Once We Have A Self Sustaining Mars Colony - Then What?

On 12/11/2016 6:33 PM, William Mook wrote:

To understand the culture we must understand the technology involved. So, let's look at that first.

SpaceX plans a super-heavy lift launch vehicle as part of its Interplanetary Transport System. Variants the basic reusable two stage to orbit vehicle will place

300 metric tons (660,000 lb) in reusable-mode.
550 metric tons (1,210,000 lb) in expendable-mode
380 metric tons (840,000 lb) of propellant with an ITS tanker upper stage

—to low Earth orbit.

Each vehicle is likely to cost around $250 mililon in current dollars, at $3075 per kg of structure and about $1 million per launch in current dollars, at $82 per metric ton for LOX/LNG propellants. With 2,500 launches per vehicle - that's another $100,000 per launch replacement cost - another $400,000 per launch for maintenance.

The 550 metric ton expendable part is put into orbit. You then fuel it with one to three tanker launches, depending on destination and timing. You then put up the crew with the reusable vehicle. That's three to five launches.

Now 105 people, 6 stewards and 4 crew members with cargo, mass 26 metric tons. So, scaling that to 300 metric tons translates to 1210 passengers, 70 stewards/service, 46 crew.

Now, the 550 metric ton expendable is $1.7 billion - $1.40 million per passenger. This is all the stuff people need to survive on Mars long-term.

Five launches add $7.5 million to this total for operating costs- $6,200 per passenger.


550 ton payload

1,911 ton upper stage propellant
115 ton upper stage structure
2,576 ton upper stage total

9,389 ton lower stage propellant
696 ton lower stage structure
12,661 ton take off weight

WIth three launch centres and a one week turn around, we have 3 launches per week - and over a 52 week period 156 ships will be launched. With 1,210 passengers per ship this is 188,760 people per year.

Now a synodic period is 2.15 years. And over this period 405,834 people will be launched into space. Now, it takes 3 to 4 months to get to Mars, depending on the details of when you launch. It takes over a year to get to the asteroid belt. When you get to Mars, or the asteroids, you will stay there indefinitely. So, you will have hardware to keep you alive indefinitely. So, people will launch into orbit - and wait until the planets align - and then depart. Those who launch early in the synodic cycle, pay less. Those who launch later, pay more. Those with spots may trade those spots with others for a premium - and take the next flight. So, there will be an active market in this sort of thing going forward.

$1.4 million per passenger, is quite a bit to pay. However, you're buying an advanced technology home that supplies you with all you need - using advanced technology! People would pay that to have a home like that on Earth. Unfortunately, people that do that must deal with local politics and government. Not to say that government is bad, but some governments from time to time make things difficult for everyone. So, that's one reason people will leave.

How many people have a spare $1.4 million to spend? Well, according to the World Wealth Report there are 15 million HNWI (High Net Worth Individuals) - those worth $3 million or more; and 108,000 those worth $30 million or more (UHNWI - Ultra High Net Worth Individuals).

HNWI Wealth Distribution

Region-------- HNWI Population HNWI Wealth

Global-------- 12.00 million $46.2 trillion
North America 3.73 million $12.7 trillion
Asia-Pacific--- 3.68 million $12.0 trillion
Europe-------- 3.41 million $10.9 trillion
Latin America-- 0.52 million $7.5 trillion
Middle East--- 0.49 million $1.8 trillion
Africa--------- 0.14 million $1.3 trillion

188,760 per year represent a market penetration of 1.25% per year - an easily sustainable figure across this population. Paying stewards and crew members - with Mars based housing costing everyone else $1.4 million each plus a little cash - provides a means for people without means to go to Mars and the asteroids and other planets.

People of very high wealth who have money making plans off world may hire agents to represent their interests and establish a homestead off world and later come visit. People who have political difficulties with terrestrial governments will seek a place to live free of those difficulties off world. Governments worried about people off world posing a threat and interfering with terrestrial affairs will send agents and officers off world on various missions that make sense to them. Scientists who seek to understand the new environment and develop that understanding - will have governments and business support their activities. People born off world may seek to return to their parents home world. Others born off world will seek their fortunes where they are. Some will seek their fortunes further afield. Some like America's early lunar explorers will have philisophical insights. Those insights will inform and enlighten others, and new philosophies and religions will arise in the frontier and extend back to terrestrial populations.

