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Here it is, the grand plan for the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) as presented yesterday at the the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Guadalajara, Mexico:
On Tuesday (Sept. 27), Musk unveiled SpaceX's planned Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), a rocket-spaceship combo that the billionaire entrepreneur hopes will allow humanity to establish a permanent, self-sustaining, million-person settlement on the Red Planet. Mars is the first planned stop for ITS, but it may not be the last. "This system really gives you freedom to go anywhere you want in the greater solar system," Musk said Tuesday at the International Astronautical Congress meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico. With the aid of strategically placed refueling depots, "you could actually travel out to the Kuiper Belt [and] the Oort Cloud," Musk added. The Kuiper Belt is Pluto's neck of the woods, while the Oort Cloud, the realm of comets, is even more distant; it begins about 2,000 astronomical units (AU) from the sun.
[...] The ITS booster will be the most powerful rocket ever built, capable of lofting 300 tons to low-Earth orbit (LEO) in its reusable version and 550 tons in its expendable variant, Musk said. This rocket will blast the spaceship, which will carry at least 100 people, to LEO, where further launches will fuel the smaller vehicle. When the time is right — Earth and Mars align favorably for interplanetary missions just once every 26 months — a fleet of these spaceships will depart from LEO, arriving at the Red Planet in as little as 80 days, Musk said. The ITS — both the rocket and spaceship — will be powered by SpaceX's Raptor engines, which run on a combination of methane and oxygen. Both of these ingredients can be manufactured on Mars and other places in the solar system, Musk said, meaning that the spaceship can and will be refueled far from Earth.
[...] The ITS spaceship could therefore go very far afield, provided it could access refueling stations along the way. "By establishing a propellant depot in the asteroid belt or one of the moons of Jupiter, you can make flights from Mars to Jupiter no problem," Musk said. "It'd be really great to do a mission to Europa, particularly," he added, referring to the ocean-harboring Jovian moon, which many astrobiologists regard as one of the solar system's best bets to host alien life. Building additional depots farther from the sun — perhaps on Saturn's moon Titan and Pluto, for example — could theoretically extend the ITS spaceship's reach all the way out to the Oort Cloud, Musk said. "This basic system, provided we have filling stations along the way, means full access to the entire greater solar system," he said.
The first Mars ferry will be named "Heart of Gold". Unfortunately, these bold settlers will have to be kept away from potential microbial life.
Additional Coverage:
Making Humans an Interplanetary Species - Video of Musk Presentation at IAC [1h4m46s]
Same, but with Q&A session [1h58m22s]
Making Humans an Interplanetary Species - Slides of Presentation at IAC (pdf)
SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System - Video mockup presented at IAC [4m21s]
SpaceX - Mars
Musk’s Mars moment: Audacity, madness, brilliance—or maybe all three story at Ars Technica
Elon Musk envisions 'fun' but dangerous trips to Mars (Update 4) at phys.org
Previous coverage:
SpaceX's Mars Colonial Transporter Becomes the "Interplanetary Transport System"
(Score: 4, Informative) by Absolutely.Geek on Wednesday September 28 2016, @10:18PM
I like the idea; seems like it is possible to do this within a few years. There is no impossible or outright improbable tech being pushed here.
But why start with Mars? Why not build a better ISS? A big rotating can (maybe inflatable) in the sky; big enough to create gravity, farm crops etc... then expand to two, setup orbital manufacturing. I am thinking along the lines of the glitter band in Alastair Reynolds novels. When we can have humans living in orbital colonies for 20+ years with no ill effects then we should look at moving on. If you created a habitat 50m in diameter (internal) and 50m long the internal volume would be 98,174m^3 with an internal surface area of 7854m^2 or nearly 2 acres (this is ignoring internal "floors" also). That is not a particularly big object to launch.
But by that point what is the point of dropping into a gravity well? Just like cruise liners the orbital habitats will get bigger and better with each passing year dropping down to a planet seems like going backwards. The "gravity" of the habitats will be tunable; there would be an advantage to athletes that train in slowly ramping gravity...would that be considered doping? Manufacturing in micro or extra gravity as required.
Obviously getting a significant number of people to high Earth orbit is energetically cheaper then all the way to Mars (not that much though); and you are much closer to Earth should something go wrong.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by forkazoo on Wednesday September 28 2016, @10:36PM
Living with some gravity, with some atmosphere, further from solar radiation, with ready access to resources to build with, is both easier in many way and also a longer term investment. A jumbo ISS is never going to be permanently self sustaining, or capable of handling a growing population. As soon as one mechanical problem means you spring a leak, a space station has permanently lost mass and needs resupply. Pop a leak in your Mars habitat? Well, mine some ice and crack it to get some more Oxygen from the environment around you. Or walk on foot to a neighbor habitat if it's a bad leak.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @04:16AM
Do you and the people who modded you up even know what you're talking about?
