Musk muses on middle-class Mars colony SpaceX boss Elon Musk has said that later this year or in early 2013 he will announce a plan to offer flights to Mars and back for half a million dollars, hopefully within the next decade. In an interview with the BBC, Musk said that the final pieces of the plan had now been sorted out, and he was confident SpaceX could set up …
Half a million for a Mars trip definitely makes the $20m for an ISS trip seem like an awful ripoff.
I know for a fact that Elon/Space X will make this a reality and as great the work is laying the foundations of space exploration that the current incumbents in the space race (nasa, esa, roscosmos) have done, it's SpaceX that will really leave a footprint in the history of human space exploration and colonisation.
Time to start saving my money I think!
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<quote>The technologies involved haven't even been patented, he said, because this would put them out in the open and patents are basically unenforceable overseas.</quote>
So industries that should be using patents are not, because they are unenforcable, and other industries that should not be using patents are, because they are a convienent sue-ball.
Does anybody else thing the patent system needs to be overhauled?
Not Moore's law, but doing something regularly should build up experience and equipment that reduces costs.
About reuse, I'm guessing the main strategy here is to build a durable "bus" that would regularly cycle between Earth and Mars. This would have the engines, living quarters and radiation protection for the bulk of the travel time. Once you have launched this, it could be used for decades, thus amortizing the costs. I believe this is what Mr. Musk means with the 1/2 million figure. After all, even taking a train from Paris to Berlin would cost billions$ if the train and tracks would have to be build separately for each trip...
Me too. Give me the opportunity for a one way trip to Mars, and I'd jump on it. Even knowing that in all likelihood you would run out of supplies before the next ship arrived. I can not think of a more noble end than to expend one’s life assembling the components and doing the dangerous, risky preliminary work necessary to establish Earth’s first self-sustaining offworld colony.
It is worth lives to ensure that this colony (and others like it) get born. If this man succeeds in pulling it off with the expenditure of mere money…
…then he will prove to be the single most important individual of our era.
Terminal patients while they're still healthy. Volunteers of all sorts would step forward. May even be able to manage using society rejects (life-sentences-type people not prone to going homicidal given the task...). If you don't think the latter would work, give it a shot. What's to lose besides the first trial shot?
"You've been watching space cowboys too many time, terminally ill people.... Ok"
[Shrug] One way or another we're all terminally ill and (at the age of fifty-something) an expensive one-way trip to Mars seems to me like a perfectly reasonable alternative to a few years of active, somewhat cash-strapped retirement followed by an even more expensive long decline in a nursing home...
I wouldn't bet *my* money on $500,000 within 10 years. But considered as an aggressive target to drive the marketing and goad the techies with an unspoken willingness to settle for (say) a cost of a couple of million dollars within 30 years it's a perfectly plausible soundbite...
He has been talking to the large company of extremely talented spaceflight engineers he has built up at SpaceX. The same team who built, in ten years, the first privately owned rocket and capsule that has been returned to earth in one piece at a price so far below the competitors they must be crying in their dodgy beer.
Apparently Elon is a billionaire living in California in a château that was imported from France. He owns Musk Industries, which constructs space shuttles. In addition, Musk supposedly owns the Eiffel Tower, but apparently couldn't export it from France because they wouldn't issue him an export permit. Musk is an accomplished pianist, as evidenced by his recital of Chopin's "Raindrop" Prelude in D flat major (op. 28) on his grand piano (which he plays in the key of D).
This quote seems a bit worrying though:
"First there was the dream, now there is reality. Here in the untainted cradle of the heavens will be created a new super race, a race of perfect physical specimens. You have been selected as its progenitors, like gods your offspring will return to Earth and shape it in their image. You have all served in public capacities in my terrestrial empire. Your seed like yourselves will pay deference to the ultimate dynasty which I alone have created. From their first day on Earth they will be able to look up and know that there is law and order in the heavens."
Even if it doesn't make it to Mar's and back then they can just as easily sell it to the milatary as a disposable satilite; Apparently they do appear to be in the market for one around this exact price range.
Appart from that added bonus I can't see how they can do this for half a million return trip, not unless a trip is a new form of measurement for a kilogram. But aim high and shoot low, some say. They sure are and all the best too them. Even if they go 100x over budget then it will still be good value for money with what it is proposing to achieve.
