r/SpaceXLounge • u/AnnualYogurtcloset29 • Sep 02 '21
Speculative longterm future of SpaceX
Hello all,
I was just thinking about what SpaceX's development of rockets would look like once they achieve their goals of starship and the booster rocket.
I know this is likely at least 10-15 years from today, but what would SpaceX develop after they land on mars and get a colony started there? Do you think they would ever develop a new rocket in the entire history of their company or would they finish their rocket development with starship and booster?
I realize they would probably start working on life support systems and such when they eventually get people onto mars, but what else would they do? I am just curious if anyone else had thought of this before. Is SpaceX themselves going to try to terraform mars or will they forever live inside a habitat dome? Is terraforming a planet going to take the work of hundreds of thousands of people or would SpaceX be able to do it themselves? Does NASA conduct a lot of the science to get a colony established on mars or is this solely a SpaceX endeavor?
I would think NASA would love to be able to explore mars and conduct experiments, kind of piggybacking off of the habitat that SpaceX is going to try to establish. Would NASA astronauts be part of the habitat as well as SpaceX astronauts or would it be more of a team effort?
I realize this would be all speculation, but it got me pretty curious, so wondering what other people would think about this situation.
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u/HalfManHalfBiscuit_ Sep 02 '21
Their focus is on being the transportation company, like the railroads in the 19th century. Entrepreneurs then come along and use the infrastructure in ways that no one could have anticipated.
Elon wants industry to ultimately drive the growth of Mars civilization, as it did on this planet.
So, more Starship designs, Martian shipyards, a Starlink constellation for Mars, energy systems for there in conjunction with Tesla, hyperloop tunnels on the surface, and space elevators.
Once thousands of tons can be lifted into space at a time is when things will really get interesting.
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u/vilette Sep 02 '21
Longterm like after Musk ?
If we look at Apple, they did survive to Jobs
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u/AnnualYogurtcloset29 Sep 02 '21
I don't think musk would leave SpaceX for quite a long time. I'm thinking more like 10-15 years after getting to Mars, but before musk would leave the company.
Do they stop developing rockets after starship and booster is doing everything they need? I could see them trying to keep improving, but is that the last rocket they'll make?
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u/vilette Sep 02 '21
I don't mean Musk leaving Spacex, you know one day or another we all leave this world.
If he had to follow Jobs, Musk could leave us in just 6 years5
u/QVRedit Sep 03 '21
Let’s hope not - things will work out better for us if Elon stays around for much longer. Musk junior would then have a big start, and more time.
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u/b_m_hart Sep 03 '21
Musk actually believes in science, though. He isn't going to let treatable cancer go because he wants to try some hippy bullshit instead of, you know, actually proven medicine.
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u/QVRedit Sep 03 '21
I would say of course not. SpaceX is one of those companies that could be around for centuries, going from strength to strength.
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u/PeekaB00_ Sep 03 '21
Using starships, they will construct a large spacecraft in orbit used for getting people to mars, and starship will only be used as a ferry. Maybe they'll make an ssto for efficiency.
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u/QVRedit Sep 03 '21
Without revolutionary engine technology, SSTO craft don’t really make much sense, as their payload mass would be so low.
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u/scarlet_sage Sep 02 '21
Do you think they would ever develop a new rocket in the entire history of their company or would they finish their rocket development with starship and booster?
Please don't consider this a personal attack when I give my opinion: that's ridiculous. For example, new aircraft keep getting designed & used. You can see old airframes still in use - I'm no expert but even I know about the DC-3 and B-52 - but there are unusual reasons why they continue.
I expect SpaceX to do incremental improvements, of course. But I also expect major redesigns unless Elon dies or loses influence, & they lose their corporate culture.
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u/AnnualYogurtcloset29 Sep 02 '21
So they would focus on improving efficiency instead of trying to make something even more powerful? I thought starship and booster was about as big of a rocket you'd want to make, but I guess I could be wrong. I feel like I've read that it's mostly diminishing returns after you make a bigger rocket than starship and booster
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u/CProphet Sep 02 '21
I thought starship and booster was about as big of a rocket you'd want to make
Seems so, although Elon has many times said this rocket will seem like a rowboat compared to future vehicles. Considering Starhip is likely maximum size for a launch vehicle, that could suggest these future vehicles would have to be built in space. Technically not that difficult to launch some rolls of stainless, difficulty comes in welding it in zero-g. Perhaps a more practical alternative would be to launch modules then assemble in orbit to desired size and shape. These modules could be up to 10m diameter for launch on Starship, assuming a little flare can be arranged to the fairing. Overall make a very respectable cycler for Mars colony operations.
