While it's hard for me to appreciate "a promised land I won’t live to see," your infectiously optimistic view of these things actually stimulates interest I would otherwise never have had, which (for me, at least) is saying quite a lot.
“It needs another flight or two so they can pretend it wasn’t a failure, then they’ll fold it up.”
This is not entirely accurate. The SLS will get another flight or two because Starship isn’t ready yet. The current head of NASA will drop SLS like a hot potato first chance he gets.
I like the way you inverted the RAF slogan. To the Stars thru adversity is better than Thru adversity to the stars IMO because the first clause is the objective
The universe offers a lifetime of wonder. Through my $550 Seestar I am photographing NGC 2903, 25,000,000 million light years from earth, which has to be an immense structure to be viewable from that distance, and looking back in time 25,000,000 million years. Too bad we cannot yet look forward that far.
These images and distances underscore the unfathomable vastness of the universe inhabited by untold intellects of which we are probably among the least developed. It's just the beginning really and as this post reveals, Elon is opening the door thanks to the greatest country on earth and capitalism. I am sorry NASA, you did some good stuff but a government bureaucracy could never accomplish what Space X is offering.
It's unimaginable that life could travel these distances even at the speed of light, so if there are other worldly creatures visiting and observing us, they must have figured something out well beyond our crude understanding of physics. Certainly mine anyway. So much wonder for future generations to discover if we don’t blow it.
Forgive me for picking nits, but I'd be interested to see the calculations that justify the claim that we are Kardazhev 0.7. We aren't even exploiting tides, for God's sake, let alone the vast energy sources of the core. We're even hardly exploiting nuclear.
The sky's the limit. As G Harry Stine used to say, "Get out your buckets; it's raining soup." But we do have to get out our buckets.
Ah. I guess the key is that it's a log scale, which I should have expected. (And that it's based on comparing to total solar insolation, in which case even the core is non-renewable!)
Still, 0.7 makes it seem like we are getting close, while in fact we are 1/10,000 of the way there. Make sure your cryonics contract is secure!
We SHOULD have lived to see it. Everything was screwed up after the Challenger exploded. In 1987 I took a class called Exploration of Space. The professor provided us with a timeline of development of human Space travel. In five years the Aerospace plane that can take off and land like an airplane. In ten years the permanent space station in low earth orbit (A real one not the tiny things we still have). Within 20 years a permanent base on the moon. There would be a permanent shuttle orbiting between the Space station and the moon and by now probably a shuttle orbiting between the moon and mars. We lost 40 years of manned space development thanks to myopic fools.
Jerry Pournelle and I were pen pals in the 80's and 90's while I was in the Army. I used to write him letters from the driver's hole of my tank. The first one I wrote was a 19 year old private who never expected one of his absolute favorite authors to write him back. But Jerry did and we ended up writing back and forth on the military, our dreams of space, and much more over the years. In the 90's that changed from physical letters to emails, but it continued on well into the 2000's. I'm sure Jerry is out there somewhere looking down on all that is happening, happy as a clam! And Robert Heinlein, too! I'm 59 now and my own dream of living on the moon seems to be unlikely, but I WILL live to see humans on the moon and mars, of that I'm finally certain.
I truly think this a superpower "... how Elon Musk has managed to hire so many utterly competent people, both engineers and non-engineers for his companies "
"Large structures in Earth orbit will ultimately be built with materials from the Moon and the asteroids more than with materials from Earth. They may be delivered from the Moon to Earth orbit." I just can't see how complex manufacturing could take place in orbit. How could we build supply chains for tens of thousands of components; fabricate steel, aluminum, and titanium parts; and establish production lines and clean room procedures in vehicles orbiting the earth? But of course we might produce another Elon Musk!
I appreciate Glenn's enthusiasm, but the math on Elon's Grand Scheme is a little daunting. To build out his dream of orbital solar collectors powering AI Data Centers, he want to lift 10 million tons of material into orbit every year. The new V.3 rocket, even if it is successful, will be able to lift just 200 tons per launch. To meet his goal would require 50,000 launches per year, or 137 launches per day!
