Thread: SpaceX - On to Mars

Why some people would go to Mars, or other places out there.

I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas

Watch it in HD and full screen if possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotat...&v=YH3c1QZzRK4

The presentation on YouTube. Over 40 minutes.



Using the system for point to point travel on earth. New York to Shanghai 38 minutes. Not sure to see that happen.

Two weeks since the presentation and I am still in the process of digesting it. More info is coming out, yesterday by President of SpaceX Gwynne Shotwell and a little by Elons friend and investor Multi Billionaire Jurvetson.

The name ITS did not stick. Presently they are back to the name BFR (Big F.... Rocket now rebranded as Big Falcon Rocket) but that too may only be temporary until they can come up with something nice.

Last year the capacity they aimed for was 300t to Low Earth Orbit. Seems it was too ambitious and beyond the financial strength of SpaceX, no support of NASA materializing. IMO it was never realistic to hope for NASA. The new version has only 150t to LEO, in fully reusable mode. Not too bad, it is the same as the famous Saturn 5 could do, expendable. Less beautiful as well.




Last years version was destined to go to Mars. This years version is supposed to be able to do more different things so it can earn money. So

Go to Mars and come back.
Go to the Moon and come back.
Do passenger service from New York to Shanghai in 38 minutes. This would be one of the longest flight times. Most other connections would be below 30 minutes.

Initially I did not take that announcement by Elon Musk quite seriously. But now the more down to earth Gwynne Shotwell said the same. Also Elons friend Steve Jurvetson said, they can serve these connections at competetive prices. I am still somewhat sceptical. It would not only be technically and financially feasible. They will need to convince aerospace regulators worldwide that it is safe. I guess best case they could start flying regular passenger service in 20 years.



They would fly from platforms out at sea and bring passengers with fast boats. Launches and landings are just too noisy to fly nearer to a City. This limits possible connections to coastal cities. But many of the big cities are located at the coast.

^Perhaps a few of us will get to go on a flight if they have wheelchair access.

Originally Posted by misskit

Perhaps a few of us will get to go on a flight if they have wheelchair access.

We should get to go first, we'll be the experienced diaper wearers, after all.

^ Reminds me of Valentina Tereshkova, female cosmonaut in the 60's that did 48 orbits of the Earth,first woman in Space in 1963, upon many other things.

In 2013 volunteered to be the guinea pig on a 'one-way mission' to Mars if the opportunity arose and would benefit from a real life test dummy.

Quite some time has passed. There were no single big news but a lot of things have gone on, enough to keep us space nerds excited. With a number of recent remarks made by SpaceX people it seems they are shaping up for some big news. Time to sum up what has happened.

The latest was an Interview with Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX. She is the one who keeps the wheels turning and the company on a financially sound base while financing most advanced research and development.

In a recent interview with bloomberg.com she said they are presently building the first prototype of the BFS.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...with-elon-musk

Things are happening, hardware is being built.

Gwynne Shotwell on makers.com

Gwynne Shotwell talks about her love for math and science, what first sparked her interest in engineering, her work at SpaceX, and how she became one of Forbes' Top 100 Most Powerful Women in the World.

There are 4 people on the core of SpaceX. There are lots of brilliant and dedicated people working for the company but those four are essential and near irreplaceable.

Elon Musk. Heart and soul and driving force of SpaceX. He sets the tasks. As others are saying he is not always right but surprisingly often he is right, even when the experts tell him it is impossible.

Gwynne Shotwell, the engineer entrepreneur who keeps things going.

Tom Mueller, the engine designer. He had worked in rocket engine design for other companies before he was hired by Elon Musk. The pace there got him so bored that he started building a rocket engine at home in his garage.

When hired he thougt SpaceX was likely to fail but why not try. He can always go back to one of the traditional space cmpanies. But after a few months at SpaceX he realized after this experience he can never go back to the working environment of traditional space.

He is behind the Merlin engine with record breaking thrust/weight ratio and low cost build. Very light for its capcity but otherwise quite mediocre. The best they could build with very limited money and time available. In engine design Tom Mueller is the only one equal to the best russian designers starting with Sergei Korolev, the father of russian space achievements.
Presently he is working on the Raptor engine. The first US designed engine that is equal or better than the best the Russians have built. It uses the full flow staged combustion cycle, the most efficient and most complex engine design. Russia built one but it was never used in flight. Raptor will fly soon.

Lars Blackmore, the trajectory specialist, hired from NASA. He is slightly less known than the other three to the general public. But he is the brain behind the development of vertical landing vehicles. Falcon boosters landing is his success. This will be essential for BFR. There may be other possible methods of landing here on Earth. But for landing on Mars or on the Moon it is the only method to land large payloads. SpaceX was able to do extensive testing without huge cost because the boosters did a commercial launch before they attempted landing. BFB and BFS are expensive equipment SpaceX can not afford losing many of them for testing. But they have the experience from Falcon boosters to help them succeed quickly.

