Chris Willis

BulletWave · 2004-04-09 14:53:03

Has anyone heard of this guy's website. Chris willis selling tickets to mars and his offer is genuine. He's apparently using electromagnetic Propulsion System. Check it out if you haven't the directory to his ticket selling page.

[http://www.androidpubs.com/serv01.htm]http://www.androidpubs.com/serv01.htm

clark · 2004-04-09 14:56:16

Just 2 million?

great. :laugh:

BulletWave · 2004-04-09 14:58:25

I emailed him before and he said that he might raise the price to 20 million. He says that 2 million is way to low. But there hasn't been any price changes on the site so that's good.

clark · 2004-04-09 15:05:23

Oh, well, we better act now. Before it's too late!

He has a patent, a book (which seems to be published by himself), and some theories. That's it.

There is no guareente that anyone will actualy get a magic ride to Mars.

BulletWave · 2004-04-09 15:24:53

True, but NASA isn't behind this is because they didn't think of it first. I think that it will happen because he explains how he will build his facilities and other things on the moon. On the moon power is free bercause he will use the sun(solar cells). Also the labor to build everything is supplied by androids which he is building. I'm emailing him again for some more information.

BulletWave · 2004-04-09 15:37:59

He says that that his androids will be doing the building in space.

Euler · 2004-04-09 15:39:18

Is this a joke, or does he actually expect people to give him money?

BulletWave · 2004-04-09 15:42:17

no joke. Just e-mail him. Or call him.

Euler · 2004-04-09 16:02:49

The cheapest way of getting into space right now is Russia's Soyuz spacecraft, cost $20 million per ticket. As his website says, the cheapest that anyone has ever been able to send people to the moon for is $10 billion per ticket. If you use the moon as a stop on the way to Mars, then the cost of getting to Mars will have to be more expensive than going to the moon. So he will probably need to raise the price by around 4 orders of magnitude in order to pay for the trip.

Solar power is somewhat expensive on the Earth. It would be many times more expensive on the moon, not free.

Hmm... the more I read about the plan, the more impracticle it looks. Even assuming that he has all the technology to implamant his plan (which he certainly does not), the infostructure that he wants to build would cost at least $1 trillion.

BulletWave · 2004-04-09 16:16:36

I emailed your last comment Euler to chris willis to see what his reply is.

BulletWave · 2004-04-09 22:33:30

Here is what he replied to your comment Euler.

Hi Rob,

Your friend knows absolutely NOTHING about space travel or its cost or how to do it. I have researched everything and it is all written down in my book (which is on the website). Your friend simply guesses wildly
with no justification for any of his numbers.

I wonder if you have ever heard of Robert Zubrin? He is a Mars enthusiast who has been trying to get funding for his "Mars Direct" manned mission to Mars for about 15 years. His plan has received lots of news coverage over the years. When he first proposed it about 1990, the cost was estimated at $125 billion. After I published my book in 1992, I sent him a copy (my manned mission to Mars costs less than $10 billion). The next time his plan was covered, the cost had dropped to $50 billion. The last time I saw his plan covered by the media, the cost was down to a paltry $25 billion.

Below I have answered your friends ABSURD comments.
The cheapest way of getting into space right now is Russia's Soyuz spacecraft, cost $20 million per ticket.$20 million per ticket is obviously far more than the cost. If you check section 4.1 of my book "JOBS for the 21st Century" you will see actual figures for the cost of putting stuff in LEO (and HEO). The cheapest is the Energia which can lift 220 MT per flight. Since each flight costs about $1 billion, the cost is about $2066 per pound. For a 250 pound load (person plus baggage), it would be about $1/2 million.As his website says, the cheapest that anyone has ever been able to send people to the Moon for is $10 billion per ticket. That $10 billion price was what NASA paid when converted into 1991 dollars. The thing is that nobody in their right mind would pay that much
commercially because the cost isn't anywhere near that. Only NASA and the DOD pay that much for anything.

If you use the moon as a stop on the way to Mars, then the cost of getting to Mars will have to be more expensive than going to the moon.I agree that the cost of going to the Moon and then Mars is morethan the cost of goingto Mars without going to the Moon (which is what we plan to do by the way). However, this does NOT mean the cost would be greater than $10 billion per ticket (see above). So he will probably need to raise the price by around 4 orders of magnitude in order to pay for the trip.Why would it cost 10,000 times more? There is no
justification for this number - it is unsubstantiated BULLSHIT! What is his justification?

