Some thoughts on Elon Musk

I’ll start by saying that I’m a SpaceX fan.  I watched their first successful Falcon 1 flight and I probably jumped for joy at the thought at the beginning of a new era in spaceflight.  And at first, I was a Musk fan.  I think my biggest complaint was his focus on Mars.  I’m a Return to the Moon person, who thinks the best way to make humanity a spacefaring civilization is to go mine the asteroids and build the rotating space stations and ships we see so often in fiction.  In that type of world, Mars is more of a dead end.  I do support the scientific exploration of Mars, I just don’t see much future in colonizing it.

So I was never one of those who thought of Musk as the perfect sage.  But over the last few years, whenever I see him trending on Twitter, I groan and wonder, “What asshole thing did he do now?” My … respect, I guess you’d call it, for Musk has nosedived over the years, but the final straw came when I realized something.

There are multiple spacecraft in orbit of Mars right now.  The reason we have so many is that we don’t have tricorders, or sensors, that we can just point at an object and get 80,000 pieces of data about.  We have cameras that can only take pictures in a dozen or so wavelengths at only certain resolutions.  If we want super detailed images, that’s another camera.  If we want a look at subsurface stuff, that’s an entirely different instrument like ground penetrating radar.  Is there any radiation?  Well that’s another instrument.  And since these spacecraft were all paid for by governments, they try to get the broadest amount of science for their buck.  Meaning if someone really wanted to build a Mars Colony, they’d probably need a dedicated spacecraft with specific instruments to look for needed resources or potential hazards to help narrow down a site.  The Mars Orbiter Mission apparently cost less than $100 million, which is about what Musk makes when he sneezes.  So why hasn’t Musk paid to have the first privately funded interplanetary mission?  Some might say that it’s better to wait until the Starship is flying so they can send a big spacecraft to Mars.  But we can learn a lot with a small spacecraft that could be launched on a Falcon Heavy, which could lead to better choices on what to allocate on a future Starship. 

I’m starting to wonder, is Musk’s talk about Mars just a politician’s campaign promises?

What I would do if I ruled space

What I mean by ruling space is if I had control over all space activities: NASA, the China National Space Administration, SpaceX, etc. all had to do my bidding.  If it goes into space – be it a military satellite, a science mission to the outer solar system, or scientists doing experiments on a space station – I have the final say.  If I – somehow – had that power, this is what I’d do.

One of the first things I’d do would be to have a review of all rockets.  To be blunt, not all rockets are equal.  This review would weed out the not so good ones.  Any rockets that release massive death clouds of toxic fumes if they fail will be phased out.  The remaining rockets would be ranked on things like: reliability, cost, launch rate, etc.  The idea would not be to cut things down to one or two rockets.  That’s a bad idea.  I’d say more like twenty or so, with different fuels and launch capacities. 

Some nations want to have their own rockets for national pride.  And that’s great and all, but is it really best to spend billions of dollars to reinvent the rocket when – if there is some power that lets you do this – you could spend a fraction of that to launch your payloads on already existing rockets?

I might also start work on a universal rocket.  Basically, this would be a set design that could be built in four or five factories in various countries around the world close to a launch pad.  This would make it easier for customers because they’d know exactly what they need to do for their satellites.  And then they’d just have to get it to whatever launch pad works best for whatever orbit they want.

Now that I have the rockets sorted out, where will people be going?  My first idea is to have several new space stations.  These would probably be of an expandable module type, and would be larger than the current ISS, with a crew of, probably ten.  They would be specialized, one for biomedical, one for material sciences, one for little bit of everything.  My idea is these would have a “home port” which would be the primary launch site for crew and supplies.  So if you were doing research on the biomedical station, you’d launch from Florida, but if you were doing materials research, you’d launch from a Chinese spaceport. 

There would also be orbital hotels, brothels, retirement homes, etc.  I’m sure there are plenty of ideas for zero-g sports, some of which might actually be fun, so there will be stadiums.  Once we get lots of people into orbit, there’s no telling what will be needed or developed.

I’d also work on stations in lunar orbit.  These would be part of my return to the moon to stay plan, which I think would be my main space focus.  The point would be to have multiple research stations across the lunar surface studying the moon itself as well as how best to live there.  That knowledge would led to larger bases and eventually cities.  The idea from the start would be for the moon to eventually become an independent nation(s).

And what of Mars?  I support the scientific exploration of Mars, but I don’t think we are ready for a crewed Mars mission.  When we can go for a couple of years with a self-sustaining life support system on a space station, then I’ll feel more comfortable.  And when we do get to Mars, I just see research stations, not cities.  I don’t buy into the whole we need to colonize Mars thing.  (See my book The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars for more details.) 

As to robotic missions, I think we should have orbiters around every planet, dwarf planet, major satellite, and big asteroid.  If there’s a surface a rover can survive on, there should be dozens of rovers.  There should also be missions to comets, interstellar objects, interstellar space itself.  And there should be dozens of telescopes for every wavelength, from gamma rays to radio waves. 

As ruler of space, I would do everything I could to get humanity the knowledge it needs to fully become a spacefaring civilization.  I think that would be the best thing anyone could do.  What would you do if you ruled space?

