I think some of the best people to crew a Starship will be submariners. They are used to spending months beneath the sea in a steel tube without seeing anything or being connected to anyone. They would be the ideal candidates for a mission like this.
@@earth_lingships & buildings designed specifically to prevent that will…. Prevent that 😂 People like you have existed throughout history trying to hold our species back from scientific advancement. Luckily there are enough people who are brave enough to risk death to advance our species 😊
@@earth_ling i mean we couldve said the same for every human who decided to explore unexplored lands even on earth. the only difference is the gravity and atmosphere
On earth, ships often travel in groups, for example, a naval carrier group. So instead of sending one starship, send a group, a command ship with the astronauts, and other ships with supplies and cargo. It also means that you have backup ships if you have a problem. Being in space, they could even be Tethered together.
If you tethered the ships in couples, nose to nose, and had a suitably strong cable, you could rotate them to provide some measure of artificial gravity. (Down would be toward the engines, up would be toward the command decks)
Ever hear of spaceships colliding? That's why you don't send up an armada of ships. It might be possible to launch unmanned resupply ships ahead of the manned ship to reduce the payload. The manned ship would dock with the resupply ship and take on replacement stores. Then detach and go onto Mars. Of course of the resupply ship fails, then your kind of screwed.
Something of note, Elon has said that Space X will be expanding the current overall length of both the booster section and the length of the Starship proper.
@@trequor haha, lovely! Maybe they'll figure out hybrid engines. I remember a very stupidly polluting propellant powering an engine well, so perhaps they can do the refuel trips while bringing some of this propellant that would be terrible to burn in the Earth, but since it's in space it'll disperse. Benefit being thrust to weight could be more efficient with such propellant.
Bro were you listening? He basically said it would be the best thing we have for Interstellar exploration. He never said it was an interstellar vehicle or that we’ve used it for interstellar missions.
It makes the most sense to use elements of the "Mars Direct" plan, no matter the other considerations. Send all the supplies you need, along with a fuel generator, to Mars ahead of the manned ship. You don't launch until you verify everything made it safely. This way you aren't trying to cram everything you may need on the trip, plus what you need once there, into a single ship. It would enable you to concentrate nearly everything on the manned ship toward crew health and comfort. By doing it this way you also have the makings of an outpost on the planet that can be used by future missions. To me, this is the only way that makes sense.
It would be very difficult to sync the re entry’s to get the same spot, mar’s orbit is pretty wierd compared to ours and I would take a few years in between different supply and manned ships.
Going to mars is just impractical unfortunately. The lack of gravity would just destroy our bones and basically lead you to die a painful death. Babies would be born deformed. Humans really are only set up to function here. We are better off recycling our current resources and fixing the issues humanity created here. This whole colonization idea would lead to the end of our species…serious. The journey alone is likely to kill us
@@JamieWex I am not advocating the colonization of Mars, but the manned exploration of the Red planet. If that leads to the development of ways to negate the health impacts of .375G then I'm all for colonization. And no one is being forced to immigrate to Mars. Anyone that volunteers for the trip will be aware on the potential effects on their health. Long term we must spread to space to ensure the survival of the species, even if that means evolving into something we wouldn't recognize as Homo Sapiens.
The most sensible approach to maximize safety for the crew and their effectiveness. Separate advance ships would ferry: 1) a Mars habitat where the crew will stay 2) a greenhouse which would produce much of the food they will eat (tended by a robot) 3) vehicles the crew will use to navigate the planet 4) power plant that produces all the power/fuel the crew will need If sent in advance the crew would then know that everything they need to survive and succeed is already there and in good working order waiting for their arrival.
In a crew trip, they will have most likely have sent equipment and supplies on other rockets and it will be waiting for the crew there. That makes the most sense.
For both the Moon and Mars there should be basic habitat and supplies in triplicate to compensate for failure of one or delays in resupply or return missions. The more infrastructure in place the sooner self sustainment can be achieved. For Mars several habitat and supply runs should be made before humans arrive. This will test the transport systems so they are fully vetted before people go and multiple varied habitats will be critical for mental health..
I was in the military for 20 years and often spent months deployed to the middle of nowhere with no cell phone, computer, or mail capabilities. I got a 10-minute "morale phone call" once a week - but the landline phone was often broken, or it would cut off the call after a minute or two. So when I see people crying because they don't have instant communication, it makes me giggle.
Not that long ago we only had the pony express for long distance communication, and somehow people were fine. I don't think that's a big deal. 40 minutes at the halfway point (an hour if you add the time needed to compose a detailed message) isn't really a big deal. Now, being in zero G for who knows how long sounds like a real problem to me.
@@UXSpecialist After astronauts return from the ISS, they take the time to go through physical therapy for several months and it takes months or years to recover bone density, muscle strength, neurological health, etc. Whereas when people land on Mars they will presumably have immediate work to do, much of it physical in nature. I'm not saying these are insurmountable problems but they're definitely problems.
@@thirstbasket Ok, well what would be cool is a gravity simulator. Like a big ring that spins around the starship. It could gradually change from Earth's gravitational strength to that of Mars. Actually, I'm surprised the ISS doesn't already have this. We should totally build this....
Virtual reality headsets might be a practical solution to overcoming claustrophobia on a six-month flight to Mars. They could dial up virtual trips to the beach, the mountains or the wide open prairies. Get on a stationary bike or a treadmill, then virtually bike or jog along a favorite trail. Using sensory stimulation via heaters, fans or nature's sound effects (such as the sound of birds, a rainstorm or a flowing river) would add to the experience, making it as close to reality as possible.
People act as though the trip is the hard part and then once they get to Mars it's like there's somewhere to go. It's just more tubes and underground encased structures. You aren't going to just go walking around on Mars and live in a glass bubble with plenty of space to stretch out.
@@osbjmg I mean, that's technically true but when they are on mars they aren't exactly going to be sitting around waiting like on starship. They would most likely have tasks to carry out on the surface and other stuff like that.
Having served aboard a nuclear powered submarine, I believe that a Mars mission of many months will be the ultimate challenge. The habitable area of a submarine is much greater than that of the Starship. A submarine also creates an endless supply of oxygen and potable water from seawater. A submarine also has the ability to store food and supplies for a crew of well over a hundred. In addition, during an emergency a submarine can surface and return to port. During a Mars mission a crew wouldn't have the multitude of options and zero delay communications that a submarine has. Even with the challenges of a Mars mission, God has given mankind the ability to dream and plan for such endeavors. Therefore, I believe that it is possible.
@@doctorae724 It is not like people din't serve in smaller submarines whose habitable area is around the same size. & this in war-times were it was not possible to return to port for longer time etc.
"The old space shuttle has so far been proven to be our high water mark in terms of a legitimate vehicle for interstellar exploration." *Interstellar* seems a bit ambitious for both the Space Shuttle or Starship.
I find the words "shuttle", and "interplanetary" in the same sentence, laughable. Just because it looks good on a drawing board, doesn't mean it would work in practical use. The shuttle never went past LEO, so how do they KNOW it could be interplanetary?
I don't know what it will be like to go to Mars in that big ass rocket but I volunteer. I am a Navy vet so understand living in close quarters with others. I spent 40 years in Aviation, have my FAA mechanics and inspectors licenses and am a pilot as well. Given expertise in most things related except ordinance I would be a good fit. Plus I am getting old so if things went sideways, no harm no foul. I am much closer to the end than the beginning so lets go! Like I said, I would love to be on the first one to go.
Ik like that spirit. 👍🏻To most modern people it seems unacceptable to allow old people to die before at least six of their organs fail.😅 I share that attitude to spend my last years to serve humanity in such a daring enterprise, after many fruitful years on Earth.👨🏻🎨
You are, on paper, among the most qualified. I say go for it. I fully agree with your perspective of “closer to the end than the beginning”. If you make it all the way to mars, you could dedicate the rest of your life to working there, probably quite comfortable due to the lower gravity.
They wouldn't take people over the age of say 45. Older people wouldn't be able to do the strenuous work needed to build a habitat. And their health would decrease much sooner than younger people. You can't afford to waste the payload on someone who may wind up as dead weight.
@@curtrapp5291 Older people make sense for the first colonists. Radiation is a huge problem, the first people going will get a high dose. Radiation damage is like rolling a dice from the moment it happens, older people have less dice rolls left to get a tumor (this is a little over simplified) Infertility is a must too for the first "colonists" on mars, there will not be much in the way of spare resources so suddenly adding the load of a growing child/children is not feasible assuming the radation doesn't cause significant health problems. Plus given the conditions they will be living in, life expectancy isn't going to be great.
As another viewer stated, it’s great eye-candy, but that’s about all. At most you’d want a capacity of 6-10 astronauts, and then design for fully autonomous operations. 1. A true Airlock 2. Equipment bay for Rover(s). 3. Hydroponics Bay? 4. Additional oxygen storage. 5. Additional water storage. 6. Additional food supplies 7. True Kitchen facilities? 8. Maintenance Bay for Spacesuits and “All” equipment. 9. Fabrication Shop and Spare parts area. 10. Additional Solar Array storage? 11. Spare battery storage? 12. And so much more I haven’t even thought of yet. Yes, it’s fun to see all these totally imaginary fanciful CGI renditions, but I’d much rather see useful well thought out design concepts created by Engineers versus artists that love the look of things versus the practical application of current and proposed future technologies. An “A” for enthusiasm, but other than that, it doesn’t do much for me. Wish I could find greater emphasis on real world applications using a CGI platform.
I would imagine life on the starship during a trip to Mars will be like life on a submarine; as in back-to-back patrols. There appears to be several similarities. Acclimatization prior to the voyage would be of value. The number of people onboard is important; enough so not to be boring (unique personal interactions) yet still have enough personal space. On submarines you didn't need (that is to say, you didn't get) much.
I had 9 patrols on an SSBN , 75-80 days apiece. I think I could handle the trip, but I wouldn't trust the hardware. On a submarine, you can feel confident that you will be coming back!
except you'd go blind and get alzheimer's from all the brain damage due to radiation in space. also the air you bring with you is all you'll ever get whereas on a submarine, you just surface and you can refill instantly. plus you can get out of the submarine and stretch your legs in the sun but in space you are stuck and will go crazy.
Good break down but everyone keeps assuming the crew version will have a header tank in the nose...NO. that was done just for weight distribution for the flight test prototypes. All header tanks will be in the empty vaccum of the main tanks below. That will keep them cold for six months and prevent punctures from micro meteors.
Good intro to the Starship journey. Being that weight is a primary factor to get the starship off earth, might I suggest that when starship is orbiting earth after liftoff and during refueling they launch a couple other ships the same size with extra battery packs for electricity during the journey. Also they could put most of the food stores and water in the 2nd. starship and transfer that over to the primary starship to save on some fuel during lift off.
I'm on the same thought train as you. I'd like to add that if multiple vehicles could be launched into orbit, then attached together. You could take more for the journey and provide more space to move around in for the crew.
There will be several unmanned landings ahead of a crewed mission to place heavy equipment and supplies. There will probably be more than one crewed ship on the first trip to Mars. SpaceX plans to build 1000 Starships, launching up to 3 a day to ferry people and housing and water and food and rovers and science instruments, etc.
It's always been the plan to get the propellant plant to Mars first. If all works well, the crew would arrive at a site with several other Starships, where one already contains enough methane and liquid oxygen to return to earth.
Weight is always a consideration, but regardless of how Starship is powered, the crew is going to need a lot of shielding to protect them from solar flares. A bank of batteries would absorb the dangerous radiation well, especially if they're already going to be on the lower deck between the crew and the Sun.
@@lgkfamily yes, and getting there at great velocities, that will solve so many problems including exposure to dangerous radiation, but yes, liquids are good shields too.
Considering the power issue, if it was managed to make a nuclear reactor with the right amount of weight that doesn't exponentially increase the overall weight of the ship, it could theoretically solve the power problem.
I would say that a crew size of 15-20 would be ideal for the first Mars mission you will need experts in several different fields in even just a 2 year mission that plans to return ... its not as easy as 4 days to get there , plant a flag and then come back in 4 more days And that is especially true if the plan is for colonisation rather just for a temporary outpost
I think the plan was one Starship launched with crew and life support and another would provide fuel and attach together for the trip to Mars then separate and return to Earth while the crew module would land on the surface. Still would need an orbiter is something went wrong.
@@philiplongee1149 Yes, although I suspect more than one supply ship ahead of a crewed landing. The atmospheric entry and landing on Mars is going to be very tricky, almost certainly the most risky part of the mission, so SpaceX will have wanted to be confident that it can be done successfully before attempting a crewed landing and to be confident enough to risk even one human life I would think that they would want to have successfully landed far more than just one uncrewed test flight and when they send these uncrewed vessels to attempt a landing they might as well put something in them, in fact they need to have something to accurate simulate the residual payload mass that a crewed Starship would have by the time it landed (people and equipment but probably most of the food and water gone since that would be replenished from the supply vessels already on the surface). So my guess, putting all of that together, is that by the time the first crewed Starship lands on Mars there will be multiple uncrewed Starships (3 or 4 at least?) that will already have successfully landed.
I agree more than 10 and 15 to 20 sounds about right. Even for a crew of 10 would you want to include a medical doctor in the crew since it would be a 2 to 3 year mission? Definitely NOT in my opinion, that would be too risky, you would want to include at least 2 medical doctors in the crew in case one gets incapacitated or killed. The same probably applies to other specialist skills where it would really make sense to at least double up on those specialists and that probably makes a crew of 10 too small to cover all the necessary skill sets.
I agree that 16 - 20 would be a better number than 10. There is also the issue of being able to start up conversations with people you don’t usually talk to, just to get a break from your usual acquaintances
The minimum possible number of crew to complete the mission, really - they'll have to be multitaskers. Every extra body is a mouth to feed and consumer of water, living space, an extra EVA suit, and so on. The fewer bodies involved, the better. You prob couldn't do it with less than six, but more than ten is inefficient and you are making the mission more complicated than it needs to be. Throw out un-needed passengers, and you can bring more food, water and other mission supplies. Also in a loss of crew scenario, the fewer grieving families, the better for absolutely everyone involved.