My friend Edgar Mitchell's Samadhi Experience on his return from the moon -
https://vimeo.com/15037621

The Noetic Institute was created by Edgar following his flight. Other Apollo astronauts became ministers and artists to communicate their experience. Others became politicians and served on boards of corporations. We can expect a flood of returning adventurers to do even more than the handful of Apollo explorers in the coming years. This will expand and enliven the centre by expanding the mythos of the centre.

Breaking free of the authorities that presume to control us, that is a great transformation of culture, which enlivens and extends the culture in many ways - freeing the centre of that control - and the common mode risks there.

Joseph Campbell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGx4IlppSgU

The frontier will provide resources to the centre - the terrestrials remaining behind. The world for example today consumes 83 tons per year of precious metals far more valued than gold. These metals are more abundant off world than on Earth. So, these metals will form the basis of trade. Less valued metals, but still considered precious occur in larger quantities off world than on Earth. Platinum - 530 tons per year worth a substantial amount - used in fuel cells for example. Gold - 2500 tons per year of gold is produced on Earth used for a variety of purposes. This could easily be doubled using off world resources. Copper 18,400 tons per year. Silver 26,000 tons per year. Uranium 58,000 tons per year. Uranium would very likely be processed into usable forms before being sent to Earth - say suitcase sized devices that produce 750 MW - and when hooked up to sea water and switched on - produce

3.43 kg/sec - hydrogen
12,376.5 kg/hour - hydrogen
111,389.2 litres/hour - water reduced to hydrogen and oxygen
11,138,928.1 litres/hour - sea water to fresh water
389,862.4 kg/hour salt

This is enough to supply fresh water and power in the form of hydrogen fuel, for 668,000 persons. 1.5 million of these devices would supply a population of 10 billion people with the essential of life.

We can also dispose of radioactive wastes off world - on the moon for example - where it can be re-processed.

The escape velocity of Mars is 5.3 km/sec. The excess velocity required to reach Earth is 3.0 km/sec for about 3 months every 2.15 years. This requires an object attain 6.1 km/sec when launched from the surface of Mars. Containers with these metals can be shot out of magnetic launchers, rail guns, hyper velocity cannons, on Mars' surface and they will arrive back at Earth in 3 to 4 months. There they will enter the Earth's atmosphere, and parachute down to a landing. So, returning significant quantities of material from Martian mines is possible.

A 750 MW generator can project 40.3 tons per hour from Mars at 6.1 km/sec using a form of rail gun. Doing this for three months obtains 88,317 tons. Doing this once every 2.15 years obtains 41,077 tons per year - per launcher.

Firing from Ceres at a speed of 4.5 km/sec - for three months out of every 15 months - achieves the same sort of results. It takes about 15 months for materials to reach Earth. Over 583,800 tons of metals and other materials may be projected from Ceres each synodic period from a 750 MW rail gun type launcher.

The world produces 1.6 billion tons of steel each year. Each ton requires 14 gigajoules of energy. To transport this to Earth requires 10.1 gigajoules per ton from Ceres and 16.3 giga joules per ton from Mars' surface.

A 750 MW generator that processes iron into steel and projects it from Ceres transports 244,751 tons per three month interval. We can increase this to the higher rate by making iron in advance and projecting it out - during the synodic launch window. Then, in other periods, making steel and other materials for local production.

To replace all primary steel production world wide with off world sources requires 6,558 mine sites on Ceres, each operating a 750 MW power plant and a rail gun.

Actually Mars covered as it is with iron oxide, is an ideal source of iron, despite the higher energies involved. 8,163 mine sites using a 750 MW power plant and rail gun capable of firing a 6.1 km/sec projectile off world - accurately - and have it guided to Earth - where it brakes in the Earth's atmosphere and descends directly to a customer's site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnnSiK5mayY

So, you have a large bus that is launched off Mars or Ceres, loaded with smaller cargos, that enter the upper atmosphere and descend directly to their buyers.








These are the estimates companies like Lockheed or Boeing give Congress
to sucker them into another wasteful program. The cost estimates, launch
rates or number of colonists have nothing at all to do with reality.

