The thread for space cadets!

[uppi]

I think you missed my point. Assuming the business case to send people to Mars can close (a big if, granted, but it's what SpaceX is focusing on), then the economic driver of Mars will be Mars development. Martians will be paying each other to build infrastructure and provide goods and services. Yes, much will have to be imported to Mars for a long time but that will largely sort itself out by people buying goods on Earth for shipment to Mars, where it will be sold to Martians who will pay for the goods by working on Mars projects and providing services.

There are very few places on Earth that are entirely self-sufficient and yet are economically viable. I don't think their will be huge amount of goods and services shipped back to Earth but I don't think that's a necessary condition for the venture to work out economically. And none of us can really predict what economic development will come out of the settlement effort. I don't think the 49ers were coming to California so that one day Hollywood and Silicon Valley would develop but they did.

The bolded part is where you are mistaken: SpaceX is focusing on making the trip as cheap as possible. That is good, but it is only one side of a business case: how much you need to invest. But the other side is missing: what is the return on investment? A colony on Mars would be very isolated and a high-demand low-supply economy and anything produced there will only have value on earth. That means that there will be (at least effectively) a Mars currency. Let's call them Mars bucks. So colonists will pay each other in Mars bucks, but those will not have any value on earth at all. Think of it as a country with an extremely negative trade balance with nothing to show for it. That means there will be no economic incentive at all on Earth to invest in Mars. You can earn a a huge number of Mars bucks, but those increase your wealth on earth by exactly nothing. There has to be some kind of (material or immaterial) flow of goods back to earth so that investment can work.

An economic case might an economic case in the future, like a certain good produced on Mars that is so good that it makes sense to send it back to Earth. But until then, the only model I can see working is NASA Mk.2: The government or philanthropists funds the Mars colony (for reasons of idealism or science) and the projects stands and falls with interest of these groups to extend funding.

As red elk pointed out: The economic case for a resettlement to Antarctica is much stronger.

I'd just like to re-iterate that the cost to go is going to be approximately $200,000 USD in current dollars. If you can afford a home-loan, you should be able to afford to go to Mars. This is not an effort for the ultra rich.

No, a home loan is something very different: First, the bank can have your home as security so that in a healthy housing market the risk is minimal. There is no such security for a trip to Mars. Second, for a home loan, the bank assumes that you will continue your current job and earn money to make your payments. On your trip to Mars you will only earn Mars bucks that can not be used as payment. You might be able to make payments if you are back on Earth, but you might not actually make it back (and facing a huge loan and no means to enforce this loan on Mars you might just chose to stay there). And even if you make it back, you might not be able to take up your old job and are therefore at risk of unemployment.

No sane bank would give you a loan to go to Mars, you are going to have to pay that up front and the people you would like to have as colonists do not tend to have that money.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

China's Shenzhou 11 blasts off on space station mission.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-37670842
If I'm not mistaken, this is the second (or third?) space station that the Chinese have launched. The other 2 have been de-orbited but they are slowly, steadily building up their space industrial capacity. I'm pretty stoked about it and at the same time disheartened that my own government has barred NASA from cooperating with the Chinese in any material way in space matters. The Chinese have announced intentions to make space available on their own future modular station (their current one is more or less a stand-alone single module to the best of our knowledge) and have asked to participate in the ISS. It's foolish not to let them participate in my opinion.
I understand the Congress' misgivings on the issue but I disagree with the current fix.

_______________________________


@uppi - I'm way out of my league trying to speak about Mars economics. I cede all points to you.


_______________________________

I also launched my space blog. I've only got one post but I'm working on three others. It's at
https://thespacecadetblog.com/
https://thespacecadetblog.com/
The first article is on thrust versus efficiency concerns for launch vehicles. I started the New Glenn and Falcon Heavy post but I felt the need to talk about launch vehicle design trades first to help inform the various issues that will go into the comparison of the two vehicles.

 

[Perfection]

If I pay 400k can I bring my cat with me?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

If I pay 400k can I bring my cat with me?

I have wondered that myself to be honest. I don't really know if that will be allowed or not. I see pros and cons to it. Mostly cons to be honest.

 

[Gigaz]

brb, devising a space suit for a cat.

 

[uppi]

I have wondered that myself to be honest. I don't really know if that will be allowed or not. I see pros and cons to it. Mostly cons to be honest.

For true colonization you will want to bring animals at one point. And for that you want to know, how they cope with the conditions on another planets (e.g., low gravity, radiation). So taking cats along might be worth just for the science, despite the cons.

Now that I think about it: Earth's animals are strangely absent from most science fiction stories. Why is that?

