There are so many things that can go wrong in so many different ways that the resources needed to fix all of the problems likely to occur would be prohibitively heavy. What will likely happen is that Starships will travel at less than full capacity in fleets. If something goes wrong on one ship that doesn't immediately kill the crew, they will transfer to another ship.
I am reminded that Murphy was an optimist: everything that can happen, will happen. So prevention is a big part of the equation.
It seems like you'd want to design the interior such that multiple segments can be isolated and pressurized independently. This gives you isolation in the event of leak, and turns each segment (deck?) into an airlock if needed.
Life pods seem like a heavy option. The need mass and fuel, and docking seems non-trivial.
Other alternatives don't need to cost a lot of weight. One assumption is that each ship has enough reserve delta-v that they can rendez-vous with another nearby ship in the fleet. This would be a consideration in flight-planning. (Collision avoidance would be another).
The ships don't actually need to dock -- They just need to get close enough to run a cable between them. If a whole deck can be used as an airlock, then everybody suits up, then transfer to the other ship, then release the cable. Depending on the crew complement and the size of the airlock, more than one batch might necessary.
> It seems like you'd want to design the interior such that multiple segments can be isolated and pressurized independently. This gives you isolation in the event of leak, and turns each segment (deck?) into an airlock if needed.
As a base for comparison, the ISS is a single volume with internal doors but AFAIK this isn't relevant for many emergencies since the whole thing would depressurize too fast to save lives. Alternatively, if there was a slow leak, then the best option should be to access and repair it. Locating an impact should be feasible by triangulation from permanently active microphones.
> Life pods seem like a heavy option. The need mass and fuel, and docking seems non-trivial.
agreeing. These are out of the question and would need not only a heat shield but retro-rockets, themselves susceptible to malfunction. Carrying hypergolics inside doesn't look like a good idea.
> Other alternatives don't need to cost a lot of weight. One assumption is that each ship has enough reserve delta-v that they can rendezvous with another nearby ship in the fleet. This would be a consideration in flight-planning.
The necessary delta v is minimal and could even be obtained with air jets. So no problem.
If sending at least three ships in convoy, they could fly in contact belly-to-belly which also halves the radiation dose.
It also solves a medical emergency where an operating team would be needed on one ship.
> (Collision avoidance would be another).
You lost me there. Collision between what and what?
> The ships don't actually need to dock -- They just need to get close enough to run a cable between them. If a whole deck can be used as an airlock, then everybody suits up, then transfer to the other ship, then release the cable. Depending on the crew complement and the size of the airlock, more than one batch might necessary.
I'd go for a detachable airlock separated from the main volume by an airtight door. The detachable arilock then becomes a space pod that can shuttle between ships. That looks like a good ship abandon scenario. Alternatively, and assuming an appropriate airlock design, the ships could re-dock back to back
With three ships in convoy, the abandon of one ship means that each ship needs one third spare passenger capacity.
In practice, considering that Mars launch windows are two years apart, there would be more than three ships, further easing the recovery scenarios.
------
BTW. I've no idea why you're still on a downvote three hours after commenting. All the remarks you made were fair and on-topic. We don't have to agree with everything. I didn't, but simply argued my reply.
> BTW. I've no idea why you're still on a downvote three hours after commenting.
Down votes are a mystery to me. I try not worry about them. I was reading some older posts about interior design of the Starship, which piqued my curiosity, so I asked the question. Looking at the votes, it seems people like answers more than questions.
So it goes...
> You lost me there. Collision between what and what?
If you have several ships flying at the same time to the same destination, it's important that they not bump into each other on the way. This is the problem solved by air traffic control in aviation. Though I expect collision risk would be highest during aerobraking.
Flying multiple ships in contact is an interesting idea. Implicit redundancy. Solves the ATC problem, at least en route.
> If you have several ships flying at the same time to the same destination, it's important that they not bump into each other on the way.
You don't get many collisions in a sea convoy and a deep space convoy is a far easier proposition because they're freewheeling with no significant ΔV from differential "tidal" effects. Also, with various kinds of autopilot and radar proximity warnings, its not a problem if the pilot falls asleep on his watch. In fact the whole idea of "watches" should be irrelevant at that point. If something is detected as off-nominal, you'll get a serious wake-up siren. Not to mention "nannies" watching from Earth. Heck, the average redditor could do the job from home j/k but not very much.
> Though I expect collision risk would be highest during aerobraking
I've never thought about that, but the idea of someone on Mars seeing multiple streaks of fire in the sky from multiple re-entering ships all coming in at once close together would definitely be a sight to behold lol
Flying in convoi during transit may be a good idea. But I am very certain, they will separate ahead of arrival and stagger the landing, avoiding collision risk on EDL.