Solar power is somewhat expensive on the Earth.Actually the current cost of solar power is about $4.50 per watt
where as common power costs about $2 per watt.It would be many times more expensive on the moon, not free.
Wrong! Read my book to see how I can do it for FREE! Hmm... the more I read about the plan, the more impractical it looks.

This guy obviously knows little to nothing about space development. Even assuming that he has all the technology to implement his plan (which he certainly does not) the infrastructure that he wants to build would cost at least $1
trillion.Why would it cost $1 trillion? This is just his TOTALLY UNINFORMED GUESS.Ask the guy to show some figures to justify his numbers.

The cost of my plan is 1% of the cost of NASA's plan. I would like to get this guy's name and address so that when we leave for Mars, we can send him a GOOD BY SUCKER message.

Euler · 2004-04-10 00:32:16

I said $1 trillion because I was being generous and I had not finished reading through all that he wanted to build. He wants:
*A supergun. He was hoping to use one of the ones that Saddam was building before Gulf War 1. Unfortunately, the acceleration would destroy any delicate payloads. The smaller one was destroyed, and the parts for the larger one were seized by the English Customs.
*18 space stations.
*A fleet of space planes.
*An electromagnetic progectile launcher capable of launching to the moon. This would be very large and expensive, and no EMPL has ever been built to nearly this scale. It would also be much better at putting more craters on the moon than delivering useful materials.
*An Energia rocket to land on the moon. Too bad they don’t make them anymore.
*1000 Androids to assemble a moon base. Designing any robots to do complicated assembly or manufacture is difficult, but androids would be especially so.
*A moonbase with large manufacturing capability.
*A railroad at least 1000km long on the moon.
*A giant EMPL on the lunar north pole.
*A 6 km long space ship (assembled at L4 or L5) to be sent to Mars orbit with an EMPL, projectiles, shuttle craft, androids, mining equipment, etc.
*A 6 km long, 3000 metric ton, 1000 passenger spacecraft. Both this and the above spacecraft will be powered by either cold fusion, or a fission plant with a specific mass of .2 kg/kw (current large scale space fission plants are about 10 kg/kw).
*12 android assembled Mars bases.

This would probably cost more than any country could afford. I also have serious doubts that your multiple EMPL scheme would work at all. It would be extraordinary aim to launch from one EMPL to another over interplanetary distances, especially since the lunar EMPL would be fixed and could not move. Also if it can only accelerate directly away from another EMPL, it might be difficult to get a good trajectory.

I wonder if you have ever heard of Robert Zubrin? He is a Mars
enthusiast who has been trying to get funding for his "Mars Direct"
manned mission to Mars for about 15 years. His plan has received lots of news
coverage over the years. When he first proposed it about 1990, the
cost was estimated at $125 billion. After I published my book in 1992, I
sent him a copy (my manned mission to Mars costs less than $10 billion).
The next time his plan was covered, the cost had dropped to $50 billion.
The last time I saw his plan covered by the media, the cost was down to a
paltry $25 billion.

According to Zubrin, he always thought the price would be in the $20-30 billion range. The $50 billion figure came from the same source that priced the 90-day report plan at 450 billion. I am pretty sure he had nothing to do with it, and I do not see how his far more ambitious plan could cost less.

Below I have answered your friends ABSURD comments.
The cheapest way of getting into space right now is Russia's Soyuz
spacecraft, cost $20 million per ticket.$20 million per ticket is obviously far more than the cost.
If you check section 4.1 of my book "JOBS for the 21st Century" you will see
actual figures for the cost of putting stuff in LEO (and HEO). The cheapest is the
Energia which can lift 220 MT per flight. Since each flight costs about $1
billion, the cost is about $2066 per pound. For a 250 pound load (person plus baggage), it
would be about $1/2 million.

Where can I buy a ticket to go into orbit for $1/2 million? A person is not a lump of metal- they need life support, air, water, space, food, etc. That is why it costs far more than $1/2 million to go into space.

As his website says, the cheapest that anyone has ever been able to
send people to the Moon for is $10 billion per ticket. That $10 billion price was what NASA paid when converted into 1991 dollars. The thing is that nobody in their right mind would pay that much
commercially because the cost isn't anywhere near that. Only NASA and the DOD pay that much for
anything.

