It’s really basic stuff @skyentist the fact that smart space engineering student like you bought the idea makes me very concerned. The Moon is right here, we can supply it easily, we can build on it with a fraction of the cost, we can migrate, we can populate it, we can exploit it… Really it’s basic stuff.
1 Like
The entire Moon first / Mars first debate has always been philosophical at best. Noone will fund Mars first. We do not even yet know if anyone will fund Moon first in the forseeable future, the President cant do that, only Congress. Musk would fund Mars first if he could, but he cant, which is the whole reason he scaled back the next big rocket from last year’s presentation to this year. A further scale down might even happen, who knows. Politically and financially the Moon is a stepping stone you can not skip as far as i can tell. So technical and philosophical questions will not decide the issue.
“New Space” has taken remarkable steps towards making cheaper space access a reality. But everything but comsats is still at the mercy of gouvernment money for the most part. No unobtanium on the moon yet. But political prestiege to be had that might open the public purses.
1 Like
That’s the issue. You see the Moon as “right there.” It’s not. It’s nearly exactly the same amount of energy away from Earth as the surface of Mars. They are equidistant. That means to put 50 tons onto the Moon’s surface costs the same amount of dollars to putting 50 tons onto the Martian surface. To build on this, there are legitimate differences between the environments of the lunar surface and the martian surface that have to be designed into whatever mission you send. Moving on, if you work towards both you’re spitting your potential resources in half already.
For example a habitat designed with a complete vacuum and high temperature tolerances may have issues on the surface of Mars with it’s near-vacuum atmosphere and relatively lower temperature cycles. At first glance it may just seem like it’s over-engineered. Maybe it is, or maybe the coating we used to account for the temperature cycles has an adverse reaction with the martian atmosphere and has to be redesigned from scratch. The issue with this is you cannot know what your unknowns are. If you want to fund a Moon base go for it, but a Moon base will not make a Martian base any cheaper or less deadly.
I didn’t come on here to argue today and I’m not even saying that Mars is the end-all best place to go for humanity. I just wanted to say identify your mission objective, the amount of resources you have at your disposal, and move on to design your mission from there.
1 Like
I can’t even read that junk @skyentist, the Moon is 3 days away with bad tech, you are still dreaming a scientific wet dream that Mars is. This world we live in works on money and exploitation, if it’s cheaper for McDonalld’s to import beef from the Moon because there is no genetic modification restrictions there, they will do that, if they are able to sell a square foot on the Moon and make a pofit that’s 5% more than on Earth, they will do that, if bank accounts on the Moon or return on investments are tax exempt, they will do that. That’s how this world works and I’m happy that now they have actually decided to push for that instead of masturbating space geeks with the Mars story. It’s really good for us, honest.
1 Like
Rock on. Well we can’t have a conversation about space travel and habitation if we cannot talk about the metrics involved in traveling to other bodies. I won’t be wasting any more of my time trying to help you understand what is involved.
There’s also no need for the insults and make this a divisive “1 or the other” argument analogous to the party politics of today. This is an academic discussion at best where we won’t see how it will really play out for another decade at least.
5 Likes
I know perfectly well your point of view and the logic behind the science, yet I choose to back the exploitation of Moon over scientific and human enlightenment that would be gained from Mars. Your POV can be junk even if understood.
1 Like
Ummm there not the same thing. 'Should have asked him to explain rather then just making a statement.
Now If I drop “this” out a 10th story window on the east side or I drop “this” out a 10th story window on the west side; witch one takes more energy?
Time is what matters.
I want to see that recreated in some game … gas in space … and light.
2 Likes
Wow, this thread got toxic pretty quick.
No doubting the Moon is an easier target to reach (takes less time to get there, no atmosphere to worry about and we managed to land humans with clunky old Apollo missions - so experience is there).
Mars is perhaps a longer term goal for the expansion of the human race. But the Moon’s got decent mineable resources and is also handy as a staging point. Refueling base on the Moon? Much more efficient than dropping into Earth’s gravity well!
4 Likes
I’m insanely excited about the BFR, moreso than the ITS because the BFR looks like it’s ready to go.
I don’t know why everyone’s whining about Mars or Moon first: it’s not up to you. The answer is “we’ll get to both in due time.” In case you haven’t noticed, the system is designed for BOTH.
