Why the ITS is a HORRIBLE Idea (at least in its current iteration)

[fredinno]

Wow, Elon Musk wants to go to Mars!

 

Wow, he made a rocket plan that can go there!

 

The ITS.

 

Oh boy. Where do I start.

 

 

Elon Musk is a pretty genius buisnessman. But he's not a scientist, or engineer. Neither am I.

 

And for SpaceX, that's been a pretty good thing. The Falcon 9's relative simplicity and lack of (yes, it's not innovative- everything on the rocket has been done before, fight me) innovation has cut costs to unprecedented levels.

 

The ITS

 

I've been wanting to make this thread for a while. But now that SpaceX fanboyism has probably cooled down, maybe people will actually listen to my concerns.

 

There are 2 big problems that automatically stick out when I see this rocket.

 

1. NO ABORT SYSTEM

Yes, it has a 2nd stage that 'can' be used as an abort stage, but that's a horrible idea. The 2nd stage is the stage that has to do the MOST IMPORTANT burns in the mission. The ones for landing, for example, that can't be aborted.

It has to fire multiple times and do course adjustments. It's already under massive stress from constant re-firing.

 

Worse, it's vulnerable ITSELF to failure. Remember that one time when the Helium tank in the 2nd stage blew?

 

Thus, if the 2nd stage fails, you're screwed. No one else uses the 2nd stage for an abort system, because the entire point of an abort system is to be separate from the rest of the rocket system.

 

There's also the fact that it may not have enough thrust in a pad explosion to get out quickly.

 

 

 

2. Too tall for landing.

It's height-to-width ratio is comparable to the F9 1st stage (WHEN THE LEGS ARE SPREAD OUT), more than anything else that lands today. That is fine for an unmanned system, worse case scenario, you're going to lose a stage.

 

But something that's fairly unstable in design is not a good idea when landing with humans on another body.

 

Even Mars One uses landers that have a height-to-width ratio similar to Soyuz.

 

NASA's Altair and DRM Mars are much wider when their legs are spread than they are tall- meaning they have a natural stability.

 

Also, the ITS is top-heavy on that final Mars landing-  its propellant tanks are empty

 

3. (BONUS !(lol)) The Heat Shield

As we all know, this is a major issue. Sure, the Shuttle survived 4 times when it reentered from Earth's atmosphere when it's shield was holed up- but it failed that one time. It was a pretty unlucky hit, that foam strike.

 

And you're going to be in deep space for at least 12 months, minimum. A strike of some sorts is an inevitability... And that shield needs to be used 3 times during a mission- none of which can be aborted.

 

You could fix this with a covering, but that one covers the first 6 months TO Mars. What about the final aerobrake to Earth?

It's more dangerous than anything else, since Earth's atmosphere is so much more dense, and it's coming it at MUCH faster speeds than Columbia in 2003. A hole that might have not been a big issue for the Shuttle could become a major failure point for the ITS on that essential final brake.

 

And no, the ITS probably does not have the fuel to propulsively enter Earth Orbit.

I'm not sure how much the aerobraking in Mars lowers the landing Delta-V, but I can safely assume the amount needed is MUCH lower than that needed to Enter Earth Orbit.

 

And the engines probably aren't good heat shields at these sorts of speeds. Their cone shapes concentrate plasma at their tops.

 

 

 

The dust storms probably aren't a big deal though, thankfully, due to the dust's low energy.

 

 

 

And that doesn't account for the fact it's carrying 100 PEOPLE.

 

If a mars Landing fails, and all the crew die, compared to the 7-man Shuttle disasters, that's a SPACE GENOCIDE.

 

The Public would lose trust in commerical space, and Congress would probably nationalize all US Space operations.

 

All of Elon Musk's work to build SpaceX is now in vain. Not only that, anyone trying to do the same is now MASSIVELY HAMPERED.