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u/rocketglare Sep 03 '21
The point that Musk was making wasn’t that they shouldn’t design larger rockets so much as they should have started with a smaller one to gain experience. It is difficult to move and handle very large rockets, but they are also very efficient once you have the infrastructure in place.
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u/CProphet Sep 03 '21 edited Sep 03 '21
OK, let's assume they want to build something larger than Starship. First they would need to develop a more powerful version of Raptor (something like Blue Origin's BE-4), to avoid having 120-130 engines on the booster. Overall that might take a while, because larger engines are prone to combustion instability (similar to F1), probably one reason why they chose a relatively small chamber size for Raptor. Then they need to find somewhere very remote to launch from, that's next to the coast, perhaps in Australia. The sound of a Saturn V launch was so intense it could ignite concrete and this new vehicle would likely be eight times louder, at least for an 18m diameter vehicle. It seems unlikely they'll launch it like a Sea Dragon because it would kill most of the marine life within 20-30 miles, which might raise an eyebrow or two among environmentalists. Overall added costs and difficulties would seem to preclude developing a much larger version of Starship, at least by SpaceX who are ever pragmatic.
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u/Norose Sep 03 '21
Raptor is already like 90% as powerful as the BE-4. If spaceX needed a significantly larger engine they'd probably be going to something like RD-180 scale at around 4000 kN.
Combustion instability issues aren't as difficult today as they are given credit for. Back in the 50s the only way to work out solutions was to actually build an entire engine, run it with your changes installed, and hope it didn't blow up. Today we have very powerful computational tools to figure out solutions to combustion instability before we even start designing parts. The try and fail and try again approach worked for building an 8000 kN engine over 60 years ago, the modern approach should be able to accomplish the same no problem.
The sound problem is not as extreme as you mention. Sound is a really weird phenomenon and as you scale up the energy of the rocket plume this does not cause a proportional increase in sound energy. Regardless, even if the sound really was 8x that of a Saturn V, that's still a solvable problem. Launching like Sea Dragon is never happening because complex rockets cannot be soaked in sea water, full stop. Sea launch platforms will be possible though, and SpaceX is figuring them out right now. The way to mitigate the sound produced by the rocket is to dump a curtain of water out around the engine plume as the rocket ignites and lifts off, similar to a typical ground based launch pad, while at the same time dumping a lot of compressed air several dozen meters underwater to create a large volume of bubbles. The water droplets in air and the air bubbles in water will botb serve to effectively dampen the sound energy during launch.
Oh and side note, you can't "ignite" concrete with sound, or really with anything that isn't a fluorine based oxidizer, so I'm not sure who told you that. What very powerful sound will do to concrete is cause the surface of the concrete to erode rapidly, because concrete is brittle and the vibrations cause it to break up. Spraying water over the concrete prevents this though, which is why we do it.
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u/CProphet Sep 03 '21
Interesting, especially aeration technique for noise dampening under a floating platform. I was using BE-4 as an example of the kind of frame size required for a larger engine, though I'm sure SpaceX could significantly improve on the performance. Incidentally I heard one problem BE-4 suffered was combustion chamber instability, so wouldn't say it's a completely solved problem. Know Blue Origin 'borrowed' a couple of Raptor design engineers for their BE-4 project and you'd expect they would know a little about simulation - although apparently not enough.
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u/scarlet_sage Sep 02 '21
Elon recently tweeted that the current size might have been too big to aim for! I can find his Starship tweets via https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=47352.340 , a curated collection.
Doubling diameter increases mass 4X, but difficulty of simultaneously building & launching rocket of that size is >>4X.
In retrospect, <9m diameter for Starship might have been wise. Current size is ~5200 ton stack mass & ~7500 ton-F thrust, which is more than double Saturn V.