 

[tetley]

Nothing like being cooped up on a spaceship alone with a cat you're allergic to, with dander floating about in zero-g. What gets really interesting is when you try to let the ship's dog out to go to the bathroom.

 

[Cutlass]

Now that I think about it: Earth's animals are strangely absent from most science fiction stories. Why is that?

You're reading the wrong stories. I've read quite a few with Earth's animals. Horses as self-replicating transportation on frontier worlds. Livestock of all sorts.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You're reading the wrong stories. I've read quite a few with Earth's animals. Horses as self-replicating transportation on frontier worlds. Livestock of all sorts.

I've never read stories that included livestock or animals as anything more than an afterthought at best. Mind sharing some suggestions? I'm intrigued.
Oh and do you have any information on that new turbofan engine from P&W? It also intrigues me.

For true colonization you will want to bring animals at one point. And for that you want to know, how they cope with the conditions on another planets (e.g., low gravity, radiation). So taking cats along might be worth just for the science, despite the cons.
I'm with you 100%. I'm more worried with the practicalities in transporting them. I think non-simian animals will have a hard time in zero g (of course, assuming that's the route taken) for a month or more.
Now that I think about it: Earth's animals are strangely absent from most science fiction stories. Why is that?

I was just about to say it would be cruel to lash them down for the duration. My reasoning is that animals with only paws and teeth to grab things will likely cause a lot of damage to the ship as they bumble about. Lashing them to a bulkhead would solve this issue but it'd be a miserable way to live. Then I realized it's only for a month and the short-term price paid by the animals leads to their long-term survival as a species beyond what anything on Earth has accomplished. So it'd suck, but I'd be morally ok with it.

Nothing like being cooped up on a spaceship alone with a cat you're allergic to, with dander floating about in zero-g. What gets really interesting is when you try to let the ship's dog out to go to the bathroom.

I'm not sure how much of a problem the dander will be to be honest. Air has to move and is continously filtered. If it isn't circulated, CO2 builds up and is a major suffocation hazard. So there are fans and ducts everywhere on the ISS and spacecraft.

But I can't be certain this would be enough. And I can be sure that it wouldn't help with animal waste. That would be a very interesting engineering challenge.

brb, devising a space suit for a cat.

Hey! You could win a lot of money if you could design a good glove for astronauts. Do that, then fund your cat suit enterprise with the profit. Be a market maker man.

 

[Michkov]

I have wondered that myself to be honest. I don't really know if that will be allowed or not. I see pros and cons to it. Mostly cons to be honest.

Something got keep the Martian rodent population in check

 

[hobbsyoyo]

We would be so lucky if we had such a problem.

 

[Cutlass]

I've never read stories that included livestock or animals as anything more than an afterthought at best. Mind sharing some suggestions? I'm intrigued.

Thing about animals in scifi stories is that for the most part they may be in that universe, but they aren't part of the stories. They're a background that isn't talked about, because it's not central to the story being told. But I have encountered them in a number of stories. There's a series by Elizabeth Moon, The Legacy of Heorot, by Niven, Pournelle and Barnes, one I read, but don't remember the name, I think it was by Nancy Kress, in which they were colonizing a world, and recreating animals from genetic material to fill the niches in the new ecosystem. Basically, it's stories about the act of colonization, rather than stories of worlds already developed.

Oh and do you have any information on that new turbofan engine from P&W? It also intrigues me.

The basic concept of the turbofan, as I'm sure you know, is an axle with several stages of turbine fans on the same axle, turning at the same speed. A high bypass turbofan, which is what airliners and other really big aircraft use, has a fan which directs air around the outside of the engine's body. But it's still on the same axle. The geared turbofan has an axle for that high bypass fan which is not on the same axle as the rest of the engine, and so can turn at a different speed. This means that you can get more thrust from the hi bypass fan, and so do a big increase in total engine efficiency. The alternative is to simply increase the diameter of the fan, which GE is doing. But that has installation limits, because increasing the diameter of the fan requires taller landing gear, because the engine is located beneath the wings. And that causes too many engineering problems for the airframe maker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geared_turbofan

http://www.pratt-whitney.com/PurePowerPW1000G_Engine

http://www.economist.com/news/scien...re-economical-jet-engine-fitted-gearbox-about

This is a game-changer in civil aeronautics. And Pratt's sales projections are reflecting that. In 15 years this type of engine will be the entire market.

I was just about to say it would be cruel to lash them down for the duration. My reasoning is that animals with only paws and teeth to grab things will likely cause a lot of damage to the ship as they bumble about. Lashing them to a bulkhead would solve this issue but it'd be a miserable way to live. Then I realized it's only for a month and the short-term price paid by the animals leads to their long-term survival as a species beyond what anything on Earth has accomplished. So it'd suck, but I'd be morally ok with it.