Elon Musk wants to go to Mars by 2022. Maybe he’ll land on the moon first. Maybe someone will want to go to the moon or contract for the moon and he’ll launch a vehicle there first.
The thing is, we’ve already been to the moon, so in a sense, this debate has already been settled. We’ve done the moon. There’s no need to land on the moon to go to Mars so if you want to go to Mars you just go. Why drop yourself in another gravitational well?
The trip to Mars is already well outlined better by Elon Musk himself than anyone here could hope to possibly argue:
Send up two BFRs, refuel them until they’re fully refueled, land them on Mars, end of story. You don’t need to go to the moon with this system and Elon Musk will very likely privately fund his own expedition to Mars with SpaceX funds. So, I really, really don’t see the debate. And, if the BFR is down to even an order of magnitude above the cost expectation they’re aiming for, it’s a bit like arguing about whether or not you should fly to Hawaii on your way to Argentina due to feasibility concerns (in this day in age): totally irrelevant.
Knowing spacex, they’ll probably do a lunar landing first to learn more about landing on Mars, but for the most part, actually flying your fully fueled spacecraft to Mars vs. the moon isn’t much different: the landing on Mars is going to be trickier, but getting into orbit around either one is pretty similar.
So, the moon doesn’t even represent particularly good practice for Mars.
As for habitation, it does a bit more. But with BFR, we should be able to do a moon and mars base at the same time.
1 Like
China will be setting humans on the moon soon enough, unless something knocks the space program of course. And as I’ve theorised before I believe this one event will spark a renewed nation space race. Maybe starting even sooner from when China firsts lands a seriously large rover/science capsule on the Moon. SpaceX should also be getting there around the same time as China.
Moon again first, then Mars and the asteroid field. Moon first though so we can learn to get rid of our training wheels once again. Its been a while since landing humans there, but with the current pace of new materials design it should unfold quite at pace once we get going. Send some crafts there to bore into the sides of a small crater, whilst sealing itself at the rear as it goes in creating a pressurised and safe habitat environment ready for humans. Maybe near some sub-surface ice. Others to lay out solar panel fields as far as the eye can see.
2 Likes
China is WAAAY behind SpaceX.
Lol. If anything, they’ll be chartering the BFR.
1 Like
Maybe in some respects, but also maybe not. Will have to wait and see. A friendly nation and private space race would be good for all of us to watch unfold, live 4K streams 24/7 of missions to the Moon. Base building, and first humans setting foot back there.
2 Likes
They’re just eons behind… Lol.
SpaceX will be making a massive amount of money off of their BFR by the time China has successfully reused something. They just lack the pressure to do it, really.
The thing is, what will cost China a trillion dollars will cost spacex in the 10s of billions once the BFR is up. That includes development costs.
1 Like
I don’t get the impression China cares how much money it is throwing at the space program, as long as it shows results. And landing humans on the Moon will be a huge result if they beat other nations and privateers there. If this encourages spacex to get there first with a human, all the better. I look forward to watching that mission 24/7.
2 Likes
Lol… a trillion dollars is 1/11th of China’s entire GDP and 1/18th of the U.S.'s GDP.
China isn’t some evil giant country that has infinite money. They have less money than the U.S., by a solid margin, especially per person.
This isn’t even worth discussing: you’re just so far off in your comprehension of the situation that you should do some major reading on very basic economics, the basics of what SpaceX is trying to do and the basics of motivation in creating a space program.
1 Like
I simply stated fuel costs were too high and used a number based on shuttle flights but corrected costs which are still astronomically high, yet somehow this triggers you. What’s more if you are going to do PR for Space X then I suggest you work for them. Settle down, this is just a thread where we look at the pluses and minus of what’s being discussed. Unless of course you want to make this thread your thread totally dedicated to Space X PR stunts sanitized from facts. What’s more I revised my statement about fuel costs and used Space X’s and if you had actually read the thread you would have seen it. My advise, don’t get so triggered, read the thread before responding and stop fretting over opinions that don’t coalesce with yours.
Also believe the moon should be prioritized. It’s closer, economically feasible and still challenging. I also think the moon is a good destination because the public sorely needs inspiration; dreaming about Mars which would take far more resources, money and time won’t galvanize badly needed public support.
Well, actually it is up to us because if the public said ‘screw this we are spending too much money on space exploration’, which is a measly $19.3 billion out of $3.95 trillion in federal budget, they would pull the funding via their representatives. Like they did the Apollo programs.