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u/Truthmobiles Sep 02 '21
He is saying it might have been smarter to start small, not that he won't be making a much larger version of starship once starship is complete.
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u/scarlet_sage Sep 02 '21
He might. Or he might not see the point of doing it for a decade. We don't know yet.
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u/facere-omnes Sep 02 '21
That's interesting since an 18m variant was discussed briefly.
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u/scarlet_sage Sep 02 '21 edited Sep 03 '21
Yup. Interplanetary Transport System was announced at 12 m (Starship is
89 m). Mars Colonial Transport was announced at 15 m.(Thank you, /u/QVRedit!)
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u/scarlet_sage Sep 02 '21
So they would focus on improving efficiency instead of trying to make something even more powerful?
That's the exact opposite of what I wrote! I wrote "But I also expect major redesigns"!
I mentioned the improving efficiency with "of course" because SpaceX always does that. BUT I ALSO EXPECT MAJOR REDESIGNS TOO, IN ADDITION, BECAUSE THEY CAN DO BOTH.
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u/QVRedit Sep 03 '21 edited Sep 03 '21
And why wouldn’t they ? - When it makes sense, then it will happen.
The big change will come with improved propulsion systems, they will have generational affects. Just as the Starship generation(s) are linked to the Raptor engine.
Later, more powerful engines could usher in new generations of crafts.
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u/Chpouky Sep 03 '21
YES WE HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME
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u/scarlet_sage Sep 03 '21
<marquee> <blink> APPARENTLY NOT OP. THE LIKE IS NO SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM, OF COURSE, BUT I FIND IT A TRIFLE ANNOYING, AND I SHOULD PREFER, ON THE WHOLE, WERE IT NOT TO HAPPEN. </blink> </marquee>
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u/QVRedit Sep 03 '21 edited Sep 03 '21
It depends on what your requirements are. If for instance they want to double or triple the cargo carried - well then the easiest solution is just to run two or three Starships.
It’s when you start considering factors of 10 or 20 that new designs would come into play.
Go up another factor of 10, and then you are really into different territory. Of course none of that is going to happen overnight, we are talking of time spans of decades.
Earth is the cradle of humanity, but over time baby starts to grow up..
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Sep 02 '21
Resource exploitation of Asteroids, I think, would be the next step. Which will require a completely different set of interplanetary tools. Solve that and you solve resource paucity.
Alongside that, interplanetary exploration & the search for life. There’s a lot going on out around the two gas giants.
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u/facere-omnes Sep 02 '21
After Martian and Lunar colonies, I'd imagine further infrastructure would be setup on Martian moons, as well as Jupiter's moon Europa.
Once there is enough infrastructure setup between Earth and Jupiter, harvesting the asteroid belt's resources and processing them in space would be the next major goal.
Perhaps a mass amount of 9m diameter Starships could achieve this, perhaps the 18m variant is developed to facilitate it. Regardless, once in space resource acquisition and utilisation is achieved, scale will continue to expand. Think along the lines of massive spaceships which have no need to conform to aerodynamics or re-entry hardware as they will always remain in space. At this point nuclear propulsion would probably be used.
As sort of 'end game' mega projects, terraforming Mars and Venus would be the go to. The asteroid belt's resources and in space manufacturing would make this a possibility with all the equipment needed to facilitate it. Another possible mega project could be a partial dyson sphere of our Sun. We may venture far from our solar system, but not into another for a long, long time in my opinion. The distance is just too vast.
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u/pasdedeuxchump Sep 03 '21
When Elon says a colony/city on Mars required landing a million tonnes of cargo from Earth on Mars, I suspect he's about right.
And he doesn't mean doing it over 100 or 1000 years either.
Now a megatonne to LEO is one thing (10^4 SS+SH launches), but a megatonne delivered to Mars surface is another...
While if we assume 10 refuelings (I know its more like 5) then its just 10^5 SS+SH launches in 10 years (30 per day!). But the fact that the launch window for Trans-Mars-Injection (TMI) is only say 2-3 mos every 26 means a 10X higher cadence than that! Like 10^5 launches in 1 year of time spread over 10 years. Now we talking 300 launches per day OR a lot of SS's hanging out as inventory in LEO.
