Elon Musk: I'll Put a Man on Mars in 10 Years

[ggr]

And a PV company. Bound to need a few of those.

He's an investor in, and on the board of, Solar City.

Greg.

 

[dpeilow]

 

[dpeilow]

Also, can't do space exploration if all the oil us burned up in cars...

This is the most powerful rocket in the world - Boeing Delta 4 Heavy - and runs entirely on hydrogen/oxygen.




SpaceX's use RP-1 though.


(I don't mind the odd bit of hydrogen being made for a once a month space launch.)

 

[Norbert]

This is the most powerful rocket in the world - Boeing Delta 4 Heavy - and runs entirely on hydrogen/oxygen.

So water + electricity will do ?

 

[Norbert]

A bigger motor might not be a bad idea as bigger motors tend to be more energy efficient (or so I've read on the Tesla blogs some eons ago).

Just wondering: are two smaller motors also more efficient? Or what exactly makes a bigger motor efficient?

 

[dpeilow]

So water + electricity will do ?

Yep. We should be able to make enough renewably to fill a few rockets, just not likely or desirable for the entire world's car fleet.

What you see coming out the back above is water.

This rocket family could scale up to a serious zero emissions* space exploration capability immediately. They could get to the 7 core version relatively easily. Why NASA wanted to go down the route of spending billions developing the new Ares V I don't know. Keeping ATK in business I think. It's fairly safe to say that this would have flown by now had Bush chosen this route in 2004.




By the way, SpaceX made the decision to develop RP-1 (fossil fuel) based technology because it is cheaper and easier for a start-up. I fully understand that and hope it enables them to break into the market, but I hope they make a switch to H2 some day. Or perhaps Elon just hates hydrogen that much :smile:


*be nice if they recovered the boosters.

 

[AndrewBissell]

In the medium term we can use renewable fuels (H2 from electrolysis or liquid biofuels). In the long long term electric launch will dominate (some combination of linear accelerators, spinning tethers or space elevators).

 

[WarpedOne]

That would speak in favor of motor(s) on the front wheels... their grip is currently unused for acceleration (and regen).

Yes, I'd risk a bet sport version will be AWD and thus (less) traction limited and returning better (lower) acceleration times.

Just wondering: are two smaller motors also more efficient? Or what exactly makes a bigger motor efficient?

More efficient than what? One bigger motor? No - two smaller motors returning same power have more resistance losses than one bigger motor.
That is also the biggest difference - bigger motor has bigger wires that "offer" less Ohm-resistance and are thus more "heat resistant".
It can output longer/higher high-power bursts because it has higher thermal capacity.

On the other hand this "bigger motor" compared to classic ICE is still minuscule. There is no real gain in making it smaller.

The only real problem in electric motor is cooling. You want more power/torque? Just raise the voltage and thus pump more current through it. It will get hotter so you have to cool it (better).
Smaller the motor, smaller the wires, faster the temperature will rise.

 

[TEG]

Tom Cruise partnering with SpaceX for Scientology venture

 

[Arb1ter]

Tom Cruise partnering with SpaceX for Scientology venture

That makes just to enough sense to sound realistic until you think for a minute and look at the other "articles", though it would probably be a more constructive use of Scientology funds.

 

[ecarfan]

That "article" is pure fantasy. Just like Scientology...