If one tenth the number of launches actually happened the pollution
would render the Earth uninhabitable.

On Dec/12/2016 at 7:04 PM, Fred J. McCall wrote :
JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-12-12 13:29, Fred J. McCall wrote:

The Moon is better suited to that sort of thing, but it's still
hideously expensive trash.


It is hideously expensive to launch spent radioactive garbage and have
it crash onto the moon (there is no need to land, is there ?) compared
to all the regulatory red tape and long term costs of maintaining
uranium dump site on earth ?


Yes.


Different slant: the sun is said to be a big fusion reactor. If one
were to send a tonne of uranium to the sun, would it remain as uranium
(either molten or vapour) or would the extreme conditions cause any type
of atom to break apart and form hydrogen ?


Even more expensive. Getting to the Sun from here is HARD. The Sun
is a fusion furnace. It starts with hydrogen and makes heavier stuff,
not the other way around.


If you through uranium into the Sun, it will decay. Uranium will decay
even if you don't through it into the Sun. At very high temperatures and
pressure and with alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays hitting
it, it will decay even faster.

The Sun makes heavier stuff because it has light stuff to work with. If
provided uranium, it will make lighter stuff out of it. Elements lighter
than iron tend to fuse to make heavier stuff. Elements heavier than iron
tend to breakup into lighter elements. Of course, if you don't have
extreme temperatures and pressures most elements are quite stable.



Alain Fournier

Jonathan wrote:


These are the estimates companies like Lockheed or Boeing give Congress
to sucker them into another wasteful program. The cost estimates, launch
rates or number of colonists have nothing at all to do with reality.


Well, that's Mook for you. Reality seldom intrudes and these numbers
have nothing to do with what any reputable individual or company would
project. It's all Multiplier Mookie.


If one tenth the number of launches actually happened the pollution
would render the Earth uninhabitable.


Oh, don't be silly. The atmosphere is big and even huge numbers of
rocket launches have little to no effect on it. Now take into account
that these rockets are essentially burning LNG, so mostly what they
produce is water vapor...


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

Alain Fournier wrote:

On Dec/12/2016 at 7:04 PM, Fred J. McCall wrote :
JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-12-12 13:29, Fred J. McCall wrote:

The Moon is better suited to that sort of thing, but it's still
hideously expensive trash.


It is hideously expensive to launch spent radioactive garbage and have
it crash onto the moon (there is no need to land, is there ?) compared
to all the regulatory red tape and long term costs of maintaining
uranium dump site on earth ?


Yes.


Different slant: the sun is said to be a big fusion reactor. If one
were to send a tonne of uranium to the sun, would it remain as uranium
(either molten or vapour) or would the extreme conditions cause any type
of atom to break apart and form hydrogen ?


Even more expensive. Getting to the Sun from here is HARD. The Sun
is a fusion furnace. It starts with hydrogen and makes heavier stuff,
not the other way around.


If you through uranium into the Sun, it will decay. Uranium will decay
even if you don't through it into the Sun. At very high temperatures and
pressure and with alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays hitting
it, it will decay even faster.

The Sun makes heavier stuff because it has light stuff to work with. If
provided uranium, it will make lighter stuff out of it. Elements lighter
than iron tend to fuse to make heavier stuff. Elements heavier than iron
tend to breakup into lighter elements. Of course, if you don't have
extreme temperatures and pressures most elements are quite stable.


Now tell me something I don't know. The point is that it's not going
to get made into hydrogen and that even thinking that it might is,
well, silly.

It's also probably not all going to go to iron. There will be a whole
mix of trash.


--
"May God have mercy upon my enemies; they will need it."
-- General George S Patton, Jr.

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-12-12 19:04, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Yes.

To crash garbage onto moon, doesn't one simply need to get to Lagrange +
1m and let the Moon take the garbage ? Or does that end up costing the
same as a bona fide trip to and from Mars ?


And how much does it cost to get a pound of 'stuff' to that point? And
how many pounds do you need to do that with?


Even more expensive. Getting to the Sun from here is HARD.

Is a destructive trip into the sun easier than a tourist fly-by at safe
altitude over sun to take some snapshots ?


