Starship and a Human city on Mars

[Carl Sagan]

I love that there seem plenty of space geeks on here. Something that's going to come increasingly into the public consciousness over the next few years will be the work from Elon Musk's SpaceX to transport many tens of thousands of Humans to Mars to build the first sustainable settlement on another world. It sounds like fantasy, but the amazing thing is they're doing this in public view in Boca Chica, on the coast of Texas, and we can all watch. There are lots of livestreams and over the last couple of years a barren field has started to be transformed into a shipyard. But not for ordinary ships, for spaceships. The goal is ultimately to have completed ones roll off the production line once a week. And each will be able to take a hundred people at a time.

The optimal time for going to Mars in terms of minimizing fuel (the launch window) comes round every 26 months and the plan is to have a fleet of Starships gather in Earth orbit that will then travel to Mars together, before returning to bring more settlers for the next launch window. Tickets will cost you about $250k but there'll be high baggage charges on top I should think. The secret to the low price comes from reusability and scale. SpaceX has pioneered rocket reusability and landed 65 or so "first stages" (the main rocket booster) after orbital insertion. No other company has done any - they're at least a decade ahead of the competition, but the competition should worry because their pace of innovation is extraordinary.

The new rocket being built in Texas will be the first fully resusable craft where all of it flies again and again with minimal refurbishment, just the same as an airplane. The top section where the passengers and cargo will go is called Starship and the lower section to help boost it into orbit is called Super Heavy. In a dramatic innovation, instead of being built from an advanced carbon fiber skin these are both made from stainless steel. Making them a fraction of the normal rocket price. The Super Heavy booster is needed to escape Earth's gravity well. Once there it will return to Earth and launch half a dozen tankers to refuel Starship in orbit so it can fly much more quickly than normal to Mars (normally a spaceprobe just has enough fuel to reach escape velocity and then coasts all the way to Mars). Refuelling in orbit hasn't been attempted in the past, but is a technology we need to master to become a spacefaring species.

Because Mars is smaller, with lower gravity (one-third of ours) the Starships can be what we call "single stage to orbit" when they take off from the red planet for the return journey. We'll build factories on Mars to manufacture fuel through a process called in situ resource utilization (ISRU), which is another technology we need to master to become spacefaring. And because they can carry so many passengers at a time, the price of the trip becomes a lot cheaper as it's divided between many more people.

The Super Heavy booster will be quite similar to the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, just a lot bigger. So in principle SpaceX already knows how to design, build, fly and land that. They have started on the harder problem first, by developing Starship, the first ever fully resuable second stage. This week there's been a lot of work on the eighth prototype (called SN8 standing for serial number 8 ) which will probably be the first to attempt a high-altitude (15km up) test flight as the key trial of the novel landing system (the "belly flop"). Before now three different partial Starships have flown 150m on one engine only. It's been amazing to watch. Here's the Starship SN5 "hop test":

While SN8 is the focus at the moment, also partly built are SN9 through to SN14, each better than the last, and also the very first Super Heavy booster (SH1) is being constructed. There's a good chance that the first Starships (without people) will go into orbit and return next year. There'll be hundreds of test flights before they start taking crew, but I'd expect the first uncrewed Starships to leave for Mars carrying cargo and experiments either late 2022 or early 2025.

The reason SpaceX was founded was to safeguard Humanity's future by building a self-sustaining community on Mars, the aim to reach a population of a million by the end of this century. This is why the company is privately held and you can't buy shares, because shareholders might look at the amazing technology and say Mars colonization is a waste of money when we can do a lot of profitable stuff closer to home. However, NASA wants to return to the Moon by late 2024 (though after the US election this date will slip) and are contributing funds to create an adapted Starship to land on the Moon (the normal engines are too powerful for this because the rocket is so big, so SpaceX are going to add smaller thrusters higher up to do the job). However, Elon Musk has said it's easier to just go and land on the Moon than jump through all NASA's certification to say they'll allow someone to launch astronauts safely to the Moon.

I hope we'll be able to keep this thread going over the next decade while we watch developments until the first Humans get to land on Mars, and it can be a wonderful record of the progress that took us to that point.

[DarkFruitsRam7]

Obviously visiting a different planet would be unbelievable, but I can't say I'd ever want to live there. It will be interesting to see the kind of people who choose to reside there.

[Sith Happens]

It all looks good but all through my life it seems almost every president has been targeting Mars in x amount of years. I guess this is different as its not NASA so it may actually happen.

 

[Carl Sagan]

1 hour ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

Obviously visiting a different planet would be unbelievable, but I can't say I'd ever want to live there. It will be interesting to see the kind of people who choose to reside there.