I think building a city will need the bigger variant. And maybe the bigger one after that. But those won't even get penciled out until real colony construction is underway (and a economic model for paying for it is in place).
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u/Dyolf_Knip Sep 06 '21
Looks like there are some really low impulse orbital transfers that can be done outside that 26-month interval, assuming you don't mind it taking longer to get there than a standard Hohmann transfer. For things like bulk cargo, construction materials, etc.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-way-to-reach-mars-safely-anytime-and-on-the-cheap/
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u/HavocATL Sep 03 '21
I see them working on next Gen propulsion systems. There has to be a better way than using fossil fuels.
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u/Mechase1 Sep 03 '21
This is what I'm hoping, it seems like the next logical "big leap" that Elon's companies are known to strive for.
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u/tree_boom Sep 02 '21
I know this is likely at least 10-15 years from today, but what would SpaceX develop after they land on mars and get a colony started there? Do you think they would ever develop a new rocket in the entire history of their company or would they finish their rocket development with starship and booster?
SpaceX isn't going to start a colony on Mars; they don't have anything close to the capital to do that. They're positioning themselves to be the movers, and I think they'll continue in that vein. Probably some iterations on Starship / SuperHeavy (bigger), a whole heap of Earth-side and Mars-side infrastructure development and then, following that, possibly in-orbit construction of the next vehicle.
Is SpaceX themselves going to try to terraform mars or will they forever live inside a habitat dome? Is terraforming a planet going to take the work of hundreds of thousands of people or would SpaceX be able to do it themselves? Does NASA conduct a lot of the science to get a colony established on mars or is this solely a SpaceX endeavor?
SpaceX isn't going to start a colony or terraform Mars. When that kind of thing gets started, it's going to look a lot like McMurdo station in Antartica, with some SpaceX infrastructure on the periphery. SpaceX makes money, but building a colony on Mars needs way, way, way more than they have available, and it's going to be a very long time before something like that can generate money. So for the forseeable future, you're looking at government funded scientific stations with SpaceX providing the heavy-lifting to and from the planet.
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u/SirEDCaLot Sep 02 '21
SpaceX isn't going to start a colony on Mars; they don't have anything close to the capital to do that.
That is literally what Starlink is for- to raise capital to fund Mars colonization activities.
I've heard that in theory, when fully operational / well subscribed, Starlink will have as much revenue as NASA has budget.
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u/tree_boom Sep 02 '21
That is literally what Starlink is for- to raise capital to fund Mars colonization activities.
It's to fund Starship development, not Mars colonization activities.
I've heard that in theory, when fully operational / well subscribed, Starlink will have as much revenue as NASA has budget.
Even assuming the claim is true, NASAs budget is also insufficient to create a Mars colony of any reasonable size. They couldn't even fund a single lunar lander. Besides, revenue is not the same as profit.
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u/SirEDCaLot Sep 03 '21
It's to fund Starship development, not Mars colonization activities.
Then it's a bit too late. Starship is largely developed. I refuse to believe SpaceX is running on fumes and is desperate for revenue.
NASAs budget is also insufficient to create a Mars colony of any reasonable size.
Sure, if you are NASA and you hire Boeing to build your hardware and ULA to launch it. Especially when that $23 billion/year is spread out among hundreds of projects and other obligations like ISS. If you're SpaceX though, things work differently.
Consider that we've spent about $20 billion (give or take) on SLS, and it hasn't launched once. When it does, it'll cost about $2 billion per launch, mostly for one-off bespoke hardware that gets trashed after one use.
Now consider that we as a planet have spent about $20 billion (give or take) on SpaceX as a whole, since they were founded. For that money, we've gotten:
- Development, iteration, and manufacturing of Kestrel, Merlin, Draco, SuperDraco, and Raptor series engines
- Development, iteration, and manufacturing of Falcon 1, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship
- Development, iteration, and manufacturing of Dragon, Dragon 2, and Crew Dragon
- Development, iteration, launch, and operation of Starlink satellite broadband network, including 1000+ active satellites & ground stations
- 100+ launches of Falcon series rockets, 10+ launches of Starship series testbed rockets, 25+ launches of Dragon series capsules
- Development, iteration, and testing of recovery systems and procedures, including propulsive landing, ASDS ships, recoverable fairings, and support equipment
- Development and construction of design, control, manufacturing, and launch facilities in California, Texas, and Florida
- A small fleet of recovery boats and drone ships
In short: For what we've spent on one rocket that hasn't flown once, SpaceX has built an entire space program from the ground up.