He mentioned a few days ago on twitter

Seems like a good time to start working on landing BFR

https://twitter.com/larsblackmore/st...57359278682113

Short recap on the timeline. It is aspirational and slips are likely but it is what they work on.

2022 2 cargo ships go to Mars bringing equipment for the propellant factory and of course for proving the landing capability. the biggest ever landed on Mars is the Curiosity rover, just below 1t of mass. That's the limit of what NASA can do. Attempts on designing something that can land a larger payload were not very successful yet. BFS is supposed to be able to land 150t of cargo. Though I expect the first one to have a lower payload to be on the safe side. Still more than 100t.

2024 2 more cargo ships with more equipment and 2 manned ships. Crew will be needed to get the propellant factory operational. Which means they need to stay at least 2 years on Mars until they have the propellant for a return flight and the return window opens.

To meet those goals they have to meet a number of milestones. Early 2019 they want a BFS to begin suborbital flighs, first small hops extending to ~100km altitude. Then later going up to orbital or near orbital speed to test the very difficult reentry and landing coming from space. They begin with the second stage, the BFS, because it is harder than the first stage.

If things go well, they will also do hops of the big first stage later 2019.

2020 would be the year when they first fly the full stack BFR.

Good stuff!

Originally Posted by Takeovers

2024 2 more cargo ships with more equipment and 2 manned ships. Crew will be needed to get the propellant factory operational. Which means they need to stay at least 2 years on Mars until they have the propellant for a return flight and the return window opens.

2 manned flights to Mars by 2024 seems a tad fanciful.

What is the furthest manned flight achieved by SpaceX so far?

Originally Posted by foobar

What is the furthest manned flight achieved by SpaceX so far?

How would that be relevant? SpaceX is moving forward.

foobar ~ "2 manned flights to Mars by 2024 seems a tad fanciful. What is the furthest manned flight achieved by SpaceX so far?"

Originally Posted by Takeovers

How would that be relevant? SpaceX is moving forward.

Have you ^ seriously considered becoming a candidate,.....for an elected political office?....

Very interesting thread, excellent keep us posted. You mentioned the return fuel will be created on Mars. Are there all the ingredients available. You mentioned CO2 and water, H20. These have everything?

Originally Posted by OhOh

You mentioned the return fuel will be created on Mars. Are there all the ingredients available. You mentioned CO2 and water, H20. These have everything?

CO2 and water, plus plenty of energy. They will need huge solar array fields as long as they don't have big nuclear reactors. Roughly 1MW output for 2 years to produce propellant for 1 ship to return.

CO2 is easy, it is the main component of the atmosphere. Water will be tricky. They need a landing site with plenty of ice below a soil cover of more than 1m. So they need digging equipment. Without propellant production no return to earth. That is why they can send people only when they have established existence of water. But propellant production is not trivial, they need people to get it operational. That means the first crew will need to stay 2 years. Lots of sites but off the equator by 40°. They want to be as close to the equator as possible so they are still searching.

Fortunately NASA has plenty of data on sites with water. But they need a site that is lowlying so they have enough atmosphere for braking and as near as possible to the equator for efficient solar panels. NASA is presently collecting data on up to 40 potential landing sites for manned NASA missions. It is amazing what orbital observation satellites can determine. Right down to available gravel sizes for construction purposes and about many minerals that may be needed.

One huge problem is competition, which tends to rush people into cutting corners and error.

2014: US agree to pay SpaceX ($2.6bn) and Boeing ($4.2bn) for a spacecraft to carry its astronauts to/from the ISS. Aside from the glory, there is a pot filled with more sweet billions and both sides would more than lie, kill for access to it.

Since then, both projects have repeatedly delayed their progress and launch dates. Latest (?) says SpaceX is preparing for an uncrewed test in Nov18 and crewed in Apr19, while Boeing respond with uncrewed in 'late 18' and crewed in 'early 19'.

If both sets of tests from either firm are successful, they can enter NASA's certification process.

Meanwhile, last month the GAO (Gov Audit Office) predict SpaceX will complete NASA certification in Feb20, and Boeing Jan20. With all other variables being equal, this suggests that Boeing's 'early19' crewed test will be in March19, a month earlier than SpaceX's Apr19.

NASA currently hitch rides on Russian Soyuz craft to get to/from the ISS, and the contract expires Nov19.

Best result according to these dates is that NASA will have no way to get astronauts to/from the ISS between Nov19 and whenever the SpaceX and Boeing craft are ready, and this is based on the positive scenario that progress dates are realistic rather than propagandised, and with no more delays and no accidents, making it a real live danger that political egos will end up prodding NASA into compromising its own certification process.

