new2mac

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Really? You want to go to Mars?

I think the great flaw in SpaceX's grand plan is the human psyche. Earth is just too nice and we can't really part with it. humans won't tolerate Mars for any length of time. It will be a truly monumental achievement to create a colony that stays put. They'll have to work very fast to create a localized Earth-like biome if they ever hope to have keep people there for more than a few months.

I will be happy with a trip to Earth orbit and a week on the Moon. TYVM.
 

Xavin

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There will be absolutely no shortage of people willing to go to Mars. Just because you are so attached to Earth doesn't mean that other people are too. Even to get to Musk's million person colony that's only 0.01% of the world's population or 0.3% of the US population. Once you have a generation of people that grew up there, they won't even know what they could be missing. Humans are extremely adaptable.
 
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According to the spaceX details parking on land though is more expensive in terms of fuel and what they can boost into orbit, so sometimes they can go for land, sometimes barge, and I guess sometimes when then need the max capacity time to use up one of those older rockets for the last time.

Yeah - the barge can be way the hell downrange, and the ground site is back near launch. But in terms of "working out the details," a large, stationary chunk of earth is going to be a lot easier than a tossing barge.

I'm sure they'll work out the barge landings eventually, but I'd expect a much lower success rate on those than the earth-based landings. Alternately, I wouldn't be surprised if they were to build a much larger landing barge - something closer to an oil rig, that goes deep, and is much more stable in high seas than a surface barge. You can probably get old oil rigs for not that much money, and it would be a nice little PR thing for them as well.

Really? You want to go to Mars?

Me, now? Nah. I'm good. Wife, kid, pretty decent plan for the next decade or two...

Me, 7-10 years ago, or me in an alternate timeline where I didn't get married? Hell yeah. I'd go to Mars. We're out of frontier space on Earth.

I think the great flaw in SpaceX's grand plan is the human psyche. Earth is just too nice and we can't really part with it. humans won't tolerate Mars for any length of time. It will be a truly monumental achievement to create a colony that stays put. They'll have to work very fast to create a localized Earth-like biome if they ever hope to have keep people there for more than a few months.

The history of exploration and the settling of frontiers says you're wrong. People gave up everything to go west to the frontier in the United States, and that mentality still exists. It's rare, but it's still there.
 
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30337319#p30337319:35q9v6qf said:
Syonyk[/url]":35q9v6qf]
According to the spaceX details parking on land though is more expensive in terms of fuel and what they can boost into orbit, so sometimes they can go for land, sometimes barge, and I guess sometimes when then need the max capacity time to use up one of those older rockets for the last time.

Yeah - the barge can be way the hell downrange, and the ground site is back near launch. But in terms of "working out the details," a large, stationary chunk of earth is going to be a lot easier than a tossing barge.

I'm sure they'll work out the barge landings eventually, but I'd expect a much lower success rate on those than the earth-based landings. Alternately, I wouldn't be surprised if they were to build a much larger landing barge - something closer to an oil rig, that goes deep, and is much more stable in high seas than a surface barge. You can probably get old oil rigs for not that much money, and it would be a nice little PR thing for them as well.
How much inertia are they away from just landing in Europe somewhere? Use their existing easternly momentum, have the first post-separation burn give it a little extra momentum and course correction, land on the coast of Spain, ship the booster back via small freighter.
 
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How much inertia are they away from just landing in Europe somewhere? Use their existing easternly momentum, have the first post-separation burn give it a little extra momentum and course correction, land on the coast of Spain, ship the booster back via small freighter.

It's a booster, not an ICBM, cap'n!

The bulk of the first stage energy is going "up" - then a bit of "go fast sideways" towards the end. But it's mostly getting the second stage above the atmosphere. It's not going to be that far off shore.

//EDIT: ^ Yeah, that linked image makes the point better.
 

PsionEdge

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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30336419#p30336419:27bdl6bq said:
borzwazie[/url]":27bdl6bq]
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30334715#p30334715:27bdl6bq said:
PsionEdge[/url]":27bdl6bq]
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30332715#p30332715:27bdl6bq said:
Decoherent[/url]":27bdl6bq]
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30331869#p30331869:27bdl6bq said:
Mong0[/url]":27bdl6bq]A snarky tweet out from Jeff Bezos.