One of the things about the SpaceX Mars project is that they need the ships back to take more people, so in theory you would be able to return home.  But living in low/zero gravity environments for such a prolonged period of time would make a return to Earth difficult.

1 hour ago, Sith Happens said:

It all looks good but all through my life it seems almost every president has been targeting Mars in x amount of years. I guess this is different as its not NASA so it may actually happen.

Indeed. As it's 50 years now since the Moon landings, those of us committed to space see that you can't rely on governments to make this potential future real. Policies can change on whims and people will think there are always more deserving causes than space travel. But we're lucky that the two richest Humans (Muxk isn't quite there yet but will be soon because of the extraordinary dominance of Tesla) are both investing heavily in this. Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin before Musk founded SpaceX and it has vast resources behind it, but progress is slow and secretive. What's amazing is to be able to watch what SpaceX are doing out in the open. Musk recognizes the inspiration that this will bring to kids growing up now to dream of the future we might be able to achieve as a spacefaring civilization.

[AndyinLiverpool]

Will they build that city on rock and roll?

[Rev]

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids, in fact it's cold as hell.

[sage]

What a waste of money and effort. We should purely be concentrating this planet sustainable to live on. You know that place with oxygen and temperature we can survive with.  

[AndyinLiverpool]

6 minutes ago, sage said:

What a waste of money and effort. We should purely be concentrating this planet sustainable to live on. You know that place with oxygen and temperature we can survive with.  

we can do both

[cstand]

Current US debt is 27 Trillion think it’s more important to look after Mother Earth before the money runs out.

 

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/americas-debt-27-trillion-and-counting/

[RamNut]

Lemmings on a suicide mission.

[Eddie]

I prefer to wait until the radiation causes triple-breasted mutations.

[Parsnip]

Who owns Mars? 

[TigerTedd]

4 hours ago, sage said:

What a waste of money and effort. We should purely be concentrating this planet sustainable to live on. You know that place with oxygen and temperature we can survive with.  

Good job it’s not your money then. It’s Elon’s to do with as he wishes.

you can’t get to Mars, but you can install solar panels, drive an electric car, recycle more, eat less meat, boycott companies that don’t lower their carbon footprint, encourage others to do the same etc. That’s all in your power. It’s happening. It needs to happen better and faster, but Elon can’t personally do much more than he’s already doing. Saving this planet is down to us now.

Not that Elon hasn’t done some pretty incredible stuff in his own right to help us help the planet. 

PS colonising Mars could eventually enable us to move automated heavy industry onto Mars, thereby leaving earth as an essentially carbon free utopia. 

that could be centuries away, but it’s got to start somewhere. 

[RamNut]

20 minutes ago, TigerTedd said:

 

that could be centuries away, but it’s got to start somewhere. 

But it won’t be there.

[ramit]

1 hour ago, Beetroot said:

Who owns Mars? 

 

[Marriot Ram99]

5 hours ago, cstand said:

Current US debt is 27 Trillion think it’s more important to look after Mother Earth before the money runs out.

 

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/americas-debt-27-trillion-and-counting/

Money doesn't run out, just the debt keeps getting bigger and bigger and with that future generations get shafted more and more. Money is near enough virtual with the complete delinquency of how it is printed and devalued and countries and people constantly spend beyond their means. 

[ramit]

12 minutes ago, Marriott Ram99 said:

Money doesn't run out, just the debt keeps getting bigger and bigger and with that future generations get shafted more and more. Money is near enough virtual with the complete delinquency of how it is printed and devalued and countries and people constantly spend beyond their means. 

Money doesn't exist, only resources do and yes, they are running out

Edited November 15, 2020 by ramit

[Eddie]

Ack! Ack ack!!

[ramit]

32 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Ack! Ack ack!!

[TigerTedd]

13 hours ago, cstand said:

Current US debt is 27 Trillion think it’s more important to look after Mother Earth before the money runs out.

 

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/americas-debt-27-trillion-and-counting/

But it’s not NASA that’s doing this. It’s not publicly funded (the vast majority at least). So the US debt has literally nothing to do with this. Elon can do whatever he wants with his own money. And if he believes it’s a good money making investment, and even if he doesn’t, that’s his choice. 

are you saying he should be using his billions to bail out the American national debt?

this thread is barely a page old, it’s meant to be about the amazing achievement on putting a man, or men (and women) on Mars in our lifetimes, and the road towards that goal. @Carl Sagan‘s aim of building a chronicle of that progress through the eyes of rams fans is laudable. 

it’s not about the finances of it all. I’m just happy to trust that some accountant somewhere has worked out it’s financially a good a idea. 

leave your cynicism at the door, and revel in man’s ingenuity and adventurous spirit. Or just don’t come on this thread.