Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks SpaceX is delusional about going to Mars

[tater]

A counterfactual with no government space program is sort of silly. The military use alone meant that we'd have developed past the WW2 German use without question. Comm sats were proposed before we had much of a program at all, so I think those would have come out of market forces at some point.

1 minute ago, Nibb31 said:

That market wouldn't exist if there hadn't been a government-funded launch industry. Sure it might have happened one day, but it wouldn't be very competitive.

 

It would be private market, and by definition competitive, it would just depend on how many players. That said, there is no reasonable counterfactual without at least the military development of ballistic missiles. That was going to happen after ww2, no question.

I should be clear that the MARKET for comm sats would absolutely exist minus government. That's just the need/demand for capability. It would have taken longer to be possible, no question.

[Darnok]

25 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

How would we know that we needed resources from space if there was no space program in the first place? Who would invest billions of dollars to start a private space program out of the blue without a proper business model?

There isn't any need for resources from space, so you're just arguing for science fiction. You're not making any sense. 

If resources on Earth would be almost depleted then some smart people would probably start to think... where do we find more?
Look how oil industry started... someone invested lots of money at first?

Sure we don't need any resources from space today, I never said that this private space program would started at same year NASA started theirs.

[todofwar]

4 hours ago, Darnok said:

If Neil deGrasse Tyson would work for private company he would say that only private sector can reach Mars and push space exploration... but he does work for government, so he is saying what lets him keep his job.

(btw I like his Cosmos series as well as original Carl Sagan version)

Completely unrelated, but I stopped watching the new cosmos after they tried to talk about DNA. For some reason seeing it depicted like a twisting ladder really irks me, I know they're trying to make it look interesting but when they try to explain how it copies itself they just ignore how base pairs and other things affect it.

[KSK]

3 minutes ago, todofwar said:

Completely unrelated, but I stopped watching the new cosmos after they tried to talk about DNA. For some reason seeing it depicted like a twisting ladder really irks me, I know they're trying to make it look interesting but when they try to explain how it copies itself they just ignore how base pairs and other things affect it.

How on Kerbin do you explain DNA replication without at least a passing mention of base pairing? Pretty pictures, wishful thinking and magic?

[PB666]

54 minutes ago, Darnok said:

If resources on Earth would be almost depleted then some smart people would probably start to think... where do we find more?
Look how oil industry started... someone invested lots of money at first?

Sure we don't need any resources from space today, I never said that this private space program would started at same year NASA started theirs.

That would be a major faux pas. Gee we need precious metal x- to build rockets to go search for precious metal x after we already run low, when if we had a space program in a time of plenty that had already found them, we would not be spending 50 years looking in space, while we have already run out.

Some people just don't get science. You don't do science today for tomorrows jollies, you do science today for the benefit of decades and generations in the future. What ever kind process gave a brain to think abstractly gave the ability to rationalize future needs. I think by now we are figuring out that the earth is in a perilous way, if not in its due course, then by anthropomorphic acceleration, if you wait until the suns corona has melted the bottle in which your corona once was, it will be too late to find a place to sip your next corona.

[todofwar]

2 hours ago, KSK said:

How on Kerbin do you explain DNA replication without at least a passing mention of base pairing? Pretty pictures, wishful thinking and magic?

Yes, pretty much that. The way they showed it was this odd glowing ladder, which was then split by one other "enzyme" that looked nothing like an enzyme magically duplicating it. I mean, I expect that kind of thing in Marvel movies, but in a show that's trying to be educational it made me have serious doubts about the other parts they were showing that I knew less about.

[tater]

I didn't find the reboot nearly as compelling as the original show and stopped watching as well.

Edited April 5, 2016 by tater

[fredinno]

 

21 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

Really? what they got?  

More than SpaceX. They at least put pen on paper:

http://www.astrobio.net/topic/exploration/missions/nasa-releases-plan-outlining-next-steps-in-the-journey-to-mars/

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/09/nasa-considers-sls-launch-sequence-mars-missions-2030s/

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/09/sls-manifest-phobos-mars-2039/

And the SLS/Orion is farther in development than MCT.

[fredinno]

On 4/5/2016 at 5:40 PM, tater said:

There is a reason SpaceX and BO have facilities in TX, FL, and CA, for example.

And because then, they can get more skilled employees

On 4/5/2016 at 7:27 PM, AngelLestat said:

NASA main objective will continue to be Mars, the last director they hired (the woman who was designing the skin suits for mars) said very clear that the main objective is mars

Only because their bosses (The White House) wants them too. That's how NASA has worked, and that's how it will always work. I'd bet $50 that NASA will get off the Mars plan once a new prez. comes to power. Literally everyone in the spaceflight community knows the Mars effort will crash and burn.