Something's wrong with the description. Says $500K there-and-back again. Also says "... a middle class person could sell all their stuff on Earth and move to Mars if they want to." Which is it? $500K for round-trip or one-way?
Which brings up two points - what's in the hold on the way back to Earth, and what happens when everyone wants to come back for the Queen's centennial?
The Atlantic triangular trade was profitable because the ships' holds could be filled with something salable on each leg of the voyage. Like bodies to the Caribbean, tabacco to Europe, goods to Africa, or some other combination.
Now if the holds are full of bodies to Mars, that's one leg paid up. What's in the hold on the way back, genuwine made-on-Mars dreamcatchers? You'd expect that some proportion of people would say they are going to set a spell. And you'd expect that 'colonization' would require a pretty hefty portion staying. So empty seats on the way back...
But if we're really saying that $500K buys you a round-trip, even if not right away, then how do you schedule that? What if everyone decides together that that last meteorite shower was too much, hiding in a hole every time the sun belches is a drag, and they really want to compete in person in the next Earthovision contest? Oversubscribed holds full on the way back, and seats selling real cheap on the way out?
I just gotta wonder about this, is this overconfidence or an accidental confidence game? If people had had a paid-for return ticket, would they have stayed in Georgia or Australia after a couple years?
So are you suggesting that humanity colonise Mars with convicts?
Or some form of contractual requirement that you'll stay permanently, or for a long duration?
Mars seems somewhat inhospitable, compared to Earth (to put the situation extremely optimistically). We seem to be having a few problems here, so possibly "Mars colonies" is a bit of an over-reach at this point in human civilisation. Colonists can't simply chop trees to build log cabins, and fish, shoot game, and plant crops as soon as they arrive.
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"If we put an Earth-like atmosphere on Mars it would be stripped away by the solar wind faster than we could build it - but not as fast as on the moon."
There's an article I read about this issue, offering to substitute for Mars' lack of an iron core with a couple of nuke stations with great big electromagnets at the poles. The amount of power to repel the solar wind and protect the fledgling atmosphere was surprisingly modest.
"There's an article I read about this issue, offering to substitute for Mars' lack of an iron core with a couple of nuke stations with great big electromagnets at the poles. The amount of power to repel the solar wind and protect the fledgling atmosphere was surprisingly modest."
That reminds me a bit of an old Arthur C. Clarke story, The Sands Of Mars, but only a bit:
"Hadfield reveals that scientists have been working on "Project Dawn", which involves the ignition of the moon Phobos and its use as a second “sun” for Mars. It will burn for at least one thousand years and the extra heat, together with mass production of the oxygen-generating plants, will eventually – it is hoped – make the Martian atmosphere breathable for humans.
Gibson finds himself so persuaded of the importance of Mars as a self-sufficient world that he applies to stay on the planet, and is invited to take charge of public relations – in effect, to “sell” Mars to potential colonists...
Re: If I were picking an elsewhere, 1 Ceres would be my first pick.
Well you're not picking, Musk is, and he picked Mars. If you want to go to Ceres, make a billion dollars, start your own rocket company, and get on with it. Or just buy one of his rockets, I'm sure he would send you to Ceres for the right price.
I recall Pan Am doing this with moonflights as PR stunt / BBQ money raising event back in the 70's, probably to coincide with their logo being used in that awful film.
I'm taking bookings for my proposed flights to JUPITER in 20 years time - $500,000 a seat, deposit of $5,000 payable now.
If the trip is cancelled you get your deposit back - in 2032.
(beer money until 2032!)
All these people earn mega-bucks and sit in their mansions, then this guy comes along with a vision of doing something awesome. The rich guys who get remembered are te ones who do stuff whcih benefits others, and getting our race off this single planet has got to rank way up there. Yeah, he may miss by a bit, but he's doing alright at taking on NASA et al at the moment. Give the man a beer :-)
Probably. I saw it and thought the intersection of "smart enough to have a net worth of $500k" and "dumb enough to sell it all for a one-way (*) trip to Mars" was probably quite small. However, I then read the first dozen of so comments and it appears that the El Reg readership are willing. I think there's something Darwinian going on there.