Congrats @SpaceX on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the club!

https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/679116636310360067
Bezos seems to be desperate to be compared to Musk.

Hey, Jeff, how heavy was the orbital booster you landed? You didn't? Just a little hop? Casual.
Yeah, that was pretty dickish. Their crowing about their launch earlier was fine, but being an ass towards SpaceX is just disappointing. Your toy sounding rocket landing was cute, now let's watch the real guys do actual work.
Musk kicked off the being a dick with his snark on the Blue Origin RTLS. The RDF is strong with this crowd.

Let's not forget that SpaceX is deliberately not patenting things - Jeff Bezos tried to take advantage of this - he got patents on landing on a barge, and turning rocket engines on and off, stuff that SpaceX had already done, and something he hasn't even tried. This, from the grandaddy asshole of software patents. See http://spacenews.com/spacex-gets-partia ... nt-ruling/

So, up yours, Bezos. You have a great team and product, but you're all about launching rich people just out of the atmosphere. Don't fuck it up for those of us who want to get our ass to Mars.
What are you doing to get to Mars?
 
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30337465#p30337465:3kh5fabt said:
Megalodon[/url]":3kh5fabt]^^ doesn't go far enough, here's the crash zone from a previous launch: http://i.stack.imgur.com/cglVa.png
Ah, didn't realize the barges were that close to the coast.

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30337599#p30337599:3kh5fabt said:
Syonyk[/url]":3kh5fabt]It's a booster, not an ICBM, cap'n!
Hey, some of it ends up in orbit! Without knowing when exactly the first stage ends, I don't think guessing that it would cross a good chunk of the ocean was an atrocious guess.

Just looking up for some from of reference: Wiki says that the Saturn V first stage crashed about 350 miles downrange, which is only ~15-20% of the distance from Florida to Spain. Although I'm guessing that the Saturn V had to go farther because of the beyond-LEO missions, so the Falcon 9 probably does a good bit less then that without the boost-back burn.

The bulk of the first stage energy is going "up" - then a bit of "go fast sideways" towards the end. But it's mostly getting the second stage above the atmosphere. It's not going to be that far off shore.
So it seems like (making large generalities) that the first stage provides most of the lifting, and the second provides a bulk of the lateral movement (presumably rounding out the orbit at apogee)?
 
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So it seems like (making large generalities) that the first stage provides most of the lifting, and the second provides a bulk of the lateral movement (presumably rounding out the orbit at apogee)?

Pretty much.

The first stage is to get you out of the bulk of the atmosphere, and give you some lateral velocity. Also, to impart a good bit of kinetic energy to the fuel in the second stage (which actually matters when you're playing with rockets). Then the second and subsequent stages give you a lot of lateral velocity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberth_effect goes a lot deeper into the effects of kinetic energy on rocket effectiveness.

Orbital mechanics are weird.
 
Whats the working life of a rocket likely to be? I assume riding a massive ball of fire to the edge of space probably does bad things to underlying materials that would limit their working life even in a perfect scenario.

Are we looking at each rocket being used 2 or 3 times, or are they going to have a basically indefinite life until they fail inspection (or fail to reland)?
 
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The closest thing we have is the Space Shuttle main engines, which were rated for 50+ missions.

http://www.airspacemag.com/space/space- ... ts-239729/

The SSME had a lifetime rating of 27,000 seconds, equivalent to 55 missions.

So I think they're going to have a pretty good lifespan. I expect parts will get replaced on them over time, but they're probably going to be good for dozens of launches each, minimum.
 

Evil_Merlin

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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30338403#p30338403:37vkcg2f said:
Syonyk[/url]":37vkcg2f]The closest thing we have is the Space Shuttle main engines, which were rated for 50+ missions.

http://www.airspacemag.com/space/space- ... ts-239729/

The SSME had a lifetime rating of 27,000 seconds, equivalent to 55 missions.

