Carl Sagan Posted August 29, 2019 Share Posted August 29, 2019 At sites in Texas and Florida, Elon Musk's SpaceX is building prototypes of it's new rocket, the Starship, that is designed to take (lots of) humans to Mars and all round the solar system for that matter. They're building it out in the open. At first they pretended their Starhopper test vehicle was a water tank! When it's ready it will be a massive stainless steel retro-looking rocket standing on three legs. That's capable of launching from Mars as a single stage to orbit vehicle. To launch from Earth an even bigger reusable booster called the Super Heavy will aid its ascent, before returning to the launchpad like SpaceX's smaller Falcon9 first stages. To make travel possible across the solar system, the new raptor engine burns methane instead of hydrogen. Revolutionary! But liquid methane takes up a lot less space and is nowhere near as cold as liquid hydrogen, so can be stored onboard more easily because of another radical new idea. The ship will refuel in orbit so it can fly between Earth and Mars way more quickly than has been done before where the spaceships just coasted for the whole journey until they reached the Martian atmosphere. No one else would test a brand new engine and the base of its new spaceship in public, but that's what SpaceX did in Texas last night. And this was the result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mostyn6 Posted August 29, 2019 Share Posted August 29, 2019 Had an asthma attack just watching that landing. I’m not even asthmatic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McRamFan Posted August 29, 2019 Share Posted August 29, 2019 It would be better to build a 'starship' in space. Earth's gravity will limit the size that can take off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richinspain Posted August 29, 2019 Share Posted August 29, 2019 18 hours ago, Carl Sagan said: At sites in Texas and Florida, Elon Musk's SpaceX is building prototypes of it's new rocket, the Starship, that is designed to take (lots of) humans to Mars and all round the solar system for that matter. They're building it out in the open. At first they pretended their Starhopper test vehicle was a water tank! When it's ready it will be a massive stainless steel retro-looking rocket standing on three legs. That's capable of launching from Mars as a single stage to orbit vehicle. To launch from Earth an even bigger reusable booster called the Super Heavy will aid its ascent, before returning to the launchpad like SpaceX's smaller Falcon9 first stages. To make travel possible across the solar system, the new raptor engine burns methane instead of hydrogen. Revolutionary! But liquid methane takes up a lot less space and is nowhere near as cold as liquid hydrogen, so can be stored onboard more easily because of another radical new idea. The ship will refuel in orbit so it can fly between Earth and Mars way more quickly than has been done before where the spaceships just coasted for the whole journey until they reached the Martian atmosphere. No one else would test a brand new engine and the base of its new spaceship in public, but that's what SpaceX did in Texas last night. And this was the result. I think it needs to go a bit higher ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaaLocks Posted August 29, 2019 Share Posted August 29, 2019 Looking at that video it seems that Mars is a lot closer than I realised. But, flippant comments aside, it's quite amazing to think that this test was profoundly more important than anything that happened in the UK yesterday. It's mad to think that people are thinking very seriously about Mars as a new home for humanity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Sagan Posted August 30, 2019 Author Share Posted August 30, 2019 On 29/08/2019 at 20:22, richinspain said: I think it needs to go a bit higher ? Ha! After I posted I realized I'd meant to say that the Federal Aviation Authority insisted on a maximum of 150m as this was so untested. Now the flying water tower is being retired and a proper prototype spaceship will be tested in October, powered by three Raptor engines, and going to 20,000 feet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramit Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 All they need now is to lay a flat blast resistant pad on the Martian surface and they can land that thing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaltRam Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 Love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimRam Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 It's not just the vehicle it's also how we combat lack of gravity in space. That definately needs a solution. Even exercising can still not prevent bone mass loss and heart muscles becoming weaker (I am sure there are other problems but these 2 are the ones I know about). This needs to get us to Mars fast before the aformentioned problems start to materialise seriously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilkleyram Posted September 1, 2019 Share Posted September 1, 2019 On the space theme there’s a really interesting article on the online Guardian page this morning about how we’re dealing with the threat