I imagine life on Mars and in the ship would be borderline militaristic, but understandably so due to the scarcity of resources and harshness of space.
certainly, during the first missions, until it's proved safe; then it will be much the same as life on board an airliner or cruise ship, say 50-100 years from now!
@@ronschlorff7089 me praying i will live long enough to get into space. I think i should be able to I got born in the 21century so as long as i don't die from other causes i should live to about 80 year old my family at the moment is mostly pushing 90 and 100 and that with them living in the 1940s with all the lead gas and horrible chemicals who knows how long i will live for.
I think putting submariners in space is a good idea, they are already used to being in a small claustrophobic space for long periods of time, so sanity won’t be a giant issue
For the privilege of stepping on another planet, let alone going into space. 6-9 months in that ship is well worth it. Even if it's a one way trip. It won't matter to me. Seriously I'd be writing in my journal every single day in between my day to day duties. Recording footage and taking pictures. Needless to say the crew would have a treasure trove of video and photos of the journey.
Go ahead and volunteer, it's easy now. But when launch day comes, several of your compatriots will be put on the ship at gunpoint, having had second thoughts. Not the kind of people you want to fly to Mars with - no one will get there alive.
How about connecting four of these habitats together and creating a circle. Rotating the structure will create gravity in all four connected ships. The chances of several and return will be better.
One starship needs six other starships to refuel it after it reaches LEO before it can transfers to Mars. If you have four ships travelling, then you need 24 starship tanker launches just to fuel them up. It gets absurd pretty quickly. An expendable starship with a seperate decent module would be *much* more efficient as it would be trying to haul it's entire return stage from a relative velocity of 0 m/s at the Martian surface... but I dunno.... Musk reasons.
@@lmlmd2714 Yes, in Musk we trust, he's been to Mars before, as part of the von Neuman probe regeneration of a humanoid life form, to show us earthlings the way to get us off the Earth before catastrophe hits our planet.
9m diameter is far too small to generate artificial gravity with rotation. Your feet and head would be multiples of difference in relative G force. Feet at 1G, head at .5 and you've got yourself a ship full of vomit.
@@calz7744 yeah, but that's only for 6 short months!! The vomit does not worry me, it's; the toilets, yes, the toilets, OMG, ...the f'ing toilets.......!!LOL :D
I wonder if SpaceX will launch several rockets at the same time for the maiden voyage. They will need lots of infrastructure to sustain the crew once they land on Mars. Also they might want to have several crews going at the same time, to spread the risk. Let's be honest, the risk is humongous.
You haven't commented on any of my other ideas i've said, but here goes!! If you don't keep the crew busy they will go bonkers. Give them tasks that they need to preform like, 1st a really good telescope for them to make observations while there in flight. 2nd Have two people build a robot or two for when they get to Mars they have there own personal friend they can give commands to for help on Mars. This would give them the incentive. 3rd At some point, when a person is confined in a vessel they need to escape for a while. A good virtual reality system so a person feels that there in a much bigger place then they really are. This reduces stress of being confined. I have other ideas but i need to know if your listening. Please comment. Thank you for your time
Great video. Two things come to my mind: You need a protective area (bunker) during radiation/cosmic storms. Nuclear power - different but one to propel the ship and and one for electricity
Just use Water to stop the radiation. You have to take it with you anyway. 2 birds with 1 stone. Before you tell me you need 13 feet of water, I know. 6 inches of water and 3 inches of Tungsten. Might take 8 inches of water.. not sure. Have someone smarter do the math on that. You want to take a steam engine to space? You know nukes are just steam engines, right? Solar is 5,000% better in space than on Earth. Why not just use that for electricity?
@@davidbeppler3032 I totally agree regarding use of water as shielding, 100%! And doesn’t have to be the whole ship, only a certain area to bunker together during the event… I don’t agree though regarding solar to nuclear, sorry. I think we need nuclear engines for starships and also powering them I think will be more efficient and easier than dragging huge solar sails.
I’m seeing this after watching their first successful launch to orbit! I can’t believe how big it actually is.. seeing human models inside the rooms for scale really puts it into perspective!
I think you make 4 of these ships, with hatches that will allow you to connect all four together, in a quad, side by side. They get interconnected in space, though some amount of supplies is in all four sections, one would have the bulk of it as well as power cells another would have the bulk of you fuel but tanks in all four will be connected by one-way valves.
This is probably a good idea, because you can get a lot more resources/crew with you and they could use a big connector system with tubes, hatches and solarpanels to connect the ships together, which also can carry tanks for with fuel for a possible return to earth. But usually if there is a permanent stay planned on mars the first ships should/will be designed modular so that you can dismantle them for resources needed for a mars basis-hub
they could use a combination of surface solar panels, nuclear batteries like in subs, and some stored energy from earth in form a batteries, they could use the fuel in the tanks also, they could use as said in the video h2 cells.
I like the starship design. For a trip to Mars I think you will need 2 of these that can connect in space and would have enough cargo for the long journey there and back. If not 2 of them then perhaps a bigger ship will be necessary.
That is exactly what they plan on doing . SpaceX plans to launch two of the identical starship and while in orbit around earth they’re going to link up.
I don’t think we are going to mars anytime soon I think if anything landing back on the moon might be a better idea. The fact that we haven’t been back to the moon and over 70 years is pretty crazy but we’re talking about going somewhere that’s millions of miles away I don’t think it’s that insane of an idea of trying to get back to the moon first before going to Mars.
It would be a lot easier if they could use a microreactor to power the Starship. Also, incorporating inflatable hab modules that were developed by Bigalow Aerospace would increase the habitable volume for passengers.
I definitely think several Bigalow modules would help and could be used on mars after landing. A microreactor is unfeasible due to the way it works. Nuclear reactions generate heat to boil water to turn a turbine. Then that steam would need to be cooled. On a submarine or aircraft carrier, this is easy using seawater. There are no particles in space to cool the reaction.
Oh it would be huh? These putzes aren't even aware when they're prized ship explodes, and can't seem to build one that doesn't do that, let alone make it past L.E.O.
I work for SpaceX at the Cape and work with the engineers on the design for Starship somethings you got right and others not so much but you'll have to wait until the full roll out to find out ;)
Working with crew together for a long duration must be in a right frame of mind. During long durations music will keep a person in a happy outlook. Maybe magnetic games for group fun. Magnetic lego game!! Can you guys build a smaller vessel for shipping items to reduce space? Thank you, Leo 🎉🎉🎉
Already the Apollo Spacecraft used a hydrogen fuel cell to produce electric energy, so did the Space Shuttle. So it is really weird when you say "We already figured out how to power a car with it, so it is certainly possible that it can be scaled up to a starship". And that you even mention batteries before that.
Yeah, the dumb little Canuck! And yes, some "inconvenient truths" abound today about what has been done by we Americans, decades before. That, and many others, like it was pretty much "routine operations" for NASA's Apollo Program to go to the moon "Anytime When They Wanted To", well over 50 years ago! ;D LOL
@@barakobama8194 yes, true, the new nuke engines will be great and get us there quickly, within weeks instead of months, once the Mars vehicle is in orbit; but it's that first "big boost", using chemicals, from Earth into space that will be tricky-est to pull off. Like as we witnessed by the recent Star Ship short "flight" and RUD! Not too much that will be "re-useable" after that flight, eh? ;D As for the narrator, I think he is just reading a script written by a robot!! At least he seems to be humanoid! :D LOL
I don't entirely understand why he said solar panels would be too big to roll out from Starship itself, but fuel cells seem like a good idea anyway. Oh wait I forgot, hydrogen tends to leak _through tank walls!_
@@eekee6034 seems like an old and tried technology but I suppose new/better? ones will come online before serious long-term missions to the moon begin again. The Apollo landings were rather short duration missions so the H2 leaks would not be a huge problem, I guess. I imagine they knew about it and discounted it in favor of getting there and back as quickly as possible.
1 key thing that you missed when it comes to information on the SpaceX. Is that there's going to be two ships traveling together, and they will be tethered in such a way so that they can spin and create artificial gravity. And they will be hooked up to you but the tether will be able to have solar panels making it so that they have enough energy to get back and forth. Apparently they're still working on how they're going to create the artificial gravity
First, using one ship isn’t as good as many smaller. Launch 10 ships that are each half the size of the one described. I know, cost will prohibit it. But it does a lot of things. You could have a ship dedicated to energy…one to food…one to crew life, one for fuel etc. Once launched they can meet up in space and fly together. If one has issues, they can move that stuff to the others. Seems safer. Hell, you might even link them during the flight periodically. Gives the crew meaningful activity while presenting minimal risk. Sort of like voltron lol! Seriously, like each ship is capable of the entire trip by itself but when combined in the fleet, they all become more efficient. Kind of like a Navy with specialized boats.
@@halomaster9640 No doubt the first crews to Mars, especially if occurring during a democrat administration in the U.S., will be "diverse", if you will, in many ways!! And the definition of "the right stuff" will have changed, more than a little bit! ;D LOL
@@halomaster9640 oh, yes, good, some real meat at last!! "Fillet au gerbil, de maison" in a burre blanc sauce! Would be delicious for those suffering a diet of kale and fake meat for several months! LOL ;D
@@ronschlorff7089 Well Guinea pigs are eaten in , I believe , Peru and Bolivia , Must be tasty enough.Borrow some recipes , and go for it !!! Could feed 'em all the vegetable scraps , too
Making them into a freight train just makes sense. Then most of the ships will have more than enough fuel to land. I think SpaceX should build the 18 meter wide ship, because it can haul so much more, verse the 9 meter wide Starship. Smaller just limits what you can take, and the risk of failure just multiples.
Great video TY I think it is more fun to think of the first Lunar Starship Interior layout that NASA plans to be for just 2 people with a short trip from Luna Orbit down to the surface. Then in 1/6 G. They will have so much space nice large hotel style bedrooms with comfy king size beds each, more like the quarters on the StarTrek Starship Enterprise with fully functional showers etc. I just feel so sorry for the 2 astronauts left stuck on the cramped Orion.
In NASA's defense the Orion is designed for 5 day missions, not 6 months, plus the crewed missions to the moon is probably going to happen 5-10 years before the Starship's.
@@injectablebacon1891 Guess we cannot get to the Moon. The shortest round trip to the Moon was Apollo 11 took over 8 Days and Orion NEEDS Starship to do the Moon landing. Amazing how the Artemis 1 Test of Orion survived 26 days.
Was of the impression that Artemis was another money pit. Designed to integrate the space force budget, into the beleaguered agency. Any votes for leaving space travel to the private sector and using those federal resources to allow for the states to inspect and repair our crumbling infrastructure?
It's much more likely they will not use Starships for the transit. It makes so much more sense to assemble a spacecraft in orbit that looks a lot like the ISS and has much of the same technology and amenities, rather than cramping everything in a single launch vessel.
6:22 50 Sleeping Cabins! It’s possible but imagine the amount of resources they would need onboard to sustain 50 people for 6 months traveling to Mars and needing the materials to set up a base on top of that.
I find it particularly odd since the intro states 10 would be ideal, and that 100 as Elon suggested could happen at some point sounds like a "really bad idea"...
@@tosvus Yes, it's high time we stopped listening to Elon's figures. Dude can't even get an EV right, so I wouldn't entirely trust him with a manned interplanetary spacecraft. Let's stick with the pros.
Why are we assuming they will just launch and send one rocket. They will surely launch three or four of which only one that is manned and then join up. The others will have equipment for when we are on Mars, food, space and so on.
Without considering the cost it would be very beneficial to send two starships. One carries the passengers the other caries all the equipment. I can only say this because it's not my cheque book.
I don't think a single Starship can be used for the journey to and from Mars. So a single Starship could be used for power generation with a small nuclear reactor, another could be for crew living quarters, another for the landing vehicle, and if your going to Mars you will need a fully kitted out machine shop with a CNC lathe, 5 axis CNC mill and 3d printers etc.. I wouldn't go to Mars without a decent lathe. I think it will be a bunch of Starships joined together. Think nuclear sub or a battleship for all the stuff your going to need minus the weapons.
Definitely 3D printers and maybe a multi axis CNC machining center with both lathe and milling capability. Only problem though is that CNC machining centers use up a lot of electricity and they need things like coolant, hydraulic power and the ability to collect chips. I doubt they would be able to use a CNC machining center on the trip itself but perhaps on the surface of mars.
I think before people go to Mars, a dozen ships with robots and equipment will be sent there to remotely prepare the base for the arrival of people. Therefore, for the flight, people will only need a solution for the flight itself. I think a compact nuclear reactor can be placed on board, especially if the impulse for the flight from Earth to Mars will be given by an external mini-stage, and on board there will be only fuel for deceleration and landing. Well, let's not forget that there are already plans to double Starship's payload with a corresponding increase in available volume. Most likely Starship that will take people to Mars will be much larger than the current one.
I am just wondering what provision will be made for dealing with meteor punctures during flight. With several floors and crew disbursed around the ship how would this be dealt with and what provision would be made for replacing air? What is the provision for crew protection during repair ? how many impacts could Starship resource for in a 6 month flight and on planet survival?