I went over a number of further doubts I have about the practicality (and the wisdom) of his interplanetary and intergalactic schemes in a recent Substack (and accompanying video) which made me wildly unpopular, because apparently nobody is supposed to question the Great Elon!
Link to video is at the bottom of the Substack here:
“The new V.3 rocket, even if it is successful, will be able to lift just 200 tons per launch.”
Actually, it will be 100 tons per launch. V4 will do 200 tons. The AI Data Centers will require V4 because it will be a lot cheaper to operate than the more primitive V3. Elon will have a huge amount of Starship towers to meet the launch cadence that he needs. He already has more Starship towers finished or under construction than Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy towers and Starship hasn’t even reached orbit yet. Once SpaceX gets V4 going, Elon will go warp speed on towers.
Ha, ha. Good post. That is what scientific method is supposed to be about. I don’t pretend to have any expertise in this subject, but following your post I got this: An earth based 40 MW Cluster: Requires a solar array of roughly \(0.03 \text{ km}^2\) (about the size of 4-5 football fields). If Gemini is correct it would weigh about 2,500 tons. Of course this is just the solar field and not the data center, transmitters and other technology required to distribute the power. The amount of space debris has to be an issue at some point. Some day the night sky may be dominated by glowing solar arrays.
“Damn, how I wish Jerry Pournelle could be watching this.”
Oh, he is. I'm morally certain of it.
While it's hard for me to appreciate "a promised land I won’t live to see," your infectiously optimistic view of these things actually stimulates interest I would otherwise never have had, which (for me, at least) is saying quite a lot.
Wholeheartedly agree with all your points; exciting times.
one nit, the fuel is CH4 (methane), not methanol.
Crap, you're right. Brain burp. Will fix.
From what Jerry told me around 2015, he had Elon's ear for several conversations. X project like development and all the rest of SpaceX is pure Jerry.
“It needs another flight or two so they can pretend it wasn’t a failure, then they’ll fold it up.”
This is not entirely accurate. The SLS will get another flight or two because Starship isn’t ready yet. The current head of NASA will drop SLS like a hot potato first chance he gets.
I like the way you inverted the RAF slogan. To the Stars thru adversity is better than Thru adversity to the stars IMO because the first clause is the objective
The universe offers a lifetime of wonder. Through my $550 Seestar I am photographing NGC 2903, 25,000,000 million light years from earth, which has to be an immense structure to be viewable from that distance, and looking back in time 25,000,000 million years. Too bad we cannot yet look forward that far.
These images and distances underscore the unfathomable vastness of the universe inhabited by untold intellects of which we are probably among the least developed. It's just the beginning really and as this post reveals, Elon is opening the door thanks to the greatest country on earth and capitalism. I am sorry NASA, you did some good stuff but a government bureaucracy could never accomplish what Space X is offering.
It's unimaginable that life could travel these distances even at the speed of light, so if there are other worldly creatures visiting and observing us, they must have figured something out well beyond our crude understanding of physics. Certainly mine anyway. So much wonder for future generations to discover if we don’t blow it.
Glenn, nice integration of the Musk enterprises. But you didn’t mention Neuralink — how do you see that fitting into Musk’s aspirations?
"Oath of Fealty" by Niven and Pournelle addresses this.
I assume this is the Pournelle who wrote sci fi books with Niven. Great reads.
Forgive me for picking nits, but I'd be interested to see the calculations that justify the claim that we are Kardazhev 0.7. We aren't even exploiting tides, for God's sake, let alone the vast energy sources of the core. We're even hardly exploiting nuclear.
The sky's the limit. As G Harry Stine used to say, "Get out your buckets; it's raining soup." But we do have to get out our buckets.