from asteroids and the potential danger of space rubbish. Perhaps someone more techy than me can post a link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McRamFan Posted September 1, 2019 Share Posted September 1, 2019 15 minutes ago, ilkleyram said: On the space theme there’s a really interesting article on the online Guardian page this morning about how we’re dealing with the threat from asteroids and the potential danger of space rubbish. Perhaps someone more techy than me can post a link https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/31/greatest-threat-to-life-on-earth-may-come-from-space-asteroids-satellite-debris The greatest threat to life on Earth may come from space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Sagan Posted September 1, 2019 Author Share Posted September 1, 2019 On 29/08/2019 at 07:33, McRamFan said: It would be better to build a 'starship' in space. Earth's gravity will limit the size that can take off. Absolutely the case in the future but for that to happen we need space-based infrastructure and a space-based economy. The Starship can accelerate that because of its scale. On 31/08/2019 at 02:11, ramit said: All they need now is to lay a flat blast resistant pad on the Martian surface and they can land that thing Good point. NASA is working with SpaceX to develop vertical landing on bodies such as the Moon and Mars, without landing pads. Another alternative is to send robotic 3D printers ahead of time to build a landing pad from local material (called regolith). 23 hours ago, TimRam said: It's not just the vehicle it's also how we combat lack of gravity in space. That definately needs a solution. Even exercising can still not prevent bone mass loss and heart muscles becoming weaker (I am sure there are other problems but these 2 are the ones I know about). This needs to get us to Mars fast before the aformentioned problems start to materialise seriously. This is one reason why the Starship's ability to refuel in orbit to accelerate rather than coast to Mars is important. In theory it can reduce the journey time to three months though initially it would likely be five months. The day will come when spaceships are large enough to rotate around their long axis to simulate gravity without causing other issues. But they have to be significantly bigger. The first incarnations of the Starship will only have a 9m diameter. Some good points raised by the forum! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Sagan Posted September 29, 2019 Author Share Posted September 29, 2019 Just been a new presentation from Elon Musk at the Texas site where one of the new Starships has been built: They are moving really, really fast. Musk's mantra regarding schedules which he stressed twice is "if it's long it's wrong and if it's tight it's right". They'll start flights to 20km in a couple of months. Orbital flights (and possibly crewed flights) will start next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Sagan Posted September 29, 2019 Author Share Posted September 29, 2019 Here's the latest iteration of the design of Starship. It has a pressurized capacity of 1000 cubic metres (about the same as the International Space Station). Because you're in zero G and can use 6 sides of a cube to live during the voyage, that's decent space, even for a crew of a hundred. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Sagan Posted September 29, 2019 Author Share Posted September 29, 2019 My alter ego tried to live tweet the presentation. Not a total success in terms of the threading, but it was in the middle of the night after a lot of vodka! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsnip Posted September 29, 2019 Share Posted September 29, 2019 5 hours ago, Carl Sagan said: It has a pressurized capacity of 1000 cubic metres (about the same as the International Space Station). Because you're in zero G and can use 6 sides of a cube to live during the voyage, that's decent space, even for a crew of a hundred. Depends who's on it. My Mrs would soon fill it with space junk and 2' square amazon prime boxes containing one bottle of nail varnish that'll just sit on the kitchen side for a month until she actually needs it while she complains about the lack of space and tells me that she can't live with me anymore because I keep putting my helmet on the wrong peg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sith Happens Posted September 29, 2019 Share Posted September 29, 2019 7 hours ago, Carl Sagan said: Here's the latest iteration of the design of Starship. It has a pressurized capacity of 1000 cubic metres (about the same as the International Space Station). Because you're in zero G and can use 6 sides of a cube to live during the voyage, that's decent space, even for a crew of a hundred. Rumour has it Leeds are building a bigger one to carry more people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richinspain Posted September 29, 2019 Share Posted September 29, 2019 9 hours ago, Paul71 said: Rumour has it Leeds are building a bigger one to carry more people. But it will get into orbit around Mars and they'll get scared and turn back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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