Stuck on the moon

Yesterday I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw that someone had shared a post about people being upset that NASA will be sent back to the moon instead of being sent directly to Mars.  A comment that stuck out was that some people, apparently, are worried that we could end up “stuck on the moon.” This is in reference to humans being “stuck in Low Earth Orbit” for the past forty years since the end of Apollo. 

As someone who wants humanity to return to the moon because that will do far more towards making humanity a spacefaring civilization than going to Mars, I basically said “Bah,” and moved on.  But the phrase “stuck on the moon” … stuck with me, and it was some time later that I saw the flaw in the logic.

The reason we’ve been stuck in Low Earth Orbit for the past forty years is that we don’t have the capability to go farther.  The reason we don’t have the capability is that we don’t have the budget for it.  I mean, Saturn V’s weren’t cheap, and once we beat the Soviets to the moon, NASA had their budget drastically cut.  It’s not too farfetched to think that if NASA had kept the budget it had in the late 60’s, we’d have a lunar colony as well as Martian bases/colony by now. 

So what’s the worry?  That we’ll finally build a moon base and then the budgetary rug will be yanked out from beneath them?  I admit, that is a legitimate concern, but why wouldn’t that also be a concern for the far more expensive Mars base?  I mean, if we lack the technology/budget for a moon base, that also means we lack the technology/budget for a Mars base.  I guess some people think money will just magically appear to support a Mars base because … it’s Mars.

One of the main reasons I support returning to the moon over rushing off to Mars, is that there are things we can do on the moon to make money.  Things from lunar tourism to building solar panels to supply cheap, clean electricity to the billions left on Earth.  Yes, setting up a lunar base/colony will be expensive, but in a few decades it should repay the investment with interest.  Going to Mars will cost money.  The only things that a Mars colony could export will be genuine Mars rocks for museums and collectors and tchotchkes stamped “Made on Mars” for suckers, I mean, space enthusiasts to buy.  Meanwhile lunar colonies could be building communication satellites for Earth and growing food to supply the orbital hotels.

I’m sick of people saying we need to go to Mars to inspire future generations to build the infrastructure to make humanity a spacefaring civilization, who then look down on those of us who want to build the infrastructure to make humanity a spacefaring civilization right now on the moon.  If the choices are tangible results or inspiration, I go with tangible results.

Grab a free copy of “The Moon Before Mars”

This week, to mark the forty-eighth anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon, you can grab a free copy of my Kindle ebook “The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars” from now through Friday, July 21.  I see returning to the moon and setting up a permanent base/colony as our best bet for a foundation to build on making humanity a spacefaring civilization. 

Thoughts on SpaceX’s moon plan

When I saw that Elon Musk was going to make an announcement yesterday afternoon, I – like everyone – wondered what it could be.  I figured the best I could hope for was that he would announce that SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace had signed a contract to launch an expandable module to be either a private space station or a space hotel in 2019, or so.  But I figured it was more likely some Mars-based project they were working on since, while I love SpaceX, they do seem to be – in my opinion – overly focused on Mars.

I had to go to work, so it wasn’t until late last night that I got home and remembered to look up what the big announcement was.  In case you don’t know (then why are you reading this?) SpaceX plans to launch one of their Dragon 2 capsules on one of their Falcon Heavy rockets next year.  Onboard will be two people who will spend about a week in space.  Instead of just flying around the Earth, they will fly out to the moon, go around the back – letting them look down on the Farside of the Moon – before returning to Earth.

I was happily surprised by that announcement.  As the author of “The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makesmore sense than rushing off to Mars” I support all endeavors that refocus attention on the moon.  That’s why I love the Google Lunar X Prize and Unite Launch Alliance’s CisLunar-1000 idea.  For decades it seems that all the public has heard is “Mars Mars Mars,” so this is a great way to remind people that the moon exists and we can go there now.

However, while I hope everything about this works out as planned, I do have some cynical thoughts on the matter.  First off, SpaceX and deadlines don’t always go together.  Hell, even the announcement of this was half-an-hour late.  So while they’re saying this will go off in late 2018, I’d say that mid-2019 is a far more likely earliest time this could happen.

More serious is I have to wonder if this is a new service SpaceX will offer – flying two or three groups around the moon every year – or if it’s just a one-time stunt.  Possible reasons for such a stunt would be that just a couple weeks ago they announced a delay in the Red Dragon mission, which was to land an uncrewed Dragon capsule on Mars.  It was supposed to go in 2018, but they wouldn’t be ready so the first launch has slipped to 2020.  (Due to their orbits, there’s a best case launch window between Earth and Mars about every twenty-six months.) Could this sudden announcement to fly by the moon be a way to say, “Don’t worry, we’re still planning amazing things!”? 

Another possible reason for a stunt is the rise of suborbital space tourism.  Last year Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic made progress in their plans on sending tourists into space to experience a few minutes of microgravity.  If their testing continues to go well, they might begin test flights this year and start carrying passengers next.  Could SpaceX’s plan be a … dickish way of saying, “Yeah, they can get you into space for five minutes, but we can get you into space for a week and send you around the moon”?

In the end, what really matters is what actually happens.  For every space venture that actually lifts off, there have been a few thousand that never got passed the planning stage.  Hell, the Russians have been talking about a similar mission of sending people around the moon for like a decade now, but nothing seems to have come of it.  But I wish SpaceX, as well as United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Bigelow Aerospace, and the hundreds of other space businesses all the success.  To be frank, I’m starting to get tired waiting for the world they will build.