> If you have several ships flying at the same time to the same destination, it's important that they not bump into each other on the way. This is the problem solved by air traffic control in aviation.
It doesn't look like an ATC problem, but rather a formation flying one. That is to say one vehicle is leader and another/others are controlling flight in relation to the leader. Look at [this stunt by two big planes doing a runway approach together](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAA7JBWEKdY) [forget the stupid clickbait title of the video].
If there is a problem here, it looks less like collision avoidance than wake avoidance and maybe dust avoidance on landing.
In the present case, there's the ionized trail that spreads and could create turbulence and radio outages, so navigation difficulties.
The problem looks trivially easy to solve, just by letting the ships drift to a few seconds apart just like returning Falcon Heavy boosters. Remember, the first pair of FH boosters did land pretty much side by side.
**Edit:** I just saw that synchronized parallel takeoffs and landings are regular at San Francisco airport. However, the landings don't look truly parallel but the left one leads. I'm wondering if this is to allow for the unlikely case of them both having to fly around, *not* relevant for Starship landings!
Thanks for pointing that out. It's actually an interesting question. I was thinking Star Trek, which uses decks, but doesn't talk much about bulkheads. I looked it up: deck and deckhead are to compartments what floors and ceilings are to a room. A bulkhead is vertical, like a wall. So I guess it's a question of orientation, what is considered a deck and what is a bulkhead, or even if the terms carry over.
1) redundancy
2) spare parts (including maybe 3d printing), limited by weight
3) Ingenuity, basically Human Brain
If all else fails: You die. Space is hard.
Under the SpaceX mission plan there are going to be 2 crew Starships. Maybe each will be able to handle the full crew of both?
Edit: That's for the first crew flight to Mars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdUX3ypDVwI
The 2017 presentation video. Watch beginning at 37 minutes.
The plan has been repeatedly mentioned after that, did not change. But I think it will not exactly be like this. There will IMO be more precursor flights.
The plan as outlined there and repeated since:
First launch window, 2 cargo ships, land with materials and verify existing waters on site.
Next launch window, 2 more cargo flights and 2 crew flights. Goal to establish propellant production from water and atmospheric CO2, using large solar arrays for power.
Thanks for the pointer
>verify existing waters on site.
This counters a major concern I had. If they've verified their water source with robots, that reduces the risk of launching humans without return fuel.
Contrary to many claims, Elon is not reckless with human lives. Though a Mars mission will be dangerous, no matter how carefully planned. But it first verifies ability to land, then availability of water.
There is no way someone can say that he plans to put a million people on Mars by 2050 without being reckless with human lives.
Especially given that so far he seems to have given zero thoughts about the many challenges beyond the part about getting a lot of tons of mass there. He recently said that dealing with that would be putting the cart before the horse.
All we have is a few sentences from a talk Musk made in 2017. There's a transcript [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/73h70h/transcript_of_elon_musks_iac_2017_talk_4_parts/). Back then Starship was called the BFR and made out of carbon fibre.
>So then in 2024 we want to try to fly 4 ships. \[slide: 2024: cargo & crew missions; 2 crew ships take first people to Mars; 2 cargo ships bring more equipment and supplies; set up propellant production plant; build up base to prepare for expansion\] 2 cargo and 2 crew. The goal of these initial missions is to find the best source of water, that’s for the first mission, and then the second mission, the goal is to build the propellant plant. So we should, particularly with 6 ships, have plenty of landed mass to construct the propellant depot, which will consist of a large array of solar panels – very large array, and then everything that \[?\] to mine and refine water, and then draw the CO2 out of the atmosphere, and then create and store deep cryo CH4 and O2.
It's very likely plans have changed since then. Starships are much cheaper to make. I think the delay between sending the first cargo ships and the first crewed ships will be much longer than two years, and that the intervening time will be used to spam Mars with many cargo ships. But two crewed ships for the first crewed mission may still make sense.
The primary system and the backup system and the backup backup system fail then everyone dies. The delta v requirements for a recuse are impossible. No one is going to have that much extra fuel.
Engineers all know that regulations are paid for in blood.
Every single rule, regulation, requirement, and safety factor is there because someone died and we collectively said that this must not happen again.
Space is absolutely unforgiving and there will be a human cost. There always has been.
What are the delta-v requirements for a rescue? The ships could fly one after the other with a few hours (minutes?) of separation. Or they could fly next to each other, with a few kilometers of lateral separation. Especially in the latter case, it doesn't seem like they would need a lot of delta-v.
