HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

The article does not do his talk justice. It is definitely worth watching the whole thing: https://youtu.be/S5V7R_se1Xc

⬐ jwilliams

Agree. I don't entirely agree that he's "revised" so much as got more specific.

⬐ apendleton

I think "revised" is fair. This vehicle differs significantly in technical specifics than the one proposed last year. Different size, engine configuration, stage/payload configuration, engine count, max thrust, even to some extent purpose. It's not just that there are more details; the details have changed.

Start: https://youtu.be/S5V7R_se1Xc?t=26m12s

⬐ tbabb

Back of the envelope calculation for the price of an Earth-to-Earth ticket:

Musk's stated goal is $500k/ticket to Mars.

It's a shorter trip, so perhaps ~5x as many passengers in the same volume (i.e. 500 total; cf. a380 which seats 850).

It takes five (?) orbital refuel trips for the martian journey, but we'd need none of those. Depending on how much less than a full tank the passenger vehicle needs (payload could be smaller; the ship would also not reach fully orbital velocity), the fuel cost would be between 1/5 and 1/10 the Mars fuel cost.

So that would bring the cost down to between $10 and $20k/ticket, within reach of business travelers.

If maximum the number of flight cycles per vehicle is greater for Earth-to-Earth trips than for Mars, then that could further reduce the ticket cost. It's unclear to me which direction that number would go-- Earth's atmosphere is much thicker on re-entry, though the velocities will be much lower than an interplanetary re-entry. Since aerodynamic drag goes as the cube of velocity but only linearly with density, I'm guessing the speed would matter far more. That would imply much better lifetime on Earth.

So if the E2E fuselage gets (conservatively) only 2x as many flight cycles as a Mars trip, that could bring down the per-seat cost to $5k-- now getting close to the cost of an ordinary international ticket. Of course this is all assuming that Musk's baseline of $500k to Mars is reasonable.

Would be curious to hear from some rocket engineers about these guesses at the numbers/efficiency.

Not accounted for is amortized development cost for E2E-only vehicles, as well as all the infrastructure and ground support at the destinations.

Edit: If you wanted to be less conservative, you could pack in 1000 people instead of 500 (0.5x ticket price multiplier), or use a different source for the Mars ticket price (0.4x), which would bring it to $1k.

⬐ Osmium

Ironically, I think SpaceX will have a lot more trouble with any E2E ambitions than they would with missions to Mars. So much red tape, no one's going to want a space-port in their backyard, different/difficult economics, safety concerns, terrorism concerns, etc. etc.

⬐ pm

Honestly I would love a spaceport in my backyard, seeing as we just hosted the International Astronautical Congress too.

⬐ piquadrat

The International Astronautical Congress doesn't come with multiple sonic booms per day.

⬐ pm

Sure, but when we say the backyard, we're probably talking further inland than the capital city.

⬐ extrapickles

Thats why they show the spaceport out at sea, as it kills the standard NIMBY objections. Also the cities they want to fly out of don’t have enough room to easily build a spaceport.

⬐ Rebelgecko

Boats already stop rockets from taking off somewhat regularly. I think a lot of people would be pissed off if they couldn't sail off the coasts of many major cities on a daily (or even more frequent?) basis.

⬐ the8472

Isn't that done for the safety of the ships, in case of debris coming down on them? If they make rockets reliable enough for passenger transport that wouldn't be an issue anymore.

⬐ grondilu

> Thats why they show the spaceport out at sea,

I suspect putting the spaceport at sea is mainly a security issue. Failing to reach the landing pad is certainly less catastrophic on water than on the ground.

⬐ dogma1138

Not for the passengers, although if they can do a soft water landing and the ship is somewhat buoyant you have some chance of hull recovery.

And that would actually be better than aircraft, there isn't such thing as a water landing there it's called crashing in the ocean.

⬐ grondilu

It will certainly be buoyant, provided it can dump its propellant in time.

You also want your rocket to land in an uninhabited area, in case something goes terribly bad. Sea makes much sense in this regard.

⬐ Osmium

If you think putting it a little out to sea would kill NIMBY objections .... still, we can but dream.

I'm not entirely sure how serious SpaceX are about their E2E idea anyway, I took it as more of a "hey, isn't this neat? totally physically possible and practical too." I imagine it would take a long time to scale up to that point though, probably decades(?) after the Moon/Mars.

⬐ trevyn

Objections, sure, but any enforcement ability? That’s international waters.

⬐ mastazi

International waters start more than 20km out from the coastline (12 nm)[1], that would be a very long ferry just to reach the spaceport, not just a short hop like shown in the video...

[1] https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...

⬐ jerven

That's about half an hour at a not that fast 25 knots. 30 minutes from a city center. For any coastal city, that is likely to be no worse as the time to get to an intercontinental airport. Still means about 2h00 from NYC to Shangai, door to door. Quite an improvement over the 17hours today.

Non coastal cities have a problem...

In any case it takes care of most nimby as it's to far away for the neighbors to care. So reasonable, in that aspect.

Of course ITAR, fear of nuclear strikes etc... general FAA/EASA regulations remain issues for this business plan.

Weather will also be an issue. Flights rarely get canceled for weather issues. But transferring from a ferry onto a barge at high sea in bad wind seems like an non fun experience in a three piece suit.

⬐ greedo

Couldn't you just use a Hyperloop to travel to the launch site?

⬐ mastazi

> That's about half an hour at a not that fast 25 knots. [...] no worse as the time to get to an intercontinental airport

yes you are right, I wasn't factoring in the fact that currently airline travel requires you to travel to an airport which is usually very far from the city centre.

⬐ icc97

E2E seems important as a way of making profit to reduce the cost of the Mars tickets. Also means you get more usage and testing of the rockets.

⬐ neuronexmachina

In general, I think the only part which is supposed to need regular replacing is the ablative heatshield. Regarding Earth vs Mars reentry, he said the following during the talk (my quick transcription follows): "You're going in, you're going very quickly, 7.5 km/s. For Mars, there will be some ablation of the heat shield. So, it's just like a brake pad wearing away. It is a multi-use heatshield, but unlike for Earth operations it's coming in hot enough that you will see some wear of the heatshield."

⬐ DiThi

I think the mars ticket includes many other things, like food and everything required to live for 2 years.

⬐ DrBazza

One problem with Earth-to-Earth is noise. A quick google tells me Saturn 5 was 220 decibels. So it has to be sea launches or desert launches. Also, Concorde couldn't go supersonic until it was significantly out to sea.

⬐ jlebrech

I hope he creates methane collection facilities on earth, it would reduce co2 as well.

⬐ TeMPOraL

There's nothing stopping anyone from building them except the one thing that's always stopping people from doing things that need to be done - economics. It's cheaper to get methane from the ground than to make it from air and water.

⬐ cryptoz

Elon's stated goal for ticket price to Mars is $200k, not $500k.

⬐ modeless

Elon says on Instagram: "Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that."

⬐ mark_element

Highlights for me: Started ordering stuff for the mars ship now, started facilities construction, possibly hitting a first launch in 2022 and a second launch window in 2024.

An extremely aggressive and impressive timeline.

⬐ ajmurmann

Even if they miss 2022 the next window at 2024 is still incredible. Who would have seriously believed we'd fly something of that size to Mars by that time and have a manned mission two years later?!

⬐ netfire

Question: Why do the autonomous cargo missions need to be done in the ideal launch window? It doesn't seem like the systems required to operate and navigate in space should require much energy, once your are up to cruising speed (and there's no air resistance in space to slow you down). Does it matter if the cargo takes 6 months to deliver the cargo instead of 3? Am I missing something?

⬐ ashark

Longer exposure of components to radiation? Deterioration of fuel and fuel-touching components (wouldn't be able to get by on relatively inert monopropellant like on tiny probes, probably)? Best guesses.

⬐ greedo

It saves you fuel. More space spent on fuel reduces your payload, driving costs up.

⬐ anvandare

It is indeed an energy issue, but for the orbital change, not system operations. Every kilogram you have to spend on fuel is a kilogram you can't use for cargo instead. You can use porkchop plots[1] to determine ideal launch windows (least ∆v = least fuel needed). Late summer of 2022, for example, is a good window[2].

For manned missions, you're more interested in the least '∆t' (time spent traveling) since crew sanity/health is more important than fuel. (Yes, astronauts are exceptional and willing to endure a lot of discomfort, but the less time they have to spend in a small tin can, the better.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porkchop_plot

[2] http://www.amssolarempire.com/Programs/porkchop_plot.png

⬐ ChelloYello

The same who that believed their timeline for when they would have a human certified rocket?

⬐ nicktelford

I suspect the ambitious timelines are political. Musk has repeatedly stated that others would need to work on a lot of the Mars colony infrastructure. SpaceX only appear to be working on the supporting infrastructure for flights (e.g. propellant plant).

By telling the world that they'll be ready to fly in five years, they're making a statement that other organisations/companies that want to get involved with this effort need to start working on developing the other parts right now.

If the schedule ends up being more like 2028 for the first flight, they stand a much better chance at flying the right stuff there.

⬐ None

None

⬐ nickik

He makes aggressive time lines in everything, I don't think this is any special. The same happens for all other products across Tesla and SpaceX.

