Base Camps

Derek Webber writes that in order to advance into the solar system NASA needs to take some lessons from Everest climbers.

Not to mention be willing to lose folks occasionally.

[Update a few minutes later]

Jeff Foust notes that there seems to be an emerging consensus that Mars is the goal, though none on how to do it.

Meanwhile, John Strickland says we need an integrated approach, with robots and humans. to get to Mars. He seems to be focusing on Mars surface water, though. I think we need to trade that with manufacturing propellants at Phobos or Deimos.

My take, as always, is that destinations are less important than capabilities. Put an off-planet space-transportation infrastructure in place, and the entire solar system (including Europa and Enceladus) is opened up to us. But Congress would rather build big rockets.

5 thoughts on “Base Camps”

  1. None on how to do it.

    Good grief. Ok, so he said consensus. Am I not doing my part? Where are the consenting adults?

    I feel like I’m back in NYC as a kid. I worked for a company that would install turnkey systems, but never the same one twice. They would get 10% down on $20k systems and send me in to install, convert data and overcome objections to make the final sale in two weeks. I finally hired someone to do the data conversion and was installing one a week. They were so successful they couldn’t keep up with orders and finally offered me two file draws full of customers (and I mean full) if I could keep them out of the courts.

    I knew this was too big a job for a 22 yo kid. So I got an old boss to agree to be my partner. Except he didn’t act like a partner. He wanted me to pay him up front when I had hundreds of customers that had already put down $2000, with $18k to go. The systems cost us much less than half that and I had a vendor that would give me 30 days net. Do the math. What is $9k x 100 or so split between two?

    He was a do nothing partner that wanted to be paid up front.

    What is a whole world worth? Why does everybody want to be paid up front?

    The good news is that by setting up a trust some of the greedy bastards will be paid up front.

    If I’m climbing a mountain the base camp isn’t my front yard. The base camp is the first dozen on mars preceded by abundant supplies waiting for them. This allows others to go at half the cost with experienced people already there to help them avoid the pitfalls. Elon didn’t do suborbital for a reason. I think his reasoning has shown results. Sometimes you have to stretch to accomplish more in less time. His MCT will be another leap forward. Having 100 crew means he can send 10 crew with supplies on the first mission, then send more crew with less supplies on each followup reducing the cost per crew until the MCT is at full capacity. We only have to break him of his commune thinking.

    Jeff says NASA should do it. How’s that SLS and Orion coming along? We don’t need NASA except how SpaceX uses NASA to accomplish their goals, not NASAs. Government is undesirable on a new world. It’s not very desirable on this one. Does anyone really believe the I.S.S. is a stepping stone to anywhere? We can use their data and ignore the rest. The moon is was on the critical path. We’re past it.

    Finally, of course we have both humans and robots. Robots are tools. Would we expect a machinist or chemist not to bring tools with them?

  2. My take, as always, is that destinations are less important than capabilities.

    This.

    What happened to the proposals to mine lunar oxygen and the ilk? The end goal should be a self-sustaining space economy or something close to it. From my point of view the less activities done in deep gravity wells the better. Especially the high mass commodity products like propellants.

  3. Elon wants to build big rockets. The difference is he has a use for them. That’s what happens when a businessman is in charge.

Comments are closed.