 

Every time one proposes a commercial Mars landing, people will turn to the ITS disaster, in the same way people turn to Hindenburg with Airships.

 

Thus, everyone loses.

 

Let's remember the story of the Turtle and the Hare here. We aren't going to win by simply 'jump-stepping' to Mars.

 

It's not the year 1700. People send people to space with the full expectation they will return. If they don't... well.

 

Look at the history of NASA's plans being demolished by Challenger, Columbia, and Apollo 1.

 

For the record, the Shuttle was supposed to fly until 2030 until Columbia.

Edited March 30, 2017 by fredinno

[Kerbal01]

3 minutes ago, fredinno said:

<long post snip>

1. NO ABORT SYSTEM

 

Elon has said that the raptor's on the ITS have high enough TWR and short startup transient so they can be used as a LAS.

[Gaarst]

Where is the second problem?

And yeah ITS is a pretty terrible idea. I don't see it taking off before 2040 at least, and never in its current shape.

[fredinno]

2 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

Where is the second problem?

And yeah ITS is a pretty terrible idea. I don't see it taking off before 2040 at least, and never in its current shape.

I edited.

 

It's still not complete, but it's good for now.

[Spaceception]

A: Yay! You're back!

B: Those are some good points you raised, hopefully SpaceX changes more than the name.

[sevenperforce]

I am highly suspicious of the idea that the second stage can act as its own abort system. Even with effectively instantaneous startup, only three of the Raptors can fire at sea level. That's 9.15 MN, or 933 tonnes-force. Launch mass of the ITS Spaceship is 2400 tonnes.

Not even close.

[Raven Industries]

I understand the concerns in the first point, but it seems unfeasible to have a launch abort system capable of getting 100 people away safely. That would add quite a bit of weight to the ITS. As for using the second stage engines for the abort system, I agree that it would put undue stress on the engines. I haven't really researched the subject, so this may be planned for the ITS already, but it would make sense to make the engines as easy to replace as possible, then swap out engines every few launches and after any aborts. This wouldn't exactly solve the problem but it would reduce the chances of a problem. The helium tank issue I can only assume SpaceX will try to fix.

On the whole I tend to agree with you on these problems you've pointed out, but I suspect the ITS will turn out very differently from how it is portrayed now, hopefully in a way which eliminates these issues (and bring up a host of new issues of course. Space travel isn't exactly a walk in the park)

[cubinator]

31 minutes ago, fredinno said:

But now that SpaceX fanboyism has probably cooled down

For the record, it will hit a huge spike in about two hours, so brace yourself. As for your other points, they are very good things to consider. An early failure could hinder the colonization of space for a very long time, and this system is extremely new and ambitious. 

34 minutes ago, fredinno said:

2. Too tall for landing.

 

It's height-to-width ratio is comparable to the F9 1st stage (WHEN THE LEGS ARE SPREAD OUT), more than anything else that lands today. That is fine for an unmanned system, worse case scenario, you're going to lose a stage.

 

But something that's fairly unstable in design is not a good idea when landing with humans on another body.

 

I think for the first stage this is true. The height/width ratio is pretty similar to F9. But the second stage (the one that would land humans on Mars) is shorter than the booster and has a wider base when the legs are extended. The height/width ratio is less of a problem in this case. But I still think there will be some unforseen problems with trying to land a nearly 100 m tall first stage very precisely on a planet with a thick atmosphere.

[IllyrianTheGreat]

ITS is very old idea of Von Braun lunar lander...

[p1t1o]

Well the first thing I thought when I saw it was that it was a Skylon - an engineering idea that is only partially thought through, to generate some pretty pictures with just enough detail to look legit.

Its not a deception, its an advanced type of advert, in the form of a sort of "mock" engineering proposal - not necessarily inaccurate, but not 100% fleshed out, only a shell of a project - accompanied with some glossy literature about a hypothetical mission and what that might look like. Perhaps further supported by some public statements as if it were a real thing.

