Starship and a Human city on Mars

[Carl Sagan]

Great to come on and see this thread full of comments. Seriously. Because it's about going to Mars I haven't posted about India's achievements on here, with their lunar landing, although I tweeted about it.

It's actually an interesting question as I used to think Humanity couldn't go to Mars and build a settlement there without first doing a lot of work with practice Human habitation on the Moon, and a fully working Moonbase and infrastructure around it. Then, one day, I was having drinks with the head of rocket landing at SpaceX (before they'd ever landed a rocket!) and we were talking about this and he said how Elon thought the Moon was irrelevant and Mars had to be the goal - because only on Mars can you live sustainably using local resources, and because there are too many differences that make the tech you'd develop in each case, not transferable. Over the years we've discussed this more, and I think Elon is basically right.

However, the Moon is a prize for politicians and nations, hence we see the current race to land people back there, America in the lead but China (and now India) coming up on the rails. With Congress throwing a lot of money at the project because their SLS rocket creates jobs in every single state. So, some visionary people at NASA managed to award the lunar landing contract to SpaceX, as a means of helping fund Starship and allow them to work together on on-orbit refuelling and long-term life-support systems (for the ultimate goal of Mars). Jeff Bezos didn't like this and sued to stop the award, to much ridicule in the space community whose response was you can't sue your way to the Moon. Despite Bezos founding Blue Origin a couple of years befor Musk founded SpaceX, Blue Origin has never launched a single thing into orbit. But now it means SpaceX is diverted slightly from the Mars goal as they have to adapt a version of the Starship to land on the Moon. One of the NASA engineers on the project came over to see me a month ago and talked about how advanced these plans actually are, even if they've not yet been made public.

[TigerTedd]

1 hour ago, Carl Sagan said:

Great to come on and see this thread full of comments. Seriously. Because it's about going to Mars I haven't posted about India's achievements on here, with their lunar landing, although I tweeted about it.

It's actually an interesting question as I used to think Humanity couldn't go to Mars and build a settlement there without first doing a lot of work with practice Human habitation on the Moon, and a fully working Moonbase and infrastructure around it. Then, one day, I was having drinks with the head of rocket landing at SpaceX (before they'd ever landed a rocket!) and we were talking about this and he said how Elon thought the Moon was irrelevant and Mars had to be the goal - because only on Mars can you live sustainably using local resources, and because there are too many differences that make the tech you'd develop in each case, not transferable. Over the years we've discussed this more, and I think Elon is basically right.

However, the Moon is a prize for politicians and nations, hence we see the current race to land people back there, America in the lead but China (and now India) coming up on the rails. With Congress throwing a lot of money at the project because their SLS rocket creates jobs in every single state. So, some visionary people at NASA managed to award the lunar landing contract to SpaceX, as a means of helping fund Starship and allow them to work together on on-orbit refuelling and long-term life-support systems (for the ultimate goal of Mars). Jeff Bezos didn't like this and sued to stop the award, to much ridicule in the space community whose response was you can't sue your way to the Moon. Despite Bezos founding Blue Origin a couple of years befor Musk founded SpaceX, Blue Origin has never launched a single thing into orbit. But now it means SpaceX is diverted slightly from the Mars goal as they have to adapt a version of the Starship to land on the Moon. One of the NASA engineers on the project came over to see me a month ago and talked about how advanced these plans actually are, even if they've not yet been made public.

Surely there’s got to be some benefit to developing technologies to land on the moon. Sure they are different, but there has to be a lot of similarities too. If you can land on the moon sustainably, you’ve got a much better chance to land on mars sustainably. And importantly, you can show the world that, so it doesn’t all just exist in Elon’s head, there’s something tangible to spark the imagination. 

[Carl Sagan]

12 hours ago, TigerTedd said:

Surely there’s got to be some benefit to developing technologies to land on the moon. Sure they are different, but there has to be a lot of similarities too. If you can land on the moon sustainably, you’ve got a much better chance to land on mars sustainably. And importantly, you can show the world that, so it doesn’t all just exist in Elon’s head, there’s something tangible to spark the imagination. 

You're right that sparking the imagination is incredibly important. Now as well as in the future. SpaceX and Tesla already have all the best engineers because, why would you be interesting in iterating the iPhone20 when you can be working on rockets or self-driving cars. And yes it will be an absolutely huge deal when we do finally return to the Moon. But the early missions will cost vast fortunes as they're launching on SLS (at least $4bn per launch and a very low cadence - one every year or two), so there will be critics. It will forever be planting flags unless we can switch to reusable launches, after which we can finally build that Moonbase. And that will indeed make Mars much more real. 

