MarsColony_in10years

TL;DR: What needs to happen to grow SpaceX to the point where you can afford to enable the colonization of Mars?

Even Mars Direct, which would only involve temporary stays on Mars rather than colonization, would cost ~$1.5B/year. SpaceX is worth <$10 billion as a company, and the launch industry is only a ~$6B/year industry. Growing SpaceX's profit margin by a couple orders of magnitude will be difficult due to low market elasticity; you're betting Mars (the fate of the human race) that lowering launch prices will trigger a large increase in demand, allowing SpaceX to grow.

• Given that the only growth and market elasticity seems to be in the small satellite and CubeSat launch industry, why did you cancel Falcon 1 after only 2 successful launches?

• How specifically do you intend to increase SpaceX launch revenue by orders of magnitude?

• Will cheap/reusable launches have a similar profit margin, or will profits/launch fall?

• Is the SpaceX WorldVu partnership an attempt to grow the satellite industry, or for SpaceX to branch out into a more lucrative industry? (The satellite industry is a ~$200B/year industry)

• What other approaches (by SpaceX or others) might grow the industry by orders of magnitude?

In your recent MIT talk, you mentioned that you didn't think 2^nd stage recovery was possible for the Falcon 9. This is due to low fuel efficiency of kerosene fuel, and the high velocities needed for many payloads (high orbits like Geostationary orbit). However, you also said that full reusability would be possible for the Mars Colonial Transporter launch vehicle.

What have you learned from flights of Falcon 9 that taught you

a) that reuse of its second stage won't be possible and

b) what you'll need to do differently with MCT to reuse its second stage.

You can only fit a couple different instruments on a rover, so you can only take a handful of different types of measurements. Different techniques tell you different things, but we've only seen the tip of the iceberg so far, due to limited instrumentation.

We have a couple meteorites that fell to earth after being flung into space by massive asteroid impacts on Mars. Those tell us come composition info, but only really what atoms are in it, since many molecules were torn apart by the heat and pressure. It'd be like looking at a lava flow on Earth and trying to extrapolate what compounds are in soil.

NASA Actually has a list of "Strategic Knowledge Gaps" which it wants to check off before it'd be willing to send people. A huge number would be filled by a Mars Sample Return.

start that process by collecting samples to return in a later mission

Well, they are dumping the samples unceremoniously in in piles, instead of canning them and carrying them along. I know this is outside your field, but isn't having to send a retrieval rover a huge delay factor? Is the added freedom to explore really worth the added complexity to the return mission, or was is purely a budget based decision?

I was really sad to see that announcement, and I worry that this decadal survey's goals are getting closer and closer to 20 years out.

Thanks for the info! I can't help but pry further though. Understanding that MCT is still in the design phase, are you looking into any of the following?

• spinning it for gravity?

• orbital assembly/refueling?

• Sabatier chemical plant (for methane fuel production) integrated within MCT, or delivered beforehand?