Space is quite empty. It's unlikely Starship would get hit by micrometeorites large enough to puncture the wall during the trip. This isn't common even on the ISS, and the ISS operates in LEO, which is much more congested with space debris than interplanetary space. But there will definitely be some contingencies, where they train to plug any leaks. Maybe even contingencies where they suit up and do a space walk to plug a leak. But it's impossible to plan for every contingency. It's possible that a micrometeorite strike could kill everyone onboard. And there will almost certainly be flight suits, just like on the Dragon, that can be put on if there is a loss of cabin pressure, but that would just be a stop gap measure, until they fix the issue. As for air, the Starship has a quite big tank of liquid oxygen (propellant for the engines). There will probably be some surplus margin in the amount of LOX that can be pulled into the crew compartment to replenish lost oxygen. CO2 will likely be scrubbed from the air and vented to space. When Starship reaches Mars, CO2 from the atmosphere will be turned into carbon monoxide and oxygen, where the carbon monoxide is likely vented to the atmosphere while the oxygen is used for breathing. This costs energy, but it means they can keep breathing indefinitely.
@@davidmacphee3549 No, if you look at something like MOXIE, the net reaction is: 2 CO2 -> 2 CO + O2. So you end up with excess carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide could actually be used as a rocket fuel, or in fuel cells for power, but that would require consuming oxygen, so if you want to produce net oxygen, you have to get rid of the carbon monoxide.
No way we are going without spin gravity. A round-trip is going to be a full year in zero G. Plus 0.4 G on Mars for one year. Our bodies would be wrecked before getting back and would suffer serious consequences under the acceleration of reentry to earth and possibly even departure from Mars. I’m guessing they would use a cable tether between two starships to spin them up
The other (much more technologically difficult) option for "gravity" would be to take a page out of The Expanse. Orient the floor of the ship towards the engine, and be constantly accelerating at 1 g the acceleration force would be enough to safely push the occupants "down"
@@memyselfandcorpse2 Yeah, that's a stupid thing to bring up. It's not just "difficult", with our current technology it's impractical to the point of being effectively impossible.
@@memyselfandcorpse2constantly accelerating means the trajectory to mars will change, we accelerate to increase our orbit to mars then stop accelerating.
Send 5 Stareships at the same time, connected together with one being the center of the spinning wheel, each of the other four starships would be at the end of long cables connected to the center starship, spinning enough to generate earth like gravity. As for the power, the center unmanned starship would be nuclear power source for all four manned ships during the trip to Mars. Arriving at Mars the center starship would stay in orbit while the four starships would detach and land. With this configuration, the long weightless problem solved and so is the power issue. And if there is enough room in the center starship it could be the cargo hauler too, landing at a distant location as to not cause any nuclear concerns, it would become the power station for the new Mars settlement.
Anything that adds complexity and points of failure is basically a non-starter in Elon's eyes. Although, the need for artificial gravity is a bigger deal than I think he's willing to admit publicly.
Don't forget about these additional challenges: radiation protection for the crew, especially if there is a solar flare; landing pad preparation on Mars (Moon too), (you cannot land the Starship on soft soil, nor can you leave it sitting for months on soft soil, nor can you lift off from soft soil); and landing targeting accuracy, (if you prepare a landing pad before landing, can the ship actually navigate accurately enough to hit the bullseye?). Then on the surface of Mars, radiation protection is vital. I think SpaceEx will need to first land a bulldozer, an earthmover, a concrete mixer, a portable crane, and robotic construction workers on Mars before any crewed Starships can land.
You're right about landing on regolith , but maybe an autonomous surveying craft could find a big , flat rock on which to land. Could be looking for caves for habitation at the same time , too To me that' s the most sensible source of shielding ;; Lots of dirt and rock between rads and people !!
@@lawrenceiverson1924 Yeah, I suspect they will be able to find at least a few flat rocks for the first few landings. That said, they are also definitely going to be doing a ton of autonomous site work before anything else.
@@andchi2000 Its not going to take 100 years you all talk about stuff you can't even begin to comprehend they also announced setting a plan up to start getting ready to send people to mars you are just as idiotic as the rest of these internet goons lol. Take you're hater ass somewhere else.
On a trip of that nature, I think the biggest challenge would be keeping the crew occupied with tasks that are challenging enough to keep their sharp edge during the transit to and from Mars.
This is a topic I was thinking about and I'm glad you've covered it. In many animations, I see depictions of up to 30 PEOPLE being held within the rocket. Humans aren't cargo! Uhh yeah, the ship is big enough to be physically capable of holding that many people, but they'd have to be cooped away in a porta potty sized room, and could only come out to the main area a few at a time! That just isn't possible for humans to do for 6 months straight. The ship is big, but only in terms of carrying out a few people at a time like the Lunar missions. The meta for interplanetary space travel is far different than interlunar. Not just by how to get there, but the experience of getting there as well. 👍
Issues that will need addressing are medical problems. Pharmacy supplies will need to cover years in every area. Some one would also need to be medical trained as a General practitioner, and at least a couple years in surgery training to meet the needs of people willing to colonize Mars. With a couple years of basic surgical training the doctor could accomplish almost anything that would come up. With video guidance from experts on Earth almost all surgery could be accomplished by a second year intern surgeon. Need a few people with nurse training to assist. One of the first trips would have to bring a complete operating theater, and testing equipment, x-ray, and lab to handle blood work, and tissue testing. Once the unit is in place the risk of death from a treatable disease, or even cancer drops to about the same as being on Earth. Probably better with access to all the experts versus the rural hospitals most people have to deal with.
I used to be a fan of tiny cabins because for years I was very happy with my entirely computer-based life, but then I realised that I was happy because my online life involved a lot of associating with people online in ways which would be impossible with the speed-of-light delays of an interplanetary voyage.
@@marymarlow5598 interesting. Safety is the top priority for something so grand, after all. Getting to mars is the secondary goal on a martian mission. The main mission is ensuring the crew will make it back to Earth alive.
The interior volume will be greater than a 747. In cruise ships, there can be as little as 30 square feet per passenger. Translating that very roughly to interior volume (at a rate of 5 square feet per 2 cubic meters), we're looking at about 5000 square feet of interior space in the starship. Which would mean that Starship would be able to fit 166 people with about as much space as a low-end cruise ship, or about 100 people with as much space as a middle-high end cruise ship. There will be plenty of space. 30 will probably be the luxury liner version of starship, giving each passenger over 160 square feet between their personal and common areas.
In the Martian, their ship Hermes had rotating sections to simulate gravity using centripetal force. That design has to be included somehow; maybe assembling in space and docking with it? It would solve a lot of issues for the crew, especially physically. They would also sleep better. By rotating opposite of each other, they would offset any gyro mechanics which can cause yaw issues that may pop up because of the energy that rotation causes. Plus, it would make no difference to the crew, because they would have to go through a weightless tube and go down another one. It would also expand crew quarters considerably.
I would think that they should link two or three together in earth orbit first then move on to mars, that would make for alot of extra storage and habitat.
@@jackoshaco no- elon said it was 50/50 shot of it working at all -now we know how powerful it is and will compensate for it - besides the other rockets didn't work right at first either - now they do!
I love your videos. However, I really don't think that colonization of Mars is a very practical thing to do. But, being the space/ aviation geek that I am, it's quite fun to dream of. Thank you for sharing your videos. They are very inspiring, and interesting.
I think you want the entire crew area surrounded by water tanks... like 30cm around the periphery of the entire ship, divided into multiple tanks for clean and grey water... this would provide shielding against cosmic rays etc... so subtract about 0.6 meters from the diameter wherever crew are. perhaps can omit it on the lower equipment levels. There should also be "shades" that can be deployed against the windows filled with shielding for during storms.
Read somewhere that multiple launches are scheduled to link the starships end to end like a train with double-stacked shipping containers. Figured they had a few ships that are to be those water tanks.
Using water to shield cosmic rays would be too much extra weight, I’m sure their is a different material that would work just as good without adding all that weight that water would….
@@kennethburden1065 No matter the weight water is the best shielding available, every other material mostly metals become radioactive themselves from exposure in space, water does not.
Unfortunately the calculations have already been done. Blocking ionizing radiation is harder than you or Elon Musk knows. Ionizing radiation like gamma rays requires almost 14 feet of water, 7 feet of concrete or 1.3 feet of lead, none of which is practical.
it's cool how spaceX is focusing on colonizing mars and nasa on colonizing the moon (if you don't know they should send a few people on the moon for around 6 days in 2026 to start the first preparation for moon colonizing)
A 20 minute delay on communication is nothing! When I was stationed on Shemya Island, it would take weeks to get a letter home and then get an answer back!
I think one of the biggest challenges will be dealing with the dangerous nature of the mission. Anyone can claim that they're the hardest until they face true danger and know their life is at stake. People change like crazy Ive seen it on my deployment to Africa. The candidates will have to be chosen VERY carefully. I personally would not want to push the frontier.
@@MrNote-lz7lh Hmm, maybe take their clothes, too, and put it on TV (with appropriate blurred spots) and call it Naked and Afraid. (Dang it. Someone beat us to it!) 😉
Im a shut in who doesnt really have anything else to live for and i would absolutely love the opportunity to go on a one way trip to Mars to help humanity take their initial steps into the future of space colonization
I think they are aware of this. They aren’t picking random idiots, the same as the military isn’t making everyone who raises their hand special forces. Obviously people break under pressure.
What you need to understand about the command module is that they can stand up in it! Left to right when the module is atop the rocket on Earth is top to bottom in space so the command module in space is actually two levels.
for a large scale mission like this, it may be best to build a ship in space, part by part, then have a smaller landing craft. yeah its much harder to do, but the final ship could be far superior in terms of quality of life and/or ability in function. also incredibly stupid question, but could we create some sort of solar fan using solar sails and make energy that way? (spin the turbine by having sails rotating in opposite directions gaining power through the solar rays pushing on the sails?)
@@earth_ling idk those kind of scare me cause of the ethical and philosophical reasons, like....does consciousness survive the transport? is it YOU coming out the other side or just a perfect replica with your memories and you cease to exist once you step into the deconstructor?
Agreed. Starship embodies "Mars direct" which is the wrong architecture. That's the first problem. Secondly, a realistic human mission to Mars would be indirect - via Mars orbit in both directions. To that end you need a suitable vehicle. Not a launch vehicle. Not a lander. But a transit vehicle that gets humans safely from Earth orbit to Mars orbit and then return. And such a vehicle could be assembled in Earth orbit with minimal manual intervention. Not only that, but you could build a vehicle that can can be spun end over end to provide gravity. Something Starship cannot do.
@@saumyacow4435 I think you're not familiar with just how large and capable starship is. It could provide ~50 square feet of space to 100 passengers, which is roughly equivalent to a high(er) end cruise line, it can act as both an upper stage on Earth and an SSTO craft on Mars, and it runs on methane, which is one of the easiest fuels to synthesize in-situ. Over time, other architectures will make a lot more sense, but SpaceX knows everything you do about this topic and more, and Starship was the best, most practical design they could come up with. Right now, simplicity and reliability of supply lines is going to be the most critical thing to focus on.
For the trip itself, solar panels are the best option. I'm thinking the whole craft will be covered in them. I'm also thinking that a cargo ship or possibly several cargo ships would be sent in advance of the crew and included in the cargo would be solar array's and batteries.
Solar is not a good option for many reasons. Small nuclear reactors make a lot more sense...and as the Voyager probes have already proven, nuclear reactors can last many decades so they make a ton of sense as fuel for a new colony.
@@glamdring0007 unfortunately the only viable way to cool the reactors in space is to radiate the heat into the environment. The ISS uses many radiators and that's simply for managing temperature on the space station itself and its solar panels. To cool a reactor powerful enough for the electronics needed for 6-month journey, I would assume requires a large amount of radiators. The voyager produced approx. 450W at launch, and 250W currently. However, the first ISS radiators were added in 1998, I'd like to think some advancements have been made in the materials and designs so it may still be possible.
maybe the best way to travel from earth to mars the best would be to use solar elevators in space itself, elevators with cables connected to each other with drop off points
They could launch separate pieces and join them together before heading to Mars. The final assembly could be ten times the size of what is presented here. The pieces would be brought back on a return trip, stay in space, and be used again and again.
@OzkanArac what makes you say that? Everything spaceX has done indicates this *will* happen... I'm pretty sure yesterday or maybe last week they even announced for the first time in a while they're on schedule with the mission to Mars
The chance of having a human on Mars before 2100 i slim to none. Musk sure as hell won't be the person to bring us there. It would be ridiculously expensive, and the people would probably die half way there, and even if they made it, they would never come back. Not to mention all the technical issues. Can't even imagine how many single points of failure this pipe dream would have.
Arguably it would make more sense to develop a modular system that can be sent up in pieces and assembled in orbit. For example design the layout of the Starship so upwards of 7 can be docked together with docking ring connections to allow transfer between ships. That allows for each ship to be modularized to fit a need of the mission as well as allowing for redundant backups that are spread out and relatively isolated. Don't want a repeat of Apollo 13 where one faulty tank blew the primary and the backup.
For survival, cargo mass should pad the outer walls to limit radiation. Preferably this padding should be expended to limit knock on effects from radiation damage. Maybe fuel, water or food. Mined materials on the return journey. A consequence would be to huddle crew near the center.
You don't actually need to pad the outer walls. All of the significant radiation is going to come from one place -- the sun. You just need a barrier between the passengers and the sun. The rockets themselves, the fuel, the water, and the cargo payload sitting underneath the passengers will provide a lot of shielding.
When we took that trip to the moon, there was talk about Mars being next. I can't believe that we will be doing this. I'm happy for my sons to witness this; hopefully, I will too. As mentioned by a few, those who experienced living in a submarine would be good candidates, and one would have to agree. My question to everyone is this: If ten is the number, should there be an equal number of men and women? Should all be single? And why?
Would probably depend heavily on the mission in question. I don't think the first question is about colonizing Mars, and certainly there would not be enough resources and competence to start delivering and raising babies. That said, mental health could be an issue. Many people would not stand the thought of no chance of intimate relations (whether emotionally or phsyically) for that long of a time (even if just counting the time to and from..). Everyone would need to bring value to the mission (other than just emotional support), and to minimize risk of disaster, all should be relatively young and in very good health both physically and psychologically. My preference for the first few missions would probably be highly capable couples though how easy it would be to fine those with useful skills is a big challenge. The men should probably agree to a temporary sterilization before going.