On 4/5/2016 at 7:27 PM, AngelLestat said:

Why they would use their own things if they can launch the mission with 1/10 of the cost or less using spacex tech?

And where is this SpaceX mission plan you seem to be referencing. SpaceX is not automatically cheaper

Quote

OrbitalATK offered the lowest price per kg, followed by Sierra Nevada, then by SpaceX, who offered the highest pressurised cargo price per kg.

On 4/5/2016 at 7:27 PM, AngelLestat said:

SLS,  ORION, spacesuits, heatshields, etc.  is 90% NOT design and builded in nasa facilities, and even if there is a % that is not, is still ordered by NASA using mostly NASA designs or parameters.

 

I fixed it for you

On 4/5/2016 at 7:49 PM, tater said:

If NASA nixes reuse as wasted effort, then that goes away, pretty soon FH looks like SLS. That's how it works. 

They would have to specifically tell them not too. And if that happened, they would still be using F9 V1.0 anyways. The upgrades were driven by reuse.

[fredinno]

10 hours ago, Darnok said:

Boeing and Lockheed would exist without NASA, making planes and military equipment.

He said (or DOD) for a reason.

10 hours ago, Darnok said:

There was little shift, because Moon landing was risky and could end up with huuuge disaster, while ISS is just a great and safe job.

No, the ISS project first started out as Station Freedom because NASA wanted to focus on LEO after Apollo, and making space cheap. It didn't work well.

10 hours ago, insert_name said:

the ISS required shuttle launches, and the shuttle resulted in two major disasters, whereas no one died in a moon mission.

There were a lot less lunar missions. Plus, Apollo 1 is a thing so

9 hours ago, Darnok said:

 So they would exist just earn less money.

And would be smaller. And be able to do less research..

9 hours ago, Darnok said:

 Then maybe its not the time for space exploration? Why we are forcing our selves (and our economy) into something that we do not need right now?

9 hours ago, Darnok said:

Europe started to looking better sea connections to India when it was profitable, not before that, maybe we should do same thing with space exploration?

The latter is akin to space colonization. Exploration is different.

8 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

There's one revenue source I don't think we've considered in any of these threads thus far: memorabilia auctions. This rover went to Mars---and it's still there! Do I hear ten thousand dollars? Twenty? Twenty thousand dollars from the man with the plastic Vulcan ears covering his real ears, do I hear thirty? ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/space/31moon.html

Lol isn't that illegal? Isn't the probe technically supposed to be owned by Rocosmos now?

 

12 hours ago, Darnok said:

If Neil deGrasse Tyson would work for private company he would say that only private sector can reach Mars and push space exploration... but he does work for government, so he is saying what lets him keep his job.

(btw I like his Cosmos series as well as original Carl Sagan version)

He works for the public sector?

8 hours ago, tater said:

There is one market (and only one, lol)  with a return on investment, communications satellites.

There are things called commercial Earth observations satellites. Also, DragonLab is a thing.

7 hours ago, Darnok said:

If resources on Earth would be almost depleted then some smart people would probably start to think... where do we find more?
Look how oil industry started... someone invested lots of money at first?

Someone dug a well in the ground. Oil was initially disliked since it would get in the way of people drilling for water.

[tater]

12 minutes ago, fredinno said:

There are things called commercial Earth observations satellites.

True, that's also a real market which I forgot. Still, the pure commercial market is limited to satellites for the foreseeable future.

[AngelLestat]

12 hours ago, fredinno said:

And where is this SpaceX mission plan you seem to be referencing. SpaceX is not automatically cheaper

As your same post notice, that is only for a certain circumstance and without measuring other spacex benefits or scores.
Spacex has always higher prices when it works for nasa or government, but what real matters here is the average commercial cost, in that point no company in the world can match them.
But I tell you, that if Elon Musk makes the MCT, no only it will cost much lower than the SLS, they will work without profit in this matter, because is the main goal of Elon Musk.

Quote

I fixed it for you
They would have to specifically tell them not too. And if that happened, they would still be using F9 V1.0 anyways. The upgrades were driven by reuse.

haha.. you broke it instead of fix it 
I clearly said that is 90% designed and builded in NASA facilities, and that holds true.
All the nasa agencies work in the SLS design over all the country, you can visit the youtube channel of each of these agencies and you will see the design process for each of the parts or stages of the SLS, I also was talking about the ORION.
What are you saying, that the development of the production line and assembling will be on charge for boing and 2 different companies, but only the core stage and boosters. And they will be manufacture and build using the NASA facilities.
And the main difference between SLS and falcon9, that spacex design, develop, build, administrative and operates the falcon9, they only receive support in the developing cost from NASA.
So we can said clearly that SLS is a NASA rocket, the same than falcon9 is a spacex rocket even if it uses some parts or resources of other companies. 

