Quote from: Spendulus on January 10, 2019, 01:06:20 AM

Quote from: Artemis3 on January 09, 2019, 10:55:28 PM

Quote from: Trading on January 06, 2017, 08:07:05 PM

According to the plans published, there won't be any artificial gravity on BFR.

I clearly remember Elon Musk saying the BFR will be constantly accelerating to maintain gravity until the middle where it turns around start constant deceleration intended to keep gravity as well. The 0G would only last while orbiting and when turning around in mid route to switch from acceleration into deceleration.

I generally agree with most of the points, but I think small colonies are feasible, similar to the Antartica bases. If they build underground, the radiation and weather issues would probably be mitigated. I would guess if they happen to find some valuable mineral (ie. Gold) things would move on nicely (and the gold price would go down nicely as well...).

gold? the cost to move a pound just to the moon is about 3x the price of gold, to get something on a return trip would be far, far higher.

as for constant acceleration, that would require one of the several versions of ion propulsion, which would create a very, very slight gravity. not really noticeable. better to just consider as no gravity.

bfr is a launch vehicle, not a spacecraft. it could launch anything....

i stand by my former comment...

....it will be the Moon, not Mars, that is first colonized. The Moon is lacking in some elements which makes it harder, but it has massive solar energy power source. The reason it will be the moon is quite simple. There is no viable business model for Mars; there is one for the Moon, and that would be 3 week vacations.

You are right, the ship itself has a fancier name, the BFR is just the (reusable) launch vehicle which was also renamed to something I forgot.
I believe SpaceX also has plans for the moon, and NASA is already thinking of playing in the asteroid field, something about towing one to the moon orbit, or was that also scrapped under Trump's administration?

Anyway space has multiple commercial benefits, and they have already done what nobody else did before: reuse stages, to lower launch costs. SpaceX can probably remain afloat while the master goal of going to Mars (and back) becomes reality, tho Elon Musk himself refuses to go, he sent his car for lulz...