I fully expect that whatever fully-thought-out Mars project Musk brings about, to resemble this only superficially, if at all, and be a heck of a lot more complicated.

This isn't a criticism of SpaceX/the ITS or Reaction Engines/Skylon, its quite common in the aerospace industries it seems:

(Wow actually there were like loads of examples)

Edited March 30, 2017 by p1t1o

[sevenperforce]

17 minutes ago, KerbalSaver said:

I understand the concerns in the first point, but it seems unfeasible to have a launch abort system capable of getting 100 people away safely. That would add quite a bit of weight to the ITS.

Yeah, this is a huge problem. Unfortunately, it is not a problem which can be corrected short of using a persistent orbital transfer vehicle (e.g. Hermes in The Martian) with a lower-capacity crew ferry.

19 minutes ago, KerbalSaver said:

The helium tank issue I can only assume SpaceX will try to fix.

The helium tank issue was already fixed for the Falcon family, but helium won't be used for the ITS at all, so it's not an issue. The ITS will use autogenous pressurization.

[fredinno]

25 minutes ago, KerbalSaver said:

I understand the concerns in the first point, but it seems unfeasible to have a launch abort system capable of getting 100 people away safely. That would add quite a bit of weight to the ITS. As for using the second stage engines for the abort system, I agree that it would put undue stress on the engines. I haven't really researched the subject, so this may be planned for the ITS already, but it would make sense to make the engines as easy to replace as possible, then swap out engines every few launches and after any aborts. This wouldn't exactly solve the problem but it would reduce the chances of a problem. The helium tank issue I can only assume SpaceX will try to fix.

On the whole I tend to agree with you on these problems you've pointed out, but I suspect the ITS will turn out very differently from how it is portrayed now, hopefully in a way which eliminates these issues (and bring up a host of new issues of course. Space travel isn't exactly a walk in the park)

But that extra weight is the point.

It's not possible to send 100 people to Mars without vastly compromising safety- meaning there is no way it's possible to send 100 people to Mars in the near future.

 

The only other mission plan of this scale was Von Braun's early Mars missions, and those aren't even relevant, since they required a atmosphere multiple times as dense as the current one.

 

As I said earlier, the turtle and the hare problem. Only one won, and it wasn't the one who made the 'leap'.

 

 

Engine swapping is easy, it was done on the Shuttle, and I can only assume it's also done on F9. But you can't swap in deep space.

 

And that burns at least 5 times, months apart from each other. I don't expect engine swapping on Mars to be viable.

 

Realistically 6, for inserting into Mars Orbit.

 

20 minutes ago, cubinator said:

For the record, it will hit a huge spike in about two hours, so brace yourself. As for your other points, they are very good things to consider. An early failure could hinder the colonization of space for a very long time, and this system is extremely new and ambitious. 

I think for the first stage this is true. The height/width ratio is pretty similar to F9. But the second stage (the one that would land humans on Mars) is shorter than the booster and has a wider base when the legs are extended. The height/width ratio is less of a problem in this case. But I still think there will be some unforseen problems with trying to land a nearly 100 m tall first stage very precisely on a planet with a thick atmosphere.

As far as I know, at least from the animations, is that the legs are Dragon v2 style- meaning they only extend vertically.

 

It might be changed, but that raises the new question of extra structural mass from the legs- and possible joint malfunction.

 

One mistake could kill 100 people in one go. No safety feature CAN be missed. All things possible have to be added when that much is at stake. Or at least hit the NASA 1/1000 mission failure baseline for the SLS/Constellation system recommended, and passed, by those systems.

 

 

 

SpaceX fanboys are about as annoying as Apple fanboys. Yes, both make good things, but both are vastly overrated. Some people seem to think Elon Musk is a god or something.

 

For the record, Hyperloop is probably the only thing in Elon's idea arsenal that's a WORSE idea.