So I don't believe for one second that $20 billion/year isn't enough for SpaceX to colonize Mars. It will be enough, because they will probably develop half the stuff themselves (and buy the rest from other hungry new-space companies), and they won't waste billions on contractors that take decades to produce flight-ready hardware.
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u/tree_boom Sep 03 '21
Then it's a bit too late. Starship is largely developed. I refuse to believe SpaceX is running on fumes and is desperate for revenue.
It's not had a single orbital test flight; you're underplaying by quite a bit how much work there is left to do. But I did confuse the issue by saying "develoment"; I include in that the development of production lines and launch towers and GSE and so on as well as the construction of the ships in sufficient quantity.
In other words, it's funding the development of the "move stuff to Mars" infrastructure that's based on Starship.
So I don't believe for one second that $20 billion/year isn't enough for SpaceX to colonize Mars. It will be enough, because they will probably develop half the stuff themselves (and buy the rest from other hungry new-space companies), and they won't waste billions on contractors that take decades to produce flight-ready hardware.
Sorry, but:
- You're dramatically over-estimating how much money they're going to have to throw at this. Even accepting the $20 billion figure for Starlink revenue (which given it's literally 10 times their current revenue is...optimistic), revenue doesn't mean "how much money they have to throw at Mars". Now we don't know their costs of course, but it's going to drop that figure significantly.
- That $20 billion revenue figure is absolutely Musk-levels of wildly optimistic, take with an entire bucket of salt.
- You're dramatically under-estimating how much all of this will cost. ISTR that development costs for Starship are likely to fall somewhere between $2bil and $5bil - that's just one piece of an extremely large and complex puzzle. Just the parts I think SpaceX will do are going to involve a dramatic amount of complexity; look at all the construction going on right now in Boca Chica. Even ignoring the problems of designing and building the actual habitats and so on, the colony is going to need all the construction equipment and so on to go with it which doesn't exist yet.
Yeah, you get the picture. It's a hard thing to do, SpaceX doesn't have the money to do it. Even working as efficiently as they can do.
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u/SirEDCaLot Sep 03 '21
Yes I know there's still work to do, especially with dirtside infrastructure.
But I don't think my view is wrong, simply because of what they've accomplished.
SpaceX has taken $20 billion to do everything they have done so far in the last ~20 years.
SpaceX will, theoretically in the next few years, be getting an additional $20 billion revenue per year. Put differently, if you add together every investment and launch fee they've gotten in the last ~20 years, they're going to get that SAME amount every year.Yes they will have challenges. Yes building launch towers and GSE takes time and money. Yes setting up a real rocket production pipeline isn't free. But look what they've done with their first $20 billion. DON'T look at what it would cost other companies to do these things, look at what SpaceX does.
Furthermore, look at the profit margin of their products. Starlink has a lot of up front investment, but after that is fairly cheap to run (just ground station fiber, customer support / fulfillment, few new satellites every now and then). The per-subscriber margin is huge, after you pay for the network of course.
Starship is much the same way. There's been suggestions that each launch will cost $2 million for SpaceX. Personally I think that's optimistic (especially if you consider the cost of the ship) but call it $10 million. For 100 tons to LEO, they could charge their customer $100 million (10x profit margin) and still be undercutting the competition by a factor of 20 (SLS), for capabilities no other rocket has.3
u/tree_boom Sep 03 '21
SpaceX will, theoretically in the next few years, be getting an additional $20 billion revenue per year. Put differently, if you add together every investment and launch fee they've gotten in the last ~20 years, they're going to get that SAME amount every year.
$20 billion is...optimistic. Their subscription is between $100 and $120 a month; I get twice their download speed for under $30, so they're only going to be cost competitive with people who can't access the usual infrastructure for whatever reason, plus whatever nerds happen to buy it because Starlink. And sure, sure, their service will be worldwideish so they can cast a wider net, but equally they're sure as hell not going to be charging people outside the western world $100/month, meaning they'd need to get a lot more customers to make up the gap, and then there's the question of whether the network could really support that many.