So I think they're going to have a pretty good lifespan. I expect parts will get replaced on them over time, but they're probably going to be good for dozens of launches each, minimum.


Which TOTALLY blows my mind that NASA is going to use the RS-25's just once with the SLS.


Seems like such a total fucking waste.
 
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30339583#p30339583:e3mrltrb said:
Evil_Merlin[/url]":e3mrltrb]Which TOTALLY blows my mind that NASA is going to use the RS-25's just once with the SLS.

Seems like such a total fucking waste.

That depends. Is your function to efficiently go to space, or is your function to efficiently route tax dollars from Congress to a variety of aerospace contractors who have lobbied their congressmen?

NASA hasn't seemed much like the first since the 70s. And making disposable engines out of high quality, really expensive hardware that was designed to be reused is a lot more consistent with the second.
 

Megalodon

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I could totally believe it's cheaper to throw away RS-25s than to use them in a vehicle that can return them, but what compounds the issue is the moribund industrial base that can't make new ones. AFAICT RS-25 is a technological marvel but not a good solution to any problem worth solving.

SpaceX just demonstrated better reusability technology than the Shuttle ever did with a cluster of gas generator hydrocarbon engines. And future Blue Origin and SpaceX engines will improve performance without ever approaching the complexity and cost of RS-25.
 

jbode

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I could totally believe it's cheaper to throw away RS-25s than to use them in a vehicle that can return them, but what compounds the issue is the moribund industrial base that can't make new ones.

AR got a contract to start producing a new, expendable version of the RS-25.

Not that it changes anything for the first few launches; they're still going to burn through the existing RS-25 stock. SDLV looked like a fast way to build a new launcher on paper, but I wonder if a clean-sheet design with a kerolox booster and hydrolox upper stage(s) (and no solids) wouldn't ultimately have been faster and cheaper.
 

new2mac

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In doesn't matter, SLS is a dead program. SpacesX can now land rockets. That means a Falcon Heavy will cost a few 10s of millions to launch. SLS costs billions to launch. The public scrutiny will be immense. There is no way in hell SLS will survive.

SLS is a bigger booster, but FH can do the same with a couple launches and still be cheaper. Then there's the BFR rocket that should come next from SpaceX which should match SLS and be cheaper still.
 
In doesn't matter, SLS is a dead program. SpacesX can now land rockets. That means a Falcon Heavy will cost a few 10s of millions to launch. SLS costs billions to launch. The public scrutiny will be immense. There is no way in hell SLS will survive.

SLS is a bigger booster, but FH can do the same with a couple launches and still be cheaper. Then there's the BFR rocket that should come next from SpaceX which should match SLS and be cheaper still.

I think you underestimate the power of crony capitalism. If the SLS had to survive on its merits it would have died on the drawing board. Congress just gave the SLS program MORE money than it needs. The Europa mission is going to include a worthless lander in order to put the mass requirements high enough that nothing else can be used as a booster. The Orion is the defacto only spacecraft for BEO and it is intentionally tied to the SLS.

Sadly the SLS isn't going anywhere. At best it will be a marginal program with only one launch every year or so but it will still serve its intended purpose which is to dump tens of billions to the Shuttle contractors for another couple decades.
 

Megalodon

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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30340391#p30340391:3m9td8hm said:
jbode[/url]":3m9td8hm]AR got a contract to start producing a new, expendable version of the RS-25.
Yeah, but have you followed the progress? I'd be willing to bet no newly built engines ever fly. They need too much money and it's always easier to push RS-25E back in favor of getting the initial SLS out the door, which means it'll be headed for an engine cliff and nobody cares because going to space was never the point of SLS.

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30340391#p30340391:3m9td8hm said:
jbode[/url]":3m9td8hm]SDLV looked like a fast way to build a new launcher on paper
No it didn't. Anyone who thought that after Constellation wasn't paying attention.

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30340391#p30340391:3m9td8hm said:
jbode[/url]":3m9td8hm]but I wonder if a clean-sheet design with a kerolox booster and hydrolox upper stage(s) (and no solids) wouldn't ultimately have been faster and cheaper.
That wouldn't have met the primary SLS design requirement of funding ATK.

