Jump to content

Banner.jpg.b89429c566825f6ab32bcafbada449c9.jpg

Elon Musk's Space X to Mars.


Guest

Recommended Posts

51 minutes ago, Grumpy Martian said:

Elon Musk says SpaceX will go to Mars in two years, then humans in four .Is this a serious possibility?

A story from The Independent.

|https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/elon-musk-spacex-mars-date-starship-b1764979.html?amp

I don't believe it at all.  Even less so if you're concerned about getting the humans back again.

I read that Mars launch windows occur about every 26 months, so the next one would be around October 2022.  To send a robotic mission then might seem feasible for SpaceX, but I'd have thought they'd already have to have things well under way already if that were the case.  Bearing in mind that a few missions have failed to land on Mars and survive, the idea that after one robotic mission they'll be able to send a human crew in December 2024 with all the fuel and food etc. that they'd need for a nine-ish month trip there, plus presumably something similar on the way back, plus whatever time they need to wait before they can actually start the journey back, and that they'll be able to put together a crew who won't kill each other after spending so much time with no other company seems quite fanciful.  And I bet there are all sorts of other issues that have yet to be solved too, particularly ones that don't even come up if you don't have a squidgy crew on board.

I'd have thought that doing a few unmanned and then manned missions to the Moon first would be sensible, to test out the technology and do a lot of crew training, if nothing else.  And that ought to be happening already if the idea is to leave for Mars in four years' time.  Perhaps should already have been happening ten years ago.

James

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe in Musk. I feel all the hype around missions complexity is just to squeeze more money from the govt to cover all the legal risks and stuff they require to be covered just in case. For a private journey you can go with much less, but in a better shape, especially having all the AI advancements Musk owns by now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Grumpy Martian said:

Elon Musk says SpaceX will go to Mars in two years, then humans in four .Is this a serious possibility?

A story from The Independent.

|https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/elon-musk-spacex-mars-date-starship-b1764979.html?amp

I will not take this story seriously, not everything that Mr Musk says is actually realistic. I doubt they will even try to land at the next opposition, at best it will be an orbital robotic mission.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i do believe humans will visit Mars but staying there morethan a week or so is just not possable Mars is too hostile to live there full time. as for Musk i carnt stand the guy too many people have to be poor to keep that man rich its just evil in my view for one man to have so much money . charl.

  • Like 2
  • Sad 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

as for Musk i carnt stand the guy too many people have to be poor to keep that man rich its just evil in my view for one man to have so much money . charl.

That's quite a sweeping statement! Not many of us astronomers are going to fans of Starlink, but the guys intentions seem far from evil to me. 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

im not trying to push my view on to anyone Chris, but if you look into it yourself you may come to the same conclusion. evil isnt a strong enough word really in his case. 

Lots of word might be used to describe Elon Musk, but whilst he definitely has an air of a Bond supervillain, I can't help but feel his net contribution is a positive one, and certainly, I'd rather the world was more Elon than Bezos. 

Aside from him as a personality, he's definitely advanced the prospect of increased space exploration in the future. Whether this goal is realistic or not doesn't really matter, because a lot will be learned in trying, even if it doesn't succeed.

 

 

 

 

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Irrespective of your personal views on Musk, and how he became the second wealthiest person in the world, without him being the driving force behind SpaceX we would still be so far behind in space exploration and still reliant on  40 year old Russian technology to take crews to the ISS.  He proved his concept of a highly reusable rocket, with the majority of Falcon 9 boosters being launched between four and six times, thus reducing the costs for companies seeking to get payloads into to orbit.  By placing the Dragon capsule on top of it, SpaceX has given the USA (and any other country for that matter given the commercial operation of SpaceX )  manned space flight capability once more.  If  he and SpaceX were not around and it was down to NASA or the ESA... any chance of getting astronauts back into space, let alone to the Moon and Mars would still be pipe dreams.

This coming weekend sees (hopefully) the 15KM "hop" of Starship SN8....  they have another seven prototypes in production..... and with his drive I'm sure his goal of landing a human on Mars by the mid 2020's will probably happen. 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still watch in wonder as the falcon boosters return and land on barges out at sea or on small landing pads with great precision, even though its commonplace now,  Ive followed the production of Starship with great interest and look forward to this weeks hop to 15k, Elon thinks big and im sure In my lifetime I will see humans going to Mars, yes Elon is rich but hes pushing technology and thinking big,  someone has too....

Mark

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

NASA appear to be quite slow with the progress on manned exploration of deep space. Not sure why this should be the case. I know that the ISS has taken a substantial amount of available funding. But it has been decades since a human interplanetary mission.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 03/12/2020 at 13:57, Grumpy Martian said:

NASA appear to be quite slow with the progress on manned exploration of deep space. Not sure why this should be the case. I know that the ISS has taken a substantial amount of available funding. But it has been decades since a human interplanetary mission.

Cost & NASA development procedures which require the thing is likely to work before you test it.

Musk - keep blowing things up until they work.

One testing model is palatable to congress, the other isn't...