No. It's harder because you need to cancel more velocity to actually
fall in.


Once outside of Earth's gravity well, isn't it a question to aim at the
sun and fire engines ? Or does that require huge fuel to ensure the
resulting elliptical orbit has its perigee close enough to the sun that
the garbage gets burned ?


Orbital mechanics - learn some. EVERYTHING is an orbit. You need to
cancel enough orbital velocity to fall into the Sun. Otherwise,
you're going to loop around it.



The Sun
is a fusion furnace. It starts with hydrogen and makes heavier stuff,
not the other way around.


So if I send a brick of gold to the sun, it would be vaporized but
remain gold atoms ? Once in plasma state, don't atoms have electrons so
far from proton that it become easy for them to get out of "orbit"
around the proton ?


How many electrons you have is irrelevant to what you are.


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

On 12/11/2016 10:46 AM, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Jonathan wrote:


I've been looking at some the incredibly expensive
steps which are planned for a Mars colony.

From the massive rockets, massive transports
and things like droves of robots that will
dig out an underground habitat and so on
and so on and so on...

Sounds like Trillions of dollars will be
needed over several decades.


Jonathan, this is a



snipped~

On 12/11/2016 10:46 AM, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Jonathan wrote:


I've been looking at some the incredibly expensive
steps which are planned for a Mars colony.

From the massive rockets, massive transports
and things like droves of robots that will
dig out an underground habitat and so on
and so on and so on...

Sounds like Trillions of dollars will be
needed over several decades.


Jonathan, this is a 'sci' hierarch newsgroup. That means handwavium
and distortions don't work here. Are you now going to go into another
snit and stalk out of the newsgroup again in high dudgeon?


Of course we all know that as time goes on
and cost estimates steadily rise, the
goals will shrink and shrink, until
in the end we land a couple of astronauts
for a couple of weeks.


We all don't know any such thing. Idiocy like the preceding is why we
don't let you make decisions.




On second thought, {sarcasm alert} cost overruns and
lowball estimates of govt contracts are sooo rare.


"...the final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged
over all missions and adjusted for inflation, was estimated
to come out to $1.5 billion per launch, or $60,000/kg
(approximately $27,000 per pound) to LEO.[5] This should
be contrasted with the originally envisioned costs of $118
per pound of payload in 1972 dollars (approximately
$657 per pound adjusting for inflation to 2013)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critic...huttle_program

$27,000 vs $657? That would make even Lockheed blush.


And how much does the SLS program cost? Oh that's right
NASA learned a lesson, don't tell anyone how much.


"The fact that, in spite of my best efforts, the estimates
used in this reassessment of the SLS may or may not be
accurate or fair is countered by the reality that
getting hard flight cost, hardware construction cost,
and annual operational cost numbers out of NASA
officialdom is impossible."

In no way should criticism of a NASA program decision
should be interpreted as criticism of NASA employees,
especially as this program is, to a large degree, being
forced on NASA by the Congress."
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2330/1


Fred even a child could see this is a republican
open ended gift to Boeing. Not a program to
colonize Mars, but a program to get Congressmen
nice cushy jobs after they leave Congress.

You're a menace to the truth Fred.




But even if a self sustaining colony of
say a 100 people is established, what
will the human race get in return for
all this money and effort?


Way too few people for a self-sustaining colony.


Finding life on Mars?


NASA has made it clear that's not a primary
concern. The current MSL couldn't identify
life is it was sitting in a field of moss.

And the next rover won't be able to either, instead
looking for signs of...ancient life, and identify
samples for some....future sample return mission
and to support some...future human habitation.

THE MSL 202O CAN DO EVERYTHING.....EXCEPT
DIRECTLY SEARCH FOR LIFE.

http://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/news/w...ws&NewsID=1678


It's yet another rover that's meant to get
a...sample return mission and colony instead
of directly searching for life.





If people aren't going, why do we care? What do we get if we do (or
don't) find life on Mars?




You forget to put {sarcasm alert} in the above sentence Fred.

The question of life elsewhere, of creation, is
the single greatest philosophical question
of all time.