35 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

A: Yay! You're back!

B: Those are some good points you raised, hopefully SpaceX changes more than the name.

Yay, my pal! Spaception!

 

I'm probably not staying for too long.

 

I've become a writer too.

I have my own alternate history seperate from Chrisspace. Maybe I'll merge it, I'm currently making mods to allow it to be.

 

But I have to finish my own stuff before I can go back to alternate Solar.

I really need to tie up that one loose end. But trust me, all that time gone WILL be worth it. Hopefully.

 

I gained a lot of new insight when I was gone.

 

B: Yeah, I hope so too. SpaceX isn't perfect, no one is.

15 minutes ago, IllyrianTheGreat said:

ITS is very old idea of Von Braun lunar lander...

And it never became a thing. Not even a prototype. That's a bit telling.

 

It was also made in the earliest days of space travel- ideas that would never go today.

 

No one would, for example, make a space station fully artif. Gravity. The entire point of being in LEO is usually that there IS no gravity.

10 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Yeah, this is a huge problem. Unfortunately, it is not a problem which can be corrected short of using a persistent orbital transfer vehicle (e.g. Hermes in The Martian) with a lower-capacity crew ferry.

The helium tank issue was already fixed for the Falcon family, but helium won't be used for the ITS at all, so it's not an issue. The ITS will use autogenous pressurization.

It was an example. God knows what else might go wrong. Space is hard.

Edited March 30, 2017 by fredinno

[magnemoe]

11 minutes ago, KerbalSaver said:

I understand the concerns in the first point, but it seems unfeasible to have a launch abort system capable of getting 100 people away safely. That would add quite a bit of weight to the ITS. As for using the second stage engines for the abort system, I agree that it would put undue stress on the engines. I haven't really researched the subject, so this may be planned for the ITS already, but it would make sense to make the engines as easy to replace as possible, then swap out engines every few launches and after any aborts. This wouldn't exactly solve the problem but it would reduce the chances of a problem. The helium tank issue I can only assume SpaceX will try to fix.

On the whole I tend to agree with you on these problems you've pointed out, but I suspect the ITS will turn out very differently from how it is portrayed now, hopefully in a way which eliminates these issues (and bring up a host of new issues of course. Space travel isn't exactly a walk in the park)

The upper stage has an low TWR for an abort system however its above 1. 
I guess it would abort and land in Africa. once up to speed. 
In short it has far more abort options than the shuttle. not sure how heavy it would be to armor the top of first stage to keep second stage safe. 
Probably not so heavy for the large design, you can use gaps for armor too. Purpose is to let second stage escape if you have an pad explosion. 

Else I agree MCT is fantasy, and scaled down version, new glen sized one with an reusable upper stage for normal missions, disposable upper for HLV roles is the real deal. 

[sevenperforce]

Regular trips between Earth and Mars are a tough nut to crack, even on a purely conceptual level. Specifying reusability makes it even tougher. The ITS Spaceship gets a pretty decent payload to Mars because it uses aerobraking capture; a persistent orbital transfer hab would need to use onboard dV to enter Martian orbit.

8 minutes ago, fredinno said:

As far as I know, at least from the animations, is that the legs are Dragon v2 style- meaning they only extend vertically.

It might be changed, but that raises the new question of extra structural mass from the legs- and possible joint malfunction.

Actually, they come out on angled pistons, so the tipover risk ought to be pretty low:

6 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

The upper stage has an low TWR for an abort system however its above 1. 
I guess it would abort and land in Africa. once up to speed. 
In short it has far more abort options than the shuttle. not sure how heavy it would be to armor the top of first stage to keep second stage safe. 
Probably not so heavy for the large design, you can use gaps for armor too. Purpose is to let second stage escape if you have an pad explosion. 

Armor isn't much of a problem; there's really nothing to explode higher up on the stage, so any problems would be near the engine.