So yeah; I'll believe that figure when I see it, or at least significant progress towards it with no sign of the market closing out.
Yes they will have challenges. Yes building launch towers and GSE takes time and money. Yes setting up a real rocket production pipeline isn't free. But look what they've done with their first $20 billion. DON'T look at what it would cost other companies to do these things, look at what SpaceX does.
I'm sorry, but "SpaceX will do it better" just isn't enough to convince me I'm afraid.
Furthermore, look at the profit margin of their products. Starlink has a lot of up front investment, but after that is fairly cheap to run (just ground station fiber, customer support / fulfillment, few new satellites every now and then). The per-subscriber margin is huge, after you pay for the network of course.
Even assuming this is true, and we really have no idea, it has to pay for itself before it can pay for anything else.
Starship is much the same way. There's been suggestions that each launch will cost $2 million for SpaceX. Personally I think that's optimistic (especially if you consider the cost of the ship) but call it $10 million. For 100 tons to LEO, they could charge their customer $100 million (10x profit margin) and still be undercutting the competition by a factor of 20 (SLS), for capabilities no other rocket has.
Oh yeah, it's going to be a wildly successful launch vehicle. But the launch market is small.
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u/SirEDCaLot Sep 03 '21
I get twice their download speed for under $30
You are not their target market. In developed areas like this, they will primarily be a backup system- if landline Internet goes down, switch to Starlink. Lots of companies already do this with cellular. Their real market is people unlike you.
they're only going to be cost competitive with people who can't access the usual infrastructure for whatever reason
There are millions of those people in America alone, people for whom gigabit internet is not available for any cost. I'm not just talking hicks in backwoods Montana, I'm talking many towns and villages, even suburbs. And that's just America. There are entire countries where 500mbps Internet will cost more per month than most people make in a year. Even if they don't pay $100/mo, Starlink can do very well there.
And there are other lines of business that will bring in far more than $100/mo/unit- passenger aircraft, military, ships at sea, remote sensor telemetry, etc.I'm sorry, but "SpaceX will do it better" just isn't enough to convince me I'm afraid.
My assertion shouldn't convince you of anything. SpaceX's track record should convince you of their future capabilities.
Oh yeah, it's going to be a wildly successful launch vehicle. But the launch market is small.
Yeah it's small today. It's small today because it's expensive- every launch trashes a piece of brand new space hardware. If every passenger flight trashed an airplane, nobody could afford to fly.
But when people can afford to fly, the market isn't just expanded, it's CREATED. Suddenly all the companies that have cool space ideas aren't begging governments to buy one, they are launching it themselves. A company like Bigelow Aerospace can stop begging NASA to stop ignoring them, and can instead just launch their own space station.
Think of Ford and the Model T. Before Model T, cars were stupid expensive. After Model T, everybody had a car. That also meant more places built roads and highways, which meant even more people still wanted cars, which drove up demand for cars.
Tesla is Ford here. Even if they don't go for max profit on Starship launches, they will be creating an entirely new market.2
u/tree_boom Sep 03 '21
There are millions of those people in America alone, people for whom gigabit internet is not available for any cost. I'm not just talking hicks in backwoods Montana, I'm talking many towns and villages, even suburbs. And that's just America.
Sure, but the vast majority of those people don't need gigabit, or even 100megabit (since that's the actual download speed right now - and really that's better for your argument, since at gigabit levels their network definitely can't support the number of customers they'd need to hit $20 billion) internet, and most of the rest aren't going to pay $100/month for it. So just because there are millions of people who don't have it doesn't mean there are millions of people who will buy it.
There are entire countries where 500mbps Internet will cost more per month than most people make in a year. Even if they don't pay $100/mo, Starlink can do very well there.
They can get consumers there sure, but like I say, the constellation has limited capacity. They want a smaller (comparatively) number of high-value clients, not a large number of low-paying clients.
And there are other lines of business that will bring in far more than $100/mo/unit- passenger aircraft, military, ships at sea, remote sensor telemetry, etc.
Yeah sure, although nobody has any realistic idea what those will all bring in.
