Overnight to Mars

[novaphile]

On the Overnight to Mars, will they be serving meals, or just stale peanuts and crackers? And how much is a Scotch and Soda? The price will be astronomical!

Well, since the current best price to put a kilogram into space is $1500, we can probably make a guess...

750 ml bottle of Scotch costs $1125 to carry into space, which works out to $66 per shot (if you can get 17 shots out of the bottle).
Similar figure for the soda (assuming that you only have a dash of soda with your scotch), so another $66.

Plus the original cost of the scotch and soda, say $100 because you're not going to pay for rubbish in space, plus the profit margin.

(I'd assume that our space company wants to make at least 100 percent profit considering their incredible overheads.)

This gives us:

($66 + $66 + $5) * 2 = $274

How does that sound?

$274 for a Scotch and soda.

Of course, that's the price for when you've just reached orbit and you're having your Scotch and Soda on the orbital platform.

The cost per kilogram to get that bottle of scotch, and the soda to Mars would be significantly higher.

Currently, the cost of moving one kilogram to Mars, costs anywhere from $200,000 to $300,000.

Assuming the cheaper price, you'd be looking at $12,000 just to get your shot of Scotch to Mars, so again, assuming 100% profit, something like $25,000 per drink.

For ◊◊◊◊◊ and giggles, calculate how much it will cost you to ship up a drilling rig to 'mine methane' on Mars.

The really scary thought?

Your water is going to cost $200,000 per litre until you can find some on Mars.

That makes your Scotch and soda look pretty cheap, doesn't it?

 

[shemp]

Well, since the current best price to put a kilogram into space is $1500, we can probably make a guess...

750 ml bottle of Scotch costs $1125 to carry into space, which works out to $66 per shot (if you can get 17 shots out of the bottle).
Similar figure for the soda (assuming that you only have a dash of soda with your scotch), so another $66.

Plus the original cost of the scotch and soda, say $100 because you're not going to pay for rubbish in space, plus the profit margin.

(I'd assume that our space company wants to make at least 100 percent profit considering their incredible overheads.)

This gives us:

($66 + $66 + $5) * 2 = $274

How does that sound?

$274 for a Scotch and soda.

Of course, that's the price for when you've just reached orbit and you're having your Scotch and Soda on the orbital platform.

The cost per kilogram to get that bottle of scotch, and the soda to Mars would be significantly higher.

Currently, the cost of moving one kilogram to Mars, costs anywhere from $200,000 to $300,000.

Assuming the cheaper price, you'd be looking at $12,000 just to get your shot of Scotch to Mars, so again, assuming 100% profit, something like $25,000 per drink.

For ◊◊◊◊◊ and giggles, calculate how much it will cost you to ship up a drilling rig to 'mine methane' on Mars.

The really scary thought?

Your water is going to cost $200,000 per litre until you can find some on Mars.

That makes your Scotch and soda look pretty cheap, doesn't it?

Yes, but when fusion reactors become feasible to power spaceships, it will be much cheaper! I expect this to be feasible in about 20,000 years or so! Buy your ticket NOW!

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Here is one answer on how to reduce costs; In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) in extraterrestrial environments

Blue Alchemist is one step closer to creating sustainable infrastructure on the moon

Blue Origin is committed to making a permanent human presence in space a reality. To this end, they have developed the New Shepard and New Glenn rockets to send payloads to orbit, and aim to create super-heavy launch vehicles to reach the moon (New Armstrong and Blue Origin) and beyond. Another...

phys.org

Carried to a logical("?") extreme -- you send a machine the size of a shoe-box to the Moon or Mars and there it starts to work mining and extracting oxygen, other gases, and minerals from the native environment which it uses to build solar cells and more complex machines. These machines build artificial structures. They clunk along expanding and building until they have a completed city suitable for human habitation.

(Disclaimer. I once wrote an outline of a SF story based on this idea but story ended in failure due to a mix-up between metric and imperial measurements such that the arriving astronauts could not fit inside the tiny structures. )

 

[rjh01]

The problem of cheap space travel was solved in the 1950s. It was called Project Orian.
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

Project Orion was a study conducted in the 1950s and 1960s by the United States Air Force, DARPA,[1] and NASA into the viability of a nuclear pulse spaceship that would be directly propelled by a series of atomic explosions behind the craft.

 

[arthwollipot]

I'm not sure nuclear pulse engines "solve" space travel. And I'm pretty sure it violates several treaties that prohibit nuclear weapons in space.