1) "Some gravity". And where is the scientific evidence showing that Mars gravity is enough? We have near _zero_ scientific data on this (even for mice). We've got data for "zero" and data for around 1G (and maybe above 1G), but very little in between. Somehow NASA etc have money to talk about Mars but no money for boring stuff like this module: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifuge_Accommodations_Module [wikipedia.org]
The fact is if Mars gravity isn't enough it's far far harder to adjust it there than to adjust the acceleration in a suitable space station (which can be built - you don't need a huge one - just tethers and counterweight(s) ).
2) "Some atmosphere" Do you realize how thin Mars atmosphere is? It's 0.6% the pressure of the Earth. You will still need spacesuits to go "outside" since it is below the Armstrong limit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_limit [wikipedia.org]
You can't just walk about wearing a face mask with oxygen.
So on Mars you, your livestock and plants will all effectively be living in a "jumbo space station" too. So it's not going to be much cheaper than a space station in space. If you want to talk about resources, water and O2, many asteroids have similar resources to Mars with the benefit of lower G so it is far less expensive to get on and off them.
Lots of people are biased by their experience on Earth or by the bullshit spouted by NASA and Musk so they assume a planet like Mars has got to be more suitable than a spacestation in space. But that's not true based on actual scientific evidence. The atmosphere is wrong, the gravity is wrong, and in many areas on Mars there is a night so you don't get solar energy, and it's a gravity well. All for what real benefit? Lots of land that you can't use without covering with "space station stuff"?
Seems to me Musk and NASA are in the business of getting suckers to fund them to play with their toys.
(Score: 2) by Absolutely.Geek on Sunday October 02 2016, @08:38PM
A jumbo ISS is never going to be permanently self sustaining, or capable of handling a growing population
Why not? Asteroid capture would bring in all the raw materials for orbital manufacturing and repair of existing facilities.
I don't think this would happen in the short term; for the first decade or two the new habitats would be very reliant on resupply from Earth.
However as we got better and better at 0g manufacturing; the habitats would become self sustaining and even self multiplying. Once you start manufacturing habs in orbit; the only limit is mechanical strength; 200m diameter, 1km, 100km???? Redesign your hab to also be a ship; 6 x 200m diameter x 100m length (4 floors takes this to over 1km^2 or 2500 acres) counter rotating habs on a central axis with extra radiation shielding and attach whatever the most advanced propulsion system of the day is and start touring the solar system; population 10,000 + crops and life support.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by theluggage on Wednesday September 28 2016, @11:06PM
But why start with Mars? Why not build a better ISS? A big rotating can (maybe inflatable) in the sky; big enough to create gravity, farm crops etc... then expand to two, setup orbital manufacturing.
This.
Build the infrastructure for exploiting the resources of the solar system - so the raw materials needed to keep humans alive in space don't have to be dragged out of a gravity well - before trying manned Hail Mary passes to the planets.
What I don't understand about the Musk plans is the idea of re-using the Earth-Mars ship: which means having to refuel it on Mars, launch it from Mars, fly it back to Earth and, what, build it to withstand re-entry and landing on Earth for re-fitting? if you're going to land it on Mars, isn't it more valuable as the centrepiece of your semi-permanent Mars colony? If you want to re-use it, isn't it better to leave it in orbit and go down to mars in a much smaller ascent/descent vehicle?
I think I prefer the set-up in The Martian with a non-landing Earth-Mars ferry, and the ascent vehicle and hab safely delivered to Mars before you even leave Earth (especially on a Mars without unfeasibly violent plot-device sandstorms).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Wednesday September 28 2016, @11:33PM
Luna is the best of both worlds. Shallow gravity well and lack of atmosphere make for cheap launches. You can dig in for radiation shielding. You can mine air, water, fuel, and materials, and there's plenty of sun for energy. On top of that you're close enough to Earth for supplies and emergency help.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by el_oscuro on Thursday September 29 2016, @02:18AM
Doing either would benefit mankind immensely. Just one example: sustainable food production. On earth, our current food production methods are horribly inefficient from an environmental, energy, and carbon perspective. Any colonies would have to be much better, and everything they do could be used to benefit life on Earth.
In fact, the knowledge we gain from a sustainable colony could dwarf both the Apollo missions and the development of the Internet.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 29 2016, @01:07PM
Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to improve food production on Earth?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @05:55AM
It is more like the worst of both worlds.