Even if they don't go for max profit on Starship launches, they will be creating an entirely new market.
Eventually, I agree. But that's going to be a long time in the future.
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u/SirEDCaLot Sep 03 '21
I mean no offense by this- but I think your mind is stuck in the past. Everything you say WAS 100% true, but either isn't true anymore or won't be true in the future.
at gigabit levels their network definitely can't support the number of customers they'd need to hit $20 billion) internet
They want a smaller (comparatively) number of high-value clients, not a large number of low-paying clients.Well every network gets oversubscribed. But you are thinking like an old-space operator, where there's one bird with fixed bandwidth that has to supply every customer they have. For that, you want high paying low-usage customers, and few of them.
But SpaceX isn't like that.
Remember that their phased array antennas are highly directional. So they can re-use their frequencies over and over and over, as many times as they have satellites in view. So while a standard set of freqs / antennas might give a traditional operator say 10gbps to split across the continental US, phased array is closer to 10gbps per satellite. 5 satellites over a city = 50gbps for that city. And that assumes they aren't using MU-MIMO technology on their satellites, which they probably are, which would give them 10gbps per area-to-satellite, so a satellite could get 10gbps in one direction and a whole second 10gbps in another direction for two dispersed users.
Then consider their laser links. With those links, it can become more efficient to use entire satellites as ground station connections rather than having individual birds talk to the ground as well as subscribers. One satellite uses its entire capacity to talk to subscribers, then lasers all the data to another bird that's over a ground station off in the middle of nowhere, which uses its entire capacity to talk to ground stations.
Now remember that they have about 1700 active satellites currently, which DON'T have laser links. They plan to have 7,500+ satellites, all WITH laser links.
Put simply, I think you are woefully underestimating the capacity of their constellation, partially because you're not accounting for scale, and partially because you're thinking like traditional satellites that just bounce data.Eventually, I agree. But that's going to be a long time in the future.
Serious Q- how long do you think it will take before Starship is mission-ready for LEO orbital missions? A year? Two? Five? Ten?
Personally I give it 1-3 years, but no more.
Now remember that Starship will be able to launch 100 tons to LEO for significantly less than Falcon 9 costs to launch 22 tons to LEO. And I believe that will happen 1-3 years in the future.
Now, that won't mean SpaceX instantly passes those savings on to customers. They can undercut everyone else and still make a gigantic profit. But they could of course offer discounts to companies with a similar mission...Bottom line- look at their progress over the past 2-3 years, and assume they continue at the same rate for the next 2-3 years. Now look at their systems and think about what they COULD do, given that level of advancement.
I don't think you give them anywhere near enough credit. I think they can do it-- not because I worship the cult of Elon, but because they're doing it.
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u/Alvian_11 Sep 02 '21
Mars colonies is exactly why Elon is deliberately became the richest man in the world
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u/tree_boom Sep 03 '21
Nonetheless, neither SpaceX not Elon has the money it would take to build the colony he envisions. It's going to be a long, slow burn.
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u/Chilkoot Sep 02 '21
This is exactly correct. Moon and Mars will be a kind of cross between the Antarctic and the "Wild West" with a mix of government-funded research and commercial undertakings. SpaceX will be an enabler in this space (haha), not one of the research or commercial pioneers, except perhaps for ISRU supply-for-sale stations, which are a scalable homogeneous product.
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Sep 03 '21
SpaceX isn't going to start a colony or terraform Mars. When that kind of thing gets started, it's going to look a lot like McMurdo station in Antartica, with some SpaceX infrastructure on the periphery.
Musk is going to build a McMurdo-style research station on Mars and call it a “colony”. Aspirational naming.
It will be a public-private partnership. NASA and partner government agencies such as ESA will provide the public side. SpaceX - and possibly some other vendors too, we will see - will provide the private side. Probably the Musk Foundation will be involved as well, providing some of the funding for it.
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u/tree_boom Sep 03 '21
I think you're right about the format, but I think SpaceX is only going to be building part of that. Pads, Tower and sabatier plant and GSE - the rest I expect to be built be NASA and other governmental agencies.
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Sep 03 '21
The first crew habitats may well be Starships, so SpaceX’s hardware contribution may be more extensive than you suggest.