Originally Posted by jabir

Meanwhile, last month the GAO (Gov Audit Office) predict SpaceX will complete NASA certification in Feb20, and Boeing Jan20. With all other variables being equal, this suggests that Boeing's 'early19' crewed test will be in March19, a month earlier than SpaceX's Apr19.

GAO blames mostly NASA for the delays. NASA is exceedingly slow in working on certification.

But you are posting on the wrong thread. This is the Mars thread and there is a parallel space thread.

SpaceX keeps working on a Mars base. Not only the transport system but also ground infrastructure. They involve a variety of companies and organizations in their effort. The event was located at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The Mars Society by Robert Zubrin has its headquarters in that area also.

https://twitter.com/NASAWatch/status...411298816?s=09

A list of participants, taken from the twitter conversation.


Educational Institutions:

Arizona State University
Brown University
Colorado School of Mines
University of Colorado, Boulder
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona
University of Florida
MIT
University of Central Florida
University of Western Ontario
Planetary Science Institute
LASP / University of Colorado, Boulder

Space Agencies:

NASA HQ
NASA Ames
NASA Marshall
NASA KSC
NASA Glenn
NASA JSC
NASA BAER Institute
JPL/Caltech
ASI (Italy)
ESA (Europe)
JAXA (Japan)
MBRSC (UAE)

Corporations:

SpaceX/Tesla
Aerospace Corporation
ASURE
Ball Aerospace
Bechtel Corporation
Caterpillar Inc
EchoStar
Freestyle Analytical & Quantitative Services, LLC
Honeybee Robotics
Maxar Technologies
Schlumberger


From the list you can see that companies who build heavy equipment and infrastructure are involved.

Caterpillar has actually already worked with NASA on heavy equipment for Mars environment for a while.

Paul Wooster of SpaceX has made a presentation in the 2018 convention of the Mars society.

In short they are taking advantage of the large payload of their BFS rocket to speed up going to Mars. The aim is to go as soon as possible. Not going for highest efficiency but robust technology with less initial efficiency. They can improve on efficiency over time while maintaining a presence on Mars. Aiming for more than a base in the Antarctic like McMurdo. Something that evolves into a village, a city.

The YouTube video of the speech.

SpaceX had planned to build their big Mars rocket with carbon composite material to make it lightweight for efficiency. Recently it seemed like they encountered some problems with that development. At least it would slow down progress. In parallel they were researching alternative materials. Then suddenly statements by Elon Musk and COO Gwynne Shotwell became very upbeat. These things left people somewhat worried what is going on. Maybe this cause Elon Musk to do a tweet storm with lots of information going on for many days. Little bits of information forming a new picture.

First there was the announcement they have dropped carbon composites for metal. Not aluminium as all spacecraft have been for a long time but some material "heavy but very strong". This only increased the confusion. It sounded like maybe something they could build but it would reduce payload by a lot because it is heavy. The last rocket built from stainless steel was the Atlas Agena which was a balloon tank design. Balloon tank rockets are quite lightweight but they are stable only under pressure. Without pressure they can not even hold up their own dry weight.



This was the end of the era of stainless steel rockets with balloon tanks.

It was hard to imagine that SpaceX would use that technology for a rocket that is supposed to be reusable many times. Stainless steel not as ballon tanks was supposed to be very heavy.

A while back SpaceX had hired a top specialist in advanced material technology. He is working for both SpaceX and Tesla. With him in the lead SpaceX has developed new steel alloys. Using that alloy and forming it at cryo temperatures, not hot, yields a material which can be used to build a rocket that is both stable without pressure and lightweight enough that the new design is at least as capable as the previous carbon composite design, possibly better. The surface will have a polished mirror shine. Imagine a surface like this. A ship from the Star Wars universe, the Naboo Royal Starship. Which fits well with the new name. Up to now they had a name that was widely used but not suitable for polite company. The BFR in short and an acronym for Big Fucking Rocket. The new official name for the SpaceX ship is Starship, while the first stage, the booster is called the Super Heavy.



It will have no or very little heat shield. It is supposed to be cooled during reentry in an atmosphere using liquid methane. Something that has been researched by NASA and also by ESA but never been actually used.

Fans put the different pieces together using photoshop.



This is a giant. But it is actually shorter than the planned real Starship which will be over 50m high at 9m diameter. This is the second stage which is traditionally the small part. The first stage, the booster is much bigger even. In the meantime Elon said the first full Starship test version is being built in San Pedro, at the port of Los Angeles where they are working in a temporary structure while a big factory is erected. The first version of the first stage, the Super Heavy will follow.

When asked on twitter if we will see an orbital flight in 2020, Elon answered, 60% chance of first orbital flight in 2020 with the chances increasing after the design change. Which is again madness. After many delays the big NASA rocket, the SLS Block 1 is expected to fly no earlier than 2021. The big but not nearly that big rockets of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and of ULA are also scheduled for 2021.

More of a diagram giving the function of the different parts.