Elon Musk: Future Round-Trip To Mars Could Cost Under $500,000 238
An anonymous reader writes with this quote from the BBC:
"Rocket entrepreneur Elon Musk believes he can get the cost of a round trip to Mars down to about half a million dollars. The SpaceX CEO says he has finally worked out how to do it, and told the BBC he would reveal further details later this year or early in 2013. ... 'My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars — this is very important — so you don't have to carry the return fuel when you go there,' he said. 'The whole system [must be] reusable — nothing is thrown away. That's very important because then you're just down to the cost of the propellant.' ... He conceded the figure was unlikely to be the opening price — rather, the cost of a ticket on a mature system that had been operating for about a decade. Nonetheless, Musk thought such an offering could be introduced in 10 years at best, and 15 at worst."
Once space elevators are built on both planets, (Score:2, Interesting)
with space stations at the top of both elevators, I suppose the trip could be made easier. Much less fuel would be required, since you do not have to break earth's atmosphere, or much of earth's gavity. Landing on Mars would be a non-issue, since you would just have to dock the space station at the end of the Mars space elevator.
Not sure about that time frame.
Just a random thought, I'm not sure if that would actually work.
Sounds a bit like... (Score:4, Interesting)
... "Buzz" Aldrin's "Mars" Cycler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_cycler [wikipedia.org]
Send up a number of transport vehicles that run in an orbit between Mars and earth. It's not fast since it's using "gravity assist" trajectories (i.e. no fuel) all you need is the fuel for a shuttle to transfer the passengers to either the planet surface (or orbiting station).
Have a few of these transports in operation then you can have transfers every 4/12 weeks with the travel time of between 80 and 200 days depending on the orbital positions.
Re:one word (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably something like this:
1) Use cheap SpaceX rockets to reach LEO.
2) Use multiple launches, carrying components of the Mars craft, the supplies, fuel, and crew on separate launches. This keeps you from needing a Giganto-rocket that ultimately couldn't lift as much as these separate launches anyway.
3) Transfer to Mars orbit (which is easier than getting to LEO)
4) Detach landing craft, land on Mars
5) Re-fuel with fuel conveniently pre-manufactured by previous robotic missions (this is the only part not obvious to me how it would be done for whatever that's worth).
6) Return to orbiter.
7) Return to earth.
LEO is the big obstacle. Earth's gravity well is a killer -- it's the largest of any rocky body in the solar system. If we can make LEO cheap and easy -- which just happens to be Elon Musk's major goal with SpaceX -- then we've made the rest of the solar system significantly cheaper and easier.
Re:I think musk lost his marbles (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess a whole lot is going to be riding on this next Falcon 9 launch. If it blows up on the launch pad I would think you might be right. Somehow I doubt that will happen, but who knows?
The problem with your reasoning is that Elon Musk is launching stuff into space and building real spacecraft, hiring real astronauts and getting stuff done. He also has that "crew-rated space capsule" and has even done the math to get it to Mars. In terms of the "long manifest", they are paying deposits to get onto that list, so there must be some actual people with money who are willing to spend several million dollars risking that something is going to happen.
I agree that SpaceX needs to go through the manifest, but Elon Musk does seem like he is able to deliver on his promises.
Re:Captive market (Score:5, Interesting)
minimum stay 8 months until the planetary alignment is right for the return trip
Technically you can just swing by on a minimum energy Hohmann ellipse and come right back. If you want to stay awhile its either gonna cost more fuel or time until you can set up another minimum fuel ellipse to come back.
If you're willing to burn a tiny tiny little extra fuel, you pass beyond mars orbit ... so you jump a lander craft off on the way out, and rejoin on the way back in. Basically you plan a Hohmann pretending that Mars is in a slightly bigger orbit. Its actually a hell of a lot more complicated than this.
You can model stuff like this with the "orbiter" orbital mechanics simulator from the early 00s (and still going), or you can run the numbers, or just go intuitively.
From memory fooling around with this, the increased fuel in the main machine, and increased fuel in the lander craft, means you are not going to hang around very long... but from memory a couple days was not too unrealistic in terms of increased delta-v?
