Blue Origin thread.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

To be fair, it's also SpaceX style: "The first orbital class booster (not that it went to orbit) to propulsively land and be reused."

I think this started because of Bezos tweeting "welcome to the club."

(conflating the NS accomplishment with the far more challenging F9 accomplishment)

[mikegarrison]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

I think this started because of Bezos tweeting "welcome to the club."

This started sometime back in the paleolithic, when some human (probably a male) said, "I was doing that first, but I just never told anyone."

Edited May 7, 2021 by mikegarrison

[RCgothic]

1 hour ago, SOXBLOX said:

Aaaand so the environmental problems in the Gobi Desert, where there's breathable atmosphere and no dangerous radiation, are harder to deal with than the problems in space? Hah!

If it comes to it that we're so short on space that we have to industrialise deserts, then that is a future from Blade Runner rather than Star Trek. If we want to preserve our planet in its current form then we cannot use up all the space.

Arguably we have already used enough space that there will be unpleasant consequences once the initial inertia wears off.

[tater]

33 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

This started sometime back in the paleolithic, when some human (probably a male) said, "I was doing that first, but I just never told anyone."

… “part” measuring has been a thing forever.

[Hannu2]

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Why don't people ever quote all the famous people who claimed perpetual motion was impossible?

Sometimes when people make these statements, they turn out to be true (as far as we know yet).

One thing is that as far as we know yet. We know that there is many more that 5 computers in the World and there is also very strong evidence that heavier than air aircrafts have flown. But nothing can prove that there will never be perpetual motion machine. We just do not know such natural laws yet.

As far as I know, expanding universe has not time translation symmetry and therefore conservation of energy. Maybe some technomagic level civilization could utilize it. Almost certainly it never happens anywhere in the Universum, but it is impossible to prove impossible thing to be impossible (in nature, it may be possible in logical systems, like mathematics).

But there is nothing against known natural laws in colonization of Solar system. It is only economy and engineering depending on political will. It does not produce profit in any reasonable schedule but it could be done as ideological project with our current scientific knowledge. Most of monumental projects in human history are ideological. Probably building and maintaining slowly (but exponentially) growing Mars colony few millennia would cost smaller percentage of US's, EU's or China's gross product than building of famous pyramids costed ancient Egyptians.

[Hannu2]

3 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Aaaand so the environmental problems in the Gobi Desert, where there's breathable atmosphere and no dangerous radiation, are harder to deal with than the problems in space? Hah!

Everything you dump in atmosphere in the Gobi desert spread rapidly everywhere. You have to also mine everything which does not happen to be abundant in the desert from some other places on Earth with higher environmental value.

Actually, I can not really say that desert nature has less value than some other areas with higher biodiversity. There are certainly many special species specialized to desert environments in all deserts on Earth.

 

3 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Ehm, no. I think it's feasible. I just don't think that there's enough money in it for folks. Sure, if you got all the different pieces of space industry to line up perfectly and simultaneously, it would work. But who knows. Maybe we'll see this happen someday.

I do not believe that we will see space mining or industry. Except maybe some early experiments. But on the other hand, it is difficult to think that after couple of hundreds of years significant part of industrial production is not in space stations. It would need some catastrophic breakdown of development to prevent next logical step.

[RCgothic]

If not now, when.

The hardest step is the first.

Anything more than 10 years in the future is effectively "Never".

[SOXBLOX]

1 hour ago, Hannu2 said:

Everything you dump in atmosphere in the Gobi desert spread rapidly everywhere. You have to also mine everything which does not happen to be abundant in the desert from some other places on Earth with higher environmental value.

Actually, I can not really say that desert nature has less value than some other areas with higher biodiversity. There are certainly many special species specialized to desert environments in all deserts on Earth.

No, my point was that it will always be cheaper to settle, for example, the Gobi, rather than space. I did not say it would be more environmentally friendly. But "environmentally friendly" isn't such a great motive, is it?

2 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

One thing is that as far as we know yet. We know that there is many more that 5 computers in the World and there is also very strong evidence that heavier than air aircrafts have flown. But nothing can prove that there will never be perpetual motion machine. We just do not know such natural laws yet.

He was pointing out the flaws in your logic. You can use the same argument you made using those quotes to say, "Since lots of people have said perpetual motion is impossible, they will be proven wrong in the future".

[Hannu2]

16 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

No, my point was that it will always be cheaper to settle, for example, the Gobi, rather than space. I did not say it would be more environmentally friendly. But "environmentally friendly" isn't such a great motive, is it?

So far it has not been a great motive. But now it begin to be very clear that environmental destruction has very high pricetag. Costs are usually not immediate and directly visible but modern science begin to understand mechanisms and most governments take environment things very seriously and are willing to pay huge amounts of money to develop new cleaner society.

 

16 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

He was pointing out the flaws in your logic. You can use the same argument you made using those quotes to say, "Since lots of people have said perpetual motion is impossible, they will be proven wrong in the future".

That is flawed logic. My logic can be used and will be used if someone actually invents perpetual motion. I did not say it is very fair to laugh those statements. They was very well justified based on information available at those times. As well as conservation of energy is for us. Development of science and technology was just unforeseeable then.