⬐ TeMPOraL

That's a good point. This talk sends a pretty clear message to the market - we expect to be flying serious amounts of stuff to Mars in under 10 years, so if you want to start a business in the area, now is a good time.

And the trick is, the more people he can convince of that, the better chances we have the Mars colony will happen.

⬐ nicktelford

It's worth remembering too that Bigelow Aerospace put their development on hold some years ago because the launch industry wasn't moving fast enough to actually deploy their habitats.

I expect we'll see them spinning back up on the immediate future. :)

⬐ Diederich

He finally made it clear what this is about: feeling good about the future.

The other reasons to go to Mars that he has mentioned before are (arguably) valid.

This man might be the most inspirational voice in our lifetime.

⬐ grondilu

This plan sounds much more sensible than most of what I've heard from Musk before.

Especially the intercontinental transport part. That is a real business use-case, potentially very lucrative. I also suspect that could get quite a few more billionaires excited (after all they spend a lot of time in private jets and I'm sure they'd like to cut that time off) which could help raising more investment.

I don't believe there is much to do on mars or the moon, not much that would make economical sense anyway. But intercontinental transport? That could work.

⬐ nicktelford

Given his aspiration to sell it for prices comparable to economy airline tickets, I feel like the outlay of building the facilities at each end will eat up a lot of the profits. It's a neat idea, but I don't see this funding the Mars colony ambitions, at least not in the short term.

If they can get that infrastructure heavily subsidised, then perhaps it's a different story. That said, I can't see many cities that would be willing to invest in this, except perhaps the ultra-rich ones, like Dubai.

Imagine getting this built for New York or London. I can't.

Edit: I don't mean to sound so negative; I actually think the rest of the talk was super positive in that it feels realistic - it's just the inter-continental travel bit that gave me pause.

⬐ grondilu

> It's a neat idea, but I don't see this funding the Mars colony ambitions, at least not in the short term.

I think you misunderstood him. Musk doesn't plan on founding a mars colony. He plans on giving a solid business plan for a big, fully reusable rocket capable of transporting hundreds of people. He believes transportation is the main obstacle to people building a city on mars.

⬐ karterk

An update from Elon on the pricing[1]:

> Fly to most places on Earth in under 30 mins and anywhere in under 60. Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that.

[1]: https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/

⬐ bluthru

>Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that.

The ticket is worth much more than economy!

⬐ Diederich

I imagine you can gain a lot of efficiencies with this approach. Just guessing here:

1. You can't leave your seat. Very high seat density.

2. No restrooms.

3. No food or any other services.

4. Very few (if any) cabin staff.

5. Fully automated flight; perhaps no pilot.

6. More reliable flight schedule; only a small bit of earth's weather on either side of the flight matters.

Personally, I'd put up with a lot if the whole flight was <40 minutes.

On the other hand, the vomit. So much vomit. :(

⬐ dogma1138

Fuel might also be actually cheaper, CH4 costs about 4$ per 1000 cubic feet, LOX is practically free.

⬐ Diederich

Wow, that's (the price of methane) amazingly cheap.

⬐ dogma1138

What more amazing is that 1000 ft^3 of methane is 12 tons, you need 1900 tons (in orbit) of propellant to get to mars based on the ITS design since it's about 5 trips of the ITS tanker to refuel the ITS that goes to mars (350-380 tons per refueling).

Lets put E2E propellant requirements for the BFR/Booster and the ITS at 10 times that of the martian transfer that would put the CH4 costs of the trip to less than $6500.... At 100 times that it would be about $65,000.

That will still be much cheaper than the most fuel efficient jets we have like the A380 and the 787-9 with the fuel costs of a 15 hour flight being in the range of 150-200,000$ depending on the aircraft.

⬐ grondilu

> 5. Fully automated flight; perhaps no pilot.

Almost certainly no pilot.

⬐ Diederich

I agree; I can, however, imagine some kind of on-flight technician. Maybe.

⬐ anotheryou

Is he going to space-walk within the 10min window? I doubt you need a technician (and if you do, he's probably too late).

⬐ bluthru

Technician / EMT

⬐ Diederich

Zero G but very short term EMT...a high tech hospital is always close by the landing point.

Cool stuff.

⬐ modeless

Wow, can they really make BFR reliable enough to replace long distance airline routes? And how would propellant cost compare with jet fuel? Anywhere on Earth in an hour does sound extremely appealing; better than Concorde, with bonus zero gravity (going to need a lot of barf bags though).

⬐ ajmurmann

I was a little disappointed he didn't give any timeline at all on that not even a aspirational one. I also assume it's gonna be really expensive due to frequent heat shield replacement. I wouldn't be surprised if it never became economically viable. Too few passengers and too high cost.

⬐ stretchwithme

I imagine they can fit 400 passengers though. No need for those cabins or even a need to give passengers drinks.

⬐ perilunar

For 30 minute trips you barely even need toilets.

⬐ Cshelton

I think personally I'd keep my seat belt on regardless even if there were restrooms

⬐ modeless

You kidding? There's no way I'm staying in my seat during zero gravity. I might pay more to do a couple of extra orbits and play around before coming down.

⬐ perilunar

I reckon everyone would be out of their seats as soon as boost is done. Getting everyone back into their seats in time for re-entry might be the issue ("take the nearest available").

Earth to earth flights would be sub-orbital though, so no opportunity for extra orbits.

⬐ c0ndu17

I'm gonna miss the ding of the seatbelt sign.

⬐ agildehaus

I'd just shit my pants on liftoff.

⬐ stretchwithme

That's where the vacuum of space will clean up.

⬐ perilunar

Free adult diapers for all passengers!

⬐ pmontra

That's really on spot but maybe it won't be your case. Many people don't like accelerations. Braking and turning a car a little harder than usual is much less that 1 g but some people don't feel comfortable with it, even when there is no danger. Remember motion sickness and the puke bags on planes. Lifting off with a rocket is always going to be higher g than with a plane. Furthermore it's probably going to require some amount of fitness. Too young or too old: fly on a plane. In the middle: it depends.

⬐ stretchwithme

Actually, an A380 can hold 853, so BFR could probably hold the same.

If he can get the cost down to US $10 million per trip, that's US $12K per person.

⬐ modeless

He said the heat shield ablates for Mars trips but not Earth trips (not sure why). If so then propellant should be the only important consumable.

Of course this level of reusability and reliability has never been achieved before, but the whole thing depends on it.

⬐ nickik

The shield ablates on Mars trips because the ship is using the atmosphere to slow itself down, it will pass threw many times and bleed of speed.

On earth you just need to survive, the speed is primarily reduced with the engines.

⬐ grondilu

> the heat shield ablates for Mars trips but not Earth trips (not sure why).

I suppose the reentry speed on mars is much higher, since it happens at the end of an interplanetary trip.

⬐ rkangel

For E2E routes, the rocket doesn't have to be given as much kinetic energy - it doesn't have to escape Earth's gravity well.

⬐ greglindahl

Dragon 1 has already gone through a couple of iterations of heat shields. Mars entry is expected to be hotter, that's straightforward math.

⬐ Tuna-Fish

> He said the heat shield ablates for Mars trips but not Earth trips (not sure why)

Falcon 9 presently lands completely without any heat shield, because it just uses it's engines to reduce velocity until they are not needed. In principle, you can always replace heat shields with fuel like this.

Mars trips need to bleed velocity aerodynamically because the craft cannot bring enough fuel. Presumably a sub-orbital hop on Earth can save enough fuel to act as the brakes.

⬐ mmustapic

The first stage of a Falcon 9 also flies much slower than a ship arriving to Mars or coming back to earth from orbit. It just needs to slow down a bit with engines when entering the thickest part of the atmosphere.

⬐ ygra

Falcon 9 has a heat shield around the engines. Since they are going into the atmosphere engines-first it's going to be hot there. The engine bells sticking out from there don't care (much, since the entry burn reduces speed enough). Most of the speed reduction for the landing happens via aerobraking, not by using the engines.

⬐ curiousgal

Musk's public speaking skills (the stutters) give me hope as a non native English speaker.

⬐ puranjay

Considering that he is often compared to Steve Jobs in terms of his impact and innovation, I find it endearing that he doesn't have any of Jobs' glibness

Makes him feel more authentic. Like an engineer talking about his stuff, not a marketing guy

⬐ stretchwithme

I think he was pretty tired, definitely more than I've seen in most other videos. I hope he sleeps pretty soundly tonight (this afternoon in Aus).

⬐ MertsA

That seemed really out of place for Elon. Compared to last year's speech and many other interviews he sounded impaired quite frankly. I guess that's what chronic sleep deprivation will do to a man.

⬐ sidcool

I think his speaking style, although not something most business people would want to emulate, has a tone of earnestness, humility and honesty. I would be wary of a brilliant orator..

⬐ perilunar

SpaceX is building the BFR and launch facilities, but who is going to build all the equipment and gear required to live there - who is building the cargo?

⬐ andrewwharton

He's stated previously (can't remember where) that building all that is someone else's problem (opportunity).

⬐ TeMPOraL

Last year's talk, for starters. I think he mentioned it other times, too.

⬐ grondilu

Literally not his business.

⬐ agildehaus

I think the idea is that by building the bus and announcing a schedule the rest will happen naturally.