But I think long-term life-support and on-orbit refuelling are the main bonuses of going to the Moon in terms of preparing for Mars, so they're kind of tangential to the Moon. But another bonus may be automation which will be needed for both locations. To have the ability to effectively automate the 3D-printing of landing pads and habitats, to navigate to and collect water, and all that kind of stuff. And to grow food in artificial environments. And maybe another commonality is that one idea for early habitats is to build them within collapsed lava tubes, and these exist on the Moon and Mars, so that is another way we can potentially learn from living on the Moon. But it could be the case that's the sort of thing we'll end up doing on Mars first, and then reusing the tech closer to home.

Some tech is bespoke. It's much easier to create oxygen on Mars and there's vastly more water there than on the Moon. There is also such a huge difference between having an atmospere, albeit thin, compared with no atmosphere, which makes lunar "soil" really sharp and dangerous, but I suppose if you can design protection from that then you have a lot of added insurance for when you arrive on Mars. The landings are very different. Every single time a SpaceX rocket lands on Earth, it is specifically giving them more information for when the time comes to land on Mars.

But they will have to create an entirely new landing system for the Moon, which is a distraction. The soil is so lethal, you need to minimize how much you disturb. That's why my number one goal would be to build landing pads before you even attempt a Starship landing. But when they do finally land, it will be using thrusters at the top of the rocket rather than the main engine at its foot.

But ultimately, if (still an if) Starship works as intended, it will create such a monumental change in our space capabilities that everyone will have to sit up and take notice. Very quickly from that point on we'll be able to launch new and much bigger space stations (hopefully rotating), and things like space-based solar power. But because (like the Shuttle) there is no separate escape system it will need many hundreds/thousands of launches before being rated safe for Humans from the pad. Happily, having a rapidly reusable rocket (and trying to build a new one every week!) means that won't take as long as many people think.

[TigerTedd]

5 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

You're right that sparking the imagination is incredibly important. Now as well as in the future. SpaceX and Tesla already have all the best engineers because, why would you be interesting in iterating the iPhone20 when you can be working on rockets or self-driving cars. And yes it will be an absolutely huge deal when we do finally return to the Moon. But the early missions will cost vast fortunes as they're launching on SLS (at least $4bn per launch and a very low cadence - one every year or two), so there will be critics. It will forever be planting flags unless we can switch to reusable launches, after which we can finally build that Moonbase. And that will indeed make Mars much more real. 

But I think long-term life-support and on-orbit refuelling are the main bonuses of going to the Moon in terms of preparing for Mars, so they're kind of tangential to the Moon. But another bonus may be automation which will be needed for both locations. To have the ability to effectively automate the 3D-printing of landing pads and habitats, to navigate to and collect water, and all that kind of stuff. And to grow food in artificial environments. And maybe another commonality is that one idea for early habitats is to build them within collapsed lava tubes, and these exist on the Moon and Mars, so that is another way we can potentially learn from living on the Moon. But it could be the case that's the sort of thing we'll end up doing on Mars first, and then reusing the tech closer to home.

Some tech is bespoke. It's much easier to create oxygen on Mars and there's vastly more water there than on the Moon. There is also such a huge difference between having an atmospere, albeit thin, compared with no atmosphere, which makes lunar "soil" really sharp and dangerous, but I suppose if you can design protection from that then you have a lot of added insurance for when you arrive on Mars. The landings are very different. Every single time a SpaceX rocket lands on Earth, it is specifically giving them more information for when the time comes to land on Mars.

But they will have to create an entirely new landing system for the Moon, which is a distraction. The soil is so lethal, you need to minimize how much you disturb. That's why my number one goal would be to build landing pads before you even attempt a Starship landing. But when they do finally land, it will be using thrusters at the top of the rocket rather than the main engine at its foot.

But ultimately, if (still an if) Starship works as intended, it will create such a monumental change in our space capabilities that everyone will have to sit up and take notice. Very quickly from that point on we'll be able to launch new and much bigger space stations (hopefully rotating), and things like space-based solar power. But because (like the Shuttle) there is no separate escape system it will need many hundreds/thousands of launches before being rated safe for Humans from the pad. Happily, having a rapidly reusable rocket (and trying to build a new one every week!) means that won't take as long as many people think.

It’s funny that there are so many complexities to landing on the moon, you almost forget that we did already do it over 50 years ago. It makes me wonder what they’re fannying about at. Buzz aldrin must be thinking ‘give me a rocket and I’ll get you on the moon in a week.’ How many flights of the Artemis rockets did they have before they were considered safe for humans? 