I wonder if they thought of launching 2 of them together and connecting them side by side for the journey so you could have a back up ship if needed...like one that stays in orbit while one lands and could be called if needed help to leave if anything goes wrong during mars landing...
The Starship should be quite good design for SIMULATION of gravity by spinning. Whole occupied ship can be seen as a "habitat module" in that setting, because it can be anchored on the "bow"/nose from "above", and if the tether would be roughly 450 meters long, spinning under 2 rotations per minute, there would be 1G in the starship oriented against the downside of the ship (changing the ship into de facto multilevel building for its inhabitants), wich would benefit health of the crew, same as many details of civil life onboard. Toilets, cooking, fire security, sleeping, healing bigger injuries, repairing some types of damages and failures on the ship. Second benefit of that setting would be ADJUSTABILITY of the simulated gravity. If the 2 ships are connected mostly by tethers, both ships can "climb" the tethers up and down, and change the speed of mutual spinning by manuevering thrusters, and by those actions change the percieved force of simulated gravity. In short, out of (say) 1 hour acceleration, 9 months of balistic travel and 1 hour of deceleration, the crew can live the balistic part in simulated gravity of Earth, Mars, or Moon, with possibility to gradualy increase or decrease for better and quicker accomodation of crew on different gravitation, or before returning to Earth. Not to mention, if most of equipment onboard would be designed to work in non zero G gravity, it will work on the destination planet too.
Send two "star ships"... once they accelerate on a course for their destination, link the noses together via some kind of cabling system(more than one so a single failure doesn't send them flying) have them carefully maneuver to bring it under tension and spin against each other so that they are each other's counterweight, change the speed of rotation and you change the precived gravity allowing you to acclimatize the passengers to the destinations gravity
yes that should be an imporant consideration because spending 6 month in microgravity even with excercise will require a crew to get used to gravity again and recover, that's what we see with astronauts returning from the ISS... so idk if sending crews to mars without somekind of gravity simulation is a good idea, they don't have anyone on mars to assist them when they arrive...
You can generate artifical gravity with a constant thrust. It wouldn't need to be much. And a rotating section would need to rotate at about 15 rpm for 1 earth g. That's a lot of spinning mass to counter balance.
@@TheAmericanCatholic Counterbalance by the same number of same type of starship(s)/module(s). There is no explicit need for the midleship. Ships will burn tens of minutes, and than they will proceed ballistic for 9 months, with same time needed for deceleration when closing to Mars. But the middlestation will be close to 0G - therefore unfit for crew, not necesarily needed for burn or manuevres, but ussefull for HUGE self-positioning solar array, or for remotly controlled (mostly automated) nuclear generator, cause in that position it could power both sides of the tether, AND be securely away from the crew, to prevent negative effects of radioactivity, AND lower the wieght of the reactor. Cheapest, lightest, most impenetrable and most abundant radshield is DISTANCE between source of radiation and people.
I love to think about these problems. Obviously another huge issue not mentioned, is how to exit the rocket when you land on Mars, how to get the heavy equipment out without damaging it. There could be 20 or 30 meters of fuel and motors at the base of the rocket, so some kind of huge ramp might be needed ? Maybe instead of splitting each rocket into sections, it would be more efficient to have the supplies and building equipment in separate rockets that travel at the same time to Mars. I could envisage a cluster of rockets travelling together, each with a specific function. I just hope something happens in my life time, it will be the greatest adventure of my generation.
You haven't mentioned the problem that NASA hasn't figured out yet ... that of ionizing Gamma radiation. Shielding against Gamma requires several inches of lead or several feet of concrete, neither of which is possible for a Starship because of the weight.
And then we come to DARPA's 'advanced materials' that are going to be used in the DRACO NTP system. If it can handle the radiation from even a low level enriched fission pile, it should be eligible to act as shielding for the crew section, at least.
Does SpaceX already have a team of engineers working on a specific design for the habitats the first people on mars will use? If yes, I never hear about this. It makes me wonder if there is such a team. If there is not. It will take years of planning and manufacturing. If they expect the first human mission to mars to be in 5-10 years away. SpaceX really needs to get moving on this now!
@@Alarix246 No. I am not kidding! Also, I think it is even worse. I was referring to the habitats they will live in on Mars. The design and consideration as to how they will get equipment and parts to mars, needs to come first. The starship that carries the crew is the last design they need to consider.
@@SomeBoredGuy69 Sorry, mate, you're thinking about this backwards. Starship landed on Mars IS the habitat, just the same as the Starship for the Human Landing System IS the Moon lander. Any external habitat will only be tertiary. Plus, for the sake of simplicity, I imagine any work done for the Starship life support systems will be exactly the same systems they use on eventual ground habitats. At any rate, anything we have now is just speculation as they have refused to talk about the interior of Starship just yet. edit: We do know for sure they have a team of people working on the interior as they've had NASA at the Boca Chica site looking at a mock up HLS ship. We could only see the outside, but we know work is ongoing.
@@jackinthebox301 I disagree. Simply landing 1 starship and return almost immediately, is pointless. The missions of the first crews should be building the habitats. Many Starships, full of supplies and equipment, need to be sent before any human sets foot on Mars.
@@SomeBoredGuy69 What I'm disagreeing with is that the habitat should be in any way a focus now. Because it shouldn't be and clearly isn't. Starship will allow these people to live in space which is more than enough to live on the surface of Mars. Why waste time engineering effort with surface habitats when you have a perfectly good habitat already? I'm not saying there won't be constructions and labs on the surface. I'm saying they will be tertiary. For the initial missions, likely for years, the main place of residence is going to be the ships. Elon has said it himself that there will probably be crewed ships that go and don't come back that become the beginning of the colony. The mission is to get there. Everything subsequent to that is, well, subsequent. Secondary. The people will do work on the surface, but they will live, sleep and eat in the ships. Of course they will build habitats eventually. Maybe even they'll start tearing apart some of the cargo ships that came with them, but that will be a long term project. Not important initially.
I like how virtually every one of these types of "deep dives" proves Starship it not taking anyone to Mars... That is Elon marketing, and such phrases like "rapidly reusable" comes right out of the Marketing 101 handbook. That's not to say Starship wont be a game changer to get loads into space like a barge.... which Starship is clearly designed to do. Starship will bring the actual Mars ship to LEO for assembly. Starship can be the lander that's strapped onto the side like a life boat. Along with power and supplies, gravity of some kind is almost certainly going to be needed along the way. Muscle and bone mass loss during a 6 month trip will make working on Mars miserable. There are a host of other major problems to be solved before anyone gets on a ship to Mars.
You are not what we call, smart. That is ok. But while you are saying, that ain't gonna happen, it is. When you are wrong, you will just forget that you ever said it. NBD. As for gravity, do you have any handy they can take with them? I am sure you can figure out a solution that the top 1000 people on the planet has not thought of. What is it? I answered it and I am not the smartest person. They will solve it, or not. That will not stop them from killing a few hundred volunteers. That is the human way. One way trips until people survive.
In theory, but not in practice. It is possible to sort of swim (push air in one direction) to get some slight acceleration. In a few seconds you can get to a surface you can grab onto. Of course, this wouldn't be very user friendly if it were a common occurence... But it would be hard to get into the center of the space with zero velocity. It would only happen if you're holding onto someone and they move out of reach, just as you're in the center of the space with zero velocity, or if you are floating through the space and happen to throw an item with exactly the right mass direction, and velocity to zero out your velocity.
Hopefully it doesn't happen to the first starship, or the first few even, but I can definitely see something happening and an entire starship being lost, crew and all. The shuttle program would be shutdown for years before they would let another fly. Would really hate to see anything like that happen, but it almost seems inevitable when taking leaps into the unknown.
Faucets DO work in zero G, it's the drains that don't work. Collecting free flowing water is a matter of using static electricity instead of gravity, the same in a shower, a static charge will collect the water onto a surface and it will be vacuumed up. You will be able to have showers in Zero G. But there is an alternative for a ship as big as the Starship and that is a spinning wall set up for sleeping and showering and toilets, also for eating at a table and another one for growing food. 4 rpm would produce a little less than 1/10th of a G Larger ships can have larger spinning habbitats and more g force.
This has always been a false dilemma used by those against exploration. Has never been true, never will be. truth is, exploration Does help solve problems at home. it always has.
I just wish it had double hulls like the submarines from 80s to 2000s, I know with advancing metallurgy they ditched the double hull for single hulls in the newest submarines but safety should be a main concern
Well, many modern subs have a separate hydrodynamic hull, to aid the sub move through the water, and also to detonate ordnance before it hits the pressure vessel.
I think some of the best people to crew a Starship will be submariners. They are used to spending months beneath the sea in a steel tube without seeing anything or being connected to anyone. They would be the ideal candidates for a mission like this.
Absolutely!
If people can be trained to live in a submarine they can be trained to live in a spaceship. There is no need to recruit submariners.
@@earth_lingships & buildings designed specifically to prevent that will…. Prevent that 😂
People like you have existed throughout history trying to hold our species back from scientific advancement. Luckily there are enough people who are brave enough to risk death to advance our species 😊
@@davidhoward4715 Submariners are not trained to live in a submarine, they have specific mental fortitude that makes it possible.
@@earth_ling i mean we couldve said the same for every human who decided to explore unexplored lands even on earth. the only difference is the gravity and atmosphere
On earth, ships often travel in groups, for example, a naval carrier group. So instead of sending one starship, send a group, a command ship with the astronauts, and other ships with supplies and cargo. It also means that you have backup ships if you have a problem. Being in space, they could even be Tethered together.
Can't believe that's never dawned on me, a fleet could be the best method. Plus if a ship experiences difficulty there's others to provide assistance.
Could have built a large station or ship with the shuttle fuel tanks
If you tethered the ships in couples, nose to nose, and had a suitably strong cable, you could rotate them to provide some measure of artificial gravity. (Down would be toward the engines, up would be toward the command decks)
Ever hear of spaceships colliding? That's why you don't send up an armada of ships. It might be possible to launch unmanned resupply ships ahead of the manned ship to reduce the payload. The manned ship would dock with the resupply ship and take on replacement stores. Then detach and go onto Mars. Of course of the resupply ship fails, then your kind of screwed.
yes, wagon trains in space, or later "iron horses", a proven strategy on earth that should work in space!
Something of note, Elon has said that Space X will be expanding the current overall length of both the booster section and the length of the Starship proper.
This is true, but most if not all of that extra length will be used up by longer propellent tanks.
@@mikesunderland9145 Want true freedom? Come to Jesus Christ 👍😊
... dont you mean ELONgated??
@@trequor haha, lovely! Maybe they'll figure out hybrid engines. I remember a very stupidly polluting propellant powering an engine well, so perhaps they can do the refuel trips while bringing some of this propellant that would be terrible to burn in the Earth, but since it's in space it'll disperse. Benefit being thrust to weight could be more efficient with such propellant.
@@tomsterbg8130 Isnt Starship using CH4? Even in space they need clean burning fuel for rapid reusability.
The space shuttle is not an interstellar vehicle. It didn't get past Leo. For to be Interstellar, it would've had to leave the solar system.
Should I keep watching? My gut says unsub!
Bro were you listening? He basically said it would be the best thing we have for Interstellar exploration. He never said it was an interstellar vehicle or that we’ve used it for interstellar missions.
@@MrChibr But that's not true either.
Perhaps he was allowing for warp nacelles to be retro-fitted to the space shuttle.
@@maxv9464 What did he say then?
It makes the most sense to use elements of the "Mars Direct" plan, no matter the other considerations.
Send all the supplies you need, along with a fuel generator, to Mars ahead of the manned ship.
You don't launch until you verify everything made it safely.
This way you aren't trying to cram everything you may need on the trip, plus what you need once there, into a single ship. It would enable you to concentrate nearly everything on the manned ship toward crew health and comfort.
By doing it this way you also have the makings of an outpost on the planet that can be used by future missions.
To me, this is the only way that makes sense.
It would be very difficult to sync the re entry’s to get the same spot, mar’s orbit is pretty wierd compared to ours and I would take a few years in between different supply and manned ships.
It makes sense to send several loads 'ahead of time'. They will STILL have to have 6-9 months of food, water, 'air', and power for the 'live trip'.
Going to mars is just impractical unfortunately. The lack of gravity would just destroy our bones and basically lead you to die a painful death. Babies would be born deformed. Humans really are only set up to function here. We are better off recycling our current resources and fixing the issues humanity created here. This whole colonization idea would lead to the end of our species…serious. The journey alone is likely to kill us
@@JamieWex
I am not advocating the colonization of Mars, but the manned exploration of the Red planet.
If that leads to the development of ways to negate the health impacts of .375G then I'm all for colonization.
And no one is being forced to immigrate to Mars. Anyone that volunteers for the trip will be aware on the potential effects on their health.
Long term we must spread to space to ensure the survival of the species, even if that means evolving into something we wouldn't recognize as Homo Sapiens.
The most sensible approach to maximize safety for the crew and their effectiveness. Separate advance ships would ferry:
1) a Mars habitat where the crew will stay
2) a greenhouse which would produce much of the food they will eat (tended by a robot)
3) vehicles the crew will use to navigate the planet
4) power plant that produces all the power/fuel the crew will need
If sent in advance the crew would then know that everything they need to survive and succeed is already there and in good working order waiting for their arrival.
Space Travel is complicated and many things can go wrong. You need the brightest and best people to take on a mission like this. James X
The only problem is the brightest know better than to even try. Otherwise they're literally not the brightest 😂
I don't mean to sound like a killjoy, but I think it will be at the very least, 20 years before we see a crewed mission to Mars
Define 'Best'??
@@Rocky-xx2zg Those that don't take failure as an option.
@@TravisCotter Really? Time will tell with that trip.
In a crew trip, they will have most likely have sent equipment and supplies on other rockets and it will be waiting for the crew there. That makes the most sense.
