The original comment was deleted so some of the verbage has changed- to be less offensive to the Musk Cult- and reposted:
I don’t know how spending money on LEO stations can be justified, especially if they are going to be “commercial” since there is no ROI for anything but government research. It has always been a sad fact that the Space Shuttles, with solar panels and life support pallets, could stay up as long as needed. Entire lab modules could be swapped from one shuttle to another if necessary. The ISS was never anything but a huge waste of time and resources and should be deorbited as soon as practical. The supposed 100 ton payload of the shiny would make it better than any inflatable LEO crewed platform.
The Moon is the place to establish a permanent human presence. A “true” space station, with a massive cosmic ray shield using water derived from lunar ice and tether generated artificial gravity is the next step. Even if it takes several years to fill up “Fat Workshops” using robot landers, having these shielded habitats available will allow astronauts to go on year long deployments without career-ending dosing or debilitation. In fact, if they experienced no radiation mishaps, with Near Sea Level Radiation 1 Gravity environment (NSLR1G) crew compartments they might be able to spend a full 20 years of regular space deployments without reaching a lifetime dose or unacceptable bone/muscle loss and debilitation.
The logical progression is robot lunar landers filling up these upper stage wet workshops in Frozen Low Lunar Orbit (FLLO) with lunar water and only when they have full shields sending human missions.=======================================
That “national commitment to solar power” is of course the key. That is the “product.” That is what is going to expand humankind into the solar system and beyond. There is really nothing else except some vague snake oil pitch to make humans a “multi-planet species.” Except, Earth is the only planet suitable for colonization. We will have to manufacture artificial worlds to colonize space. Only Climate Change makes Space, by way of Space Solar Power, an urgent project.
I should have specified: LEO is a dead end for Human Space Flight. Comparing LEO as a duck pond and Deep Space as the North Atlantic is appropriate. I see our present situation as trying to negotiate an ocean with a canoe. We have not even figured out how to make a kayak yet really. What is required to travel in space, even across the small local cislunar sea to the Moon, is a Near Sea Level Radiation 1 Gravity environment (NSLR1G). The lunar resource of intrinsic value is water derived from ice that can be lifted into space to fill cosmic ray water shields using 20 to 25 times less energy than from Earth.
“I don’t think we should try to have people live for a really long time. That it would cause asphyxiation of society because the truth is, most people don’t change their mind,” Musk said. “They just die. So, if they don’t die, we will be stuck with old ideas and society wouldn’t advance.”
Elon is getting more and more bizarre and likely will not be running spacex much longer. Someone that keeps adding to a lengthy list of really messed up statements is not going to last.
Anyone can see the gears turning in this kind of mind….useless eaters needing to be eliminated is not far away. Of course, what is most disturbing of all is the fan club. So much like Trumpists.
I joined the Army in 1980 and at that time there were over 60,000 nuclear warheads ready to incinerate the Soviet Union and the United States. Anti-nuclear activist Carl Sagan, now only remembered for the tv series Cosmos, testified before congress that nuclear war would fill the atmosphere with so much smoke and particulates that a “nuclear winter” would ensue and most of the human race would die of starvation. Of all the historical events I have witnessed in my life, the most memorable was the night of 27 September, 1991. I had left the Army years before and joined the Coast Guard and had duty that night and went up to the command center to check on the progress of a SAR case. Bush was on TV informing the public he was taking the B-52’s off alert. And we all knew this meant that the cold war, that millions of us thought civilization would not survive, was over. I tell people this affected me more than 911 and they don’t understand. They did not live that decade in the military waiting for the end of the world like I did. And now…I am worried again. There are still more than enough missiles ready to burn down civilization. At the push of a button.
The world we live in is fragile. Billions of people will die of starvation if the global transportation infrastructure is disrupted. Very few realize how easily that could happen.
“Initially, NASA considered adding a second EDO pallet to Endeavour, placed in front of the first, for a total of thirteen tank sets, that would have allowed an orbiter to remain in space for 28 days, but managers decided against it when the International Space Station assembly began, and instead removed the EDO capability from the orbiter, to reduce its weight and allow it to carry more cargo to the ISS.[1][5]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
That never-completely-filled cargo bay of dreams had room and payload for more pallets. And another orbiter could bring more pallets up, or a laboratory module could be swapped over to the other cargo bay with the arm. Solar panels would have extended endurance even longer, probably to about 4 months with added pallets and enough room for science experiments. Like I said. Not what you said.
As for lifting water into orbit- for every ton of water that can be lifted into space from Earth, 20 to 25 tons can be lifted from the Moon into space for the same energy. No “mine” required; the ice is just below the surface, with evidence indicating sheets and quantities of millions of tons.
Ice on the Moon 