⬐ perilunar

The timeframes are pretty tight, so I hope there are companies already working on it. Anyone know?

⬐ TeMPOraL

I want to ask a better question: anyone in such company hiring?

⬐ awiesenhofer

"Collecting underpants." So many good jokes. Too bad it was such a though crowd...

⬐ Tharkun

They didn't even chuckle when he said the working name was BFR ... did none of them get it? Pff.

⬐ boznz

Tell me again, why has NASA budgeted $30 billion for SLS?

⬐ nickik

Because the goal of government action is not to efficiently achieve a goal, but rather build a political coalition capable of capturing and defending budget requests.

The SLS specifically was designed to build a coalition between NASA centers who were involved with the SpaceShuttle, a group of large influential companies who produce the core components for the Shuttle and the SLS and a group of senators who are well located to defend these private and NASA jobs in their state.

Together the bureaucracy, business and the political can enforce this utterly foolish project to continue. This goes for both SLS and Orion, two of the biggest pork projects in US space history.

⬐ ChelloYello

Look, you can't complain about government inefficiency like you can complain about corporate inefficiency because you are granted real power over the government by way of the constitution.

If you don't want the space agency to be controlled by corporations not owned by Musk you can do something about it via the many channels that exist for that explicit purpose.

⬐ nickik

First of all I'm not american. Second, the US was not created democratically.

With a corporation I can just not use their product, they don't get my money and beyond that I don't really care what goals they have in space.

> If you don't want the space agency to be controlled by corporations not owned by Musk you can do something about it via the many channels that exist for that explicit purpose.

Like what channels? Writing a congressmen?

You vote every couple of years on a small group of people and those people are responsible for lots of things, not just space. So when you vote space is a small priority and most people care more about other issues.

NASA needs to given more independence and change the process of NASA budgeting. ESA does a lot better in many ways because they have a longer planning cycles. NASA should use more competitive contracting like they did for Commercial Crew and Commercial Cargo.

These changes require evolutionary and sometimes revolutionary change and this is happening a little in NASA now. The Shuttle group has already lost out, the SLS is defensive effort.

The best thing we can do is point out how bad the current system is and oppose the pork projects. Moral outrage compared with workable efficient solutions that save money have the ability to potentially form alternative coalition.

⬐ woodandsteel

Once the BFR starts flying and putting comparable-sized payloads into space for 1/100 the cost, I imagine there will finally be enough public protest to shut the SLS project down.

⬐ hacker_9

Great presentation, only thing I'm worried about is human flight in these things. I mean what happens if this thing is 1% off on the landing? Does the whole thing topple over and blow up into a million pieces?

Additionally with the entire flight being automated, what happens if the software gets taken over in space and they just drop it like a rock onto a city? The damage would be catastrophic. We need Elon to invest in city wide force field technology too it would seem.

⬐ TeMPOraL

As brutal as it may sound, I'd expect the BFR to have a remotely activated self-destruct system.

OTOH, what if terrorists gain access to that system?...

⬐ MertsA

Well yeah, it's a rocket, it's going to have range safety. The space shuttle had range safety as well.

⬐ the8472

no worse than dropping an airplane on a city

⬐ hacker_9

An airplane goes roughly 500km/h. Elons rocket was going 20000km/h - so I think it's about 40x worse actually. Not to mention a rocket goes straight down so none of that speed is lost.

⬐ eutectic

And 1600x worse by kinetic energy.

⬐ the8472

> Elons rocket was going 20000km/h

In space. I don't think it would survive that in the lower atmosphere. And a lot of danger comes from the fuel, not the kinetic energy.

⬐ a1studmuffin

Yeah I'm really interested to see the g-forces involved in one of those flights, I can't imagine it's a gentle take-off and landing.

⬐ internetionals

The earth-to-earth idea is nice, and whilst it would be an improvement, I expect the travelling time to be the biggest obstacle.

You have to gather the people, check them in and clear them during internation flights. Then you have to load everybody on a boat, ship them to the platform X miles into sea, unload them, take them up the big tower, letting them board and settle and depending on how predicatable this is, wait for clearance to take off.

Now is the short flight.

And afterwards we can do the entire thing in reverse.

Some things might be a bit more optimized, like perform customs, safety instructions etc during the boat trip. But the entire trip from arriving at the sea/space-port until leaving it at the destination would probably be making this a diminishing returns and only really interesting for the extremely long flights.

⬐ Androider

Let's optimize it a bit:

- Get everybody on a boat in NYC harbor with ferry level security (i.e. not much)

- As the boat is travelling to the platform, perform the more thorough check in, any security scans, etc. Everyone simultaneously straps down in their seats, last minute toilet runs etc.

- Slot the passenger capsule into the rocket like a cartridge and take-off immediately at arrival. Plot twist: the capsule was on the boat. Passengers might not even get to see the rocket.

⬐ internetionals

I like the whole cartridge idea and that would surely help get the human component out of the whole thing.

If this were to happen I would imagine it to not be a capsule, but simply entire rows of chairs.

The main killer would still be the whole transit between the harbor and the rocket, but this could probably shave about half an hour.

⬐ icc97

At the moment there's lots of time wasted walking to some gate at the far end of a massive airport. There's only one company here and one or two flights that go straight up and don't need to taxi. So the travel time in the boat won't be much more than the walk from the terminal to the gate.

⬐ internetionals

Possibly, but decreasing the flight time still won't take much out of the equation that would make it a net win against normal aircrafts.

That's not saying there is no market for something like this, but for anything but the longest flights it's going to be a very specific kind of customer.

⬐ TeMPOraL

That's a good way to explain Amdahl's law to people: no matter if you travel by plane or by rocket, you don't save that much time if you still have to deal with the TSA.

⬐ toolbox

One big limitation that was glossed over in the presentation is radiation exposure. The only time it came up was the mention of a 'solar storm shelter'. The radiation exposure during the Martian transit would be much greater than the same time spent on the ISS, somewhere on the order of 200mSv [0] (the composition of this radiation also contains significantly greater proportions of heavy-ion radiation, which appears to be more damaging, so this may need to be adjusted upwards). According to the wonderful xkcd chart [1], this would be in the 'probably no radiation sickness, but certainly not good for you' territory.

I would love to know what their plans are, since shielding is heavy. [2] seems to suggest electromagnetic deflection as viable (which would be insanely cool, and could probably reuse SpaceX's cryogenics work for superconductors).

Also, a quick search didn't turn up much on the anisotropy of interplanetary radiation, but I wonder how much a reduction would be achieved by angling the crewless area of the ship towards the solar wind (which I think Musk had touched on in an earlier talk).

[0]: http://www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE/ASC/DATA/bibliography/ICRC200... [1]: https://xkcd.com/radiation/ [2]: https://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d76205x/research/shieldin...

EDIT: Of course these sorts of talks are really exciting! This is just one more in a laundry list of crazy-cool engineering problems that have to be/are being solved.

⬐ nickik

He does not talk about this so much because its not the fundamental show stopper.

We know enough to get started and we will have to figure the rest as we go along.

⬐ krastanov

He has stated a couple of times that the radiation will be there and it will have the same lifetime cancer risk increase as smoking. It seems the plan is to just live with the increased cancer risk.

⬐ grondilu

Zubrin once joked that if you send a heavy smoker to mars without any cigarette, you actually reduce his risk of dying of cancer.

⬐ icc97

Umm was I the only one too assume that BFR meant Big Feckin' Rocket? Oh, no, I see waitbutwhy has a piece on it [0]

I disappointingly see F is for Falcon, but still I really like the lack of marketing in the name.

Plus I like the parallel with Roald Dahl's BFG.

[0]: https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/spacexs-big-fking-rocket-the-...

⬐ jcriddle4

I was under the impression that for quite a few people, possibly including the people at SpaceX, the 'F' doesn't stand for Falcon or Friendly or Fantastic or ...

⬐ Goose90053

This is not new. Cisco made a big router (BFR) and also a huge router (HFR). Among their designers, the 'F' did not stand for 'fast'.

⬐ Asdfbla

Making life multiplanetary seems like one of the least important issues of our times to me: either we figure out how to make life on earth sustainable in the medium term (next 50-100 years) or we do not have enough time to become multiplanetary anyway (since that will take centuries, and we will likely never leave the solar system anyway).

So it seems a bit premature to concern yourself with interplanetary ambitions before we are even sure if we can maintain our own planet (which is, and will remain for an extremely long time, the only place for autonomous life in space that humanity has).

Then again, maybe I'm nitpicking since it's not like Musk demands the whole world to commit its resources to his ideas. If he wants to play around with adventurous Mars trips that's fine.

Edit: Of course I'm also aware that Musk is still using his money better than many other wealthy people, so more power to him. This comment was mostly about space exploration vs. sustainable life on earth, all other things being equal.

⬐ DavidSJ

We may always face existential risks. We now know of some concerning the next 50-100 years, but in 100 years we may know of different ones. Planetary redundancy conceivably aids our chances with those risks as well, so is a project best begun now, whatever the lead time. I don't want us always just solving the present crisis. We should think about the distant future too.

⬐ Asdfbla

Maybe you're right, but I'm thinking more along the lines of "autonomous life outside of earth is impossible in the foreseeable future, so optimizing for existential crises that threaten life on earth is pointless". The only thing we can avoid is that we ourselves destroy earth. Basically, if an asteroid hits us or something it's over anyway.