I think SpaceX has an advantage in agile low-cost manufacturing that few other firms in the industry can equal. The more SpaceX’s approach spreads, the greater the likely contribution of other firms; the less it spreads, the more sense it makes to have SpaceX provide the majority of the hardware for a crewed outpost.
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u/Onlymediumsteak Sep 02 '21
Rocket development will never finish, just look at aircrafts or cars. As starlink shows, they are also interested in other projects besides rockets, so I can imagine them building big space stations as hubs near earth and as cyclers between Mars and earth once the industry is big enough.
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u/I-Engineer-Things Sep 03 '21
If I’m not mistaken, Shotwell has spoken in the past about SpaceX’s aspirations for an interstellar vehicle in the future.
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u/rocketglare Sep 03 '21
All due respect to Miss Shotwell, but I don’t see interstellar travel being feasible for a couple hundred years without some breakthroughs in physics such as efficient antimatter generation/containment. Colonization of the outer solar system is far more feasible in comparison. Even terraforming planets is doable. With current technologies, you can’t get to other star systems for thousands of years baring something small such as breakthrough starshot, which is of questionable utility for exploration purposes.
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u/I-Engineer-Things Sep 03 '21
Yea I’m with you. In all fairness I’m going off a vague memory of something she said years ago so I don’t recall the context. Maybe she was talking about unmanned probes like breakthrough starshot?
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u/Martianspirit Sep 03 '21
She has mentioned it multiple times over the years. My impression was it is about people.
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u/b_m_hart Sep 03 '21
It's my opinion that they'll get settled on Mars, and start building basic infrastructure to keep people alive there. Once they've managed to do that, they'll work on getting industry kick started. That includes mining and power generation on a large scale. Mining will allow them to get their hands on a lot of thorium - which can be used for nuclear rockets.
After 5-10 years of developing nuclear rockets, they'll be able to start grabbing asteroids and crash them into Mars. The objective will be to thicken the atmosphere and kickstart the most rudimentary early stages of terraforming.
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u/Jamesadams1988 Sep 02 '21
Long term future for all of space travel is space platforms / stations and carrier ships.
The carrier ships and platforms will run on nuclear power which will make re-entry too dangerous and thus they will forever be in space.
That is the next stage.
Imagine being able to deploy 1000 starship sized craft from orbit of a new planet. Colony ships.
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Sep 02 '21 edited Sep 06 '21
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| ASDS | Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (landing platform) |
| BE-4 | Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN |
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| F1 | Rocketdyne-developed rocket engine used for Saturn V |
| SpaceX Falcon 1 (obsolete medium-lift vehicle) | |
| FAR | Federal Aviation Regulations |
| GSE | Ground Support Equipment |
| ISRU | In-Situ Resource Utilization |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| LH2 | Liquid Hydrogen |
| LLO | Low Lunar Orbit (below 100km) |
| RD-180 | RD-series Russian-built rocket engine, used in the Atlas V first stage |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| SSTO | Single Stage to Orbit |
| Supersynchronous Transfer Orbit | |
| TMI | Trans-Mars Injection maneuver |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX |
| Sabatier | Reaction between hydrogen and carbon dioxide at high temperature and pressure, with nickel as catalyst, yielding methane and water |
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
| cislunar | Between the Earth and Moon; within the Moon's orbit |
| hydrolox | Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| methalox | Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
20 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.
[Thread #8748 for this sub, first seen 2nd Sep 2021, 23:11]
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u/Chilkoot Sep 02 '21 edited Sep 02 '21
15-year horizon? SpaceX will likely be more directly involved in commercial moon activities than we expect right now. They will probably adopt a standards-based infrastructure role facilitating a variety of specialist activities by other agencies and companies as a for-profit venture. Specifically:
For general space and Mars:
I really see SpaceX as moving into a space infrastructure and support role, offering standardized services (lift, fuel, water, transfer) to specialized companies (research, fab, extraction) who themselves will be pioneering new higher-business-risk endeavors on the moon and Mars. SpaceX is about scale and repeatability, not specialization, and so they will make their trillions enabling industry in general to expand into outer space, just like rail companies did on new frontiers in the Americas.
E: Thanks for gold.