There are two reasons why it would be one-way. Firstly, you've sold everything on Earth and would return flat broke. Things would have to be near-terminal on Mars before you'd contemplate that.
Secondly, the Martian environment is nowhere near as hospitable as TV and films make out, and even if the rocket trip were absolutely free, $500k is not going to change that. You'll be living in a very confined space, eating your own shit, drinking recycled piss and breathing your neighbours farts, for the rest of your natural like. Happily, that's such an unhealthy lifestyle that you won't survive very long. In fact, you probably won't last as far as the next launch-window for the return trip to Earth. Even if you did, you'd be trampled to death in the rush.
"You'll be living in a very confined space, eating your own shit, drinking recycled piss and breathing your neighbours farts, for the rest of your natural life"
So that would be just like now then, yeah?
Strangely, the Reg has missed the important part of this interview. He says he will not be carrying fuel with him for the return journey. This was covered in Rubin's Mars proposal to NASA 20+ years ago but nobody seems to have mentioned it since. You send small rocket-fuel generation plants out a few years before you need to travel. Land them on Mars and set them off generating rocket fuel (all the ingredients are there). Wait until you know the fuel is there, ready and waiting and then set off with just what you need for the outward journey.
It is a bloody clever way of doing it. It is both safer AND cheaper.
As I say, I'm surprised the Reg didn't pick up on this part of the interview as it seemed like the one bit of genuinely interesting science/engineering in the interview. The rest was the usual (unfortunately, entirely necessary) hype and self promotion.
If the middle classes have to sell all their stuff for a ticket to Mars they'll be penniless when they get there. Planet of the tramps, it would seem.
The other thing is that it's notoriously difficult to land stuff on Mars. I'm not quite sure what the percentages of hits vs. fails are, but from what I remember it's rather dismal - (imperial units, metric measurements, etc., and so forth). So the way I see it you could be stuck on a small rocket with some lousy people for 6 months just to get yourself splattered all over Mars when you get there. Sounds like fun. Perhaps a good crash after 6 months of cabin fever would be a nice way to relieve boredom.
And I sure hope that radiation shield works.
Presumably the landing difficulties wouldn't be as bad with a human pilot. IIRC part of the problem doing proper landings on Mars is a communications delay measured in minutes -- far too slow to respond to unexpected conditions, so you have to automate it and pray.
I'd go...except I need permanent meds that would be unavailable on Mars. :-( A shame; I'd like to see a real frontier.
Musk said, "The most important thing is to ensure that we preserve the future of humanity, and we do everything we can to ensure that human civilization will last as long as possible. The longer we last, the more we'll learn and the more we'll discover. I'm most concerned with securing the longevity of humanity."
"Out of the Silent Planet" anyone?
"I'm most concerned with securing the longevity of humanity." .
"the ultimate goal is to get humanity off a single planet to ensure the continuation of the species."
"a column of water pointed at the Sun would provide protection from solar storms"
"Martian atmosphere (for humans)!!.
The only thing that concerns him is to get enough people investing money into something
with a very large part of "small print".
Good luck, still.
OK, so it's now financially plausible to plan this idiotic trip/concept.
Let's see: What's so fun about going into space? Really!
Reality CHECK:
It's just about total vacuum out there, the human body can survive no more than a few secs
a scorching 180º+ in sunlight,
and about -240º in shade.
You cannot survive for any length of time without gravity, your body will deteriorate
the radiation levels are mind-altering,
and your reliance is on technology that is as light and as complex as is necessary to get you up there. Things do break and wear out. Up there, this isn't not an option
Risk is more than huge, and SHOULD you get to Mars, -oh please, GO- again you'll be relying on technology and resupply that is at best several long months away from potential use/realization.
So you want to be cooped up in the tiniest of spaces, without privacy, with a group of very high strung type 1A people, who probably also have great difficulty just getting along. There are few choices here and simple hygiene -and even waste disposal- is very complex.
NO THANKS, I'm here on our warm, sunny, fuzzy, clean, huge planet with all amenities, and choices- the options of a simple W/C and a BMW to hop on and get away from it all. My option. Btew, here You also can commit suicide much cheaper than that half mill....
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