For both the Moon and Mars there should be basic habitat and supplies in triplicate to compensate for failure of one or delays in resupply or return missions. The more infrastructure in place the sooner self sustainment can be achieved. For Mars several habitat and supply runs should be made before humans arrive. This will test the transport systems so they are fully vetted before people go and multiple varied habitats will be critical for mental health..
I was in the military for 20 years and often spent months deployed to the middle of nowhere with no cell phone, computer, or mail capabilities. I got a 10-minute "morale phone call" once a week - but the landline phone was often broken, or it would cut off the call after a minute or two. So when I see people crying because they don't have instant communication, it makes me giggle.
woww
Not that long ago we only had the pony express for long distance communication, and somehow people were fine. I don't think that's a big deal. 40 minutes at the halfway point (an hour if you add the time needed to compose a detailed message) isn't really a big deal.
Now, being in zero G for who knows how long sounds like a real problem to me.
@@thirstbasketWe’ve already solved that with ISS. People stay up there for 6 months all the time….
@@UXSpecialist After astronauts return from the ISS, they take the time to go through physical therapy for several months and it takes months or years to recover bone density, muscle strength, neurological health, etc. Whereas when people land on Mars they will presumably have immediate work to do, much of it physical in nature. I'm not saying these are insurmountable problems but they're definitely problems.
@@thirstbasket Ok, well what would be cool is a gravity simulator. Like a big ring that spins around the starship. It could gradually change from Earth's gravitational strength to that of Mars. Actually, I'm surprised the ISS doesn't already have this. We should totally build this....
A trip to Mars would be an introverts greatest dream come true!
Virtual reality headsets might be a practical solution to overcoming claustrophobia on a six-month flight to Mars. They could dial up virtual trips to the beach, the mountains or the wide open prairies. Get on a stationary bike or a treadmill, then virtually bike or jog along a favorite trail. Using sensory stimulation via heaters, fans or nature's sound effects (such as the sound of birds, a rainstorm or a flowing river) would add to the experience, making it as close to reality as possible.
People act as though the trip is the hard part and then once they get to Mars it's like there's somewhere to go. It's just more tubes and underground encased structures. You aren't going to just go walking around on Mars and live in a glass bubble with plenty of space to stretch out.
@@osbjmg I mean, that's technically true but when they are on mars they aren't exactly going to be sitting around waiting like on starship. They would most likely have tasks to carry out on the surface and other stuff like that.
@@chrislambert5571 well sadly stainless steel is a good protector against radiation
Wow, that’s a fantastic idea!
As long as it's not Apple products. They are terrible for repairability.
Having served aboard a nuclear powered submarine, I believe that a Mars mission of many months will be the ultimate challenge. The habitable area of a submarine is much greater than that of the Starship. A submarine also creates an endless supply of oxygen and potable water from seawater. A submarine also has the ability to store food and supplies for a crew of well over a hundred. In addition, during an emergency a submarine can surface and return to port. During a Mars mission a crew wouldn't have the multitude of options and zero delay communications that a submarine has. Even with the challenges of a Mars mission, God has given mankind the ability to dream and plan for such endeavors. Therefore, I believe that it is possible.
It would seem that a successful mission to Mars would NOT be possible in the foreseeable future for the very reasons you pointed out.
@@doctorae724 It is not like people din't serve in smaller submarines whose habitable area is around the same size. & this in war-times were it was not possible to return to port for longer time etc.
Gods are MYTHS.
What specifically did god do? People did this.
who do you think made people...dont give me that evolution garbage that fails the test of science at every level..
Thanks!
"The old space shuttle has so far been proven to be our high water mark in terms of a legitimate vehicle for interstellar exploration."
*Interstellar* seems a bit ambitious for both the Space Shuttle or Starship.
I’m guessing generic space travel or inter solar doesn’t sound as cool
@@Puppy_Puppingtonintrasolar even, or interplanetary
Shuttle didn’t fly beyond low Earth orbit.
I find the words "shuttle", and "interplanetary" in the same sentence, laughable. Just because it looks good on a drawing board, doesn't mean it would work in practical use. The shuttle never went past LEO, so how do they KNOW it could be interplanetary?
I don't know what it will be like to go to Mars in that big ass rocket but I volunteer. I am a Navy vet so understand living in close quarters with others. I spent 40 years in Aviation, have my FAA mechanics and inspectors licenses and am a pilot as well. Given expertise in most things related except ordinance I would be a good fit. Plus I am getting old so if things went sideways, no harm no foul. I am much closer to the end than the beginning so lets go! Like I said, I would love to be on the first one to go.
Ik like that spirit. 👍🏻To most modern people it seems unacceptable to allow old people to die before at least six of their organs fail.😅
I share that attitude to spend my last years to serve humanity in such a daring enterprise, after many fruitful years on Earth.👨🏻🎨
You are, on paper, among the most qualified. I say go for it. I fully agree with your perspective of “closer to the end than the beginning”. If you make it all the way to mars, you could dedicate the rest of your life to working there, probably quite comfortable due to the lower gravity.
They wouldn't take people over the age of say 45. Older people wouldn't be able to do the strenuous work needed to build a habitat. And their health would decrease much sooner than younger people. You can't afford to waste the payload on someone who may wind up as dead weight.
You will die. It's literally that simple, you will fly to Mars, and you will die there.
@@curtrapp5291 Older people make sense for the first colonists. Radiation is a huge problem, the first people going will get a high dose. Radiation damage is like rolling a dice from the moment it happens, older people have less dice rolls left to get a tumor (this is a little over simplified)
Infertility is a must too for the first "colonists" on mars, there will not be much in the way of spare resources so suddenly adding the load of a growing child/children is not feasible assuming the radation doesn't cause significant health problems.
Plus given the conditions they will be living in, life expectancy isn't going to be great.
Loads of room for improvement on all this. This stuff is crazy exciting to think about.. ❤❤
As another viewer stated, it’s great eye-candy, but that’s about all. At most you’d want a capacity of 6-10 astronauts, and then design for fully autonomous operations.
1. A true Airlock
2. Equipment bay for Rover(s).
3. Hydroponics Bay?
4. Additional oxygen storage.
5. Additional water storage.
6. Additional food supplies
7. True Kitchen facilities?
8. Maintenance Bay for Spacesuits and “All” equipment.
9. Fabrication Shop and Spare parts area.
10. Additional Solar Array storage?
11. Spare battery storage?
12. And so much more I haven’t even thought of yet.
Yes, it’s fun to see all these totally imaginary fanciful CGI renditions, but I’d much rather see useful well thought out design concepts created by Engineers versus artists that love the look of things versus the practical application of current and proposed future technologies. An “A” for enthusiasm, but other than that, it doesn’t do much for me. Wish I could find greater emphasis on real world applications using a CGI platform.
I would imagine life on the starship during a trip to Mars will be like life on a submarine; as in back-to-back patrols. There appears to be several similarities. Acclimatization prior to the voyage would be of value. The number of people onboard is important; enough so not to be boring (unique personal interactions) yet still have enough personal space. On submarines you didn't need (that is to say, you didn't get) much.
I had 9 patrols on an SSBN , 75-80 days apiece. I think I could handle the trip, but I wouldn't trust the hardware. On a submarine, you can feel confident that you will be coming back!
except you'd go blind and get alzheimer's from all the brain damage due to radiation in space. also the air you bring with you is all you'll ever get whereas on a submarine, you just surface and you can refill instantly. plus you can get out of the submarine and stretch your legs in the sun but in space you are stuck and will go crazy.
I can go there if they allow me to take my phone with me. I will spend 60% of time playing offline games and listening to music.
@@cloud9656 shut the fuck up and make some friends 🗿
@@cloud9656 You've got to watch those quiet ones...
You completed forgot the most important part: a shelter against the suns outbursts
Good break down but everyone keeps assuming the crew version will have a header tank in the nose...NO. that was done just for weight distribution for the flight test prototypes. All header tanks will be in the empty vaccum of the main tanks below. That will keep them cold for six months and prevent punctures from micro meteors.
Good intro to the Starship journey. Being that weight is a primary factor to get the starship off earth, might I suggest that when starship is orbiting earth after liftoff and during refueling they launch a couple other ships the same size with extra battery packs for electricity during the journey. Also they could put most of the food stores and water in the 2nd. starship and transfer that over to the primary starship to save on some fuel during lift off.
I'm on the same thought train as you. I'd like to add that if multiple vehicles could be launched into orbit, then attached together. You could take more for the journey and provide more space to move around in for the crew.
There will be several unmanned landings ahead of a crewed mission to place heavy equipment and supplies. There will probably be more than one crewed ship on the first trip to Mars. SpaceX plans to build 1000 Starships, launching up to 3 a day to ferry people and housing and water and food and rovers and science instruments, etc.
I concur, was thinking the same thing. Launch a ship with water onboard.
More battery's? Lol.......look up RTG generator and see the lies your fed.
Imagine being this stupid. They would use nuclear energy
If I had a spaceship, I would fly right into the heart of the sun, and come out the other side.
Well, if you "slingshot" around it, you could do Star Trek, and enter a time warp lol
@ The shortest distance is a straight line.
This is gotta be some sort of joke right?
I think that human transport will come after a few supply flights. At the landing site, they will need equipment and lots of it.
It's always been the plan to get the propellant plant to Mars first. If all works well, the crew would arrive at a site with several other Starships, where one already contains enough methane and liquid oxygen to return to earth.
@@espenha No. Mars is a 1 way trip. Suicide mission.
@@davidbeppler3032 No, it’s been proposed that longer term people might go to Mars to stay, but that’s not the plan for the first crewed missions.
@@espenha Interesting. Elon said it is a suicide mission. I guess you get your information from someone else?
@@espenha Also thoroughly testing the bellyflop and propulsive landing systems on Mars.
Weight is always a consideration, but regardless of how Starship is powered, the crew is going to need a lot of shielding to protect them from solar flares. A bank of batteries would absorb the dangerous radiation well, especially if they're already going to be on the lower deck between the crew and the Sun.
And there is an onboard solar storm shelter for crew members.
The best shielding for the trip is water. They have to take water along anyway, and will likely be recycling it.
@@lgkfamily yes, and getting there at great velocities, that will solve so many problems including exposure to dangerous radiation, but yes, liquids are good shields too.
@@lgkfamily that water wouldn't last long mate. You can't just keep ferrying it from Earth.
Just need to store all the water around the outer part of the ship.
Considering the power issue, if it was managed to make a nuclear reactor with the right amount of weight that doesn't exponentially increase the overall weight of the ship, it could theoretically solve the power problem.
That's why sending a second ship, or several ships to carry cargo, and equipment such as a nuclear reactor would make a lot of sense.
I would say that a crew size of 15-20 would be ideal for the first Mars mission
you will need experts in several different fields in even just a 2 year mission that plans to return ... its not as easy as 4 days to get there , plant a flag and then come back in 4 more days
And that is especially true if the plan is for colonisation rather just for a temporary outpost
I think the plan was one Starship launched with crew and life support and another would provide fuel and attach together for the trip to Mars then separate and return to Earth while the crew module would land on the surface. Still would need an orbiter is something went wrong.
@@philiplongee1149 Yes, although I suspect more than one supply ship ahead of a crewed landing. The atmospheric entry and landing on Mars is going to be very tricky, almost certainly the most risky part of the mission, so SpaceX will have wanted to be confident that it can be done successfully before attempting a crewed landing and to be confident enough to risk even one human life I would think that they would want to have successfully landed far more than just one uncrewed test flight and when they send these uncrewed vessels to attempt a landing they might as well put something in them, in fact they need to have something to accurate simulate the residual payload mass that a crewed Starship would have by the time it landed (people and equipment but probably most of the food and water gone since that would be replenished from the supply vessels already on the surface). So my guess, putting all of that together, is that by the time the first crewed Starship lands on Mars there will be multiple uncrewed Starships (3 or 4 at least?) that will already have successfully landed.
I agree more than 10 and 15 to 20 sounds about right. Even for a crew of 10 would you want to include a medical doctor in the crew since it would be a 2 to 3 year mission? Definitely NOT in my opinion, that would be too risky, you would want to include at least 2 medical doctors in the crew in case one gets incapacitated or killed. The same probably applies to other specialist skills where it would really make sense to at least double up on those specialists and that probably makes a crew of 10 too small to cover all the necessary skill sets.
I agree that 16 - 20 would be a better number than 10. There is also the issue of being able to start up conversations with people you don’t usually talk to, just to get a break from your usual acquaintances
The minimum possible number of crew to complete the mission, really - they'll have to be multitaskers. Every extra body is a mouth to feed and consumer of water, living space, an extra EVA suit, and so on. The fewer bodies involved, the better. You prob couldn't do it with less than six, but more than ten is inefficient and you are making the mission more complicated than it needs to be. Throw out un-needed passengers, and you can bring more food, water and other mission supplies. Also in a loss of crew scenario, the fewer grieving families, the better for absolutely everyone involved.
I imagine life on Mars and in the ship would be borderline militaristic, but understandably so due to the scarcity of resources and harshness of space.
certainly, during the first missions, until it's proved safe; then it will be much the same as life on board an airliner or cruise ship, say 50-100 years from now!
@@ronschlorff7089 me praying i will live long enough to get into space. I think i should be able to I got born in the 21century so as long as i don't die from other causes i should live to about 80 year old my family at the moment is mostly pushing 90 and 100 and that with them living in the 1940s with all the lead gas and horrible chemicals who knows how long i will live for.
@@hunterbear2421 good luck, eat lots of meat, it's good for your immune system!! LOL
I think putting submariners in space is a good idea, they are already used to being in a small claustrophobic space for long periods of time, so sanity won’t be a giant issue
For the privilege of stepping on another planet, let alone going into space. 6-9 months in that ship is well worth it. Even if it's a one way trip. It won't matter to me. Seriously I'd be writing in my journal every single day in between my day to day duties. Recording footage and taking pictures. Needless to say the crew would have a treasure trove of video and photos of the journey.
except you'd go blind, then have alzehiemers before you even get there from radiation.