Colonization or space industry is not possible for our generation but it begin to be somewhat foreseeable future. We know that there are almost unlimited resources available and our rocket technology is rapidly developing.  Also awareness of severe consequences of reckless pollution and destroying nature is rapidly increasing and there is will to spend money to avoid it among people and governments, even among some businessmen. Utilization of space for mining and refining is very straightforward solution under those conditions even it will be very expensive to begin. It does not need any new science or natural phenomena, like perpetual motion machine. It is just politics, economy and engineering.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

My 10 cents (2 cents adj. for inflation) on the asteroid mining economics:

Here in BC (British Columbia, not Boca Chica), we have rich resources nestled in the mountains and valleys, carpeted by softwood rainforests. But mining project after mining project has been cancelled due to environmental opposition, not that I can blame them given the pristine watersheds that stand to be spoiled. As the cost of satisfying such opposition rises and the cost of space access falls, asteroid mining becomes more and more attractive.

[RCgothic]

Oof.

 

 

[RealKerbal3x]

I've heard about BO trying to poach SpaceX engineers, but the literal COO? 

Damn.

Edited May 11, 2021 by RealKerbal3x

[GuessingEveryDay]

27 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

I've heard about BO trying to poach SpaceX engineers, but the literal COO? 

Damn.

Why would Jeff Bezos try to capt-- hire away one of the most experience employees SpaceX has? And in 2016 too, a few months after SpaceX landed their 1st booster?! Wow. No wonder he's so behind. He waits for the right people at the wrong time.

[tater]

2 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Oof.

I really want BO to succeed, because real change to the basic paradigm of space exploration and exploitation requires cost reductions, and cost reductions require competition.

The change (IMHO) will be when costs are low enough that things can be flown that are not very expensively designed to be the least possible mass, with the ost possible reliability... everything being expensive means that if more expensive decreases the risk of failure, the extra expense is worth it, and you end up with billion dollar space probes, rovers, etc. Even $100M is more than a rover should cost.

[linuxgurugamer]

41 minutes ago, tater said:

I really want BO to succeed, because real change to the basic paradigm of space exploration and exploitation requires cost reductions, and cost reductions require competition.

The change (IMHO) will be when costs are low enough that things can be flown that are not very expensively designed to be the least possible mass, with the ost possible reliability... everything being expensive means that if more expensive decreases the risk of failure, the extra expense is worth it, and you end up with billion dollar space probes, rovers, etc. Even $100M is more than a rover should cost.

Wow, that sounds like SpaceX's business plan. 

You made a mistake, though, regarding space probes, rovers, etc.  Those are one-off designs and builds, and by the very nature of that, are going to be expensive.  Reduced costs come from repeating actions, as in reflying boosters, fairings, etc.  

[tater]

15 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

You made a mistake, though, regarding space probes, rovers, etc.  Those are one-off designs and builds, and by the very nature of that, are going to be expensive.  Reduced costs come from repeating actions, as in reflying boosters, fairings, etc.  

I've known people who have worked on experiments flown on spacecraft. They spend years getting their equipment on a flight, then it has to get built, then flown. They might only get one shot in their career for their instrument to fly, depending on the target. Say Europa as an example—the people that get an instrument on, that's pretty much it for Europa for them, for their entire life.

That instrument needs to be perfect. They have a small mass budget, and it needs to work, 100% of the time. If a million dollar part buys a few % increase in reliability? Worth it.

What if you could fly that mission multiple times in your academic life? What if for the same launch window, they could spam a few probes? The incentives are different. You then have the same budget (early missions will not have adopted the new ways), but you can send a few at much lower price, or just 1 at the old price? I'd send more, but cheaper. Or more spacecraft, and more (but much cheaper) instruments.

[linuxgurugamer]

1 hour ago, tater said:

I've known people who have worked on experiments flown on spacecraft. They spend years getting their equipment on a flight, then it has to get built, then flown. They might only get one shot in their career for their instrument to fly, depending on the target. Say Europa as an example—the people that get an instrument on, that's pretty much it for Europa for them, for their entire life.

That instrument needs to be perfect. They have a small mass budget, and it needs to work, 100% of the time. If a million dollar part buys a few % increase in reliability? Worth it.

What if you could fly that mission multiple times in your academic life? What if for the same launch window, they could spam a few probes? The incentives are different. You then have the same budget (early missions will not have adopted the new ways), but you can send a few at much lower price, or just 1 at the old price? I'd send more, but cheaper. Or more spacecraft, and more (but much cheaper) instruments.

The "cheaper" instruments may not get all the information, they may not be as sensitive, etc.  What you are missing, IMHO, is that it takes a lot of R&D to do the initial development of anything, the "cheaper" comes AFTER the work.  The initial R&D is always expensive, the savings come down the road.  Exploration is, by nature, usually the first time it's been done.  There have been very few probes of which there were multiple, and even then, the numbers were very few.  By the time you are able to get the cost of the probes down, a lot of money has been spent to do so.

