SpaceX will start launching Starships to Mars in 2026, Elon Musk says

[Unclear Engineer]

I sort of agree that using scarce water on the Moon to make rocket propellant seems like a poor choice, if it threatens the ability to establish long-term habitation.

But, it remains to be determined just how much water is on the Moon and how hard it is to access it for any purpose.

Rocket propellant made on the Moon seems likely to be hydrogen and oxygen split from water, due to the lack of easily available carbon.

But, if, as some here advocate, the Moon becomes a province of robots instead of biological life forms, then the competition for water for uses other than rocket fuel may not be what we are now thinking.

I'll take a wait-and-see approach, waiting for actual information.

 

[SPCbubba]

If nothing else, StarShip can at least replace Artemis, and at this point seems likely to do so.

So, SPChubba's post seems like just more anti-Musk propaganda than interesting dialog for this forum.

If you can't understand that Elon's delusional Mars "plan" is comically stupid, then you really need to think a bit harder.

Artemis/Starship is going to be a colossal failure and it's never going to get to the Moon (at least in one piece!), it's very likely that the Bezos team will need to pick-up the pieces and make a viable lander that will be launched on New Glenn.

Falcon 9 is a successful design, albeit with significant compromises on tonnage to orbit due to "re-usability". That said, you cannot extrapolate Falcon 9's relative success with Starship; Starship is a colossal white elephant with no chance at any measurable success (at least not the hyperbolic nonsense that Elon spews regularly).

Elon's early Starship/Mars presentations were sheer fantasy and honestly continue to be. He's since back-off slightly from colossal stupidity to mild stupidity.

 

[SPCbubba]

I think ChrisA is painting a rather bleak picture, based on current thinking. But, there is the probability of some innovations that could change that picture.

No, it's all perfectly realistic. There is no magical solution to any of this, nor is there any "innovation" that makes humans permanently on Mars anything but sheer stupidity. Elon's CGI nonsense is just that, utter and complete fantasy bullshit.

As far as "innovation" is concerned, humans are pretty much at the limit of materials science as well as energy capture. Progress from now-on is going to be just small incremental gains in efficiency and production; this isn't the middle ages where there were massive leaps in "technology", we are quickly approaching a wall of techniques and understanding.

Getting to orbit and other planets will always be simply chucking stuff out of the back of a rocket in exchange for velocity, there is quite literally nothing else. Fantasies about "gravity drives" and things like that have zero foundation in any kind of fact and are simply imaginative science fiction.

In any case, after a while, any "Martian" would be screaming to get the hell out of there and go back to Earth. Even the Sahara Desert is a paradise compared to Mars.

 

[DanIAm]

This is done differently to how NASA or Roscomos would do it. i.e. launch 1 rocket, throw most of it away in the process and presumably return, where that 1 ship has a tiny payload, is obscenely expensive and 1 use. Any human to Mars plans were an extrapolation of the Moon program - as was Musks initial plans when he was going to buy rockets from Russia.

Starship is a new paradigm. The ships are (relative to anything in rocketry) cheap to build and fuel, and get reused to take that cost down further. A fleet of ships goes with each Earth-Mars window. Those ships carry 100 tons (fully reusable) each.

So a massive amount of food and gear will be going to Mars in each launch window, the astronauts will have space to move around and not be cramped relative to preceding efforts, if a particular ship has issues in the transit phase, crew/passengers will presumably be able to relocate to alternate ships in the fleet. So unlike wooden ships in the 1800's that took hundreds of thousands of passengers to Australia from Europe in trips of several months.

Any robots sent in the first (unmanned) wave in 2026, have 2 years to do preliminary works. e.g. build a suitable landing pad, prepare habitation modules, start on a fuel farm - with 2 years of observing. If planned autonomous works don't meet objectives or there are critical unforeseen problems, they just delay the human side of it for another 2 year launch window and send more (improved in that time) robots and gear. Rinse and repeat.

A human eats a half ton of food/year, not factoring in self sustaining food on Mars, sending multiple ships with 100 ton capacity each in the first waves with 4 to 100 people, means there is ample food, water and life essentials, with lot's of redundancy and a massive amount of gear. Perspective is everything, they are wanting to build 1 starship per week and their ring stacking certainly is already capable (leaving engine manufacturing, tile installation, ship fitout and other parts of to come up to speed), due to reusability, that is quite a big fleet. Even just 5 Starships every 2 years is way different to how manned lunar projects were/are done, we just aren't comprehending a fleet of a couple - or in a decade a fleet of 500, more if they setup another Starship factory or 2.