@@jebes909090why? Spacex have the best engineers from around the world I’m sure they’ll find a solution for that.
In the movies you'd be the gung ho character who gets wiped out first.
Go ahead and volunteer, it's easy now. But when launch day comes, several of your compatriots will be put on the ship at gunpoint, having had second thoughts. Not the kind of people you want to fly to Mars with - no one will get there alive.
How about connecting four of these habitats together and creating a circle. Rotating the structure will create gravity in all four connected ships. The chances of several and return will be better.
One starship needs six other starships to refuel it after it reaches LEO before it can transfers to Mars. If you have four ships travelling, then you need 24 starship tanker launches just to fuel them up. It gets absurd pretty quickly. An expendable starship with a seperate decent module would be *much* more efficient as it would be trying to haul it's entire return stage from a relative velocity of 0 m/s at the Martian surface... but I dunno.... Musk reasons.
@@lmlmd2714 Yes, in Musk we trust, he's been to Mars before, as part of the von Neuman probe regeneration of a humanoid life form, to show us earthlings the way to get us off the Earth before catastrophe hits our planet.
9m diameter is far too small to generate artificial gravity with rotation. Your feet and head would be multiples of difference in relative G force. Feet at 1G, head at .5 and you've got yourself a ship full of vomit.
@@calz7744 yeah, but that's only for 6 short months!! The vomit does not worry me, it's; the toilets, yes, the toilets, OMG, ...the f'ing toilets.......!!LOL :D
@@ronschlorff7089 Won't need to worry about toilets once you get to Mars! Collect all that feces for poo-tatoes like Matt Damon did in The Martian.
This is so exciting! maybe space adventure brings humans together again. Something we call can look forward to and be awe’d by.
I love your videos, you present the informatuon in such a clear and concise manner.
I wonder if SpaceX will launch several rockets at the same time for the maiden voyage. They will need lots of infrastructure to sustain the crew once they land on Mars. Also they might want to have several crews going at the same time, to spread the risk. Let's be honest, the risk is humongous.
Coming upon this video right after SpaceX caught a superheavy booster and did their 5th successful starship launch, is pretty cool.
You haven't commented on any of my other ideas i've said, but here goes!! If you don't keep the crew busy they will go bonkers. Give them tasks that they need to preform like, 1st a really good telescope for them to make observations while there in flight. 2nd Have two people build a robot or two for when they get to Mars they have there own personal friend they can give commands to for help on Mars. This would give them the incentive. 3rd At some point, when a person is confined in a vessel they need to escape for a while. A good virtual reality system so a person feels that there in a much bigger place then they really are. This reduces stress of being confined. I have other ideas but i need to know if your listening. Please comment. Thank you for your time
Good ideas!
Great video. Two things come to my mind:
You need a protective area (bunker) during radiation/cosmic storms.
Nuclear power - different but one to propel the ship and and one for electricity
Just use Water to stop the radiation. You have to take it with you anyway. 2 birds with 1 stone.
Before you tell me you need 13 feet of water, I know. 6 inches of water and 3 inches of Tungsten. Might take 8 inches of water.. not sure. Have someone smarter do the math on that.
You want to take a steam engine to space? You know nukes are just steam engines, right?
Solar is 5,000% better in space than on Earth. Why not just use that for electricity?
@@davidbeppler3032 I totally agree regarding use of water as shielding, 100%! And doesn’t have to be the whole ship, only a certain area to bunker together during the event…
I don’t agree though regarding solar to nuclear, sorry. I think we need nuclear engines for starships and also powering them I think will be more efficient and easier than dragging huge solar sails.
I’m seeing this after watching their first successful launch to orbit! I can’t believe how big it actually is.. seeing human models inside the rooms for scale really puts it into perspective!
Second launch coming up in two days!!
I think you make 4 of these ships, with hatches that will allow you to connect all four together, in a quad, side by side. They get interconnected in space, though some amount of supplies is in all four sections, one would have the bulk of it as well as power cells another would have the bulk of you fuel but tanks in all four will be connected by one-way valves.
This is probably a good idea, because you can get a lot more resources/crew with you and they could use a big connector system with tubes, hatches and solarpanels to connect the ships together, which also can carry tanks for with fuel for a possible return to earth. But usually if there is a permanent stay planned on mars the first ships should/will be designed modular so that you can dismantle them for resources needed for a mars basis-hub
they could use a combination of surface solar panels, nuclear batteries like in subs, and some stored energy from earth in form a batteries, they could use the fuel in the tanks also, they could use as said in the video h2 cells.
You are a steely eyed missile man
Connect them in a row… like human centipede 😂
@@ferncamper4433 Honestly, most stuff for the colony should be dumped by automated missions in advance.
I like the starship design. For a trip to Mars I think you will need 2 of these that can connect in space and would have enough cargo for the long journey there and back. If not 2 of them then perhaps a bigger ship will be necessary.
That is exactly what they plan on doing . SpaceX plans to launch two of the identical starship and while in orbit around earth they’re going to link up.
um, there isn't going to be any manned flight to Mars for a long, long time - this is nothing but crockery
@@Scion3Sevens yeah 100+ years ago people didnt have the concept of flight, now its commercialized. It'll only take a few decades for this
@@tortolgawd4481 NOT A CHANCE. These are engineering hurdles that you don't understand.
Here is a question, if they land on mars instead of orbitting, where are they getting the fuel for the return trip?
I don’t think we are going to mars anytime soon I think if anything landing back on the moon might be a better idea. The fact that we haven’t been back to the moon and over 70 years is pretty crazy but we’re talking about going somewhere that’s millions of miles away I don’t think it’s that insane of an idea of trying to get back to the moon first before going to Mars.
It would be a lot easier if they could use a microreactor to power the Starship. Also, incorporating inflatable hab modules that were developed by Bigalow Aerospace would increase the habitable volume for passengers.
I definitely think several Bigalow modules would help and could be used on mars after landing. A microreactor is unfeasible due to the way it works. Nuclear reactions generate heat to boil water to turn a turbine. Then that steam would need to be cooled. On a submarine or aircraft carrier, this is easy using seawater. There are no particles in space to cool the reaction.
Oh it would be huh? These putzes aren't even aware when they're prized ship explodes, and can't seem to build one that doesn't do that, let alone make it past L.E.O.
I work for SpaceX at the Cape and work with the engineers on the design for Starship somethings you got right and others not so much but you'll have to wait until the full roll out to find out ;)
The most obvious part is the going to Mars part. That's clearly never happening.
@@mervstash3692 When it happens in just a few years, I'll remember your comment and laugh.
@@Feral_Sage bold claim considering its not even on track to make it to the moon by then.
Want to rethink your time frame?
@@mervstash3692 by a few I mean 10ish years. Should have been more specific.
@@Feral_Sage with or without humans?
Working with crew together for a long duration must be in a right frame of mind. During long durations music will keep a person in a happy outlook. Maybe magnetic games for group fun. Magnetic lego game!! Can you guys build a smaller vessel for shipping items to reduce space?
Thank you, Leo 🎉🎉🎉
Thank you for not playing dramatic loud music in your videos... We can actually understand your dialogue... Thank you!
Already the Apollo Spacecraft used a hydrogen fuel cell to produce electric energy, so did the Space Shuttle. So it is really weird when you say "We already figured out how to power a car with it, so it is certainly possible that it can be scaled up to a starship". And that you even mention batteries before that.
Yeah, the dumb little Canuck! And yes, some "inconvenient truths" abound today about what has been done by we Americans, decades before. That, and many others, like it was pretty much "routine operations" for NASA's Apollo Program to go to the moon "Anytime When They Wanted To", well over 50 years ago! ;D LOL
Not only that they can also use nuclear. Which would give them power on Mars as well. The narrator has the brain power of a single battery
@@barakobama8194 yes, true, the new nuke engines will be great and get us there quickly, within weeks instead of months, once the Mars vehicle is in orbit; but it's that first "big boost", using chemicals, from Earth into space that will be tricky-est to pull off. Like as we witnessed by the recent Star Ship short "flight" and RUD! Not too much that will be "re-useable" after that flight, eh? ;D
As for the narrator, I think he is just reading a script written by a robot!! At least he seems to be humanoid! :D LOL
I don't entirely understand why he said solar panels would be too big to roll out from Starship itself, but fuel cells seem like a good idea anyway. Oh wait I forgot, hydrogen tends to leak _through tank walls!_
@@eekee6034 seems like an old and tried technology but I suppose new/better? ones will come online before serious long-term missions to the moon begin again. The Apollo landings were rather short duration missions so the H2 leaks would not be a huge problem, I guess. I imagine they knew about it and discounted it in favor of getting there and back as quickly as possible.
1 key thing that you missed when it comes to information on the SpaceX. Is that there's going to be two ships traveling together, and they will be tethered in such a way so that they can spin and create artificial gravity. And they will be hooked up to you but the tether will be able to have solar panels making it so that they have enough energy to get back and forth. Apparently they're still working on how they're going to create the artificial gravity
First, using one ship isn’t as good as many smaller. Launch 10 ships that are each half the size of the one described. I know, cost will prohibit it. But it does a lot of things. You could have a ship dedicated to energy…one to food…one to crew life, one for fuel etc. Once launched they can meet up in space and fly together. If one has issues, they can move that stuff to the others. Seems safer. Hell, you might even link them during the flight periodically. Gives the crew meaningful activity while presenting minimal risk. Sort of like voltron lol! Seriously, like each ship is capable of the entire trip by itself but when combined in the fleet, they all become more efficient. Kind of like a Navy with specialized boats.
@@halomaster9640 No doubt the first crews to Mars, especially if occurring during a democrat administration in the U.S., will be "diverse", if you will, in many ways!! And the definition of "the right stuff" will have changed, more than a little bit! ;D LOL
@@halomaster9640 oh, yes, good, some real meat at last!! "Fillet au gerbil, de maison" in a burre blanc sauce! Would be delicious for those suffering a diet of kale and fake meat for several months! LOL ;D
@@ronschlorff7089 Well Guinea pigs are eaten in , I believe , Peru and Bolivia , Must be tasty enough.Borrow some recipes , and go for it !!! Could feed 'em all the vegetable scraps , too
Making them into a freight train just makes sense. Then most of the ships will have more than enough fuel to land. I think SpaceX should build the 18 meter wide ship, because it can haul so much more, verse the 9 meter wide Starship. Smaller just limits what you can take, and the risk of failure just multiples.
Great video TY
I think it is more fun to think of the first Lunar Starship Interior layout that NASA plans to be for just 2 people with a short trip from Luna Orbit down to the surface. Then in 1/6 G. They will have so much space nice large hotel style bedrooms with comfy king size beds each, more like the quarters on the StarTrek Starship Enterprise with fully functional showers etc. I just feel so sorry for the 2 astronauts left stuck on the cramped Orion.
In NASA's defense the Orion is designed for 5 day missions, not 6 months, plus the crewed missions to the moon is probably going to happen 5-10 years before the Starship's.
@@injectablebacon1891 Guess we cannot get to the Moon. The shortest round trip to the Moon was Apollo 11 took over 8 Days and Orion NEEDS Starship to do the Moon landing. Amazing how the Artemis 1 Test of Orion survived 26 days.
Was of the impression that Artemis was another money pit. Designed to integrate the space force budget, into the beleaguered agency. Any votes for leaving space travel to the private sector and using those federal resources to allow for the states to inspect and repair our crumbling infrastructure?
It's much more likely they will not use Starships for the transit. It makes so much more sense to assemble a spacecraft in orbit that looks a lot like the ISS and has much of the same technology and amenities, rather than cramping everything in a single launch vessel.
6:22
50 Sleeping Cabins! It’s possible but imagine the amount of resources they would need onboard to sustain 50 people for 6 months traveling to Mars and needing the materials to set up a base on top of that.
I find it particularly odd since the intro states 10 would be ideal, and that 100 as Elon suggested could happen at some point sounds like a "really bad idea"...
Not only that this moron thinks they are going to use batteries for 6 months as an energy source. Instead of proven methods like nuclear and hydrogen
@@tosvus Yes, it's high time we stopped listening to Elon's figures. Dude can't even get an EV right, so I wouldn't entirely trust him with a manned interplanetary spacecraft. Let's stick with the pros.
That is a lot of farts to process.
Why are we assuming they will just launch and send one rocket. They will surely launch three or four of which only one that is manned and then join up. The others will have equipment for when we are on Mars, food, space and so on.
Without considering the cost it would be very beneficial to send two starships. One carries the passengers the other caries all the equipment. I can only say this because it's not my cheque book.
I don't think a single Starship can be used for the journey to and from Mars. So a single Starship could be used for power generation with a small nuclear reactor, another could be for crew living quarters, another for the landing vehicle, and if your going to Mars you will need a fully kitted out machine shop with a CNC lathe, 5 axis CNC mill and 3d printers etc.. I wouldn't go to Mars without a decent lathe. I think it will be a bunch of Starships joined together. Think nuclear sub or a battleship for all the stuff your going to need minus the weapons.
Definitely 3D printers and maybe a multi axis CNC machining center with both lathe and milling capability. Only problem though is that CNC machining centers use up a lot of electricity and they need things like coolant, hydraulic power and the ability to collect chips. I doubt they would be able to use a CNC machining center on the trip itself but perhaps on the surface of mars.
And a soda machine, you will be parched on Mars.
I think before people go to Mars, a dozen ships with robots and equipment will be sent there to remotely prepare the base for the arrival of people. Therefore, for the flight, people will only need a solution for the flight itself. I think a compact nuclear reactor can be placed on board, especially if the impulse for the flight from Earth to Mars will be given by an external mini-stage, and on board there will be only fuel for deceleration and landing. Well, let's not forget that there are already plans to double Starship's payload with a corresponding increase in available volume. Most likely Starship that will take people to Mars will be much larger than the current one.