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-12-13 00:28, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Orbital mechanics - learn some. EVERYTHING is an orbit. You need to
cancel enough orbital velocity to fall into the Sun. Otherwise,
you're going to loop around it.


Can't you "aim" the elliptical orbit such that the object passes close
enough to the sun's "atmosphere" to get slowed down at perigee such that
after a few orbits, it goes too deep inside the sun to come back out ?


Of course you can, but this requires preposterous quantities of
delta-V when compared to doing almost anything else.


If sending dangerous garbage to the great big solar system incinerator
won't work, there is little chance that any mining of planets would.


Non sequitur much?


The only possibility is some very rare "unubtainium" metal found in
abundance in some other planet (lets call it Pandora) where small
quantities are worth much more than the huge transportation costs. Not
gonna happen anytime soon.


You're assuming that resources would be shipped back to Earth for use
here. That's pretty much a non-starter because mining even poor ores
here is going to be a lot cheaper than going out to bring metal back
(unless you have an existing space civilization already).


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

In article om,
says...

On 2016-12-13 00:28, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Orbital mechanics - learn some. EVERYTHING is an orbit. You need to
cancel enough orbital velocity to fall into the Sun. Otherwise,
you're going to loop around it.

Can't you "aim" the elliptical orbit such that the object passes close
enough to the sun's "atmosphere" to get slowed down at perigee such that
after a few orbits, it goes too deep inside the sun to come back out ?

People that propose this somehow assume that once you reach "earth
escape" velocity that you'll magically fall right into the sun as long
as you "escape" in the right direction. This is just not true AT ALL.
If the velocity is right at "earth escape" and no higher, what you end
up in is an orbit around the sun close to earth's orbit. That's a
terrible orbit to dump waste, because eventually it will find its way
back to earth. As a perfect example, look at the Apollo Saturn V third
stages which "escaped" earth orbit and are now in solar orbits. I'll
even give you a reference for that:

J002E3 - Likely the S-IVB third stage of the Apollo 12 Saturn V
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J002E3

Please stop hand waving and DO THE MATH! Lucky for you since this is
the 21st century, I'm willing to bet that if you did a bit of Google
searching, you'd find an "orbit calculator" suitable for calculating the
delta-V needed to go from earth's orbit to an elliptical orbit very
close to the sun. To that value, don't forget to add in the delta-V to
get from the earth's surface to earth escape velocity.

You'll find that the total delta-V needed is indeed quite hideous.

If sending dangerous garbage to the great big solar system incinerator
won't work, there is little chance that any mining of planets would.

Again, run the numbers. I personally don't advocate mining in order to
return material to earth. Who would do that? Instead, it would make
more sense to use that material *in space* to make useful things for
solar system colonization.

The only possibility is some very rare "unubtainium" metal found in
abundance in some other planet (lets call it Pandora) where small
quantities are worth much more than the huge transportation costs. Not
gonna happen anytime soon.

Mining anything on earth is going to be cheaper than mining it anywhere
else in the solar system and then paying the high shipping costs (delta-
V) to get it safely back on the earth's surface.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

On Dec/14/2016 at 12:28 AM, JF Mezei wrote :
On 2016-12-13 00:28, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Orbital mechanics - learn some. EVERYTHING is an orbit. You need to
cancel enough orbital velocity to fall into the Sun. Otherwise,
you're going to loop around it.

Can't you "aim" the elliptical orbit such that the object passes close
enough to the sun's "atmosphere" to get slowed down at perigee such that
after a few orbits, it goes too deep inside the sun to come back out ?

As others have pointed out, that would need a large delta-V. But if you
really do want to go into the Sun, the cheapest way to do so would be
via a Jupiter gravity assist. And to get to Jupiter, depending on the
position of the planets, you could do something like what the Galileo
spacecraft did. That is, use a gravity assist from Venus and two others
from Earth. You see, it needs a little more than to aim in the right
direction.

Once you do have the delta-V needed to skim the Sun's atmosphere, the
difference from that to what would be needed to do a direct entry is
very small. There isn't much of a point in doing multiple passes to
slowdown via friction. They sometimes do that sort of aero-capture when
doing missions to Mars or other planets, but that's because they want
the spacecraft to survive. So in those cases slowing down slowly is a
feature.


Alain Fournier