It's been suggested to carry animal embryos, rather than live.

We would be so lucky if we had such a problem.

I've seen a number of stories in which rats get everywhere. Hell, they've done so for 1000s of years. So you need cats to catch the rats.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Geared turbofans sound pretty sweet. I'll have to read up on them. I can't even remember hearing about concepts of such engines in school because it's so uncommon.


The thing about embroyos is who knows long it will be before we have the technology to make that work. While transporting live animals in 0 g will present new challenges, I don't think it's something that would need a serious R&D effort compared to the rest the plan.

 

[Lexicus]

@uppi - I'm way out of my league trying to speak about Mars economics. I cede all points to you.

I think his point is that it makes no sense to colonize Mars as a private for-profit venture. The benefits of Mars colonization would not be of the 'return on investment' variety, except possibly in a very indirect and time-delayed sense (we'd presumably learn something about how to colonize other celestial bodies by doing it on Mars, and that might at some point down the line have some economic benefits worth talking about, eg by colonizing an asteroid with interesting metals or something).

EDIT: My own attitude is that we should hold off on colonizing Mars until we can at least get ourselves together enough to leave the Earth the way we found it, instead of trashing the place completely as we're currently doing. I'm also worried about contaminating Mars with Earth life, potentially ruining the possibility of learning anything about Martian life.

 

[tetley]

If we just send Matt Damon to Mars, will that mean no more Bourne Supremacy movies?

 

[Cutlass]

Geared turbofans sound pretty sweet. I'll have to read up on them. I can't even remember hearing about concepts of such engines in school because it's so uncommon.

The technical challenges mean that the concept hasn't been used much until recently. Things tend to break under that much force and RPMs.

The thing about embroyos is who knows long it will be before we have the technology to make that work. While transporting live animals in 0 g will present new challenges, I don't think it's something that would need a serious R&D effort compared to the rest the plan.

A lot of scifi works from the premise that early colonization of other stars will be done by cryogenic storage. Assuming there's no breakthrough in physics which allows faster than light travel, the options are generation ships, or cryogenics. Because it won't be possible in a human lifetime to get to most other star systems. And a generation ship has the technical challenges of not just being mechanically capable of functioning long enough, but doing so while supporting an active population, and a biosphere capable of producing food the whole time.

 

[uppi]

A lot of scifi works from the premise that early colonization of other stars will be done by cryogenic storage. Assuming there's no breakthrough in physics which allows faster than light travel, the options are generation ships, or cryogenics.

Actually, the third option of just going fast enough is not limited by the speed of light: If the space ship travels nearly at the speed of light, the passengers will experience a much shorter trip duration than measured by Earth time, because of length contraction / time dilation. So the passengers might just age a few years, even if the round-trip back to Earth would take 200 Earth years. Going that fast would require incredible amounts of energy, of course, and would be extremely hard to realize. But no breakthrough in fundamental physics is required.

 

[Cutlass]

I've seen scifi stories which used near-relativistic speeds. But as exploration vessels, rather than colonization ones. They figured antimatter would be required as a fuel to get enough energy density to make it work.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The Trace Gas Orbiter that ESA and Roscosmos sent to Mars has achieved a highly eccentric elliptical orbit about Mars. It should be able to lower itself into its operational orbit within a few days. However, the Schiaparelli lander that it dropped off has not been heard from since descent. I was watching the webcast live this morning and following the updates from flight control and heard one of the controllers confirm the parachutes had deployed and I think that the aeroshell popped off. There were no signals from the lander after that. They were trying an experimental method of listening to the lander during descent using a highly-sensitive Indian radio telescope to pick up signals from a secondary antenna so it was expected they might not pick anything up.

However, after the landing it was intended to power up its main antenna, uplink to the Trace Gas Orbiter or to a NASA spacecraft and phone home. This did not happen.

It's especially critical that they obtain communication with it now as it has batteries meant to last but a few days. Some articles are saying this potential failure casts doubts on the ExoMars 2020 mission which is intended to deliver a rover. That program is already underfunded by both ESA and Roscosmos and this lander was to test landing methods for both agencies. As far as I know, neither agency has been able successfully land or operate a probe on the surface of Mars yet as the whole process of getting there safely is extremely challenging.

Despite the potentially mixed outcome, it's great to see how closely the space agencies of world worked together to either make it happen or otherwise support it with their own assets.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Summary of today's reports on the lander:

It's a crater. :-(