Re:Not much "cheap vehicle" experience (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think that a $50 used moped is just as sexy as a Tesla Roadster and has the same performance characteristics, I suppose you are correct.
As for "taking tax dollars", the only tax money that was dumped into Tesla Motors was a loan program put together under the W. Bush administration originally intended to be for General Motors, but somehow Elon Musk was able to work it out that Tesla qualified for the same program and got some of the money. It was also a loan that had to be paid back.
As for the cost of the vehicle, if you don't like it, don't buy it. The only reason why Tesla is currently "losing money" is because they are ramping up the factory in Fremont, California (the former NUMMI plant) and getting ready for production of the Model S. Tesla Motors did make money off of the Roadster... not just a technical profit but a rather substantial amount. It was enough that Toyota decided to become one of those "venture capitalists" investing in Tesla... where I hope the Toyota corporation knows a thing or two about how to manufacture automobiles. Yes, they are just a minority owner in the company, but it also wasn't a tiny investment either.
Re:Space Shuttle (Score:4, Interesting)
NASA hasn't gone too much beyond where they were in the mid 1960's and in some ways are going backward. The SLS isn't anything more than a scaled down version of the Saturn V made with used parts from earlier spacecraft, so if SpaceX is at the same level that NASA was in the mid 1960's... in 10-15 years they will be far ahead of anything NASA is doing at the moment. It is sad to say, but Skylab pretty much was the pinnacle of the manned spaceflight program and it has been going downhill since. They've improved some procedures, but NASA hasn't really done anything genuinely inspiring with the manned spaceflight program other than repair the Hubble telescope. The Shuttle flights looked cool.... but really?
It terms of daring to go where nobody has gone before, NASA just isn't where it is at any more. Heck, they can't even duplicate Alan Shepard's first flight, even though Richard Branson is trying to make that happen.
Re:one word (Score:5, Interesting)
Once you get into space you can also use other technologies for propulsion, like ion thrusters (low thrust.... but they can operate for a very long time with continuous thrust and insane specific impulse numbers) or even nuclear rocket engines like NERVA.
In theory, you can travel from the Earth to Mars in about six weeks and possible even less if you had the right engines. Yes, that takes a whole lot of energy.... but space is also full of a whole lot of energy too!
There are also things like Aldrin Cyclers and mission profiles that don't need to worry about how much mass is traveling between the Earth and Mars, so it becomes more like a cruise vacation on the journey complete with 5-star accommodations and staff along with entertainment. Those spaceships can literally be as big as you care... as large as any major cruse ship or larger. They can also be expanded to accommodate more passengers on each cycle or even have the construction crew "on staff" while in flight. It would be a bit of a trick to get the thing built initially, but the per passenger cost would be minimal and doesn't even need to worry about delta-v or even fuel at all and the staff can even be rotated out on each cycle. Food can be grown in such a vehicle, with air and water recycled as necessary... such a system is even being done on the ISS at the moment even though I'll admit it does need to improve to become practical on a larger scale. Solar arrays can be used for what energy needs such a vehicle might have. If you are going insane when running around a spaceship the size of a cruise ship, I can't help you out much. It may not look like a cruise ship, but then again stuff in space doesn't have to look like anything on Earth or even anything like what you've seen Hollywood come up with for spaceflight either.
In other words, it takes changing the notion of how things are done. The first few flights and getting the infrastructure set up are going to be expensive, but once that is built it doesn't have to be expensive for ongoing costs. The tough part is getting to and from the Earth to LEO or at worst to a "Earth Transfer Orbit" position. The sitting "as a sardine in a can" would only be for a couple days, and even then something like an Aldrin Cycler could be built to transfer between LEO and those other positions relatively near the Earth to get to the Earth-Mars cycler.