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30340757#p30340757:3m9td8hm said:
new2mac[/url]":3m9td8hm]The public scrutiny will be immense.
Won't matter.

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30340757#p30340757:3m9td8hm said:
new2mac[/url]":3m9td8hm]There is no way in hell SLS will survive.
I think that's true, but mostly by virtue of the fact that the moribund industrial base isn't capable of actually building rockets anymore, no matter how much money. If it flies it'll be on the stock of original engines and it'll wind down after that. It's a paper rocket even if they build it.

SpaceX BFR is too much of an unknown at this point to anticipate how that will play out. Also depends on how much space activity shifts around the new private launch capabilities, how much commercial crew does, etc.

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30341025#p30341025:3m9td8hm said:
Statistical[/url]":3m9td8hm]If the SLS had to survive on its merits it would have died on the drawing board. Congress just gave the SLS program MORE money than it needs.
Exactly, primary design criteria is to keep the lights on everywhere that the shuttle spent money.

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30341025#p30341025:3m9td8hm said:
Statistical[/url]":3m9td8hm]Sadly the SLS isn't going anywhere. At best it will be a marginal program with only one launch every year or so but it will still serve its intended purpose which is to dump tens of billions to the Shuttle contractors for another couple decades.
I think it'll peter out in the nearer term than that, but yeah, launching was never the purpose of SLS.
 
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30336919#p30336919:1ygim5ix said:
Xavin[/url]":1ygim5ix]There will be absolutely no shortage of people willing to go to Mars. Just because you are so attached to Earth doesn't mean that other people are too. Even to get to Musk's million person colony that's only 0.01% of the world's population or 0.3% of the US population. Once you have a generation of people that grew up there, they won't even know what they could be missing. Humans are extremely adaptable.
I would go in a heartbeat. The chance to be a part of something bigger. Earth is great, but I'd want to be one of the first people living on another world. I have a son now, so I can't go atm, but once he's grown and on his own... I'd go. Even if there was no return trip. I'll be in my mid-40s once he's grown up.
 

Xavin

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Which TOTALLY blows my mind that NASA is going to use the RS-25's just once with the SLS.
They won't. The SLS is a pipe dream. Unless SpaceX really fucks up somehow, NASA and all the traditional aerospace companies will be out of the space launch business in a couple of more years. They might still end up building some vehicles to sit on commercial rockets, but it's not like SpaceX is stopping here, Dragons will be reusable too.

I'm not saying people won't go to Mars. I would go. I'm saying people won't STAY on Mars (easily).
That will just make more people want to go. It's been a long time since we have had a proper frontier. Going to live on Mars is in a lot of ways a lot safer and more reasonable than going to be a colonist in the old days was. Medicine used to be basically magic, and without antibiotics small injuries often became death. Wild animals, unknown plants that may or may not be poisonous, etc. It was crazy, yet there was no shortage of people willing to go. Mars will be hard, but it's not something we will be going into unprepared. There will be people coming back (those rockets will have to come back anyway to get more people), but the kind of people they will be looking for probably won't come back in large numbers.
 

Megalodon

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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30346279#p30346279:3cv3md4l said:
Xavin[/url]":3cv3md4l]They won't. The SLS is a pipe dream. Unless SpaceX really fucks up somehow, NASA and all the traditional aerospace companies will be out of the space launch business in a couple of more years. They might still end up building some vehicles to sit on commercial rockets, but it's not like SpaceX is stopping here, Dragons will be reusable too.
Additionally, nobody has ever brought a liquid boost stage back intact. They can tear it apart to figure out where they've been dodging bullets like the struts and where the existing design is overkill so they can shed more mass. The vehicle will improve as a result of returning stages whether or not they ever do reusability, but also reusability will improve rapidly over the first few years. Nobody's ever done this before and the tendency in that situation is for there to be significant low hanging fruit. Now that it's been done they know there's a recipe that works at least some of the time, I'm sure Orbcomm was a good launch for this because the current F9 has enormous performance margin for this mission, but with data from that and over time they will be able to refine all the steps to do reusability with less performance impact. Flip around and do the boost back faster, land at higher thrust, that sort of thing. Every improvement of this type will leave more propellant for the payload. When it was tentative trials that never quite worked it was different, now that it's worked they will optimize very quickly. They're already the best in the world at this, and they're going to be learning at a higher rate than anyone else. SpaceX with an accelerating learning rate with most of the rest of the market pretty stagnant creates the potential for a runaway situation, and AFAICT the only org even attempting to follow this decade is Blue Origin, not any of the incumbents.
 