 

[GlennB]

Here is one answer on how to reduce costs; In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) in extraterrestrial environments

Blue Alchemist is one step closer to creating sustainable infrastructure on the moon

Blue Origin is committed to making a permanent human presence in space a reality. To this end, they have developed the New Shepard and New Glenn rockets to send payloads to orbit, and aim to create super-heavy launch vehicles to reach the moon (New Armstrong and Blue Origin) and beyond. Another...

phys.org

Carried to a logical("?") extreme -- you send a machine the size of a shoe-box to the Moon or Mars and there it starts to work mining and extracting oxygen, other gases, and minerals from the native environment which it uses to build solar cells and more complex machines. These machines build artificial structures. They clunk along expanding and building until they have a completed city suitable for human habitation.

(Disclaimer. I once wrote an outline of a SF story based on this idea but story ended in failure due to a mix-up between metric and imperial measurements such that the arriving astronauts could not fit inside the tiny structures. )

That sounds like quite a clever device. Obviously it can move around and detect and collect necessary minerals. Does it have lathes and the ability to cast molten metals? Can it manufacture wires? Sounds like some kind of magic wand. Is its design and structure published somewhere?
I guess they're busy at work here on Earth too, what with being so useful and tireless.

 

[arthwollipot]

3d printing can do a lot. It can't do everything, but it can do a lot. In the meantime, isolating particular minerals on site is a big advance.

 

[GlennB]

3d printing can do a lot. It can't do everything, but it can do a lot. In the meantime, isolating particular minerals on site is a big advance.

A 3d printer the size of a shoe box that can not only print a wide variety of complex stuff but can manufacture its own raw materials as it trundles around a rough, rocky, airless surface. Impressive!

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

That sounds like quite a clever device. Obviously it can move around and detect and collect necessary minerals. Does it have lathes and the ability to cast molten metals? Can it manufacture wires? Sounds like some kind of magic wand. Is its design and structure published somewhere?
I guess they're busy at work here on Earth too, what with being so useful and tireless.

The initial sheo-box-sized machine first builds another bigger, more complex machines with additional capabilities and so on. First they mine for minerals and water. Then they build things. At some point are smelters, lathes, solar panels, barrels of water and whatever is needed the ultimate machines to create a human-ready city.

Note: No AI actually required.

 

[ahhell]

On the Overnight to Mars, will they be serving meals, or just stale peanuts and crackers? And how much is a Scotch and Soda? The price will be astronomical!

That's why I plan on using points.

 

[Olmstead]

Yes, Azimov forbid people be inspired.

But if you want to talk practicalities, sure. Take that imaginary money you're saving by not supporting space colonization and think about what imaginary efforts you'd rather it be put to. Curing cancer? Global warming? Those are science fiction now too, because in reality the only country that might have hoped to host an offworld colony even as a staggeringly ill-conceived boondoggle is dismantling itself wholesale into a fascist oligarchy just to keep people from talking about how our president is a pedophile. He hasn't started another World War yet, but frankly it's on the table.

I don't know about you, but armageddon being science fiction or not I'd be a bit more reassured about the future of the human race if there were a whole other planet laughing at us right now and posting "chuckles Martianly" memes.

One wonders why you'd want to inflict the human race on another planet, especially one with such pleasing shades of rusty red when observed from a distance.

I'm not being facetious. I think the misery should be confined.

 

[theprestige]

The initial sheo-box-sized machine first builds another bigger, more complex machines with additional capabilities and so on. First they mine for minerals and water. Then they build things. At some point are smelters, lathes, solar panels, barrels of water and whatever is needed the ultimate machines to create a human-ready city.

Note: No AI actually required.

This is Theranos level nonsense. This is the kind of nonsense that needs to be measured in units of megaHolmes. This shoebox will never exist, just like the Theranos Edison shoebox will never exist, except as a lie. Blue Origin is lying, if they are claiming they have a box of any size, that can manufacture solar cells from dust without relying on external infrastructure and and processes.

Complex machines are not fractally composed. They're made of distinct specialist components, each made by a different class of specialist complex machine.

If you'd told me Blue Origin had developed a smart gel - computer-controlled nanomachines suspended in a nutrient bath - that could turn a given square footage of dirt into graded road per gallon of gel, I'd want to believe.

This just makes me want to point and laugh at Blue Origin.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

One wonders why you'd want to inflict the human race on another planet, especially one with such pleasing shades of rusty red when observed from a distance.

I'm not being facetious. I think the misery should be confined.