⬐ DavidSJ

I think you may be overestimating the lead time to establish a self-sustaining colony. With the will, resources, expertise, and some luck, I think it could theoretically be done inside of 40 years. More likely it'll take quite a bit longer. But we don't need to be talking centuries.

⬐ AnIdiotOnTheNet

If you ask me, focusing on colonizing planets is the completely wrong long term survival strategy anyway. What would be much better would be finding a way to survive in space, just orbiting a star in some kind of craft. I mean, if you can't grow food on it anyway than a planet is just a really big asteroid with an unreasonably large gravity well to deal with. If and when we eventually work out a way to viably travel interstellar distances (my money is on ditching biological bodies), every star would be a viable colonization target.

⬐ DavidSJ

There is the possibility of growing crops in Martian soil. [1] Nevertheless many agree with your conclusion that stations in deep space offer decisive advantages in their low-energy access to asteroid resources. [2]

Regardless of which path we take, the immediate technological prerequisite is the same: an economical way to send Earth payloads to space, i.e. a fully and rapidly reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle. That's what SpaceX is developing.

[1] https://phys.org/news/2016-06-dutch-crops-grown-mars-soil.ht... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder

⬐ DrBazza

> we do not have enough time to become multiplanetary anyway (since that will take centuries, and we will likely never leave the solar system anyway).

Neither of these statements are true. It's only a question of money, and money spent appropriately. Musk is demonstrating both of these.

As soon as we have a self-sustaining base on Mars, we're multi-planetary. There have been enough experiments to show that a man-made self-sustaining bio-sphere is possible. If Musk's timeline happens, this could be easily within a century, if not decades. To quote a phrase, 'necessity is the mother of invention'. It's likely that settling on Mars will drive the science and research that will solve these problems.

As for interstellar travel, that's well documented elsewhere on the web. It's doable, now, with current technology, without humans, but is massively expensive. And we don't know where to go. Once we do, it's just an engineering challenge for Musk V2 to solve.

⬐ woodandsteel

One thing Musk didn't mention (I don't know why) is that the BFR would make asteroid mining and outer-space manufacturing far more practical, and that could help save the environment.

⬐ shpx

https://xkcd.com/1232/

⬐ hyperpallium

It's easier to colonize Mars than make life on Earth sustainable, because it involves convincing fewer people.

⬐ simonh

I don’t understand why this argument gets made particularly concerning space exploration. Somehow it’s ok for humans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year on each one of entertaining movies, going on holidays, playing computer games, sports events, etc but a few tens of billions of dollars spent on space will imperil the long term survival of the human species and leave millions of people starving in Africa. That attitude seems crazily disproportionate.

⬐ rtpg

Places people don't want to live in:

- a submarine

- the middle of Death Valley

- the middle of Antarctica

- the (completely lifeless) top of mount Fuji

Living in a Mars colony would be a combination of all these experiences.

If you somehow have the magic sauce to make Mars enjoyable, you could offer this experience in the middle of the desert as well. You could tackle real habitation problems on this planet.

Just building a couple school buses (ISS) to float around the Earth took hundreds of billions.

And to the "what about nuclear war on Earth" argument: are you going to build a lightbulb factory on Mars? Semiconductor fab? Smelter? No Mars colony would be self sufficient for a realllllly long time

EDIT: Earth 2 Earth is interesting, though I don't know how you solve the vomit problem. Or the "sometimes the rockets explode " problem.

⬐ greedo

I think you underestimate how quickly Mars could become an industrial powerhouse. It won't be starting at a Mayflower level of technology.

⬐ rtpg

Why would it? It has less usable resources than loads of places on Earth that aren't used at all.

Maybe if Mars is some sort of lawless territory it can become the libertarian haven some rich people want, and could trick some future slaves to get sent over there....

⬐ greedo

It still has enough available resources (that we know of) to do well. And getting people to emigrate won't be an issue at all. Think of it like nuclear technology; developing an atomic bomb isn't difficult at all since the physics has been done 70+ years ago. Now it's just a matter of engineering. Same with building up an infrastructure on Mars. Somethings like large foundries probably won't need to be replicated, since 3d printing will probably suffice, but off the top of my head, I can't think of any technology that is out of reach.

⬐ simonh

>Just building a couple school buses (ISS) to float around the Earth took hundreds of billions.

Absolutely, but then just one of these things will dwarf the ISS all on it's own. The old equations of space exploration affordability are being rewritten.

As for people wanting to go, there's a permanent base at the south pole, the peak of Mount Fuji is often a churned up field of mud from all the visitors and Burning Man looks like a ton of fun. Ok so some of that is frivolous. I'm ambivalent about the idea of Martian cities in the next 30 years say, but who can really look further ahead than that?

There's nothing that seems un-achievable about BFR. It seems to me these things will be going to space, and the Moon, and Mars at a ludicrously low cost compared to previous space missions. The real question is what will we do with that capability? I'm guessing we are going to do something with it. Musk's graphics are explicitly aspirational, but we'll do something with these vehicles and its going to be a heck of a lot more than any other plans I've ever seen.

⬐ rtpg

Do you think the billionaires in their RVs at Burning Man would be willing to spend 6 months in that condition?

Even at a "ridiculously low" price of $500k, you're basically offering a mount Everest experience for people. Dangerous , uncomfortable, generally hard to do if you're not super free. A crazy adventure

Some people are interested, but you can't argue much for economy of scales when the total market of affordability is probably tiny.

Only 5000 people have ever climbed Mt Everest.

⬐ DrBazza

You are also ignoring the pioneer spirit. Don't forget that essentially built America. Imagine if no-one wanted to cross the Atlantic because it was too expensive or it was 'unsettled'?

People want to go to Mars. People want to try and live there. Scientists want to go there and learn, and explore.

⬐ Asdfbla

Well, America had something going for it, especially when reports came back from the early explorers that it's lush and habitable (in many areas at least).

On the other hand, people know what to expect from the rock that is Mars. If Mars was an unknown and people would want to go there to discover what's there, then the analogy would be correct.

Of course, people will still go, but reaching a critical mass for an unnecessary settlement (at which point it might turn slightly more alluring for more immigrants) remains to be seen. But I guess what happens happens, we'll see.

⬐ Asdfbla

Yeah, I'm aware of that. That's why I mentioned in the end that Musk is of course free to pursue his ambitions - in the grand scheme of things money is spent on much more pointless things, so him investing in science and space exploration is surely a comparatively good investment of his money.

⬐ jeresuikkila

I believe the innovations that come from such grand challenges such as becoming interplanetary will help solve other problems we face as well. I'm thinking of new materials, processes and technologies that can be applied in multiple contexts.

⬐ NamTaf

Deeply regretting not going to IAC since it's in Australia this year. A colleague went under his own money and he's had a great time, as well as several of my uni mates who are there due to working in the industry.

I'm enjoying this, it's basically laying out goals that he's essentially saying 'hold us to this'.

⬐ elefanten

He did note the 2022 launch plan as "aspirational" but I agree that this is a significant public proclamation. Exciting.

⬐ kristianp

From http://www.spacex.com/mars

⬐ boznz

Nothing on Moon Base Alpha except a picture. Would be nice to have a timeline for this (maybe the gap years where Mars transit is too long?)

⬐ tsaprailis

I think this is a nod to ESA who has stated they want to build a base on the moon: http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Ministerial_Council_2016/Moon_Vi... Elon's message: "Here's the rocket, it costs this much, go build it". Basically trying to find more ways to monetize BFR.

⬐ None

None

⬐ neuronexmachina

I get the impression Elon's stance is, "If somebody else wants to build a Moon Base, you're welcome to buy launches from us. Here's how you'd do it." Elon himself pretty much just cares about Mars.

⬐ Diederich

I agree.

Part of me thinks that the whole moon base thing was a pitch to legislators/NASA.

⬐ michelb

Loving this..Big visions, some may work, some not. Inspiring..Going against odds, this is what humanity should stand for. These are the real 'moonshots'.

Would love to see these kinds of big picture roadmaps in other areas/industries. It's a shame so much of our possible progress is politicised.

⬐ iamcreasy

This talk was surreal.

⬐ alexnewman

If I am flying a rocket plane and my normal landing site has bad weather what does the rocket do? Maybe they can have robot boats all around the world to catch them!

⬐ ascorbic

If it's a half hour trip it'll not be hard to predict bad weather before you take off.

⬐ dcsommer

I wonder what the greenhouse gas emissions will be like for the Earth-to-Earth trips. Ironic that the display showed a snow-capped mountain after the E2E animation.

⬐ jk563

It's the default Mac background that I assume they were running the presentation off of.

⬐ imaginenore

He addressed this. You can make methane from CO2 and water, so it can be carbon-neutral.

⬐ 323454

Earth-bound BFR flights could be net zero emissions if SpaceX uses solar energy to generate methane from atmospheric carbon dioxide, as Musk discussed in the talk.

⬐ dwaltrip

How much does that cost, compared to existing methane sources? I imagine that is only viable if it is comparable in cost.

⬐ legohead

Considering Earth-to-Earth, can the BFR launch through most weather scenarios?