Edited April 6, 2016 by AngelLestat

[insert_name]

21 minutes ago, AngelLestat said:

haha.. you broke it instead of fix it 
I clearly said that is 90% designed and builded in NASA facilities, and that holds true.
All the nasa agencies work in the SLS design over all the country, you can visit the youtube channel of each of these agencies and you will see the design process for each of the parts or stages of the SLS, I also was talking about the ORION.
 

what does 90% mean in this case? 90% of money, laborers, hours of labor, or something else? Also where are you getting this from?

[EliasDanger]

Neil Degrasse Tyson and Bill Nye don't have anything on the PBS Space Time host. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g

There's a guy who educates without pandering and without arrogance.

Neil and Bill come off as a bit arrogant.

[tater]

1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

As your same post notice, that is only for a certain circumstance and without measuring other spacex benefits or scores.
Spacex has always higher prices when it works for nasa or government, but what real matters here is the average commercial cost, in that point no company in the world can match them.
But I tell you, that if Elon Musk makes the MCT, no only it will cost much lower than the SLS, they will work without profit in this matter, because is the main goal of Elon Musk.

This contains zero meaningful content. Musk doesn't make anything without customers, he's not that rich. Without profit SpaceX closes. BO is another story in many ways (Bezos has much deeper pockets).

 

1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

haha.. you broke it instead of fix it 
I clearly said that is 90% designed and builded in NASA facilities, and that holds true.
All the nasa agencies work in the SLS design over all the country, you can visit the youtube channel of each of these agencies and you will see the design process for each of the parts or stages of the SLS, I also was talking about the ORION.
What are you saying, that the development of the production line and assembling will be on charge for boing and 2 different companies, but only the core stage and boosters. And they will be manufacture and build using the NASA facilities.
And the main difference between SLS and falcon9, that spacex design, develop, build, administrative and operates the falcon9, they only receive support in the developing cost from NASA.
So we can said clearly that SLS is a NASA rocket, the same than falcon9 is a spacex rocket even if it uses some parts or resources of other companies. 

That they use a NASA facility is meaningless. The contractors are doing the work. If SLS were replaced by some SpaceX design... they'd build it at the same NASA facility, or it wouldn't be a thing.

[AngelLestat]

44 minutes ago, insert_name said:

what does 90% mean in this case? 90% of money, laborers, hours of labor, or something else? Also where are you getting this from?

I was clear in the both cases... 90% designed and build on NASA facilities. 

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/664158main_sls_fs_master.pdf

" Agency Partners The SLS Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., has been working closely with the Orion Program, managed by NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and the Ground Systems Development and Operations Program—the operations and launch facilities— at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. All three programs are managed by the Explorations Systems Development Division within the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The other SLS agency partners include NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., which is responsible for physics-based analysis; NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, which is responsible for composites research and payload fairing development; NASA’s Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Md., which is responsible for payloads; NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., which is responsible for wind tunnel testing; NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, which will manufacture and assemble the SLS core and upper stages, as well as the main propulsion system; and NASA’s Stennis Space Center, which is responsible for J-2X and RS-25 testing."

SLS+Orion.
Of course the money comes in a 100% from the NASA budget.
 

3 minutes ago, tater said:

This contains zero meaningful content. Musk doesn't make anything without customers, he's not that rich. Without profit SpaceX closes. BO is another story in many ways (Bezos has much deeper pockets).

?? Not sure what you understand when I said "without profits", because without profits means that you dont get an extra paid from the total cost, so you dont lose money.  And he gains the chance to be the only company able to lift heavy payload or sent people or cargo to mars. 

3 minutes ago, tater said:

That they use a NASA facility is meaningless. The contractors are doing the work. If SLS were replaced by some SpaceX design... they'd build it at the same NASA facility, or it wouldn't be a thing.

All the work?  and who made the whole design? I said something very clear.. so if somebody disagree please disprove my exact words.
 

[tater]

NASA would be involved deeply in the design of any martian spacecraft, period. It would not be in the hands of spacex, and pretty soon it would look exactly like every other DRA plan for mars, including cost.

The idea that NASA just buys an MCT is fantasy. Even if such a thing existed (and it won't without funding), and we all agreed it was great, and even if NASA agreed it was great and wanted to buy it... they'd not be allowed to buy it. 

Many in NASA didn't want SLS/Orion. They got it anyway. NASA doesn't decide what they buy, Congress decides what they buy.

 

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

As your same post notice, that is only for a certain circumstance and without measuring other spacex benefits or scores.
Spacex has always higher prices when it works for nasa or government, but what real matters here is the average commercial cost, in that point no company in the world can match them.
But I tell you, that if Elon Musk makes the MCT, no only it will cost much lower than the SLS, they will work without profit in this matter, because is the main goal of Elon Musk.

