Private venture moon missions: coming soon.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I believe Musk stated that to be realistic the cost of a trip to mars need to come down to about half a million dollars.
Your 500 million budget is a NASA budget, not a SpaceX budget 🙂

Maybe a half mil next century but now? Sounds totally impossible, especially if you want people to survive the trip and still be fertile. There would have to be a LOT of infrastructure engineering en mass to be able to make it that cheap. I think he is dreaming.

It could come down really far if we got a real space elevator going. That would take care of the getting off Earth part anyway. The rest would be much smaller rockets and maybe other kinds of propulsion like lasers from orbit or the moon heating propellant in the craft so you don't need H2 and O2 aboard, just H2 OR O2 or some such.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I think he is dreaming.

Well he has created the company that provides by far the cheapest launches to date, and the only one to ever reland boosters (four so far) (something NASA and others failed to do), he has produced electric cars (something other car companies claimed wasn't viable), and he is involved in the largest solar power company in the US. I think he knows what he is talking about.

It could come down really far if we got a real space elevator going.
Now that is dreaming. I don't see space elevators happening for a very long time, if ever.

That would take care of the getting off Earth part anyway.
The getting off earth part is more or less solved, with reusable rockets. Within 5 years you will see SpaceX regularly reusing most parts of the rocket, at which point space flight will cost a fraction of what it does today. The same system will be used on Mars, to land, and possibly in future take off to come back.

The rest would be much smaller rockets and maybe other kinds of propulsion like lasers from orbit or the moon heating propellant in the craft so you don't need H2 and O2 aboard, just H2 OR O2 or some such.
The technology required exists today. All we need is the will - something Musk has demonstrated he has.
It will be a gradual process with the first flights to Mars being cargo flights, but it will take place in the relatively near future.
SpaceX is growing rapidly and will soon have a weekly launch schedule with most parts of the rocket reusable. The Falcon Heavy will also come online, as well as manned missions to the Space Station. Once they have proven those capabilities, Mars will be well within their reach.

Originally posted by twhitehead

I don't see space elevators happening for a very long time, if ever.

at least if you are only talking about space elevators on Earth, certainly not for a VERY long time and only in part of the ridiculous short-term costs using money that could be much better spent on other things.
Even when the technology improves to make it much more economically feasible, I think it would be always considered simply too problematic compared with beam powered propulsion which I think will be the one that most likely will pan out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam-powered_propulsion

But, in the VERY far future, I envisage it being used on just a few other planets and moons other than the Earth; but even then not for moving people but for moving vast amounts of partly processed raw materials for a kind of what I call 'interplanetary engineering'.

Originally posted by humy
Even when the technology improves to make it much more economically feasible, I think it would be always considered simply too problematic compared with beam powered propulsion which I think will be the one that most likely will pan out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam-powered_propulsion

Its hard to know what the far future holds, but I would say that the next 30 years at least will be ruled by rockets. They are reliable and effective, and as soon as re-usability becomes standard, they will be relatively cheap (compared to the current situation).
If SpaceX continues on its current path without a major hitch, then we can expect to see the cost per launch to fall by a factor of a hundred over the next 10-20 years. There will be savings to be had with volume in addition to the reusability. Many costs in launches are costs per year not costs per launch, so more launches per year means lower costs overall.