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30346595#p30346595:pxma88nr said:
new2mac[/url]":pxma88nr]I think discussing how a Mars colony would happen, in real practical detail, would be totally fascinating. I believe the challenges of creating the colony will make getting people to Mars look like a day in the park by comparison. We'll need a whole new thread. :p

There's the Terraforming Mars thread: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1293359

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30346597#p30346597:pxma88nr said:
Wwen[/url]":pxma88nr]Personally, I would expect to die there. Of natural causes. I won't be impaled by a flying antenna or something. :p

Given that the atmosphere is thin enough that a storm wouldn't go lobbing antennas around like that, that's a pretty safe bet. :)

But, yes, if I were able to go to Mars (as noted above, I wouldn't go now, but... once my kids are grown, I'd consider it, I'd be OK with dying there. My wife is a bit less convinced of that part, but would consider going to Mars if there were a decent chance of getting back to Earth at some point.

===========

Question, related to SpaceX: If launch costs drop incredibly, at some point, does it make sense to build a large Mars Cruiser type ship (The Martian style) for zipping back and forth to Mars? I'm not sure if that really offers advantages over the Mars Direct approach, though.
 
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30346635#p30346635:1wf73j2q said:
Megalodon[/url]":1wf73j2q]Orbcomm

Has anyone else been glancing at that name and thinking "ZomboCom"? :)

...and AFAICT the only org even attempting to follow this decade is Blue Origin, not any of the incumbents.

Oh, come on. I'm sure NASA will petition Congress to get some funding to do a committee to research the possibility of making SLS reusable, if Congress could only shake up another few billion dollars for them to do the work...

I mean, that's a perfect excuse to redesign a lot of it and avoid having to actually show up and launch the damned thing...

NASA has been doing some really good work with robot landers lately, but it mostly depresses me that they've been almost entirely captured by the aerospace industrial industry as a funding pipe from Congress to do not a whole hell of a lot.
 

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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30346699#p30346699:2vfesu41 said:
Syonyk[/url]":2vfesu41]Oh, come on. I'm sure NASA will petition Congress to get some funding to do a committee to research the possibility of making SLS reusable, if Congress could only shake up another few billion dollars for them to do the work...
You have a profound lack of understanding of the situation. NASA doesn't want SLS, and administrators have gotten in trouble for hinting in roundabout ways that it's stupid (the response to which from politicians is, and I quote, "it's the law").

This has now settled into a detente where NASA continues with SLS and maintains the pretense it's not stupid so they can continue funding for other programs. You're getting it exactly backwards suggesting NASA will petition congress to make a reusable SLS, they're going to studiously ignore the fact that it's getting even dumber than it already was.

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30346699#p30346699:2vfesu41 said:
Syonyk[/url]":2vfesu41]NASA has been doing some really good work with robot landers lately, but it mostly depresses me that they've been almost entirely captured by the aerospace industrial industry as a funding pipe from Congress to do not a whole hell of a lot.
This is backwards. NASA isn't captured, congress is captured and they control NASA's funding. They can tie the funding to implementing specific programs.
 

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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30347145#p30347145:1rbvtf3f said:
Syonyk[/url]":1rbvtf3f]Ok, that's fair. The end result is still the same, though. :(
Possibly not - NASA has managed to cultivate other options. You would have been right to be skeptical of SpaceX 10 years ago but now I don't see any serious doubt they'll realize enough of their ambitions to be able to bid on any launch that anyone else can attempt, and by law if it can be bid it must be bid. The funding might get dicey, but this means others like Boeing can do stuff like build spacecraft which they're actually pretty good at (Boeing builds commercial satellites that companies with a choice use on purpose), so they'll pivot to lobbying for that.
 