That's because in the commercial space, they want to undercut everyone. If they had a monopoly, they'd take advantage of it, and raise prices. They'd be stupid not to.

 

12 minutes ago, AngelLestat said:

" Agency Partners The SLS Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., has been working closely with the Orion Program, managed by NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and the Ground Systems Development and Operations Program—the operations and launch facilities— at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. All three programs are managed by the Explorations Systems Development Division within the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The other SLS agency partners include NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., which is responsible for physics-based analysis; NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, which is responsible for composites research and payload fairing development; NASA’s Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Md., which is responsible for payloads; NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., which is responsible for wind tunnel testing; NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, which will manufacture and assemble the SLS core and upper stages, as well as the main propulsion system; and NASA’s Stennis Space Center, which is responsible for J-2X and RS-25 testing."

SLS+Orion.

And those things are often done inside NASA factories by contractors.

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2014/02/space_launch_system_prime_cont.html

Beside, RS-25 is owned and built by AR. Not NASA.

[AngelLestat]

17 minutes ago, tater said:

NASA would be involved deeply in the design of any martian spacecraft, period. It would not be in the hands of spacex

You could have said the same things years back about rocket and capsules that sent payload to the ISS or military USA sats, but now all that change.

17 minutes ago, tater said:

and pretty soon it would look exactly like every other DRA plan for mars, including cost.

No it would not.  In any case if NASA funds spacex hardware (at least a part) for a Mars mission, they will proceed in the same way they do with the dragon v2 cree program. Testing milestones one by one.

17 minutes ago, tater said:

The idea that NASA just buys an MCT is fantasy. Even if such a thing existed (and it won't without funding), and we all agreed it was great, and even if NASA agreed it was great and wanted to buy it... they'd not be allowed to buy it. 

Many in NASA didn't want SLS/Orion. They got it anyway. NASA doesn't decide what they buy, Congress decides what they buy.

The only fantasy here is that people will be ok with a 200 billions budget to go mars.

 

21 minutes ago, fredinno said:

That's because in the commercial space, they want to undercut everyone. If they had a monopoly, they'd take advantage of it, and raise prices. They'd be stupid not to.

of course, we agree.

21 minutes ago, fredinno said:

And those things are often done inside NASA factories by contractors.

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2014/02/space_launch_system_prime_cont.html

Beside, RS-25 is owned and built by AR. Not NASA.

But I said it will be a 90% build in nasa facilities..  nothing more.
The main point is that nobody can said that the SLS is boing,  or is any of the other contractors that had a role in the construction, SLS is NASA.   The same than Orion and many other things.
That was my main point that you started to contradict. 

[fredinno]

4 minutes ago, AngelLestat said:

of course, we agree.

Sure. Then why do you think SpaceX will be cheaper?

Edited April 6, 2016 by fredinno

[tater]

1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

You could have said the same things years back about rocket and capsules that sent payload to the ISS or military USA sats, but now all that change.

Nothing has changed at all.

 

Quote

No it would not.  In any case if NASA funds spacex hardware (at least a part) for a Mars mission, they will proceed in the same way they do with the dragon v2 cree program. Testing milestones one by one.

Commercial crew funds a few different companies (it has to). It is very limited.

Quote

The only fantasy here is that people will be ok with a 200 billions budget to go mars.

How about YOUR country buys MCT. I say they just do it! Should be easy to convince them, as it's such a good deal!

[Rakaydos]

Asking what SpaceX mars plan is, is pointless. We know they intend to reveal their mars plan sometime this year. It's not revealed yet. Wait for the facts.

[AngelLestat]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Sure. Then why do you think SpaceX will be cheaper?

Because MCT development, manufacture and reusability makes it very cheap, and because Elon musk is mostly interested to reach mars, if it can get a profit of that it will be for later. So he will provide NASA a price without possible competence. 

38 minutes ago, tater said:

How about YOUR country buys MCT. I say they just do it! Should be easy to convince them, as it's such a good deal!

silly question, my country has 25 times lower GDP than USA and is not already wasting a big part of that in military.
And spacex is a USA company, so even if a country goes to mars using spacex hardware, it can be viewed as "thanks to USA" in some way.
Well, at the end, only the time will tell, I bet that SpaceX hardware (rocket + ISRU lander vehicle) funded in a 90% by NASA will be used between other NASA tech to go to mars.
Everybody can have his opinion, the time will decide who is right.

[Frybert]

Alright folks, lets not start getting into personal attacks here.

[insert_name]

2 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

I was clear in the both cases... 90% designed and build on NASA facilities. 

 

how do you determine a percentage of a design, I see nothing about 90% in the pdf you linked, mind telling me how you got this figure and what units you used to measure this ratio?