
SpaceX: Making Life Multiplanetary [video] - lpaone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5V7R_se1Xc
======
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/](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...](http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Ministerial_Council_2016/Moon_Village).

\- Transporting Government/Private equipment to Mars.

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

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

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

------
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.

~~~
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.

~~~
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...](https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part2.htm)

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

------
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?

~~~
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porkchop_plot)

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

------
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/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/)

~~~
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. :(

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

~~~
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?

~~~
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.

------
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.

------
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...](http://www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE/ASC/DATA/bibliography/ICRC2005/usa-
mewaldt-RA-abs1-sh35-oral.pdf) [1]:
[https://xkcd.com/radiation/](https://xkcd.com/radiation/) [2]:
[https://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d76205x/research/shieldin...](https://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d76205x/research/shielding/docs/spillantini_00.pdf)

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.

~~~
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-...](https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/spacexs-big-fking-rocket-the-full-
story.html)

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

------
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](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?)

~~~
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.

~~~
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.)

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

~~~
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?

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

------
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.

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

------
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.

~~~
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?

~~~
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.

~~~
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.