I didn't say it could not be done cheaper, I just said that it had not been done cheaper.

If you use the moon as a stop on the way to Mars, then the cost of getting to Mars will
have to be more expensive than going to the moon.I agree that the cost of going to the Moon and then Mars is
morethan the cost of goingto Mars without going to the Moon (which is what we plan to
do by the way). However, this does NOT mean the cost would be greater than $10 billion per ticket (see above).

I am sorry for this one. I had not finished reading through the plan, and I mistakenly assumed that since he was building so much stuff on the moon that the large spacecraft would take off from the moon using lunar fuel. I apologize.

The $1 trillion was based on expected costs of moon-mars programs that NASA has studdied in the past. Since this plan has more space based infostructure than any of the other plans, I logically assumed that it would cost more. Now that I have read the plan, my new estimate is that it would be at least $10 trillion. $100 trillion is more likely, though even then it probebly would not work.

SBird · 2004-04-10 02:45:49

This electromagnetic launcher idea he's talking about is nuts. First, an electromagnetic launcher of that magnitude has never been built. There was some SDI work back in the 80s with electromagnetic railguns that copuld fire masses of a few grams at the speeds he's talking about but 1-3 metric TONS? Has he considered how he's going to generate the electromagnetic gradients necessary for this?

Furthermore, what happens when one of those projectiles has a guidance failure or a malfunction occurs on the receiving EMPL? You're playing catch with 1-3 MT projectiles going several km/s. One failure and your spaceship is a cloud of debris. When you're talking about hundreds or thousands of these intercepts, the probability of failure is extremely high.

Androids? When they've got a robot that can reliably mow a yard, I'll buy the idea of building a high precision railgun on the moon with them a little more seriously.

I'm glad this guy had devoted a lot of effort to this and that he's looking at novel ideas but the idea that we can just throw this stuff up on the Moon and start running the spacecraft is absurd. If he's got a working model of the EMPL or an android that he can demonstrate I'll take this a little more seriously but right now, all I'm seeing is work on paper which really means quite little.

clark · 2004-04-12 09:20:14

The man is either deluded, or is a bald-faced liar if he thinks his plan will get anything anywhere.

He is selling a fantasy on the internet. Imagine that.

His reply to some of the legitimate questions related to his plan demonstrate the frailty of this house of cards he has constructed. He dosen't really reply to any of the questions, merely turns around to challenge the person questioning him. This is what some might call a "red flag". Beware, be aware.

Let's pull this card now... the androids that will build the magic moon bases. They don't exsist. The most advanced robotics itoday are produced in Japan, and at most, this fragile robot (there are only two prototypes) can bow and walk a straight line. We are years, if not decades, away from this magic 'android' that will do all the heavy liftining in space that his plan assumes.

Then there is the nuclear propulsion technology his plan assumes. It dosen't exsist. It will take years, if not decades, to create the reactors neccessary to make his plan practicle. It will take years, if not decades, to build and test the space ships that will use the nuclear reactors, or to test any of this stuff in a space environment.

The neccessary R&D funds to accomplish his goals would dwarf his current cost estimates. That's just research and proto-type development, this dosen't even include the costs of actual production of the material he outlines.

I applaude his imagination, but if he is passing this off as a real possibility now, he is full of unmitigated bullcrap.

SpaceNut · 2015-11-25 19:49:32

Fixed artifacts and shifting issues and found that this topic predates my joining the forum.

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#1 2004-04-09 14:53:03

Re: Chris Willis

#2 2004-04-09 14:56:16

Re: Chris Willis

#3 2004-04-09 14:58:25

Re: Chris Willis

#4 2004-04-09 15:05:23

Re: Chris Willis

#5 2004-04-09 15:24:53

Re: Chris Willis

#6 2004-04-09 15:37:59

Re: Chris Willis

#7 2004-04-09 15:39:18

Re: Chris Willis

#8 2004-04-09 15:42:17

Re: Chris Willis

#9 2004-04-09 16:02:49

Re: Chris Willis

#10 2004-04-09 16:16:36

Re: Chris Willis

#11 2004-04-09 22:33:30

Re: Chris Willis

#12 2004-04-10 00:32:16

Re: Chris Willis

#13 2004-04-10 02:45:49

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#14 2004-04-12 09:20:14

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#15 2015-11-25 19:49:32

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