⬐ greglindahl

All rockets (during launch) are more sensitive to lightning strikes than planes. That's a given: the exhaust plume conducts electricity.

Compared to F9, BFR is fatter and would have less trouble with high-altitude winds at launch.

Now landing weather, that's another thing.

⬐ Tepix

You could just delay a flight by 4 hours and still arrive 5 hours earlier than if you had taken the airplane...

⬐ xHopen

Thank you Elon

⬐ martin_bech

This is thinking big..

⬐ Osmium

Honestly, Elon's presentations are some of the most impressive, inspiring I've ever seen. And the way he just stumbles out words and sentences that are completely revolutionary... casually dropping these absurd, incredible statements. I find it incredible.

If anyone else was saying this, was showing these graphics, you'd think it was just wish fulfillment; a fantasy. And I'm sure their timeline is a bit aggressive. But I fully believe the SpaceX team can do this.

This has made me feel inspired for the future almost more than anything else has in recent memory.

(For context, and to the doubters, I've been following SpaceX for a long time, through their many failures, and they've already revolutionized the space industry. They have a drive and a vision and they're just going for it. This isn't about profits for them, it's about pushing humanity forwards -- and if that sounds grand, it's because it is.)

⬐ Diederich

"You want to be inspired by things. You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great. That's what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It's about believing in the future and believing the future will be better than the past. And I can't think of anything more exciting than being out there among the stars. "

⬐ losteric

We need people like this running for office.

Not Elon specifically, politics would only get in his way, but inspiring yet pragmatic visionaries... willing to make mistakes, challenge common beliefs, and build the future.

⬐ Diederich

For sure.

The problem....the ancient problem...is that the kinds of mental makeup that would be very good at running large organizations tend to also not WANT to do such things.

⬐ deepGem

This is how I've always felt about presentations, not just by Musk but anyone who presents candidly. Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Bill Gates also present more or less similar characteristics. They don't prepare/rehearse for the talk. They are thinking on the fly, but they are still confident. This natural behavior is what makes listening and watching to these people so gratifying.

⬐ jonnybgood

> They don't prepare/rehearse for the talk.

How do you know that?

⬐ deepGem

They all have publicly stated that they don't prepare for talks or presentations.

⬐ spike021

His presentation style usually seems to be pretty raw, in a good way. It's not as crisp/polished as Jobs' presentations were, or in fact others.

As in, it's not as marketable. It's doesn't seem like it's been a style of preparation for a pure sales/marketing kind of pitch.

Kind of interesting, in my opinion.

⬐ piyush_soni

Honestly, I'd cringe if he started doing Jobs' style presentations. It's good the way it is!

⬐ DrBazza

Interesting that you mention Jobs in that Musk said, just like Jobs did, that he's reducing the product line to one thing, to increase economies of scale.

⬐ Osmium

> His presentation style usually seems to be pretty raw, in a good way.

Completely agreed that it's raw in a good way -- you can tell he really has technical detail down too, I noticed one of the times when a slide left too early he still knew the numbers that had been on it. Also he has an understated sense of humor ("mountain").

I also sometimes got the sense he genuinely was in awe at what he was seeing. Like it still took him by surprise. It was interesting to watch.

> It's not as crisp/polished as Jobs' presentations were

All this said, I wish there were a Jobs-like figure to sell SpaceX. I'm sure there are people who'd disagree with me on this, but I can only imagine how popular/well-known SpaceX would be if they had someone who could pitch to the general public. SpaceX keynotes could be tune-in television with the right person, but it'd have to be someone really tied to the company, I don't think you could hire someone to do this. It'd have to be authentic.

⬐ nickik

Usually I agree about his presentation. However this one was quite a bit worse then most of them.

The slides were not in sync confusing the audience. Not knowing when to clap, made it really uncomfortable.

He seemed to just drop stuff randomly without a narrative thread. When he showed the BFR/ITS for the first time, he had a much clear threwline, even while rambling in between.

⬐ bluthru

I don't get the sense that Elon values rehearsal time, but someone should convince him that it's really important.

⬐ edo

I'd rather he put his time into building and designing than rehearsing speeches.

⬐ krapp

He's a CEO - he doesn't build and design, he has people build and design for him. He owns an entire company of builders and designers.

Giving speeches is more appropriate for his actual job.

⬐ nickik

Do you know Elon Musk? He absolutely builds and designs. He is CEO and Chief Engineer at SpaceX and that is not just a title.

He knows more about the rocket then probably anybody else.

He said that he spends about 80% of his SpaceX time as and engineer.

⬐ krapp

>He said that he spends about 80% of his SpaceX time as and engineer.

Fair enough, but that leads me to believe he needs to hire more engineers. He shouldn't need to be that hands-on, even if he wants to be.

⬐ mft_

Hum... you wanna tell the guy who's totally revolutionised the space industry, doing things rational people would have thought impossible not so very long ago... that he's doing it wrong?!

I'd hazard that companies which achieve truly impressive things, often do so because of how decisions are made. You need benign (or not so benign) dictators right in the weeds with their teams. Put layers of bureaucracy between Elon and his engineers, turn him into a board-meeting CEO... and SpaceX would lose one of the fundamentals that makes it special.

⬐ Inconel

Just to add a small anecdote, I have no involvement on the design side of the house but there isn't a rocket that leaves Hawthorne without touching my hands at some point, and I've always been impressed with Musk and some of the other more senior engineers, Tom Mueller deserves to be called out in particular, for how much they know about the low level technical things that go on here. I'm very, very, very low on the hierarchy here but I've escalated things to Musk and other VP's in the past when I felt it was necessary and they always took the time to respond to me.

Also, and this was particularly true when we where in much more cramped quarters on the production side, I would run in Musk on occasion in my area and he knew way more about the intricacies of my work, and the equipment I was using, or complaining about, than I would have assumed considering all the things he's responsible for.

⬐ phkahler

They could let Shotwell do some of these talks. She's a much better speaker. One of my favorite Shotwell lines was when congress asked how they can be so much cheaper than the competition. She responded "I don't know how to build a 400 million dollar rocket".

⬐ grkvlt

For a CEO, he's an insanely bad public speaker, yes. I'm always surprised by that. Then again, he's doing this without notes, or even just a preview of the next slide coming up, it seems, which is pretty difficult at the best of times in my experience.

⬐ evanlivingston

I would be really excited about a future where everyone had access to clean water.

Going to space is fun and exciting. The future of space travel is going to be interesting, but it essential that when we imagine the future that we do so while recognizing the glaring problems of today.

⬐ staticelf

With increased technology comes more liberties for all. With your kind of thinking we would still live in caves because why work on anything unless we solve all our social issues first?

Progress is not made by politicians, it is made by engineers. If you want clean water for all humans, you should be supportive of discovering new stuff.

For example, for humans to survive in hostile environments on other planets we need to create new innovations and that creates a big incentive to figure out technological solutions to hard problems.

Turning salt water into drinkable water is one, this one is actually already solved and being implemented across different countries and if we can improve that and make it cheaper we will have solved the problem of water already.

⬐ evanlivingston

You make two very, very large claims that require a deep dive to support.

>With increased technology comes more liberties for all.

...uhm. What? How? Examples? a line of thought? Gimme something here.

>Progress is not made by politicians, it is made by engineers.

Again, what? That's an overwhelmingly naive and narrow view of the world. JFK helped expedite aerospace research, as well as the NASA administrators who didn't do any engineering work but kept the agency running on track? They get no credit in the 'progress'?

Politicians were not partly responsible for the development of long range rocketry and nuclear fusion that came out of WWII?

It's strange to me that people are assuming that when I question the _kind_ of technological advancement being focused on that I'm critiquing _all_ technological advancement. I challenge you to find that critique in my words. Again, I would be most excited about a future where the _primary_ goal of the progress is the reduction of inequality. How can we talk about 'progress' without first talking about the rubric for progress itself? How are we (you) defining progress?

⬐ TeMPOraL

Well, politicians are responsible for progress only in so far as they're responsible for allocating budget and legal support for research. They do not do the work, but they control large amounts of resources that help make it happen[0].

As for questioning the kind of technological advancement and the reactions to it, I think the defensive comments come from a combination of the following:

1. Questioning spending on space exploration in the topic about space exploration is like questioning the existence of football on a football match. You're talking to an audience who loves it and telling them that it takes resources away from More Important Things. Except that space is at the same time much more underfunded and much more important than football, baseball, basketball, movies, concerts, celebrity gossip and all the other stuff people like[1]. So it kind of feels unfair to single it out here.

2. Basic research is increasingly becoming underfunded. The funny thing about solving the world problems with technology is that, more often than not, what enables those technologies is pie-in-the-sky research with no expected immediate results. This doesn't fly well with the markets, and as countries increasingly treat science in the same way market economy does, the funding for long-term research is in ever greater jeopardy. Attacking space exploration through arguments of other more immediate problems is in a big way attacking basic research.

3. People need to dream about better future. Space exploration is somewhat unique that it captures and nourishes the imagination and hope for a better world.

4. We have enough resources to solve the more important problems like clean water and food for all. And yet they are not solved. Taking the meagre few $B from space research will most likely not help in solving those problems, but it will shut down space research.

--

[0] - Note that in that they're not unique - theoretically, a private institution with large amounts of resources can do the same thing too. Still, to date, it's usually governments that are willing to spend money on actual research.