They aren't my calculations, but if you'll follow my link you'll see where they come from. I was going to guess more like 0.6 but it was just a guess.
Also, Harry Stine deserves to be remembered too.
Ah. I guess the key is that it's a log scale, which I should have expected. (And that it's based on comparing to total solar insolation, in which case even the core is non-renewable!)
Still, 0.7 makes it seem like we are getting close, while in fact we are 1/10,000 of the way there. Make sure your cryonics contract is secure!
We SHOULD have lived to see it. Everything was screwed up after the Challenger exploded. In 1987 I took a class called Exploration of Space. The professor provided us with a timeline of development of human Space travel. In five years the Aerospace plane that can take off and land like an airplane. In ten years the permanent space station in low earth orbit (A real one not the tiny things we still have). Within 20 years a permanent base on the moon. There would be a permanent shuttle orbiting between the Space station and the moon and by now probably a shuttle orbiting between the moon and mars. We lost 40 years of manned space development thanks to myopic fools.
Jerry Pournelle and I were pen pals in the 80's and 90's while I was in the Army. I used to write him letters from the driver's hole of my tank. The first one I wrote was a 19 year old private who never expected one of his absolute favorite authors to write him back. But Jerry did and we ended up writing back and forth on the military, our dreams of space, and much more over the years. In the 90's that changed from physical letters to emails, but it continued on well into the 2000's. I'm sure Jerry is out there somewhere looking down on all that is happening, happy as a clam! And Robert Heinlein, too! I'm 59 now and my own dream of living on the moon seems to be unlikely, but I WILL live to see humans on the moon and mars, of that I'm finally certain.
I truly think this a superpower "... how Elon Musk has managed to hire so many utterly competent people, both engineers and non-engineers for his companies "
"Large structures in Earth orbit will ultimately be built with materials from the Moon and the asteroids more than with materials from Earth. They may be delivered from the Moon to Earth orbit." I just can't see how complex manufacturing could take place in orbit. How could we build supply chains for tens of thousands of components; fabricate steel, aluminum, and titanium parts; and establish production lines and clean room procedures in vehicles orbiting the earth? But of course we might produce another Elon Musk!
I don't know why you think complex production can't occur in orbit.
I appreciate Glenn's enthusiasm, but the math on Elon's Grand Scheme is a little daunting. To build out his dream of orbital solar collectors powering AI Data Centers, he want to lift 10 million tons of material into orbit every year. The new V.3 rocket, even if it is successful, will be able to lift just 200 tons per launch. To meet his goal would require 50,000 launches per year, or 137 launches per day!
I went over a number of further doubts I have about the practicality (and the wisdom) of his interplanetary and intergalactic schemes in a recent Substack (and accompanying video) which made me wildly unpopular, because apparently nobody is supposed to question the Great Elon!
Link to video is at the bottom of the Substack here:
https://corrin.substack.com/p/elon-is-a-wild-and-crazy-guy
I'm pretty sure Elon has done the math.
“The new V.3 rocket, even if it is successful, will be able to lift just 200 tons per launch.”
Actually, it will be 100 tons per launch. V4 will do 200 tons. The AI Data Centers will require V4 because it will be a lot cheaper to operate than the more primitive V3. Elon will have a huge amount of Starship towers to meet the launch cadence that he needs. He already has more Starship towers finished or under construction than Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy towers and Starship hasn’t even reached orbit yet. Once SpaceX gets V4 going, Elon will go warp speed on towers.
Ha, ha. Good post. That is what scientific method is supposed to be about. I don’t pretend to have any expertise in this subject, but following your post I got this: An earth based 40 MW Cluster: Requires a solar array of roughly \(0.03 \text{ km}^2\) (about the size of 4-5 football fields). If Gemini is correct it would weigh about 2,500 tons. Of course this is just the solar field and not the data center, transmitters and other technology required to distribute the power. The amount of space debris has to be an issue at some point. Some day the night sky may be dominated by glowing solar arrays.