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Elon and SpaceX outline thier plans to go to Mars!

I dunno, half the popularity (probably more) of the recent high-wire walking and skydiving without parachute reality specials was the chance that the star of the show may die live on tv, so it's not without precedent.

Filming a reality show about the first attempt to colonize Mars may be grim/depressing live, but could probably be recut into something watchable without setting the space program back 100 years. Not like it's Hunger Games and we're selecting people to die, frame it more as brave struggle of early pioneers that know the score going in.

Not pushing for it, exactly, but at least there would be more to offer than a real-life Survivor and death porn...

If this ever comes to be there can be little doubt that it would be the highest rated reality show ever produced. Everyone would watch it. That said, I hope they don't.
 
If this ever comes to be there can be little doubt that it would be the highest rated reality show ever produced. Everyone would watch it. That said, I hope they don't.

Oh, sure, people would never stop watching. After all, the public barely even thinks about other stuff than the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, any or all of whom could die any moment, right?
 
For only $200k per head, I think some production companies would pay for an entire typical Big Brother contingent to go. Add a few people with personality disorders while you're at it -- a not insignificant proportion of the population at about 9%. Pity anyone who gets stuck as a well-meaning colonist with that lot. That's why I think there must be some vetting of passengers.
 
Oh, sure, people would never stop watching. After all, the public barely even thinks about other stuff than the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, any or all of whom could die any moment, right?
With the ISS the problem is that its too mundane. Which I think is great, living on a spacestation is too normal for most people to think about. No one thinks about scientists on Antarctica, different expeditions around the world.
And with ISS there is no specific goal like there would be with the Mars travel.

But I do think that the public interest would be significantly higher for Mars flight than it is for regular ISS flights.
 
Yeah, just couldn't be a personality-disorder-fest like Big Brother and the like. Think more like The Martian, with a more uncertain outcome. Most of what was going on there was pretty mundane, but pretty popular movie anyway. You'd just have to cut it a bit to speed things up; just a live cam would lose interest too fast.
 
Big Brother contestants couldn't science the shit out of anything. They'd more likely be experimenting with how to copulate in a lower gravity.
 
I think Musk needs to focus on toys.

I know that sounds odd--but there aren't a lot of us real space fans on the boards. Trek influenced us. Musk launched early LVs and ate the costs. He needs to do this with large scale replicas of BFR and ITS/MCT.

Get kids playing with these things, with blueprints and the like--get it into the zeitgeist. It helps that ITS resembles a football. Maybe do something with that.
 
Looks like there are some models of the ITS on the way:
http://factualfiction.com/marsartists/2016/11/02/michel-lamontagne/

Some concerns over Falcon: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/experts-concerned-spacex-plan-fuel-182128618.html
But it looks like the investigation is making progress: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/10/spacex-prepares-upcoming-falcon-9-amos-6/

In other LV news, India is on its way to launching all of 83 satellites in one launch:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...tes-on-single-rocket/articleshow/55116494.cms

A new book on the Hermes Spaceplane:
https://www.amazon.com/Spaceplane-H...space&linkId=1878372cae969c69a9a980d67c981768

The proposed ERNO capsule for Ariane 5--even larger than the ARV
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=41455.0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Transfer_Vehicle#ATV_evolution_proposals

The new Long March (LM-5) flies:
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http://gbtimes.com/china/five-things-know-about-chinas-long-march-5-rocket
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/11/china-long-march-5-maiden-launch/
http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/11/03/video-long-march-5-rocket-lifts-off-on-maiden-flight/
http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/11/0...ch-5-one-of-the-worlds-most-powerful-rockets/
http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/10/chinas-new-25-ton-capacity-long-march-5.html
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39415.240
 
I think Musk needs to focus on toys.
...
Get kids playing with these things, with blueprints and the like--get it into the zeitgeist. It helps that ITS resembles a football. Maybe do something with that.
Looks more like a dildo to me so not quite the same sort of toy. :p Footballs are spherical where I live but ITS isn't even shaped like a rugby ball.
 
A blast at their site:
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/greate...cle_a151e524-7787-5874-bc6b-b3062d09f608.html

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=41252.msg1610698#msg1610698
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39182.msg1609866#msg1609866

Blasted finicky upper stages:

Back in 1959 I noted, to my great surprise, that the Agena, only one-fifth the size of the Thor intermediate-range ballistic missile, cost more, not less, than the Thor... Robert Truax
More on that in a bit*

The good news is that the rugged ITS tank tested well:
http://www.space.com/34759-spacex-mars-spaceship-fuel-tank-test.html
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The larger designs won't need COPV helium bottles IIRC

About America's early design ethic:

*Development trends were dictated by engineers who strove for high performance. Most often they neither knew nor cared about the cost impact of their designs. High performance and light weight invariably led to complication and high cost....For most missions, a less efficient rocket can do the job of a more efficient one by making the former a bit bigger. With the Agena/Thor situation, we had data that said that efforts to make a given rocket as small as possible might be grossly misdirected.

https://teamprincipia.wordpress.com/2006/12/15/the-future-of-earth-to-orbit-propulsion/
http://www.satellitetoday.com/launch/2016/08/10/shotwell-falcon-1-will-not-return/

Truax loved pressure-feds. Beal BA-2 was to be a pressure-fed. Beal had a huge filament winding machine http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=1047
---and there was talk at nasaspaceflight that the tank--though photographed at SpaceX, wasn't made there....hmmm

A final victory for Truax BTW. The snake river canyon has at last been jumped.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/09/1...ly-powers-rocket-over-snake-river-canyon.html

As Adam and Jamies found pressure-fed rockets come in all shapes and sizes:
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I just wish Elon had made Sea Dragon itself.
 
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Didn't see a thread in the TV forum, but anyone watching the NatGeo MARS series? An interesting mixture of scientists talking current science and goals for Mars, and a fictional mission in 2033 that is mirroring the things they're talking about.
 
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