[Carl Sagan]

The next Starship (designated Ship 25) is now fully stacked and "ready for launch", just waiting approval from the Federal Aviation Authority:

This rocket, which started life as the "Mars Colonial Transporter" before becoming the BFR and so on, sees no end of name changes. This second planned flight is now the second "Integrated Flight Test" as opposed to the "Orbital Flight Test" which it had been called before.

Congress and the FAA have a decision to make. The Elon haters are trying to stop the launch because of alleged "environmental concerns" in the launch area (perhaps a colony of nesting birds or some such might be disturbed). These groups are suing the FAA and SpaceX. But Starship is the vital (and final) part of the Artemis jigsaw to get Americans back to the Moon before China lands there, so Congress can and should disallow any lawsuits in the national interest. Obviously Starship goes beyond the narrow American national interest, and is a piece in the jigsaw of creating a longterm future for Humanity, for which we need to leave planet Earth. But courts can take a long time, so if these cases are heard, then it opens the door for the Chinese to go to the Moon next. And potentially stops sustainable, reusable spaceflight for the foreseeable future.

[Stive Pesley]

18 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

The next Starship (designated Ship 25) is now fully stacked and "ready for launch", just waiting approval from the Federal Aviation Authority:

This rocket, which started life as the "Mars Colonial Transporter" before becoming the BFR and so on, sees no end of name changes. This second planned flight is now the second "Integrated Flight Test" as opposed to the "Orbital Flight Test" which it had been called before.

Congress and the FAA have a decision to make. The Elon haters are trying to stop the launch because of alleged "environmental concerns" in the launch area (perhaps a colony of nesting birds or some such might be disturbed). These groups are suing the FAA and SpaceX. But Starship is the vital (and final) part of the Artemis jigsaw to get Americans back to the Moon before China lands there, so Congress can and should disallow any lawsuits in the national interest. Obviously Starship goes beyond the narrow American national interest, and is a piece in the jigsaw of creating a longterm future for Humanity, for which we need to leave planet Earth. But courts can take a long time, so if these cases are heard, then it opens the door for the Chinese to go to the Moon next. And potentially stops sustainable, reusable spaceflight for the foreseeable future.

What's the plan with this one? Is it another one that is supposed to explode as a test, or will this one take off and land again?

[Carl Sagan]

On 07/09/2023 at 12:37, Stive Pesley said:

What's the plan with this one? Is it another one that is supposed to explode as a test, or will this one take off and land again?

The great news today is that the FAA has said the "mishap" investigation (after the damage to the launchpad from the first test) has now been concluded, so it looks as if the new flight will be within the next couple of weeks.

Yes the first flight was always expected to explode at some point, and just clearing the pad was enough. Presuming it's a repeat of the first attempt, the proposed flight path is intended to reach orbital velocity with Starship itself then performing a controlled descent and landing in the ocean just north of Hawaii (after flying most of the way around the world to get there). The SuperHeavy booster will ditch in the Gulf of Mexico. As we progress, the booster will return to the Texas landing site and be caught in mid-air by the launch tower while Starship will "land" on land (or more likely an ocean-going platform) wherever its final destination is. If SpaceX have done enough work since the first test flight, they might even try to catch the booster this time around.

That's if it doesn't blow up (or rather be blown up by remote control from the land as happened first time around). The hope this time is for the launchpad not to be damaged and for the two parts of the spaceship to successfully separate. Achieve that and it will be a major milestone. There are other Starships and Boosters already built and nearly ready for the next tests.

[TigerTedd]

7 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

The great news today is that the FAA has said the "mishap" investigation (after the damage to the launchpad from the first test) has now been concluded, so it looks as if the new flight will be within the next couple of weeks.

Yes the first flight was always expected to explode at some point, and just clearing the pad was enough. Presuming it's a repeat of the first attempt, the proposed flight path is intended to reach orbital velocity with Starship itself then performing a controlled descent and landing in the ocean just north of Hawaii (after flying most of the way around the world to get there). The SuperHeavy booster will ditch in the Gulf of Mexico. As we progress, the booster will return to the Texas landing site and be caught in mid-air by the launch tower while Starship will "land" on land (or more likely an ocean-going platform) wherever its final destination is. If SpaceX have done enough work since the first test flight, they might even try to catch the booster this time around.