Do you think Mars would care? I mean it's not a living entity.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

This is Theranos level nonsense. This is the kind of nonsense that needs to be measured in units of megaHolmes. This shoebox will never exist, just like the Theranos Edison shoebox will never exist, except as a lie. Blue Origin is lying, if they are claiming they have a box of any size, that can manufacture solar cells from dust without relying on external infrastructure and and processes.

Complex machines are not fractally composed. They're made of distinct specialist components, each made by a different class of specialist complex machine.

If you'd told me Blue Origin had developed a smart gel - computer-controlled nanomachines suspended in a nutrient bath - that could turn a given square footage of dirt into graded road per gallon of gel, I'd want to believe.

This just makes me want to point and laugh at Blue Origin.

Oh ye of little faith.

There is already a real world analog. It's called a seed. Mighty Oaks from Little Acorns Grow.

I call on Arthur C Clarke:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Gord trots off to what an episode of

How It's Made - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[theprestige]

Oh ye of little faith.

And there it is. The faith based appeal of the charlatan. I wonder how many millions were scammed by Elizabeth Holmes and her sociopath boyfriend, using that exact same sales pitch.

There is already a real world analog. It's called a seed. Mighty Oaks from Little Acorns Grow.

Solar panel factories are in no way analogous to oak trees. I wonder how many useful idiots have been separated from their money by such sociopathic sales pitches.

I call on Arthur C Clarke:



Gord trots off to what an episode of

How It's Made - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Cool, now do billionaire tech bros trying to sell your government on their next big grift.

 

[theprestige]

Gord trots off to what an episode of

How It's Made - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Is that the episode where they tell you how an entire solar panel factory is made by a shoebox device, on another planet?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

What's with the sarcasm? Isn't this exactly what you wanted - supporting technologies developed and proven on Earth first? If you actually look at the article they're just talking about a proof of concept for electrolyzing molten regolith to drive off the oxygen. It doesn't mention any shoebox, although for a tech demonstration that's... about the right size I guess? A quick google turns up this paper that mentions the current approaches are heating with carbon to make CO2 and electrolyzing with room temperature solvents, so this would just be the best and/or worst of both worlds depending on if it works.

And GlennB, we'll need this too in our apocalypse mineshafts. We're not going to be able to melt down our bottlecaps for scrap, we'll need them to barter for boolets. New Cram cans and stimpack casings are going to have to come from somewhere.

 

[GlennB]

What's with the sarcasm? Isn't this exactly what you wanted - supporting technologies developed and proven on Earth first? If you actually look at the article they're just talking about a proof of concept for electrolyzing molten regolith to drive off the oxygen. It doesn't mention any shoebox, although for a tech demonstration that's... about the right size I guess? A quick google turns up this paper that mentions the current approaches are heating with carbon to make CO2 and electrolyzing with room temperature solvents, so this would just be the best and/or worst of both worlds depending on if it works.

And GlennB, we'll need this too in our apocalypse mineshafts. We're not going to be able to melt down our bottlecaps for scrap, we'll need them to barter for boolets. New Cram cans and stimpack casings are going to have to come from somewhere.

That paper is about the production of silicon, and uses carbon "by coke (elemental carbon or charcoal) at high process temperatures of 1,700°C or above" to produce it. Si is not a metal (though it has certain metallic properties, primarily some electrical conductivity). It's brittle and non-malleable and non-ductile. Why do you want Si? Where will the carbon come from? How will you generate such temperatures?

You haven't really thought this through, have you? You just splatted something out there ...

 

[Olmstead]

Do you think Mars would care? I mean it's not a living entity.

No, but if human race = misery, then human race on two planets = 2×misery.

Many like to paint an idyllic picture of martian colonization, but what if that's not the case? What if by simply not doing that, we prevent a bloody war between the colonists?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

That paper is about the production of silicon, and uses carbon "by coke (elemental carbon or charcoal) at high process temperatures of 1,700°C or above" to produce it. Si is not a metal (though it has certain metallic properties, primarily some electrical conductivity). It's brittle and non-malleable and non-ductile. Why do you want Si? Where will the carbon come from? How will you generate such temperatures?

You haven't really thought this through, have you? You just splatted something out there ...

The paper's about silicon electrolysis, actually. It just mentions the carbon approach in the intro. And neither is what the approach linked by Gord does; that's electrolysis done on molten regolith directly, without a chloride or fluoride solvent.

Come on, if you don't take this seriously we're both going to end up as rad-ghouls when the bombs drop.