[1] - Also, there's plenty of money in wasted military spending that could be taken first, even without reducing the actual military capabilities of a country.

⬐ staticelf

Sure.

> ...uhm. What? How? Examples? a line of thought? Gimme something here.

Electricity, internet, radio, engines, cameras, etc.

> JFK helped expedite aerospace research, as well as the NASA administrators who didn't do any engineering work but kept the agency running on track? They get no credit in the 'progress'?

You're just enforcing my point, this is people who understand that we need technological progress in order for us to move forward as a society. Of course they are part of the progress, they help enable the progress to go faster.

> Again, I would be most excited about a future where the _primary_ goal of the progress is the reduction of inequality.

It is my belief that this will never happen, at least not untill we have progressed so far that everyones needs are met. Until then, there is no real incentive for people to reduce inequality. Just look at history, we've never been able to do this so far so there is no reason to belive that we suddently change our behavior.

I am defining progress as a lot of things, it can be the discovery of something new but it can also be an invention that benefits just a small number of people. In the long run, most new inventions will benefit everyone.

⬐ evanlivingston

You said in another comment "Just ask the people that have a fulltime job but still cannot afford a place to live if slavery has ended."

I agree wholeheartedly with that. Let's consider those people, and lets consider some other, mmm, how about Rwandans as well. Has electricity and the radio, cameras and engines increased the liberties of those people? I many cases a lot of those technologies have been used to remove liberties from those people, and sometimes to even kill them.

We have the technology now to meet everyone's need. Right now. We can produce enough food, we can build enough houses and supply everyone with enough calories. What technological things need to happen in order to distribute our resources accordingly? You'll probably say that's not a technological problem, at least not primarily, and I agree. This is the larger point I'm trying to get at and challenge others to address. I don't believe the most exciting future is one that requires enormous technological progress and when we focus on enormous technological progress for the sake of progress, rather than the sake of equality, well then we as a society continue to create a world the mirrors our goals: progress instead of equality.

>Until then, there is no real incentive for people to reduce inequality.

Sure there is, it's called compassion.

⬐ llukas

> Progress is not made by politicians, it is made by engineers.

It is very easy to forget that high-tech engineer is a species that only thrives in politically stable countries.

Standing on the shoulders of giants is not only about your predecessors that solved engineering problems so you can dive even deeper - it is also about society which found better ways over time for effective financing that allows science&engineering to happen.

Also please read (for example) about Samsung and Nokia - they were forced to change industries by politicians in their respective countries.

⬐ staticelf

> It is very easy to forget that high-tech engineer is a species that only thrives in politically stable countries.

I disagree, a lot of nations became stable because of engineering solutions in the first place and also more scientifically literate. There is a ton of examples of this. The first telescope, as an example, thanks to Hans Lippershey and Galileo Galilei showed that the earth wasn't flat and removed some power from the church it also clearly made us see that the sun doesn't go around the earth so it showed that Copernicus was right all along. A big discovery that made people doubt the christian religion and change the political landscape forever.

All big scientific discoveries changed the societies in a big way and there is no going back. Scientific discoveries and technological innovation is the only thing that push a society forward.

⬐ antientropic

> Galileo Galilei showed that the earth wasn't flat

That the Earth is not flat has been known since ancient times. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth.

⬐ staticelf

Well yes, but using the tool he made you could argue that very few would deny it since the truth became so obvious. Even if it was known a long time before that, a lot of people still believed that the earth was flat.

With increased technology it was easily disproven.

⬐ antientropic

Do you have a source for the claim that a lot of people believed the Earth was flat in Galileo's time? (Galileo was born decades after the Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation of the world.)

⬐ staticelf

Sorry, it seems you are correct and I was wrong. I mixed up the idea of the geocentric model and thought the flat earth theory was included in that.

My bad and thanks for correcting and enlightning me :)

⬐ evanlivingston

> Scientific discoveries and technological innovation is the only thing that push a society forward.

No, man, that's simply not true. That's an incredibly technocratic view of the world.

Using the U.S. as an example, the (belated) end of slavery in the U.S. didn't come about from a scientific discovery or a technological innovation. Technics played a part in the exacerbation of the issues, but it was politics, culture, language, religion and "spirit" that ended state sponsored slavery. I think that was a decently large push forward for society.

⬐ staticelf

I think it is true though. I am a bit of a technocrat.

Just ask the people that have a fulltime job but still cannot afford a place to live if slavery has ended. But sure, politics can change some things but in the end it doesn't change much.

To add to my point, politics may alter how we live but it doesn't bring anything new into the world. If we want to progress, we need to solve issues and take away the need for people to do stuff we don't want them to do. If you had todays farming equipment for example, there would never had been any slaves because one machine can do the job of hundreds of slaves. The machine doesn't have to be fed and managed, the machine doesn't fight back.

I believe we can solve any such problem with technological advancement and thus our money should be heavily invested there.

⬐ wallace_f

Yep, aka the basic, but always true "guns vs butter" lesson.

Who wants to live in a technologically sophisticated world if most of the spending goes to war, surveillance, bailing out rich bankers, healthcare insurance, and just housing, anyways?

⬐ staticelf

That is the issue you get when you do not spend money on science though. Compare the NASA budget to the US military budget.

What if you would reverse that? Don't you think we would be better off in every way possible?

⬐ wallace_f

Of course. What about all the other things I mentioned as well? There are so many more--what about for profit prisons?

As technology increases our suicide rate isn't really consistently declining. Our prison population has increased. Technology cant make those improvements alone. We need improvements in governance, culture and education for this to happen.

Technology can be used for good or bad. By itself, it is just a tool, it's up to us to decide if we are going to end up in a police state with constsnt surveillance and tyranny, colonize Mars, create weapons that can wipe out most of humanity, solve healthcare problems, etc.

⬐ WillReplyfFood

The visibility of suicide is declining. The suicide rate is up, definatly up. They are just "accidents" now - people driving into a truck for no apparent reasons.

Take a black marker, open your local newspaper page and mark any not reasonable accident as suicide (if you dont believe me join a fire-brigade and find out for yourself).

You have a little chess-board in the news every morning.

⬐ staticelf

All of these things are not related to investment in science or technology for the betterment of society.

But we also live in a time with least war and a lot less suffering in general. Technology may be a tool, but science is not. With science we can prove that x makes more people happy and reduces suicide rates and hence make that choice.

The issue is that science is not really that present in the chamber of politics. With a more science-heavy government investments would look a lot different.

I am not advocating for technology alone, basic science plays an equal or even more important role in shaping the society. Science has values and it is the only true values that exist. I would argue that with help of the scienctific method we can figure out what makes people happy and implement it politically. But the progress still starts with science.

⬐ wallace_f

We live in a time where war no longer needs constitutional approval or even traditional military force. We have the longest running war in US history. 26,000 bombs dropped last year.

You need to put that scientific method you are talking about to use. Are people really happier today than in 1950? Why is the suicide rate going up

The difficulty with your argument here is that tech has enormous potential to make life better, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it will. You may be interested in noting that this is a common idea: I've seen the popular science educators like Sagan, NDT, Nye all say this...

⬐ TeMPOraL

I think a more toned down, and a more accurate view would be that progress of science and technology is what causes social changes, and not the other way around. As in, the social dynamics move within the space created by existing level of technology.

As an example, consider reformation: many attempts have been made at reforming the church, but the first successful one happened only after the printing press got widespread enough that the reformational thesis could spread around the Europe very quickly.

Or you could reasonably argue that the end of feudalism happened because of gunpowder and accessible firearms. Where previously a person had to train half of their life to be able to fight with an armoured knight, suddenly with firearms, anyone could become effective in the field in pretty much no time. This shifted power away from the local lords in a significant way.

There are plenty of similar examples you can find in all of history. You can probably shoot plenty of holes through them, too, but still, this for me sounds like a most plausible theory of social changes of the ones I heard.

⬐ simonh

Which use of resources is the biggest affront to you, given a preference to spend resources on access to clean water. Humans spending hundreds of billions of dollars on movies per year, or humans spending a coupe of tens of billions of dollars a year on making our species multi-planetary?

How come this argument only gets dragged up when we’re talkign about space, but not when we’re talking about movies, holidays, computer games, etc. It just seems weirdly disproportionate.

⬐ Tepix

Going to space doesn't take resources away from getting everyone access to clean water. These are not related activities.

⬐ TeMPOraL

Not only that - we have more than enough resources available to tackle this problem. The reasons it is not happening have nothing to do with it being underfunded, and thus axing space research will not help it either.

⬐ dsq

The way to address the problems here on Earth are to develop a massive industrial civilization in space that will create the economic surplus that can be diverted home. Fusion power, for example, is more likely to be fully developed in space and only then deployed on Earth.

⬐ kayoone

With this kind of viewpoint you would never advance anything. It can't be black and white like that.

⬐ None

None

⬐ bicubic

The lack of access to clean water and most of the bad stuff happening around the world is not an engineering problem, it's a political problem. Elon Musk's passion lies in engineering, not in politics.

So while your sentiment is fine in a vacuum, I don't think it fits on this thread, and it's certainly not a sound criticism against advancing space colonization. In fact, there's a sizable sentiment that this planet is beyond saving due to political failures, and colonizing other planets is the only way for our species to survive.

