses will pool money to put rovers on the moon, even on mars. People wont come for some time, it's true- but robots are just as much paying passangers as a 19 century pioneer.

Name one operational permanent space colony, let alone a base on the moon.

It'd be more economical to build a railway across the Bering Strait at this point- there's a hell lot more economic potential in that right now.

 

And colleges pool money for rovers because they are scientific/educational/research institutions. They have a reason to put stuff in space- but not much, TBH.

[Rakaydos]

2 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Name one operational permanent space colony, let alone a base on the moon.

It'd be more economical to build a railway across the Bering Strait at this point- there's a hell lot more economic potential in that right now.

 

And colleges pool money for rovers because they are scientific/educational/research institutions. They have a reason to put stuff in space- but not much, TBH.

Just one? lets say Opportunity Rover. Pathfinder was a more traditional frontier outpost, but it's dead now.

I'm not saying we send people. I'm saying that cheap, mass transit will allow us to shift from sending Explorers like Pathfinder and Opportunity, to sending miners, builders, crafters to the frontier.

[fredinno]

45 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Just one? lets say Opportunity Rover. Pathfinder was a more traditional frontier outpost, but it's dead now.

I'm not saying we send people. I'm saying that cheap, mass transit will allow us to shift from sending Explorers like Pathfinder and Opportunity, to sending miners, builders, crafters to the frontier.

You don't build railways in Antarctica, and the Moon and Mars has about the same amount of usage right now (actually, it's far worse).

And thus, we come back to the problem of the chicken and the egg of spaceflight- you can't make space cheaper without more demand, and you create more demand by making space cheaper.

Let's face it, the transcontinental railways paid for themselves in a decade or two. RLVs have not.

Also, Opporotunity is not a SPACE COLONY. The closest thing is the ISS, and that's actually more a base because nobody lives there permanently.

[Rakaydos]

56 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Also, Opporotunity is not a SPACE COLONY. The closest thing is the ISS, and that's actually more a base because nobody lives there permanently.

Then why did you even bring up space colonies? people are completely irrelivant to my point.

 

Goverment funded RLVs are a pork project. Commercial RLVs are a new thing- give them a decade at least.

[fredinno]

34 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Then why did you even bring up space colonies? people are completely irrelivant to my point.

 

Goverment funded RLVs are a pork project. Commercial RLVs are a new thing- give them a decade at least.

And RLVs would never have been developed by companies if it wasn't for one billionaire's space fantasies.

[Nibb31]

5 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Commercial RLVs are a new thing- give them a decade at least.

Commercial RLVs only exist because the government buys them and paid for their development.

I have no doubt that SpaceX is technically capable of building a lunar lander or even a Mars lander, and so is Lockheed, Boeing, Airbus, Alenia, etc... but they need a customer first.

Edited March 20, 2016 by Nibb31