I'll say it again, Starship is a new paradigm. So you need to think differently, to how we went to the Moon - and how NASA wants to go to the moon in Artemis. In relatable terms, it would be akin to 2-3 pilgrims in a single canoe going to the Americas (the NASA way), or an ocean going fleet of automated cargo/passenger ships, that could carry upwards of 100 people or 100 tons per passenger ship. I'd hazard a guess, that it's the Robotics, not human factors that delay this, as we've been long term in space stations, have lot's of people wintering in Antartica each year, thousands of people beneath the ocean for months in submarines, we know how to do life support systems, the tweak to this is sustainable life support systems (eventually growing food on mars, rather than relying on resupply)

 

[George²]

This is done differently to how NASA or Roscomos would do it. i.e. launch 1 rocket, throw most of it away in the process and presumably return, where that 1 ship has a tiny payload, is obscenely expensive and 1 use. Any human to Mars plans were an extrapolation of the Moon program - as was Musks initial plans when he was going to buy rockets from Russia.

Starship is a new paradigm. The ships are (relative to anything in rocketry) cheap to build and fuel, and get reused to take that cost down further. A fleet of ships goes with each Earth-Mars window. Those ships carry 100 tons (fully reusable) each.

So a massive amount of food and gear will be going to Mars in each launch window, the astronauts will have space to move around and not be cramped relative to preceding efforts, if a particular ship has issues in the transit phase, crew/passengers will presumably be able to relocate to alternate ships in the fleet. So unlike wooden ships in the 1800's that took hundreds of thousands of passengers to Australia from Europe in trips of several months.

Any robots sent in the first (unmanned) wave in 2026, have 2 years to do preliminary works. e.g. build a suitable landing pad, prepare habitation modules, start on a fuel farm - with 2 years of observing. If planned autonomous works don't meet objectives or there are critical unforeseen problems, they just delay the human side of it for another 2 year launch window and send more (improved in that time) robots and gear. Rinse and repeat.

A human eats a half ton of food/year, not factoring in self sustaining food on Mars, sending multiple ships with 100 ton capacity each in the first waves with 4 to 100 people, means there is ample food, water and life essentials, with lot's of redundancy and a massive amount of gear. Perspective is everything, they are wanting to build 1 starship per week and their ring stacking certainly is already capable (leaving engine manufacturing, tile installation, ship fitout and other parts of to come up to speed), due to reusability, that is quite a big fleet. Even just 5 Starships every 2 years is way different to how manned lunar projects were/are done, we just aren't comprehending a fleet of a couple - or in a decade a fleet of 500, more if they setup another Starship factory or 2.

I'll say it again, Starship is a new paradigm. So you need to think differently, to how we went to the Moon - and how NASA wants to go to the moon in Artemis. In relatable terms, it would be akin to 2-3 pilgrims in a single canoe going to the Americas (the NASA way), or an ocean going fleet of automated cargo/passenger ships, that could carry upwards of 100 people or 100 tons per passenger ship. I'd hazard a guess, that it's the Robotics, not human factors that delay this, as we've been long term in space stations, have lot's of people wintering in Antartica each year, thousands of people beneath the ocean for months in submarines, we know how to do life support systems, the tweak to this is sustainable life support systems (eventually growing food on mars, rather than relying on resupply)

This description is too optimistic. It excludes any accidents. Things in the real world usually exceed such theoretical notions in spending.

 

[SPCbubba]

This is done differently to how NASA or Roscomos would do it. i.e. launch 1 rocket, throw most of it away in the process and presumably return, where that 1 ship has a tiny payload, is obscenely expensive and 1 use. Any human to Mars plans were an extrapolation of the Moon program - as was Musks initial plans when he was going to buy rockets from Russia.

Starship is a new paradigm. The ships are (relative to anything in rocketry) cheap to build and fuel, and get reused to take that cost down further. A fleet of ships goes with each Earth-Mars window. Those ships carry 100 tons (fully reusable) each.

Bla bla bla...

All delusional nonsense, simply parroted from the BS-master himself, Elon.

This quote is utter insanity, pure science fiction: "Any robots sent in the first (unmanned) wave in 2026, have 2 years to do preliminary works. e.g. build a suitable landing pad, prepare habitation modules, start on a fuel farm"

None of that is going to happen, in 2026, or in 100 years.


P.S. Elon's constant stupidity with respect to autonomous robots is actually doing a massive disservice to the more gullible population, by setting completely unrealistic expectations of what "robots" are actually capable of and useful for.

Even Boston Dynamic's robots (Atlas, etc.) are little more than scripted acrobats, very cool and impressive, but they can't actually do anything useful. You'll notice that Spot is the actual product that is useful and is completely controlled by a human operator. Stretch is a valuable tool and is an excellent example of what a "robot" really is (an arm on a fixed base) and where they add tremendous value.

C-3P0 style bipedal robots are basically idiotic, a fun party trick, but inherently useless.

 

[DanIAm]

It's fine to disagree, but keep it respectful.

 

[SPCbubba]

It's fine to disagree, but keep it respectful.

Complete nonsense deserves zero "respect", it needs to be called-out and crushed mercilessly.

We are in an age of misinformation being passed as "fact" and everyone needs to be part of the fight to stop it.

 

[COLGeek]

Let's take it down a notch. Calling out something doesn't need to be done in a disagreeable way. Else, the message gets lost.

It can also become troll food. Feeding trolls never ends well. For anyone.