That's if it doesn't blow up (or rather be blown up by remote control from the land as happened first time around). The hope this time is for the launchpad not to be damaged and for the two parts of the spaceship to successfully separate. Achieve that and it will be a major milestone. There are other Starships and Boosters already built and nearly ready for the next tests.

Seems like they’ve got all the rockets they need, the only delay is in getting launch dates. Getting the tech to work right seems almost inevitable at this stage. It seems like the problem, if the dream is to be launching several a day like an airport, is to get that somehow approved. How are they going to get over that hurdle?

[Carl Sagan]

The second Integrated Flight Test has been delayed for months (and with it Humanity's future among the stars) because America's Fish and Wildlife Service wanted precise odds of Starship hitting a sperm whale when it ditches in the ocean. Bureaucracy (or Biden's anti-Musk agenda) out of control. Happily it seems they've not found any other reasons to try to delay the launch, so it looks as if excitement is guaranteed for Friday. Here's a SpaceX video to prepare for the event.

[Carl Sagan]

And here's the intended flightpath if Starship makes it all the way to Hawaii where it will ditch in the sea, with the SuperHeavy booster ditching in The Gulf (this time only):

[Carl Sagan]

And a lovely person has superimposed some of my narration over a cool video of Starship flying to Mars:

 

[Carl Sagan]

The Fish and Wildlife service has given its formal approval:

It's all so ridiculous and has held up the launch for months. Now this is done, The Federal Aviation Authority can formally sign the licence, and the first launch attempt will be Friday.

The launch window will open from 1pm Greenwich Mean Time (which in space terms is known as Universal Time) and will remain open for two hours. Whether it flies to Hawaii or blows up on the launchpad, excitement is guaranteed!

Edited November 15, 2023 by Carl Sagan

[Stive Pesley]

I don't think it's ridiculous to have safeguarding measures in place to ensure that wildlife and the planetary ecosystem is not adversely affected by what is effectively large scale engineering work

The idea of super rich people and corporations thinking that they are above such things is one of the biggest problems the planet faces. 

It's sorted now, and that's a good thing. 

[AndyinLiverpool]

1 hour ago, Stive Pesley said:

I don't think it's ridiculous to have safeguarding measures in place to ensure that wildlife and the planetary ecosystem is not adversely affected by what is effectively large scale engineering work

The idea of super rich people and corporations thinking that they are above such things is one of the biggest problems the planet faces. 

It's sorted now, and that's a good thing. 

It's OK- our future is in the stars. No need to care about the planet we currently live on.

[Stive Pesley]

2 hours ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

It's OK- our future is in the stars. No need to care about the planet we currently live on.

Space Karen is probably just sore that he couldn't bribe his way out of it

[AndyinLiverpool]

51 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Space Karen is probably just sore that he couldn't bribe his way out of it

Complaining about having to abide by environmental standards and the 'Boo hoo, everyone's agianst us' mentality may seem like a preposterous sense of entitlement but, remember, he is our saviour.

Jesus would have bitched on Twitter about having to divy out fish and bread to his audience.

[Carl Sagan]

2 hours ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

Complaining about having to abide by environmental standards and the 'Boo hoo, everyone's agianst us' mentality may seem like a preposterous sense of entitlement but, remember, he is our saviour.

Many a true word is spoken in jest.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Carl Sagan

[uttoxram75]

2 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Many a true word is spoken in jest.

Not everyone shares your enthusiasm Carl. This official picture from the US Space Force press release has caused a bit of ridicule in the US.

[Comrade 86]

5 hours ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

Complaining about having to abide by environmental standards and the 'Boo hoo, everyone's agianst us' mentality may seem like a preposterous sense of entitlement but, remember, he is our saviour.

Jesus would have bitched on Twitter about having to divy out fish and bread to his audience.

Scoff all you like Andy, but my personal light of human consciousness burns a little brighter for this landmark victory.

[Carl Sagan]

12 minutes ago, uttoxram75 said:

Not everyone shares your enthusiasm Carl. This official picture from the US Space Force press release has caused a bit of ridicule in the US.

This is interesting as it showcase the difference between some military and civilian technology. This X-37B military space plane (uncrewed) has just landed after being in orbit for more than two-and-a-half years. Amazing. Doing what, who knows? But the protective outfits of those going to assess it on landing, do leave a bit to be desired. Green wellies!? 

Which helps me loop this thread back to Starship and SpaceX. Elon was adamant that their spacesuits should be really cool, and he famously had a superhero film designer work with them on the look. And they're better than everyone else's spacesuits (of course). But then you look at the SpaceX boots and see function trumps form even there, and they look terrible too! The only difference is the wellies aren't green...