 

Two years? Quite possibly but a massive pinch of salt is required.

SpaceX have a contract for a lunar lander. Let's see how that goes before getting excited.

After that there's in space refuelling to overcome and a plethora of other problems to solve.

I'm sure SpaceX will land several unmanned ships before sending humans. Travellers are not coming back for a couple of years, so a lot of tonnage needs to be in place beforehand.

The 15km hop mentioned above will be exciting to watch. I hope they pull it off.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's the lander and return rockets that are the problem I guess. 

Launching from Earth is doable with current tech.

The middle bit, humans hanging round in space for months at a time has been perfected by NASA already. In fact it's been the sole purpose of manned spaceflight for decades!

Will Musk deliver? Probably not so soon but it will happen. He has the money to make it happen and he has some great engineers behind him. There would be thousands of people prepared to take that flight even if it was given only a 75% chance of survivability.

His approach is so fresh compared to the corporate stagnation at NASA. 

I hate myself for liking him :)

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whatever some people may think of Musk it cannot be denied he has proved to be a great driving force in creating low cost space launches and reigniting huge interest in human space flight. Without Musk we would still be paying Russia $90,000,000 per seat on the Soyuz to get to the ISS and would still be spending millions on boosters to drop them into the ocean on their first flight. Musk was the first to consider building reusable boosters and successfully  building them. Musk is also leading the field in AI and battery technology and autonomous cars. He has a way of thinking outside of the box, having big dreams and getting them into production in ridiculously short time frames.

Having said that it is unrealistic to expect that he can put humans on Mars in 2024, but talking up interest in order to gain hard cash is all part of the business. Personally I believe he is the best thing to happen to the space industry since the Apollo era.

Edited by Moonshed
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Paul M said:

It's the lander and return rockets that are the problem I guess. 

Launching from Earth is doable with current tech.

The middle bit, humans hanging round in space for months at a time has been perfected by NASA already. In fact it's been the sole purpose of manned spaceflight for decades!

Will Musk deliver? Probably not so soon but it will happen. He has the money to make it happen and he has some great engineers behind him. There would be thousands of people prepared to take that flight even if it was given only a 75% chance of survivability.

His approach is so fresh compared to the corporate stagnation at NASA. 

I hate myself for liking him :)

Let's give credit where credit is due. Roscosmos (not sure what the name was before) is perfecting this since 86' as well.

Edited by heliumstar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
On 04/12/2020 at 12:15, heliumstar said:

Let's give credit where credit is due. Roscosmos (not sure what the name was before) is perfecting this since 86' as well.

Roscosmos? Don't make me cry through laughing. Russians had no single screw changed in their general space hardware since 90es. They afraid new screws bought in China may not fit old threads :D As the education, science, and high-end engineering and industry of the inherited USSR legacy, which you are referring to from the memory I guess, have been raged, scavenged, and profanized by hundreds of high-ranked former-KGB-backed theeves (many now retired in UK mansions and castles) for almost 26 years in a row. All that legacy tech has been sold to China for a single man fortune money a piece. China would rival Musk on Mars not Rusia. Russian space tech is over 30 years old, their scientific data is nearly non-existent due to the lack of funding of anything not bringing immediate wealth to the ruling "party" club ("space taxi" is all they've been investing into lately, and Mask took that over in just 10 years). It's a atypical, but still banana kleptocracy now. All the best Russian minds are working in the US and EU/UK now, including for Musk, and not looking back for prob another 20 years waiting for the mafia state to eat itself out, thanks to sanctions.

Edited by AlexK
Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, AlexK said:

Roscosmos? Don't make me cry through laughing. Russians had no single screw changed in their general space hardware since 90es. They afraid new screws bought in China may not fit old threads :D As the education, science, and high-end engineering and industry of the inherited USSR legacy, which you are referring to from the memory I guess, have been raged, scavenged, and profanized by hundreds of high-ranked former-KGB-backed theeves (many now retired in UK mansions and castles) for almost 26 years in a row. All that legacy tech has been sold to China for a single man fortune money a piece. China would rival Musk on Mars not Rusia. Russian space tech is over 30 years old, their scientific data is nearly non-existent due to the lack of funding of anything not bringing immediate wealth to the ruling "party" club ("space taxi" is all they've been investing into lately, and Mask took that over in just 10 years). It's a atypical, but still banana kleptocracy now. All the best Russian minds are working in the US and EU/UK now, including for Musk, and not looking back for prob another 20 years waiting for the mafia state to eat itself out, thanks to sanctions.

Not sure how any of this is relevant to giving credit where it's due?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There would need to be a fence round that memorial to Spirit, else someone amongst the nice citizens of Mars would have its remains away for scrap.

You can lead a leopard to water but you can't change its spots. Or something like that!

  • Haha 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, heliumstar said:

Not sure how any of this is relevant to giving credit where it's due?

Sure, I'll explain. I.o.w.:  there is nothing relevant to a Mars mission what might require anyone giving any credit for it to the Roskosmos evil corporation :) To the USSR? May be for the general inspiration.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.