⬐ feborges

/me is looking forward for a new planet without politics </sarcasm>

⬐ feborges

Engineering is a political act!

⬐ evanlivingston

I don't mean to antagonize Elon Musk himself. What I wanted to point out is that the future doesn't exist in a vacuum. While some people are jumping around on mars others will be unable to put food on their table. It saddens me to see that things that make people most excited about the future are the development of technologies that don't address issues of inequality.

Why would our political failures not follow us to other planets that we colonize?

⬐ solveinequality

what technology will change inequality? genetic engineering to turn the entire human race into sex-free clones?

⬐ olau

I think it's a harsh view of human nature that doesn't allow for individuals to have individual motivations.

⬐ igravious

“It's 2017. We should have a lunar base by now. What the hell's going on?”

⬐ sidcool

The best one was: "It's 2017 and there's no lunar base, come on"

⬐ kornish

There was a thread on HN about Flexport the other day, and about how branding as "unsexy" was actually a selling point because customers appreciated the authenticity – they'd rather you be reliable than sexy as a logistics company.

I think a lot of people feel the same way about Elon. He's not overpolished, rehearsed, or manipulative...it's just honest and unapologetic.

⬐ ucontrol

This is very well said and accurately describes my impressions of Elon's speeches. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who appreciates his down-to-earth, authentic delivery, and it wouldn't be surprising if Elon and those around him are aware of the attractiveness of this approach themselves.

⬐ audeyisaacs

Musk's speaking is always a little awkward (in an endearing way), but did he seem significantly more nervous/emotionally affected than usual in the first part of this speech? It seemed that way to me, curious if anyone else interpreted it like that.

He calms down when he starts talking about risk and it being the anniversary of a launch.

edit: Good and fun presentation regardless!

edit2: Thoughts:

- Maybe he feels in over his head. The timing when he relaxed seemed to coincide with talking about a previous experience that might have felt overwhelming at the time but paid off.

- Maybe he typically takes beta blockers or something for speeches and take them until late this time (the talk did start late)

- Maybe it's just random.

Any spacex watchers have thoughts on cause?

edit3: Definitely not a diss. Love Elon/SpaceX/the vision.

⬐ extrapickles

I saw that.

The talk was on the 9th anniversary of their first successful launch, which basically made SpaceX possible.

⬐ pasta

He said that it was an emotional day for him.

⬐ rybosome

I wondered if I was really noticing that or if I was projecting my own fear of public speaking on him.

⬐ hyperpallium

I don't think it was the primary factor, but he did have to fly to Australia later that day to give a (battery) presentation. Which is a very different time-zone. A big day, even for Musk.

⬐ audeyisaacs

IAC was in Adelaide (Australia) this year, but I guess he did have to fly in for that.

⬐ andrewtbham

he told a few jokes that bombed. tough crowd.

⬐ a13n

"So we decided to call it BFR"... crickets

Clearly no gamers in the audience, I died.

⬐ glenneroo

I have a feeling it was a very mixed crowd and there are probably lots of people chuckling quietly at his jokes but not the level of full-on laughing required to be heard by the camera way in the back.

⬐ tbabb

He did seem way more nervous than usual.

⬐ gremlinsinc

I think it's weighing on him.. I think he'd like to move/iterate faster.. and the costs/stress of doing what he's doing when MANY keep saying 'Can't BE DONE' ... well.. to persevere through that.. takes some real strength of character and determination...but it's still stressful. I think you can hear that in his voice. I bet he's tired as fuck.

⬐ AmIFirstToThink

I think humanity is not ready to be multi-planetary. Time or distances or conditions are not on humanity's side. Even humanity is not on humanity's side.

I think the dreams of being multi-planetary are similar to buying doomsday bunkers in New Zealand. I see it as a desire to escape the problems of earth.

I would ask a question to Anjum Choudhary, "If there is a colony on Mars, and your ideology got hold of major countries on Earth, would you try to convert those on Mars?". I think the answer, undoubtedly would be yes.

Humanity has much to resolve on earth, if we go multi-planetary before we reconcile then all we would end up doing is make our problems multi-planetary.

Unless few people escape earth and destroy earth so that there won't be anyone following them. Equivalent to you first going into a safe bunker and then nuking the world, wait out the nuclear fallout to emerge. But then you would be pure evil.

I don't know if they have thought this through. On the scale of centuries, not quarter ends, all they are doing is working for those with higher rate of reproduction.

⬐ greedo

Umm, interesting take. There are some good sci-fi series that explore the idea of religious groups expanding via space colonies. Heck, even the KSR Mars series discusses this.

Living in fear of Islam (or LDS, or Branch Davidians) is a foolish way to evaluate a scientific/societal exploration project.

⬐ AmIFirstToThink

It would be foolish to think humans would be different because they happen to be in space.

Yeah, the first ones to look at earth from outer space had an mind altering experience. I am sure the few who flew in first airplanes had similar story to tell, but now we complain about service while flying.

We would just get used to being in space, and keep doing what we do best, be humans and have conflict.

I want earth treated right, people on earth treated right, space escape will only bring out worst from people.

⬐ DesiLurker

I think this is perfect time for humanity to start efforts in that direction. IMO international gridlock may work out to our advantage. what I am afraid is having a single global superpower (likely china) emerge and control the fate of humanity with an iron fist. BTW for next few decades the dream of being fully self sufficient mars colony is just that, a dream. Any billionaire would have to be out of their mind to leave perfectly good 'empire' on earth to live life of a commoner on mars/colony.

Secondly, I know I am speculating but IMO the reason Elon want to do this now may have something to do with emergence of singularity. I think he wants to have backup BEFORE we create artificial superintelligence which by median of estimates of AI researcher is to be believed around 2045.

⬐ AmIFirstToThink

And you just hope that they AI that's sustaining the human life on Mars, doesn't like the AI taking over the earth.

I think having a backup of humanity would make world leaders to be more dangerous with their decision making, destroying earth in the process. Why, they have backup of humanity in outer space.

And after disaster on earth, they try to restore the backup and realize that restore is not going to work. Any DBA will tell you stories of failing restore and the dread that sets in when that happens, it does happen.

My worst fear is that in space we would realize that humans need a certain bacteria in our stomach to develop brain or to just be humans, and our last colony-wide anti-viral shot killed those bacteria's, and that bacteria only is found in cow's milk, cows that eat grass on earth. And then that's it, end of story.

I think the physics of space exploration can be worked out, biology is not going to be.

⬐ imaginenore

I wish the government gave them tens of billions of dollars instead of the military. Even NASA's progress is laughable compared to SpaceX, and NASA gets $18 billion a year.

⬐ nickik

The NASA budget is already pretty large compared to the rest of the world, the problem is just that NASA has devolved into very inefficient organisation that is in a political lock. They could do a huge amount with $18 billion, but a lot of it is bound up in pork projects.

The successful projects are usually not the expensive once. Compare the cost of Commercial Cargo (1&2) and Commercial Crew to SLS/Orion is truly eye opening.

⬐ Banthum

Regarding these suborbital flights, is there any way for an adversary to know that the flight isn't actually an ICBM?

⬐ Tuna-Fish

No more than there is currently a way to know that a passenger plane headed for your city isn't also carrying a thermonuclear bomb.

⬐ nanomoose

Making human life multiplanetary. I'd rather we spent effort finding the life already on other planets (as well?).

⬐ kensai

The plan is good and modestly aggressive time-wise. But he has to be careful. Even a single high-profile disaster with human loss or precious cargo will put the whole endeavor at risk.

⬐ nickik

> Even a single high-profile disaster with human loss or precious cargo will put the whole endeavor at risk.

Why? This is not a government bureaucracy. People die in many places in private business. As long the company has high level of assurance that they will not get sued or regulated, I don't see how a failure could collapse the whole endeavor.

⬐ kensai

You don't but I do. People will be scared. And there is no competition at the moment, he plays alone. People might think it's too early, it's not worth it, etc.

⬐ namelost

In the US, the value of someone's life depends on their citizenship, so they can perhaps get around this problem by only crewing their rocket with non-Americans.

⬐ nickik

Don't Americans die in coal mines? Don't Americans die on construction cites. Don't pilots die in air travel accidents?

⬐ ChelloYello

Nobody said Americans don't die too, just that the US values American lives much above other human lives. For really obvious illustrations of this fact see for instance the Irak war (pick one), or migrant deaths along the US - Mexico border.

⬐ andygates

Early airlines are the closest comparison, and as design flaws and bad practice killed off crews and destroyed vehicles, they were regulated to heck and back and are better for it.

⬐ nickik

Early airlines were regulated but not to the point where it was basically in a gridlock. This was one of the issues with NASA, they became so risk averse because of the impact it had on their budget.

⬐ ciconia

Just like everybody else I'm really blown away by what SpaceX does, but at the same time I think the question begs to be asked: Has humanity already given up on earth as a home? Is the future really about planets as disposable habitats?

⬐ briga

Considering how long it will take to get a proper bioshpere on Mars, which will only work IF we can teraform Mars properly, I dont think we'll be able to abandon Earth any time soon. I think the Mars colony will be something more like our base in Antarctica--a place for scientists, but not somewhere anyone would want to live permanently.