A pad abort would probably just RTLS; an inflight abort might need a downrange landing target but could probably boostback to an RTLS. Unfortunately the SL TWR is fractional, so it's a moot point.

9 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Else I agree MCT is fantasy, and scaled down version, new glen sized one with an reusable upper stage for normal missions, disposable upper for HLV roles is the real deal. 

A reusable second stage only makes sense if:

1. You are carrying people to and from LEO, or
2. You are sending cargo to an LEO tug

A reusable second stage makes very little sense for launching comsats and similar payloads, because your dV requirements skyrocket if you have to take something out to GTO and then return under your own power.

If you are carrying people to and from LEO, it makes sense to incorporate the second stage and the crew cabin into a single vehicle. Though you still need a launch abort system. And the cabin probably needs its own heat shield for emergency re-entry.

Taking cargo to an LEO tug is where something like Skylon would do well.

[fredinno]

7 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Regular trips between Earth and Mars are a tough nut to crack, even on a purely conceptual level. Specifying reusability makes it even tougher. The ITS Spaceship gets a pretty decent payload to Mars because it uses aerobraking capture; a persistent orbital transfer hab would need to use onboard dV to enter Martian orbit.

Actually, they come out on angled pistons, so the tipover risk ought to be pretty low:

Whoops.

 

Still pretty high height-to-width ratio.

 

Also, it's pretty top heavy when it lands. The tanks on the bottom will be empty, and the payload on the top will be full.

 

That makes tipping ever more likely.

[magnemoe]

13 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Regular trips between Earth and Mars are a tough nut to crack, even on a purely conceptual level. Specifying reusability makes it even tougher. The ITS Spaceship gets a pretty decent payload to Mars because it uses aerobraking capture; a persistent orbital transfer hab would need to use onboard dV to enter Martian orbit.

Actually, they come out on angled pistons, so the tipover risk ought to be pretty low:

Armor isn't much of a problem; there's really nothing to explode higher up on the stage, so any problems would be near the engine.

A pad abort would probably just RTLS; an inflight abort might need a downrange landing target but could probably boostback to an RTLS. Unfortunately the SL TWR is fractional, so it's a moot point.

A reusable second stage only makes sense if:

1. You are carrying people to and from LEO, or
2. You are sending cargo to an LEO tug

A reusable second stage makes very little sense for launching comsats and similar payloads, because your dV requirements skyrocket if you have to take something out to GTO and then return under your own power.

If you are carrying people to and from LEO, it makes sense to incorporate the second stage and the crew cabin into a single vehicle. Though you still need a launch abort system. And the cabin probably needs its own heat shield for emergency re-entry.

Taking cargo to an LEO tug is where something like Skylon would do well.

Thinking of the pad explosion mostly and no not much armor like an tank, more structural integrity and firewall. 
And yes downrange or return, you want to burn fuel before landing anyway.
Separate upper stage and crew module is safer, I would run with that in the start. 
Yes an reusable upper stake hurt payload hard, This is why Falcon heavy+ capacity discardable, falcon 9 reusable. For GTO uses an recoverable 3rd stage makes sense. 
Skylon is better but has an far higher development cost. Falcon X as they named it back then is incremental. 

 

[mikegarrison]

It's always easier to sketch things out in concept than it is to do a detailed design of them. (See also: "hyperloop")

[sevenperforce]

22 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Still pretty high height-to-width ratio.

Also, it's pretty top heavy when it lands. The tanks on the bottom will be empty, and the payload on the top will be full.

That makes tipping ever more likely.

The engines and a lot of the mechanisms are at the bottom, so I don't imagine it will be significantly top-heavy. Height-to-width is about the same as the Dragon 2, actually.

That's not to say I like it. I don't. Egress out of something like that is just awful, and if one of the legs fails, there's not even a slim chance of survival for anyone. But making a horizontal-attitude vertical-landing Mars-capable lander that can still somehow manage to SSTO from the martian surface when fully fueled is a very, very tall order.

