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ULA launch and discussion thread


tater

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29 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

Self sustaining lunar economy!

LOL.

Both for the idea that a lunar base would be self-sustaining by 2035 and that the point of going there is capitalism.

I will also note that their idea of "self-sustaining" involves luxury tourism from extremely wealthy people who made their money somewhere else.

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Just now, mikegarrison said:

I will also note that their idea of "self-sustaining" involves luxury tourism from extremely wealthy people who made their money somewhere else.

It’s fine, there are countries that have staked their entire economies on international tourism!

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8 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

LOL.

Both for the idea that a lunar base would be self-sustaining by 2035 and that the point of going there is capitalism.

I will also note that their idea of "self-sustaining" involves luxury tourism from extremely wealthy people who made their money somewhere else.

Yeah, how to make chickens when you have nether chickens, nor eggs to start with.

The old cislunar "economy" arguments were driven by the one customer with deep pockets—the US government. The idea was that they would pay for stuff there, but it would cost less than taking it from Earth. Same guy writing the checks, though.

All that said, I actually think if the goal is people, tourism is the killer app—the problem of course is that the safety needs to move from a 1:270 chance of death to airline level (which is a ridiculously low level of risk), which seems... unlikely.

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8 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

It’s fine, there are countries that have staked their entire economies on international tourism!

But they aren't "self-sustaining".

3 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, how to make chickens when you have nether chickens, nor eggs to start with.

The old cislunar "economy" arguments were driven by the one customer with deep pockets—the US government. The idea was that they would pay for stuff there, but it would cost less than taking it from Earth. Same guy writing the checks, though.

All that said, I actually think if the goal is people, tourism is the killer app—the problem of course is that the safety needs to move from a 1:270 chance of death to airline level (which is a ridiculously low level of risk), which seems... unlikely.

Enough rich old people would take a 1:100 chance of death to go to the moon. Why the hell not? What are you going to do otherwise? Cruise to Tahiti?

What would really hurt this model is if some kind of life-extension became available. Trade your last 10 years for a trip to the moon? Sure. Trade your next 100 years for a trip to the moon? Um...

Edited by mikegarrison
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5 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Enough rich old people would take a 1:100 chance of death to go to the moon. Why the hell not? What are you going to do otherwise? Cruise to Tahiti?

Yeah, you are right, there is a market for limited "adventure" tourism that holds high risk. The number of people on marginally dangerous summits in summer is large—but the death rate on 14ers in CO looks to be ~8/year, and any given day in summer there are dozens of people on the summits (100s on places like Long's). Wow, 4 months times 30 summiters times 57 summits would make the death rate basically 100X less than the commercial crew 1:270.

There's certainly a place where there would be a sweet spot, but the old people would also need to be fairly healthy.

5 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

What would really hurt this model is if some kind of life-extension became available. Trade your last 10 years for a trip to the moon? Sure. Trade your next 100 years for a trip to the moon? Um...

LOL, yeah, very true.

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1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

What would really hurt this model is if some kind of life-extension became available. Trade your last 10 years for a trip to the moon? Sure. Trade your next 100 years for a trip to the moon? Um...

Speaking of radical life extension, we may actually be very close to it. (BTW, I love the term “longevity escape velocity”) https://www.marketwatch.com/story/we-are-nearing-longevity-escape-velocity-where-science-can-extend-your-life-for-more-than-a-year-for-every-year-you-are-alive-2020-02-24

 

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Just now, sh1pman said:

Speaking of radical life extension, we may actually be very close to it. (BTW, I love the term “longevity escape velocity”) https://www.marketwatch.com/story/we-are-nearing-longevity-escape-velocity-where-science-can-extend-your-life-for-more-than-a-year-for-every-year-you-are-alive-2020-02-24

 

We've been "very close to this" my whole life. It's like fusion power plants. Always 30 years away, for the last 60 years.

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21 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

We've been "very close to this" my whole life. It's like fusion power plants. Always 30 years away, for the last 60 years.

Well, sure, I’ll believe it when I see it too. But there have been some breakthroughs recently. Gene editing with CRISPR, organ printing, telomerase inhibitors, induced cell pluripotency and reprogramming. I think we’re actually getting close this time.

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2 hours ago, sh1pman said:

It’s fine, there are countries that have staked their entire economies on international tourism!

I'm from one of those countries.  It's really not that fine; one thing gone wrong and the whole economy collapses.

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5 minutes ago, Entropian said:

I'm from one of those countries.  It's really not that fine; one thing gone wrong and the whole economy collapses.

Yeah. Well, I can relate, I’m from one of those countries that have staked their economy on hydrocarbon exports. You can imagine how fine it’s been lately...

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3 hours ago, Spaceception said:

ULA has received more than $80 million to demonstrate in-orbit refueling for their Centaur stage. ACES is effectively back!!

Wow, compared to the $50 million SpaceX got that seems pretty disproportionate.  What's their reason for giving ULA so much more profitssssssss?

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9 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Don't we already have in-orbit refuelling capacity? Which is used every time cargo ship tops off ISS fuel tanks.

The ISS uses hypergolic fuel which is easier to store, but more difficult to manufacture in space. these contracts are for cryogenic fuel (LH2 or LCH4)

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