The idea that you are going to build a disintegrating pyramid starting from sea level at KSC bringing everything with you needed for the trip as you throw parts of your spaceship away is where the perception is flawed. Such a design methodology was useful in a wartime situation like how the Apollo program was built, but that doesn't need to be the only way to travel to other worlds. If anything, getting to the Moon with the Lunar Lander was about the limit of what you can do with chemical rockets flying on the disintegrating pyramid and Mars is simply unreachable. It is that mentality which creates the trillion dollar manned Mars missions too.
Re:one word (Score:5, Interesting)
Reusable spacecraft in space. The problem with every interplanetary mission plan is that it is a one time plan, or always involves launching the entire spacecraft form Earth every time. Why launch an interplanetary spacecraft to LEO multiple times? Launch it once and after that just launch fuel, supplies, and people. Maybe the a new lander or parts of a lander will need to be launched each time. Since, Ion engines are useful once in space fuel needs would be greatly reduced. A spacecraft that never lands should suffer very little wear and tear, so quit trying to build a single spacecraft to handle all phases of the travel plan. In addition, a reusable spacecraft that never lands can probably be built bigger and more comfortable than one that needs to survive re-entry.
1) Build one spacecraft that launches stuff to LEO.
2) Assemble an interplanetary craft in LEO along with a lander.
3) Launch supplies and crew to LEO. (could be multiple launches)
4) Transfer crew to interplanetary craft.
5) Set interplanetary craft on transfer orbit.
6) Land lander.
7) Do Stuff.
8) Launch lander to interplentary craft.
9) Return interplanetary craft to LEO.
10) Transfer people to LEO landing craft.
11) Repeat from step 3
This is one of the reasons I find any plan to de-orbit the ISS is stupid and wasteful. Even if there is no other science to be had, why waste a perfectly good transfer station for interplanetary travel? It would also probably be a good place to perform vehicle assembly since the interplanetary craft might makes sense to launch in multiple pieces or, if in a single launch, partially disassembled, so it does not have to be designed to survive launch stresses in a fully assembled state.
Re:I think musk lost his marbles (Score:4, Interesting)
In the U.S. Navy, the only thing that forces a submarine to surface is strictly food, as the spaces aboard ship are too small for them to grow it. Six to nine month deployments where they stay underwater the whole time are even pretty common. In other words, your analogy is sort of flawed here. Yes, they can surface... but doing so compromises their mission and that is something they won't do.
In terms of gravity, spinning a spacecraft can do wonders. You want to keep the spin rate below about 1 RPM, but that merely implies the size of the vehicle or the length of the tether to the counter weight. That isn't being done on the ISS because.... it has been proposed as a possible module and was even one of the original module designs. It was cut for pure political reasons, not technical ones.
As for radiation, a tank of water does wonders to stop just about all hazardous radiation you would encounter in space. You might need to hunker down in some reserved spaces for a few days when a solar flare goes by, but it isn't impossible to cope with or to even predict when it happens. The Space Weather Prediction Center [noaa.gov] already exists to do forecasts for solar storms, where I'm pretty sure more resources would be put into trying to make more accurate predictions for manned spaceflight.
In terms of the vacuum of space, 30 m of water is the same pressure difference as going from sea level to space. On top of that, it is a whole lot easier to build something to keep pressure in (like a balloon) than to keep the pressure on the outside from crushing you. Spacesuits are more complicated because you want to bend that balloon to make it useful, but that is also a solved engineering problem based upon suits of armor fabricated at the time of Henry VIII of England.
As for extremes in temperature, it isn't that big of a deal either. Space is a very good insulator and the largest problem you have is simply getting rid of excess heat as you need to radiate it away as convection isn't an option. To keep a spacecraft from getting too hot one one side, rotating the vehicle is again key, something almost all satellites use even now much less manned vehicles.
I'm not saying that the issues you are complaining about are invalid, but it is something that there is experience and knowledge on how to accomplish them, where the largest factor in their use is simply getting them into space in the first place as launches to LEO have been so expensive in the past. When a liter of water costs $100k or sometimes more to put it into space, weird sorts of attitudes about what is important start to happen with spacecraft designs. Elon Musk is suggesting he might get that below $500 or perhaps even less with these reusable spacecraft, which is partly where the $500k per person round trip to Mars comes from.