On the moon you have:
* No atmosphere. On Mars, while you would still need a spacesuit, it could be more like a pilot's pressure suit than a full spacesuit needed in hard vacuum. This means much easier working conditions outside.
* A day/night cycle which no Earth plant is adapted for, making crops impossible to grow under natural lighting. Mars has a day/night cycle almost the same as Earth.
* Very low gravity. While there is no proof that Martian gravity is enough to prevent health issues, it has been shown that it is enough to prevent the extreme clumsiness experienced by astronauts on the Moon.
* High radiation. Mars has at least a little bit of atmosphere to help protect from radiation. It is likely that you would need a shielded or underground habitat on either location, but either way it is no advantage to the Moon.
* Incredibly difficult dust. Dust on the Moon is like billions of tiny saw blades. On Mars, while the dust is finer than is found on Earth, it has experienced billions of years of erosion and is much more manageable. Even the famous Martian dust storms are quite manageable compared to the destructive lunar dust.
* No likely usable minerals. The Moon has never had geological or hydrological activity. There is therefore no process which could have produced the concentrations of minerals which are practical to extract on Earth. While Mars has no active geology now, it once did, and is likely to have some concentrated minerals - and untouched by thousands of years of human mining.
* Very little water, and what there is, is concentrated at the poles. Mars has water all over the place.
* No moons. The Martian moons are perfect natural space stations, small enough to have almost no gravity of their own (you could probably jump off of Deimos and go into orbit around Mars) yet large enough to be suitable for construction. And they are conveniently located, too, with Phobos in a very low orbit, easy to access from the surface, and Deimos in a high one, suitable for launching missions to the asteroids.
* Although actually fairly close to the asteroid belt in energy terms, the Moon is much more distant in terms of travel time. Asteroids could only be mined remotely with the mining equipment returning periodically for servicing; from Mars, humans could reasonably fly there (although they might not want to stay unless artificial gravity is provided).
* Much harsher temperatures. Temperatures on the Moon go from really-freaking-cold to surprisingly very hot, with a 500 degree F variation at the equator. While the temperature on Mars is colder than Earth, it is relatively stable, with temperatures at the equator varying over approximately Antarctic levels.
* Buzz Aldrin, who has actually been to the Moon, thinks Mars is a better place to live. That's not proof, but it counts for something.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 29 2016, @02:48PM
With the combination of this and your other post (you sound like the same AC), you seem to be saying that every off-Earth place to live sucks.
* No moons. The Martian moons are perfect natural space stations, small enough to have almost no gravity of their own (you could probably jump off of Deimos and go into orbit around Mars) yet large enough to be suitable for construction. And they are conveniently located, too, with Phobos in a very low orbit, easy to access from the surface, and Deimos in a high one, suitable for launching missions to the asteroids.
How are the moons of Mars appreciably different than our own?
So living on Mars would suck, living on the moon would suck, and many of the reasons living on the moon would suck also would seem to apply to living on a space station.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @05:32AM
No, the other AC isn't me. I think Mars is a fine place to colonize. I don't like the Moon, though, because the only thing it has going for it is that it's close. And I actually think that is a drawback, since it encourages "test pilot thinking," in which you treat a moon base like a more difficult version of the ISS, rather than "settler thinking," in which you treat it like a place that's actually going to be a home.
Phobos and Deimos are almost nothing like the Moon. They are more like asteroids. They probably actually are asteroids, although there are dissenting astronomers on that point. They are small enough to be easy places to build (with virtually no gravity, it's easy to build underground, because you hardly need any structure to prevent a cave-in). Building underground protects you from radiation. But they are also great places to stop and refuel or repair or, eventually, do manufacturing from all the asteroid-based resources you're probably bringing back. But they're massive enough that you could attach a skyhook-style launch system to them. And doing all this construction and base-building is great practice for asteroid mining. Even with building underground to protect against radiation, you wouldn't want to live there for more than a few months because of the microgravity, but they're a great place to visit.
The Earth's moon on the other hand is more like a small planet. A planet without much in the way of resources.
(Score: 5, Funny) by isostatic on Wednesday September 28 2016, @11:40PM
As I understand it Musk wants to retire on mars, hence he's going to Mars.
You will retire in your moms basement saying "mars is rubbish you should listen to me instead"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 29 2016, @01:28AM
Why not build a better ISS?
What could SpaceX do with that that their customers won't do better? Visiting Mars has the virtue of doing something that can't be done by people on or near Earth (like I can't visit Paris, if I never leave my front lawn).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @07:30AM
i can!
google streetview ftw
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @02:41PM
His front lawn isn't covered by the WLAN in his basement. Therefore he has to leave the front lawn to visit Paris.