[tater]

2 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

The "cheaper" instruments may not get all the information, they may not be as sensitive, etc.  What you are missing, IMHO, is that it takes a lot of R&D to do the initial development of anything, the "cheaper" comes AFTER the work.  The initial R&D is always expensive, the savings come down the road.  Exploration is, by nature, usually the first time it's been done.  There have been very few probes of which there were multiple, and even then, the numbers were very few.  By the time you are able to get the cost of the probes down, a lot of money has been spent to do so.

Sure, the work on the specific instrument is always expensive if it is new, and bespoke for that task, but the rest of the spacecraft is also expensive. This need not be the case. Computers, for example, off the shelf. Rad hard? How about putting them in a shielded box, instead (mass is no longer an issue). Super expensive TPS with loads of testing, because you can't being a gram more than is required? Just double the mass to be safe, or add a propulsive stage to kill a few km/s before entry.

The economics of everything changes when your mass budget is 10X higher, or 50X higher.  The use of solar panels that are ~1000X more expensive. Yeah, they are twice as efficient, and when exposed to radiation they degrade about half as much. So attach 4X the cheaper panels and only save 250X on panels. Look at Starlink and propulsion. They use krypton because it's cheaper. Need more thrust for a use case? Add more thrusters.

There are economies of scale in using products that are already mass produced (off the shelf), instead of literally everything being bespoke.

[linuxgurugamer]

1 hour ago, tater said:

There are economies of scale in using products that are already mass produced (off the shelf), instead of literally everything being bespoke.

Absolutely agree.

I think we are both saying the same thing, in different ways.  Initial R&D is expensive,  after that, prices get lower

[sevenperforce]

7 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

I've heard about BO trying to poach SpaceX engineers, but the literal COO? 

Damn.

I wonder how much he offered her.

He probably thought he could just buy her like a trinket......

[tater]

2 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Absolutely agree.

I think we are both saying the same thing, in different ways.  Initial R&D is expensive,  after that, prices get lower

The critical bit here is that many things that get used on spacecraft are specifically NOT mass produced, as they are rad hard, or extra-reliable, or do the same job as something else, but are lighter, or more efficient than "off the shelf" items that are far less expensive. Many of the problems with reliability, etc can be solved then with money (more expensive parts), or MASS (redundant parts, shielding, etc). If mass is $10,000/kg, you make different choices than if mas is $10/kg to get the same job done.

[RealKerbal3x]

8 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

I wonder how much he offered her.

He probably thought he could just buy her like a trinket......

It probably went down something like this:

Bezos: Hi this is Jeff Bezos please come work on my suborbital rocket

Shotwell: Jeff who?

[Hannu2]

15 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

The "cheaper" instruments may not get all the information, they may not be as sensitive, etc.  What you are missing, IMHO, is that it takes a lot of R&D to do the initial development of anything, the "cheaper" comes AFTER the work.  The initial R&D is always expensive, the savings come down the road.  Exploration is, by nature, usually the first time it's been done.  There have been very few probes of which there were multiple, and even then, the numbers were very few.  By the time you are able to get the cost of the probes down, a lot of money has been spent to do so.

Most of the cost of space probe is not from sensitive detectors but extreme reliability demand. Including huge test operations and redundancy of critical components. You could build Persevecance like rover for few millions (or tens of millions) if it were industrial instrument. Reason for all that redundancy has been cost and rarity of launches. If launch cost 200 millions per probe and there is one available at every transfer window it is very reasonable to put couple of hundreds of millions to reliability. But if you can send probe for few millions and there is practically unlimited launch capacity at every launch window you can build rovers with normal industrial standards and send tens of them with normal mission budget. Even half of them fail before beginning of mission and half of others before nominal end of mission you get much more scientific results with much less overall cost than now with one individual.

[linuxgurugamer]

2 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

Most of the cost of space probe is not from sensitive detectors but extreme reliability demand. Including huge test operations and redundancy of critical components. You could build Persevecance like rover for few millions (or tens of millions) if it were industrial instrument. Reason for all that redundancy has been cost and rarity of launches. If launch cost 200 millions per probe and there is one available at every transfer window it is very reasonable to put couple of hundreds of millions to reliability. But if you can send probe for few millions and there is practically unlimited launch capacity at every launch window you can build rovers with normal industrial standards and send tens of them with normal mission budget. Even half of them fail before beginning of mission and half of others before nominal end of mission you get much more scientific results with much less overall cost than now with one individual.

On the other hand, with things like this, you could send 10 probes and suffer 100% loss because of an overlooked  issue which would have been revealed with more R&D.

[tater]

31 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

On the other hand, with things like this, you could send 10 probes and suffer 100% loss because of an overlooked  issue which would have been revealed with more R&D.

Yeah, maybe. Then the next transfer window you fix that. If it's Mars you get 0 done for 2 years when with 1 billion dollar rover would have gotten 2 years of data. Then you get 20 years of data for the next 2 years from the 10 replacements. Billion dollar rover? 4 years of data in 4 years. 20 $50M rovers, 10 of which fail? 20 years of data in 4 years. Win.