I am just wondering what provision will be made for dealing with meteor punctures during flight. With several floors and crew disbursed around the ship how would this be dealt with and what provision would be made for replacing air? What is the provision for crew protection during repair ? how many impacts could Starship resource for in a 6 month flight and on planet survival?
Space is quite empty. It's unlikely Starship would get hit by micrometeorites large enough to puncture the wall during the trip. This isn't common even on the ISS, and the ISS operates in LEO, which is much more congested with space debris than interplanetary space. But there will definitely be some contingencies, where they train to plug any leaks. Maybe even contingencies where they suit up and do a space walk to plug a leak. But it's impossible to plan for every contingency. It's possible that a micrometeorite strike could kill everyone onboard.
And there will almost certainly be flight suits, just like on the Dragon, that can be put on if there is a loss of cabin pressure, but that would just be a stop gap measure, until they fix the issue.
As for air, the Starship has a quite big tank of liquid oxygen (propellant for the engines). There will probably be some surplus margin in the amount of LOX that can be pulled into the crew compartment to replenish lost oxygen. CO2 will likely be scrubbed from the air and vented to space. When Starship reaches Mars, CO2 from the atmosphere will be turned into carbon monoxide and oxygen, where the carbon monoxide is likely vented to the atmosphere while the oxygen is used for breathing. This costs energy, but it means they can keep breathing indefinitely.
@@espenha Dioxide?
@@davidmacphee3549 No, if you look at something like MOXIE, the net reaction is:
2 CO2 -> 2 CO + O2.
So you end up with excess carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide could actually be used as a rocket fuel, or in fuel cells for power, but that would require consuming oxygen, so if you want to produce net oxygen, you have to get rid of the carbon monoxide.
How many times has your car been punctured by a meteor? That is about the same odds of the trip to Mars.
@@davidbeppler3032 That’s not correct. The atmosphere stops micrometeorites.
I just hope they use a very diverse group. That's what's really important
Is it though? So you bring that point up to say what exactly?
Not as important as a sense of humor. clearly. LOL
No way we are going without spin gravity. A round-trip is going to be a full year in zero G. Plus 0.4 G on Mars for one year. Our bodies would be wrecked before getting back and would suffer serious consequences under the acceleration of reentry to earth and possibly even departure from Mars. I’m guessing they would use a cable tether between two starships to spin them up
The other (much more technologically difficult) option for "gravity" would be to take a page out of The Expanse.
Orient the floor of the ship towards the engine, and be constantly accelerating at 1 g the acceleration force would be enough to safely push the occupants "down"
@@memyselfandcorpse2 Yeah, that's a stupid thing to bring up. It's not just "difficult", with our current technology it's impractical to the point of being effectively impossible.
Or
Earth 9.87 m/s
Mars 3.52 m/s
If people can put up living in Chicago or San Francisco then they can make it living on this starship
@@memyselfandcorpse2constantly accelerating means the trajectory to mars will change, we accelerate to increase our orbit to mars then stop accelerating.
Send 5 Stareships at the same time, connected together with one being the center of the spinning wheel, each of the other four starships would be at the end of long cables connected to the center starship, spinning enough to generate earth like gravity. As for the power, the center unmanned starship would be nuclear power source for all four manned ships during the trip to Mars. Arriving at Mars the center starship would stay in orbit while the four starships would detach and land. With this configuration, the long weightless problem solved and so is the power issue. And if there is enough room in the center starship it could be the cargo hauler too, landing at a distant location as to not cause any nuclear concerns, it would become the power station for the new Mars settlement.
Anything that adds complexity and points of failure is basically a non-starter in Elon's eyes. Although, the need for artificial gravity is a bigger deal than I think he's willing to admit publicly.
We have to figure out nuclear fusion first.
@@ebonaparte3853 fission will do fine if you have a dedicated ship for it.
@@tosvus Maybe we can use both fission and fusion.
Spinning a circle to generate gravity isnt as easy as you'd think it is. If it was so easy then it would already be in use and of course it isn't.
The Surviving Mars Solar panels fit so well
Don't forget about these additional challenges: radiation protection for the crew, especially if there is a solar flare; landing pad preparation on Mars (Moon too), (you cannot land the Starship on soft soil, nor can you leave it sitting for months on soft soil, nor can you lift off from soft soil); and landing targeting accuracy, (if you prepare a landing pad before landing, can the ship actually navigate accurately enough to hit the bullseye?). Then on the surface of Mars, radiation protection is vital. I think SpaceEx will need to first land a bulldozer, an earthmover, a concrete mixer, a portable crane, and robotic construction workers on Mars before any crewed Starships can land.
You're right about landing on regolith , but maybe an autonomous surveying craft could find a big , flat rock on which to land. Could be looking for caves for habitation at the same time , too To me that' s the most sensible source of shielding ;; Lots of dirt and rock between rads and people !!
@@lawrenceiverson1924 Yeah, I suspect they will be able to find at least a few flat rocks for the first few landings.
That said, they are also definitely going to be doing a ton of autonomous site work before anything else.
There are a thousand reasons this Mars nonsense won't work.
@@andchi2000 Its not going to take 100 years you all talk about stuff you can't even begin to comprehend they also announced setting a plan up to start getting ready to send people to mars you are just as idiotic as the rest of these internet goons lol. Take you're hater ass somewhere else.
It will work.
NOR
Mate don't forget the first people that will be on board the star ship will be professional astronauts the professionals tend not to go crazy 😆👍🇬🇧✌️
On a trip of that nature, I think the biggest challenge would be keeping the crew occupied with tasks that are challenging enough to keep their sharp edge during the transit to and from Mars.
Good and interesting video! Thank you!
I think, the sleeping pods should be positioned horizontally, otherwise they can't be used on Mars in gravity.
yes, and any artificial ship gravity should be anticipating that as well, maybe gradually!
This is a topic I was thinking about and I'm glad you've covered it.
In many animations, I see depictions of up to 30 PEOPLE being held within the rocket. Humans aren't cargo! Uhh yeah, the ship is big enough to be physically capable of holding that many people, but they'd have to be cooped away in a porta potty sized room, and could only come out to the main area a few at a time! That just isn't possible for humans to do for 6 months straight.
The ship is big, but only in terms of carrying out a few people at a time like the Lunar missions.
The meta for interplanetary space travel is far different than interlunar. Not just by how to get there, but the experience of getting there as well. 👍
Issues that will need addressing are medical problems. Pharmacy supplies will need to cover years in every area. Some one would also need to be medical trained as a General practitioner, and at least a couple years in surgery training to meet the needs of people willing to colonize Mars. With a couple years of basic surgical training the doctor could accomplish almost anything that would come up. With video guidance from experts on Earth almost all surgery could be accomplished by a second year intern surgeon. Need a few people with nurse training to assist. One of the first trips would have to bring a complete operating theater, and testing equipment, x-ray, and lab to handle blood work, and tissue testing. Once the unit is in place the risk of death from a treatable disease, or even cancer drops to about the same as being on Earth. Probably better with access to all the experts versus the rural hospitals most people have to deal with.
I used to be a fan of tiny cabins because for years I was very happy with my entirely computer-based life, but then I realised that I was happy because my online life involved a lot of associating with people online in ways which would be impossible with the speed-of-light delays of an interplanetary voyage.
@@marymarlow5598 interesting. Safety is the top priority for something so grand, after all. Getting to mars is the secondary goal on a martian mission. The main mission is ensuring the crew will make it back to Earth alive.
The interior volume will be greater than a 747. In cruise ships, there can be as little as 30 square feet per passenger. Translating that very roughly to interior volume (at a rate of 5 square feet per 2 cubic meters), we're looking at about 5000 square feet of interior space in the starship. Which would mean that Starship would be able to fit 166 people with about as much space as a low-end cruise ship, or about 100 people with as much space as a middle-high end cruise ship.
There will be plenty of space. 30 will probably be the luxury liner version of starship, giving each passenger over 160 square feet between their personal and common areas.
@@eekee6034 Which is why you'll want a big crew.
In the Martian, their ship Hermes had rotating sections to simulate gravity using centripetal force. That design has to be included somehow; maybe assembling in space and docking with it? It would solve a lot of issues for the crew, especially physically. They would also sleep better.
By rotating opposite of each other, they would offset any gyro mechanics which can cause yaw issues that may pop up because of the energy that rotation causes. Plus, it would make no difference to the crew, because they would have to go through a weightless tube and go down another one. It would also expand crew quarters considerably.
I would think that they should link two or three together in earth orbit first then move on to mars, that would make for alot of extra storage and habitat.
too bad non of this will happen now we know how bad thy aree
@@jackoshaco no- elon said it was 50/50 shot of it working at all -now we know how powerful it is and will compensate for it - besides the other rockets didn't work right at first either - now they do!
I love your videos. However, I really don't think that colonization of Mars is a very practical thing to do. But, being the space/ aviation geek that I am, it's quite fun to dream of. Thank you for sharing your videos. They are very inspiring, and interesting.
It's not practical and it is virtually impossible by any stretch of the imagination. But Elon fanboys don't really care...
Design 2 fuel / solar panel transfer stations. One orbiting Earth and one orbiting Mars. And call them Buddaboom and Buddabing.
I think you want the entire crew area surrounded by water tanks... like 30cm around the periphery of the entire ship, divided into multiple tanks for clean and grey water... this would provide shielding against cosmic rays etc... so subtract about 0.6 meters from the diameter wherever crew are. perhaps can omit it on the lower equipment levels. There should also be "shades" that can be deployed against the windows filled with shielding for during storms.
Read somewhere that multiple launches are scheduled to link the starships end to end like a train with double-stacked shipping containers. Figured they had a few ships that are to be those water tanks.
Using water to shield cosmic rays would be too much extra weight, I’m sure their is a different material that would work just as good without adding all that weight that water would….
@@kennethburden1065 No matter the weight water is the best shielding available, every other material mostly metals become radioactive themselves from exposure in space, water does not.
Unfortunately the calculations have already been done. Blocking ionizing radiation is harder than you or Elon Musk knows. Ionizing radiation like gamma rays requires almost 14 feet of water, 7 feet of concrete or 1.3 feet of lead, none of which is practical.
@@Critical-Thinker895 Source?
I really appreciate you and your teams hard work that you put into your work. Thanks and keep up the good work.
it's cool how spaceX is focusing on colonizing mars and nasa on colonizing the moon (if you don't know they should send a few people on the moon for around 6 days in 2026 to start the first preparation for moon colonizing)
I think the DreamChaser will set the standard for access to orbit.
A 20 minute delay on communication is nothing! When I was stationed on Shemya Island, it would take weeks to get a letter home and then get an answer back!
with starlink today, even Shemya is on the internet...
the astronaut falling at 2:50 made me laugh, my mind forgot about 0 gravity for a split second and it looked like a meme
I think one of the biggest challenges will be dealing with the dangerous nature of the mission. Anyone can claim that they're the hardest until they face true danger and know their life is at stake. People change like crazy Ive seen it on my deployment to Africa. The candidates will have to be chosen VERY carefully. I personally would not want to push the frontier.
Maybe we could throw some people into a jungle. Those who adapt and thrive pass and those who give up fail.
@@MrNote-lz7lh Les Stroud the Survivorman did that many times, should be easy enough, since he was a Canadian from the frozen north!! LOL ;D
@@MrNote-lz7lh Hmm, maybe take their clothes, too, and put it on TV (with appropriate blurred spots) and call it Naked and Afraid.
(Dang it. Someone beat us to it!)
😉
Im a shut in who doesnt really have anything else to live for and i would absolutely love the opportunity to go on a one way trip to Mars to help humanity take their initial steps into the future of space colonization
I think they are aware of this. They aren’t picking random idiots, the same as the military isn’t making everyone who raises their hand special forces. Obviously people break under pressure.
What you need to understand about the command module is that they can stand up in it! Left to right when the module is atop the rocket on Earth is top to bottom in space so the command module in space is actually two levels.
for a large scale mission like this, it may be best to build a ship in space, part by part, then have a smaller landing craft. yeah its much harder to do, but the final ship could be far superior in terms of quality of life and/or ability in function.
also incredibly stupid question, but could we create some sort of solar fan using solar sails and make energy that way? (spin the turbine by having sails rotating in opposite directions gaining power through the solar rays pushing on the sails?)
I’m in favor of skipping all of the spaceship stuff and just go ahead and build the Matter Transporter. Then we could just beam ourselves there.
@@earth_ling idk those kind of scare me cause of the ethical and philosophical reasons, like....does consciousness survive the transport? is it YOU coming out the other side or just a perfect replica with your memories and you cease to exist once you step into the deconstructor?
Nah. The ISS was built like that and believe it or not Starship has a slightly larger interior volume
Agreed. Starship embodies "Mars direct" which is the wrong architecture. That's the first problem. Secondly, a realistic human mission to Mars would be indirect - via Mars orbit in both directions. To that end you need a suitable vehicle. Not a launch vehicle. Not a lander. But a transit vehicle that gets humans safely from Earth orbit to Mars orbit and then return. And such a vehicle could be assembled in Earth orbit with minimal manual intervention. Not only that, but you could build a vehicle that can can be spun end over end to provide gravity. Something Starship cannot do.
@@saumyacow4435 I think you're not familiar with just how large and capable starship is. It could provide ~50 square feet of space to 100 passengers, which is roughly equivalent to a high(er) end cruise line, it can act as both an upper stage on Earth and an SSTO craft on Mars, and it runs on methane, which is one of the easiest fuels to synthesize in-situ.
Over time, other architectures will make a lot more sense, but SpaceX knows everything you do about this topic and more, and Starship was the best, most practical design they could come up with. Right now, simplicity and reliability of supply lines is going to be the most critical thing to focus on.