8 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Separate upper stage and crew module is safer, I would run with that in the start.

But then you are dealing with multiple re-entry events instead of just one.

Ideally there would be a way to use the crew module's TPS to help return the engines and use the crew module's LAS engines for landing, but have the engines and tankage break away in a launch abort. But configurations for that are hard to come by.

9 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Yes an reusable upper stake hurt payload hard, This is why Falcon heavy+ capacity discardable, falcon 9 reusable. For GTO uses an recoverable 3rd stage makes sense. 

Recoverable third stage doesn't make much sense to me. An orbital tug is more likely.

If GTO launch frequency was much higher, I can see the advantages of an orbital tug that can grapple and push comsats from LEO to GTO and then aerobrake+burn to recircularize in LEO. But I don't think launch frequency is high enough to support that.

[Elthy]

I dont think we will see ITS launching with people on board any time "soon". The refueling in LEO will require lots of time if they cant relaunch in a few hours, add to that the safety concerns without a proper LES and the most rational solution would be to get people up there e.g. with dragon. Since the first flights will propably be with way less than 100 people (but more equipment) this gets even easier.

Regarding failure while out of LEO: Yeah, not survivable, no matter if you have an LES or not. But Apollo wasnt different and people going up know what they are signing up for. If you want to avoid non survivable conditions you should also avoid lots of other things in life, planes and even cars over a certain speed will also have a 100% deathrate if some stuff goes wrong.

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

But that extra weight is the point.

It's not possible to send 100 people to Mars without vastly compromising safety- meaning there is no way it's possible to send 100 people to Mars in the near future.

 

A valid point, but you are working from the assumption that colonists, effectively on a one-way trip to Mars (where an infected tooth likely will be handled Cast Away style), are expecting the same survival chances as astronauts who go a couple of weeks (or months) into LEO.

Surely it is possible to send 100 people at once into space within acceptable safety levels—it's just that acceptable will have a different meaning for those colonists.

“But NASA or the FAA will never accept those odds and hand out a permit for those launches”

I will doubt that. You don't need extreme safety measures to overcome that obstacle, you need a big bag of money. And that Elon Musk has in ample quantities.

[Spaceception]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Yay, my pal! Spaception!

 

I'm probably not staying for too long.

 

I've become a writer too.

I have my own alternate history seperate from Chrisspace. Maybe I'll merge it, I'm currently making mods to allow it to be.

 

But I have to finish my own stuff before I can go back to alternate Solar.

I really need to tie up that one loose end. But trust me, all that time gone WILL be worth it. Hopefully.

Nice!

I can't wait to see it

Looking forward to it!

[mikegarrison]

24 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

You don't need extreme safety measures to overcome that obstacle, you need a big bag of money. And that Elon Musk has in ample quantities.

Elon Musk likely does not have a bag of money big enough to send a manned mission to Mars. That's why he needs to raise enough interest to get other investors.

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

The upper stage has an low TWR for an abort system however its above 1. 
I guess it would abort and land in Africa. once up to speed. 
In short it has far more abort options than the shuttle. not sure how heavy it would be to armor the top of first stage to keep second stage safe. 
Probably not so heavy for the large design, you can use gaps for armor too. Purpose is to let second stage escape if you have an pad explosion. 

Else I agree MCT is fantasy, and scaled down version, new glen sized one with an reusable upper stage for normal missions, disposable upper for HLV roles is the real deal. 

"above 1" is not good enough. It's supposed to be AT LEAST 5, ideally 10- the fragments from the exploding lower stage can travel quite a bit faster than 1g.

It has about as many options as the Shuttle. But comparing anything to the Shuttle safety-wise is a REALLY low bar.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

The engines and a lot of the mechanisms are at the bottom, so I don't imagine it will be significantly top-heavy. Height-to-width is about the same as the Dragon 2, actually.