⬐ dillchen

If you were in Europe in the Age of Discovery, would you have said that about coming over to the Americas?

⬐ joselreyes

Remember the goal is a multiplanetary species. Earth is a part of the multiple planets.

⬐ nickik

I never understand this question. The hole point is to become a space fairing multi planetary species.

Having a civilization that can use resources from space will help earth as well.

⬐ Tepix

What makes you think so?

Are our efforts of colonizing space a detriment to our efforts to keep earth habitable?

⬐ hacker_9

Given up? We have no choice in the matter. And remember Mars is a dust bowl, where you can't even go outside without a helmet on. Earth is as good as it gets.

⬐ andygates

"Earth-That-Was was used up" is fiction.

⬐ greglindahl

Good thing almost all discussions of SpaceX and Mars on HN includes a comment like yours!

⬐ InclinedPlane

Think about the "Earthrise" picture from Apollo 8: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_8/image...

Or, "Pale Blue Dot" from Voyager 1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Pale_Blu...

Space exploration has given us some of the most profoundly transformative new views of life on Earth, giving us a greater appreciation and a greater understanding of what Earth is, what its value is, and informing our relationship with Earth. Mars colonization will be no different, I suspect.

Not only will it help crystallize our self-conception of who we are and what we're about as a species, it will provide a greater clarity on what it means to create proper "living conditions" here on Earth. On Earth it's easy to take things for granted. Which sometimes means we also allow progress to stall because we perceive things as being just "good enough for now". A lot of that will change with Mars colonization, and for the better I think. On Mars they won't have clean air or clean water without putting in a tremendous amount of work to create them. Which they will do, of course, because the alternative is to live without them, which isn't reasonable. But consider life back here on Earth, where we take our air and water for granted. Where we can approach the issues of a lack of clean water or air in a lackadaisical manner, without it being the highest emergency priority. And that's true not only in the developing world (India or Sub-saharan Africa) but also in the midst of the developed world (the lead tainted water in Flint and elsewhere, Victoria, BC in Canada flushing its toilets directly into the Ocean, etc, etc.) And the way we treat environmental issues as something that our grandchildren might have to finally get around to sorting out, but not something to actually begin tackling right now today.

Imagine what it's like on Mars where the starting condition is a bare rock with zero trees, zero rivers, zero lakes. Will Martians plant forests, will they create lakes and rivers? Of course they will. That'll be one of the first things they begin doing. And those things will be precious treasures to them. Just as with air and water, that simple act will help remind us of the natural treasures we exploit and take for granted on Earth rather than preserve and cherish.

Additionally, the technologies developed on the path of Martian colonization will have immanent applicability to Earth. The BFR alone is a perfect example of that, suitable not just for Mars colonization but also for Earth satellite delivery, and point-to-point travel, among other functions. Colonists will pioneer a lot of new techniques and a lot of new technologies for their own unique needs. But I think we'll find that while those needs are unique, the advances they make will have a lot wider application. One thing that will be necessary on Mars is figuring out how to build stuff using a minimal base of machine tools and industrial infrastructure. That sort of cost/complexity reduction will be just as applicable on Earth. As will figuring out how to use advanced machine tools (CNC, 3D printers, laser/water cutters, etc.) to their maximum utility. Growing high yield crops sustainably. Achieving high efficiency of recycling. And on and on.

⬐ perilunar

No. Even Elon hasn't given up on Earth — why do you think he's running Tesla?

⬐ varjag

And the Boring Company… doesn't get any more earthy than this.

⬐ ajmurmann

So what's the carbon footprint of one of these launches? Did I understand correctly that we can make the fuel by taking CO2 from the atmosphere? That would make the footprint negative, would it? That seems to good to be true.

⬐ grondilu

CO2 extraction for methane production is planned on mars, where the relative ratio of CO2 in the atmosphere is much higher. On Earth, CO2 is only 0.04%, which makes it quite difficult to extract.

⬐ ygra

He also noted it's a long-term plan on Earth. Use solar power and extract CO₂ from the atmosphere.

⬐ andygates

The kicker for Earth is that it's a lot easier and cheaper to make CH4 from biological sources (fossil fuels, fermenters, etc), so nobody does it at scale. All the solutions (IIRC) need high temperature and a catalyst, which isn't surprising as we're un-burning rocket fuel. With cheap plentiful solar energy it's more practical; as Mars has no bio-sources of scale it's essential.

⬐ perilunar

Not negative, since you are creating just as much CO2 burning the CH4 as you removed in the first place. Carbon neutral though.

⬐ schwarrrtz

Carbon neutral assuming you are creating the CH4 using atmospheric CO2. On Earth I suspect that most CH4 comes from natural gas. On Mars it would be carbon neutral - but that's actually a bad thing, assuming that your goal is to increase the atmospheric density on Mars.

⬐ perilunar

Yes, that was the assumption of the parent question. I expect that initially all the fuel for Earth launches will be sourced from natural gas, but if they start doing regular sub-orbital passenger flights they'd have to convert to renewable energy + atmospheric CO2, otherwise they'd just (partially) undo the work Tesla is doing.

⬐ teabee89

I thought CH4 was ~four times more potent in the greenhouse effect than CO2, significantly worsening the global temperature rise.

⬐ ygra

The rocket works by burning the methane, though, instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. Burning it results in water and carbon dioxide.

⬐ tbabb

I suppose some of it would be lost to the vacuum of space, though it would have to be an impressively large space transport market for that to start making a global difference.

Also weird to think about the long-term implications of Earth's resources leaving Earth permanently/irrecoverably.

⬐ neuronexmachina

In all likelihood the carbon footprint of spectators going to watch the launch would be at least an order of magnitude higher than the launch itself.

⬐ tsaprailis

So the key takeaway for me today compared to 1 year ago, is that Elon has put a lot of thought on how to make this plan economically viable compared to just the vision last year. Multiple potential streams of revenue:

- Government/intragovernment contracts to cleanup space debris.

- Government/Private satellite launches.

- Earth to earth transportation which Elon announced on Instagram that the cost would be comparable to an economy fare. https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/

- Transporting gear for ESA's moon base plan http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Ministerial_Council_2016/Moon_Vi....

- Transporting Government/Private equipment to Mars.

This is very much a realistic business approach compared to last year's vision presentation.

⬐ andygates

It turns the BFR from an aspirational battlestar into the DC-3 of space: go anywhere and earn a buck doing it.

⬐ icc97

The other major thing was that companies could launch much bigger satellites where Space X would have no competition

⬐ ethbro

I'd be curious how many large diameter applications there are. Physically-contrained uses (mirrors & EM dishes), but do those make up that much of the market? And does it make that much of a difference?

⬐ collinmanderson

Right, plus 100% reusability and therefore cheaper per-launch cost than where SpaceX is now.

⬐ nickik

I think the key is that this rocket will replace the F9/FH/Dragon architecture rather then being a separate line of development.

⬐ None

None

⬐ igravious

It's key, and it's clever design. Basically space shuttle next edition with the booster on the bottom rather than it being strapped to the side of it and where the booster is reusable. It's a two-part vehicle: booster/shuttle.

The original space shuttle had a 40% vehicular failure rate. The SpaceX Shuttle need to have commercial airline rates of failure and reusability. That's a big step up.

You know the way we still have 80 column terminals because punch cards had 80 units?

The decisions SpaceX make now are going to become space-faring standards for decades if not centuries to come.

⬐ muxator

What do you mean by "40% vehicular failure rate"?

Could you please give some insights / sources?

⬐ ygra

Out of five vehicles built, two have been lost. I think you can find sources on those two incidents easily enough.

⬐ elihu

According to wikipedia, there were 135 shuttle missions. So, a 1.481% failure rate in case anyone was wondering.

⬐ woodandsteel

From a commercial, ROI standpoint, having %40 of your hardware eventually destroy itself is bad news. Especially since each time your whole enterprise stops for years until you find out what went wrong and fix it.

⬐ tomp

What?! All hardware failes eventually. If you get an average of 27 of flights from a single rocket, I'd say that's outstandingly good news!

⬐ igravious

Nobody is arguing that hardware doesn't eventually fail so I don't know why you mention that.

False. It's not outstandingly good news, not if we want to become multi-planetary in short order. We need to get to better than commercial airliner standards quickly.

⬐ nickik

The Shuttle just made the mistake to not be a fully two stage system, it was a strange hybrid.

SpaceX also figured out that vertical landing had many advantages compared to a plane.

⬐ TremendousJudge

The Soviet Buran shuttle had the right idea. It didn't have main engines and was launched with the Energia rocket, which could be used independently with other cargo as well. Also, it was capable of fully automated landing, unlike the American Shuttle

⬐ nickik

It still had the combination of being both human and cargo at once. The BFR would have a cargo, crew and tanker version.

⬐ igravious

Totally. Because NASA, ESA, and others use public money there was less (or little to no) incentive to strive for reusability.

⬐ nickik

Well, NASA had the right initial idea with the Shuttle, it just that their execution and then evolution of the idea was a total disaster.

⬐ ethbro

To frame in a comment we often hear around here: if you don't control your funding, you don't control your destiny.

Building anything for the US government that's big enough and has potential military applications is virtually inviting them (and the large project procurement morass they bring) to become involved.