For the trip itself, solar panels are the best option. I'm thinking the whole craft will be covered in them. I'm also thinking that a cargo ship or possibly several cargo ships would be sent in advance of the crew and included in the cargo would be solar array's and batteries.
Nuclear is the only clear winner here.
Solar is not a good option for many reasons. Small nuclear reactors make a lot more sense...and as the Voyager probes have already proven, nuclear reactors can last many decades so they make a ton of sense as fuel for a new colony.
@@glamdring0007 unfortunately the only viable way to cool the reactors in space is to radiate the heat into the environment. The ISS uses many radiators and that's simply for managing temperature on the space station itself and its solar panels. To cool a reactor powerful enough for the electronics needed for 6-month journey, I would assume requires a large amount of radiators. The voyager produced approx. 450W at launch, and 250W currently. However, the first ISS radiators were added in 1998, I'd like to think some advancements have been made in the materials and designs so it may still be possible.
maybe the best way to travel from earth to mars the best would be to use solar elevators in space itself, elevators with cables connected to each other with drop off points
@@jamdonut1122 They are not reactors. they are RTGs. totally different tech.
They could launch separate pieces and join them together before heading to Mars. The final assembly could be ten times the size of what is presented here. The pieces would be brought back on a return trip, stay in space, and be used again and again.
This will take much longer, than anyone want to make us believe!
all just snake oil BS as long as it comes from the muskrat
@OzkanArac what makes you say that? Everything spaceX has done indicates this *will* happen...
I'm pretty sure yesterday or maybe last week they even announced for the first time in a while they're on schedule with the mission to Mars
The chance of having a human on Mars before 2100 i slim to none. Musk sure as hell won't be the person to bring us there. It would be ridiculously expensive, and the people would probably die half way there, and even if they made it, they would never come back. Not to mention all the technical issues. Can't even imagine how many single points of failure this pipe dream would have.
Arguably it would make more sense to develop a modular system that can be sent up in pieces and assembled in orbit. For example design the layout of the Starship so upwards of 7 can be docked together with docking ring connections to allow transfer between ships. That allows for each ship to be modularized to fit a need of the mission as well as allowing for redundant backups that are spread out and relatively isolated. Don't want a repeat of Apollo 13 where one faulty tank blew the primary and the backup.
For survival, cargo mass should pad the outer walls to limit radiation. Preferably this padding should be expended to limit knock on effects from radiation damage. Maybe fuel, water or food. Mined materials on the return journey. A consequence would be to huddle crew near the center.
You don't actually need to pad the outer walls. All of the significant radiation is going to come from one place -- the sun. You just need a barrier between the passengers and the sun. The rockets themselves, the fuel, the water, and the cargo payload sitting underneath the passengers will provide a lot of shielding.
When we took that trip to the moon, there was talk about Mars being next. I can't believe that we will be doing this. I'm happy for my sons to witness this; hopefully, I will too. As mentioned by a few, those who experienced living in a submarine would be good candidates, and one would have to agree. My question to everyone is this: If ten is the number, should there be an equal number of men and women? Should all be single? And why?
Would probably depend heavily on the mission in question. I don't think the first question is about colonizing Mars, and certainly there would not be enough resources and competence to start delivering and raising babies. That said, mental health could be an issue. Many people would not stand the thought of no chance of intimate relations (whether emotionally or phsyically) for that long of a time (even if just counting the time to and from..). Everyone would need to bring value to the mission (other than just emotional support), and to minimize risk of disaster, all should be relatively young and in very good health both physically and psychologically. My preference for the first few missions would probably be highly capable couples though how easy it would be to fine those with useful skills is a big challenge. The men should probably agree to a temporary sterilization before going.
Mate, we are 100% not going to Mars. You can bet your house on it.
@@mervstash3692 What , you got a working crystal ball ?? PFFAAAH !!!!!
@@lawrenceiverson1924 no mate, but I have a pretty good grasp on reality & know a few things about Mars.
I wonder if they thought of launching 2 of them together and connecting them side by side for the journey so you could have a back up ship if needed...like one that stays in orbit while one lands and could be called if needed help to leave if anything goes wrong during mars landing...
I cannot understand why someone would want to leave beautiful Earth for a dust bowl on Mars.
The Starship should be quite good design for SIMULATION of gravity by spinning. Whole occupied ship can be seen as a "habitat module" in that setting, because it can be anchored on the "bow"/nose from "above", and if the tether would be roughly 450 meters long, spinning under 2 rotations per minute, there would be 1G in the starship oriented against the downside of the ship (changing the ship into de facto multilevel building for its inhabitants), wich would benefit health of the crew, same as many details of civil life onboard. Toilets, cooking, fire security, sleeping, healing bigger injuries, repairing some types of damages and failures on the ship.
Second benefit of that setting would be ADJUSTABILITY of the simulated gravity. If the 2 ships are connected mostly by tethers, both ships can "climb" the tethers up and down, and change the speed of mutual spinning by manuevering thrusters, and by those actions change the percieved force of simulated gravity. In short, out of (say) 1 hour acceleration, 9 months of balistic travel and 1 hour of deceleration, the crew can live the balistic part in simulated gravity of Earth, Mars, or Moon, with possibility to gradualy increase or decrease for better and quicker accomodation of crew on different gravitation, or before returning to Earth.
Not to mention, if most of equipment onboard would be designed to work in non zero G gravity, it will work on the destination planet too.
It will need to be counter balanced thought with a center starship connecting them both
Send two "star ships"... once they accelerate on a course for their destination, link the noses together via some kind of cabling system(more than one so a single failure doesn't send them flying) have them carefully maneuver to bring it under tension and spin against each other so that they are each other's counterweight, change the speed of rotation and you change the precived gravity allowing you to acclimatize the passengers to the destinations gravity
yes that should be an imporant consideration because spending 6 month in microgravity even with excercise will require a crew to get used to gravity again and recover, that's what we see with astronauts returning from the ISS... so idk if sending crews to mars without somekind of gravity simulation is a good idea, they don't have anyone on mars to assist them when they arrive...
You can generate artifical gravity with a constant thrust. It wouldn't need to be much. And a rotating section would need to rotate at about 15 rpm for 1 earth g. That's a lot of spinning mass to counter balance.
@@TheAmericanCatholic Counterbalance by the same number of same type of starship(s)/module(s). There is no explicit need for the midleship. Ships will burn tens of minutes, and than they will proceed ballistic for 9 months, with same time needed for deceleration when closing to Mars. But the middlestation will be close to 0G - therefore unfit for crew, not necesarily needed for burn or manuevres, but ussefull for HUGE self-positioning solar array, or for remotly controlled (mostly automated) nuclear generator, cause in that position it could power both sides of the tether, AND be securely away from the crew, to prevent negative effects of radioactivity, AND lower the wieght of the reactor. Cheapest, lightest, most impenetrable and most abundant radshield is DISTANCE between source of radiation and people.
I love to think about these problems. Obviously another huge issue not mentioned, is how to exit the rocket when you land on Mars, how to get the heavy equipment out without damaging it. There could be 20 or 30 meters of fuel and motors at the base of the rocket, so some kind of huge ramp might be needed ? Maybe instead of splitting each rocket into sections, it would be more efficient to have the supplies and building equipment in separate rockets that travel at the same time to Mars. I could envisage a cluster of rockets travelling together, each with a specific function. I just hope something happens in my life time, it will be the greatest adventure of my generation.
You haven't mentioned the problem that NASA hasn't figured out yet ... that of ionizing Gamma radiation. Shielding against Gamma requires several inches of lead or several feet of concrete, neither of which is possible for a Starship because of the weight.
And then we come to DARPA's 'advanced materials' that are going to be used in the DRACO NTP system. If it can handle the radiation from even a low level enriched fission pile, it should be eligible to act as shielding for the crew section, at least.
Water
@@kirikiri44695 For it's gonna take a lot more than they have room for.
Does SpaceX already have a team of engineers working on a specific design for the habitats the first people on mars will use?
If yes, I never hear about this. It makes me wonder if there is such a team.
If there is not. It will take years of planning and manufacturing. If they expect the first human mission to mars to be in 5-10 years away. SpaceX really needs to get moving on this now!
You're kidding, you really think that they're building the Starship without the inside? They'd have to be insane.
@@Alarix246 No. I am not kidding!
Also, I think it is even worse. I was referring to the habitats they will live in on Mars. The design and consideration as to how they will get equipment and parts to mars, needs to come first.
The starship that carries the crew is the last design they need to consider.
@@SomeBoredGuy69 Sorry, mate, you're thinking about this backwards. Starship landed on Mars IS the habitat, just the same as the Starship for the Human Landing System IS the Moon lander. Any external habitat will only be tertiary. Plus, for the sake of simplicity, I imagine any work done for the Starship life support systems will be exactly the same systems they use on eventual ground habitats. At any rate, anything we have now is just speculation as they have refused to talk about the interior of Starship just yet.
edit: We do know for sure they have a team of people working on the interior as they've had NASA at the Boca Chica site looking at a mock up HLS ship. We could only see the outside, but we know work is ongoing.
@@jackinthebox301 I disagree.
Simply landing 1 starship and return almost immediately, is pointless.
The missions of the first crews should be building the habitats. Many Starships, full of supplies and equipment, need to be sent before any human sets foot on Mars.
@@SomeBoredGuy69 What I'm disagreeing with is that the habitat should be in any way a focus now. Because it shouldn't be and clearly isn't. Starship will allow these people to live in space which is more than enough to live on the surface of Mars. Why waste time engineering effort with surface habitats when you have a perfectly good habitat already? I'm not saying there won't be constructions and labs on the surface. I'm saying they will be tertiary. For the initial missions, likely for years, the main place of residence is going to be the ships. Elon has said it himself that there will probably be crewed ships that go and don't come back that become the beginning of the colony. The mission is to get there. Everything subsequent to that is, well, subsequent. Secondary. The people will do work on the surface, but they will live, sleep and eat in the ships.
Of course they will build habitats eventually. Maybe even they'll start tearing apart some of the cargo ships that came with them, but that will be a long term project. Not important initially.
Interesting stuff. Sounds super exciting. 😊❤
Weight, supplies for the crew will be the limiting factors. I would love to see this happen in my lifetime.
I like how virtually every one of these types of "deep dives" proves Starship it not taking anyone to Mars... That is Elon marketing, and such phrases like "rapidly reusable" comes right out of the Marketing 101 handbook. That's not to say Starship wont be a game changer to get loads into space like a barge.... which Starship is clearly designed to do. Starship will bring the actual Mars ship to LEO for assembly. Starship can be the lander that's strapped onto the side like a life boat. Along with power and supplies, gravity of some kind is almost certainly going to be needed along the way. Muscle and bone mass loss during a 6 month trip will make working on Mars miserable. There are a host of other major problems to be solved before anyone gets on a ship to Mars.
This
You are not what we call, smart. That is ok. But while you are saying, that ain't gonna happen, it is. When you are wrong, you will just forget that you ever said it. NBD.
As for gravity, do you have any handy they can take with them?
I am sure you can figure out a solution that the top 1000 people on the planet has not thought of.
What is it?
I answered it and I am not the smartest person.
They will solve it, or not.
That will not stop them from killing a few hundred volunteers. That is the human way. One way trips until people survive.
@@budyeddi5814 is wrong
@@davidbeppler3032 cross your fingers and wish hard😂😂😂
@@budyeddi5814 You clearly did not read my response to the OP.
6 months in that space can make the sane go insane. Things can get ugly.
I would also add that too much space can be an issue. If you have nothing to push off from you can find yourself stuck in the middle
With the amount of stuff to pack on a 6 month trip, there probably won't ve enough empty space for that to be a problem
In theory, but not in practice. It is possible to sort of swim (push air in one direction) to get some slight acceleration. In a few seconds you can get to a surface you can grab onto.
Of course, this wouldn't be very user friendly if it were a common occurence... But it would be hard to get into the center of the space with zero velocity. It would only happen if you're holding onto someone and they move out of reach, just as you're in the center of the space with zero velocity, or if you are floating through the space and happen to throw an item with exactly the right mass direction, and velocity to zero out your velocity.
@@espenha That is true 👍
Could also be powered with small nuclear generator but my bet is Solar/batteries.
Hopefully it doesn't happen to the first starship, or the first few even, but I can definitely see something happening and an entire starship being lost, crew and all. The shuttle program would be shutdown for years before they would let another fly. Would really hate to see anything like that happen, but it almost seems inevitable when taking leaps into the unknown.
Faucets DO work in zero G, it's the drains that don't work. Collecting free flowing water is a matter of using static electricity instead of gravity, the same in a shower, a static charge will collect the water onto a surface and it will be vacuumed up. You will be able to have showers in Zero G. But there is an alternative for a ship as big as the Starship and that is a spinning wall set up for sleeping and showering and toilets, also for eating at a table and another one for growing food. 4 rpm would produce a little less than 1/10th of a G Larger ships can have larger spinning habbitats and more g force.
I think we should focus on solving our problems here on earth before we waste time and energy going to Mars
Stop thinking so either or. We have the resources and the ability to do both.
@@nandesu going to Mars is very low priority relative to all the problems going on here that we have not solved.
@@scottprather5645something even lower priority is rapidly disassembling each other. That’s over $1 trillion in the USA alone every year.
@@Wurtoz9643 I have no idea what you're talking about??
This has always been a false dilemma used by those against exploration. Has never been true, never will be. truth is, exploration Does help solve problems at home. it always has.
Elon Musk promised Starship would be taking people to Mars in 2022 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time
This was kind of fun. I started making some bread so now I’m gonna take a nap.
I just wish it had double hulls like the submarines from 80s to 2000s, I know with advancing metallurgy they ditched the double hull for single hulls in the newest submarines but safety should be a main concern
Well, many modern subs have a separate hydrodynamic hull, to aid the sub move through the water, and also to detonate ordnance before it hits the pressure vessel.