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30347145#p30347145:2f17ysz2 said:
Syonyk[/url]":2f17ysz2]Ok, that's fair. The end result is still the same, though. :(
Possibly not - NASA has managed to cultivate other options. You would have been right to be skeptical of SpaceX 10 years ago but now I don't see any serious doubt they'll realize enough of their ambitions to be able to bid on any launch that anyone else can attempt, and by law if it can be bid it must be bid. The funding might get dicey, but this means others like Boeing can do stuff like build spacecraft which they're actually pretty good at (Boeing builds commercial satellites that companies with a choice use on purpose), so they'll pivot to lobbying for that.

I thought a number of the Air Force/NRO launch contracts had some stuff written in that limited who could bid. Or is that just "Must be a US manufacturer/launch vehicle," not specifically "Must use the established aerospace contractors"? I know they don't care for the thought of launching their satellites on Russian rockets, for instance.

If SpaceX can drop launch costs as much as it looks like, it would be nice if the legacy contractors get out of the business. :) Though I'm not sure I like single source launch vehicle, at least we'll have some man-rated launch systems...

Any idea when SpaceX is going for man rating?
 

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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30347353#p30347353:3fiz75pm said:
Syonyk[/url]":3fiz75pm]I thought a number of the Air Force/NRO launch contracts had some stuff written in that limited who could bid.
There was a sole source award which is only supposed to be used when no one else can bid, SpaceX sued them and the settlement resulted in SpaceX being able to bid.

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30347353#p30347353:3fiz75pm said:
Syonyk[/url]":3fiz75pm]Or is that just "Must be a US manufacturer/launch vehicle," not specifically "Must use the established aerospace contractors"?
You are conflating the domestic requirement and the sole source contract.

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30347353#p30347353:3fiz75pm said:
Syonyk[/url]":3fiz75pm]I know they don't care for the thought of launching their satellites on Russian rockets, for instance.
You say that, but Atlas V has been the go-to launcher for years and it has a Russian engine. It's been a significant issue for ULA.

[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30347353#p30347353:3fiz75pm said:
Syonyk[/url]":3fiz75pm]Any idea when SpaceX is going for man rating?
Unclear what specifically you mean by this, and in any case you can look up the commercial crew timeline as well as I can.
 

Technarch

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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=30346595#p30346595:3hmnwgmw said:
new2mac[/url]":3hmnwgmw]I think discussing how a Mars colony would happen, in real practical detail, would be totally fascinating. I believe the challenges of creating the colony will make getting people to Mars look like a day in the park by comparison. We'll need a whole new thread. :p

The engineering of such a station would be far easier than the economics.
 

new2mac

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I can't fathom a Martian economy, it makes no sense to me. It's not the western frontier. You can't just walk off into the prairie and grow corn. Or hunt for skins. Or dig a mine. Anything done on Mars will require a huge amount of resources, technology and capital. How do you manufacture anything without basic industry like mining and smelting? Then all the The equipment for that will be immensely expensive to bring to Mars. Any manufacturing has to be of high order technological products. Selling shovels and buckets on Mars is not exactly going to be a winning business. Even if you manage to make something, how will anyone else afford it if they can't also make something worthwhile. You can only have so many people growing hydroponic tomatoes! It'll be like a Sunday farmers market where everyone is selling squash because that's the only thing they can grow! :)
 

Xavin

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There are two obvious things that could be created/manufactured on Mars that Earth will pay for. One is entertainment. The low gravity combined with the inherent drama and newness means there will be a lot of movies, documentaries, reality tv, video bloggers, sports, etc. How much money that will bring in I don't know, but but it will be something. As far as manufacturing, the surface of Mars is a lot closer to the asteroid belt (both in distance and in energy required to get there) than Earth, and will provide a much better staging area for mining.

In the end though, it doesn't need to come up with a lot of stuff to trade with Earth, since the goal is self sufficiency. Their internal economy is going to necessarily be different than what we have right now, but in the next 20 years automation is going to completely change the Earth economy too.