That's not to say I like it. I don't. Egress out of something like that is just awful, and if one of the legs fails, there's not even a slim chance of survival for anyone. But making a horizontal-attitude vertical-landing Mars-capable lander that can still somehow manage to SSTO from the martian surface when fully fueled is a very, very tall order.

But then you are dealing with multiple re-entry events instead of just one.

Ideally there would be a way to use the crew module's TPS to help return the engines and use the crew module's LAS engines for landing, but have the engines and tankage break away in a launch abort. But configurations for that are hard to come by.

Recoverable third stage doesn't make much sense to me. An orbital tug is more likely.

If GTO launch frequency was much higher, I can see the advantages of an orbital tug that can grapple and push comsats from LEO to GTO and then aerobrake+burn to recircularize in LEO. But I don't think launch frequency is high enough to support that.

But all the colonists, supplies, equipment, is at the top. That's 450 mT.

 

I find it hard to believe the engines and other mass at the bottom will balance that out.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_System#Interplanetary_Spaceship

 

The OrbitalATK 'repair tug' is a good starting point for a reusable space tug. Just upscale it.

I think OrbitalATK will at least TRY- there is a bit of NewSpace blood in them.

 

Also, you CAN make a vertical lander on Mars. But you need to build it in space, it's too wide.

And that's the reality of this thing. By the time we need 450mT on Mars at once, we'll have in-space construction anyways, and probably a moon or asteroidial base we can refuel from.

57 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

A valid point, but you are working from the assumption that colonists, effectively on a one-way trip to Mars (where an infected tooth likely will be handled Cast Away style), are expecting the same survival chances as astronauts who go a couple of weeks (or months) into LEO.

Surely it is possible to send 100 people at once into space within acceptable safety levels—it's just that acceptable will have a different meaning for those colonists.

“But NASA or the FAA will never accept those odds and hand out a permit for those launches”

I will doubt that. You don't need extreme safety measures to overcome that obstacle, you need a big bag of money. And that Elon Musk has in ample quantities.

This is not the Victorian Era, where people went onto ships to the New World, sold everything for a better life.

 

There IS NO BETTER LIFE ON MARS. (at least not any time soon). This is something that people need to realize.

The only people who will go are the skilled professionals and rich tourists that build up the first colony. And none of them will go.

 

The people wanting to "have a new life" are going to go to Siberia, Greenland, or West Antarctica when they melt- or maybe even an floating ocean colony.

Those places have much more immediate potential for a low-level worker with few prospects.

 

A plane crash is considered major news- and we go on planes all the time.

27 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Nice!

I can't wait to see it

Looking forward to it!

Oh, lighten up, I'll be here on and off for at least a week or two. Have a big pile of stuff left over to finish before I can become active again. Building my resume,writing, and bugtesting is more important on the long run for me than this.

 

I'll try skyping you.

Edited March 30, 2017 by fredinno

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, fredinno said:

Oh, lighten up, I'll be here on and off for at least a week or two. Have a big pile of stuff left over to finish before I can become active again. Building my resume,writing, and bugtesting is more important on the long run for me than this.

 

I'll try skyping you.

Okay, sounds good

I don't have skype

[Elthy]

The expanded feets of the IPS seem realy wide. Imagine how far you have to till the spacecraft until it would fall over, even if you assume the whole wheight to be on the top. At that angle you are not landing anyway...

19 minutes ago, fredinno said:

This is not the Victorian Era, where people went onto ships to the New World, sold everything for a better life.

Dont forget there are many people who are quite bored with their everyday job and life. Yeah, mars would be a excrementston of work and not quite confortable, but compared to some remote place you have clean water/air/food and are working wiht hightech. Just because you dont want to live on Mars doesnt mean there are no others. This is more than just an adventure, its a source for a purpose, which is often lacking in the current society after basic needs have been fulfilled and religion fails to appeal the more logical thinking people...