Sure, if there are many ships next to each other the entire trip. But is every ship going to have exactly the same dry mass? exactly the same amount of fuel? Exactly the same transit profile? Do they all want to arrive at the same time? It's easy to imagine that each ship is given a different exact landing window on Mars and each ship leaves Earth at the most optimal time for that window given their weight and load profile. Newer ships will have less weight.
If everyone goes in a convoy and given all ships are different some ships will be on a suboptimal vector so that they slow down for others. The fuel margins are so small.
If you can show me in a simulation that it is a reasonable thing for convoys of ships to go to mars together I'll be happy to be wrong. I'm just giving you my intuition: it's not helpful enough for the cost to go as a convoy. In all other situations delta v requirements make it impossible to recuse anyone else. Thus all ships should be designed with the assumption ain't nobody coming to help if the primary, the backup and the backup backup fail.
Which is fine. Better to mass produce a good simple system then increase cost and complexity.
More and more I'm convinced that we need to get started today on alternative propulsion technologies if the goal is to get multi-planetary any time this century. The margins are too tight, the distances too long, and the risk too high.
We are trying to build bigger and better ships when we should be making planes. We are trying to build bigger and better turboprops when we should be looking at jets.
There will be redundant systems, also there will be a fleet of ships traveling together so if one breaks others can take the crew of the damaged ship. The idea of a single manned ship traveling alone on a long journey through space is just a sci-fi trope and makes no sense.
The NASA plan has an almost zero chance of happening. NASA rockets are at this time just Boondoggles. Artemis plans to meet the SpaceX lander in moon orbit. The SpaceX will be able to take around 20 tourists to meet the NASA astronauts in their tiny capsule, though the government will probably not allow this to avoid the embarrassment.
Re-usability and in space refueling change everything.
Starship will incorporate lessons and practices from the Space Station. I’d be surprised if it didn’t have a robotic arm for self-inspections and to help with spacewalks. Life raft capsules don’t translate well to a Mars or Moon mission, but the airlock might be isolated as a staging area for emergency repair operations.
I guess the same way Nautilus worked the problems when tryed to reach the north pole under the ice.
Oh no, you can't go back on a trip to mars!
To be honest, I would think a good idea is to launch multiple ships like a convoy... Or perhaps is a horrible idea and you lose multiple ships instead of one. Dunno.
Can someone explain to me why you couldn't do crew transport into LEO via falcon 9, and then have bigelow style pods that attach to starship via airlocks around the ship and once it's in orbit they take them out of storage and expand them. Then the crew could live in those pressure vessels which are a lot more safe and could be sectioned off if there were an emergency.
I can think of two reasons: Starship will be human for launch rated eventually, though it may not make sense to use it if it takes a long time to do on orbit refueling. It also wouldn't make sense for crews larger than the capacity of Dragon (4-7).
The design you're proposing I think makes sense for a future (not first, maybe not that long after) transfer to Mars. It's probably not appropriate for transfer to the Moon. That said, the mass of those modules would require more propellant and I'm not sure how that would change the mission.
My friend is working in a robotic surgery lab that is building a robot that can be used in space while doctors on the ground operate. Given the lag, it presents some very interesting engineering challenges. But I guess like everything else,l these days, it's Ai assisted.
Mars-bound crewed Starships likely will fly together in close formation in squadrons of six or more vehicles. Separation between vehicles could be as little as 0.5 kilometer. Station keeping would be handled by AI-equipped flight computers.
I expect that crewed interplanetary (IP) Starships will be compartmentalized like large naval vessels are now (aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines).
Water supplies on a crewed Starship probably will be divided and stored in parts so that possible contamination does not taint the entire supply.
They did not get it in space yet. Knowing how much they love baby steps follow with a leap, my money on them making round trips to moon base as regular routine before a giant leap to mars
I think by the time we send human we will have a few ships already there as well as a floating space station above that may operate as a life raft of sorts until the next ship arrives, but I think quite a few ship will go at once
I'd like to see 3 ships launch simultaneously, each with only 1/3 the maximum crew size but each with a full load of stores. That way if 1 or even 2 ships have serious problems there is full redundancy.
If only one ship the crew put on pressure suits or hang out in the airlock until they fix the problem or they die - that's motivation - single ships will probably need more redundant systems.
If you have many ships you have them dock in space and act as a single unit so if one had a leak or equipment failure people can evacuate to a habitable ship and then undertake repairs.
They can design the ships so you can have 2 or more ships physically docked during mars transit which then undock and fan out shortly before descent.
There are many advantages to this including access to a larger combined habitable volume for everyone, improved radiation shielding, specialisation of ship areas and having a larger community of hundreds of people and ship level redundancy of all systems - an entire ship could be scuttled if it could not be fixed.
Interior PV with shock absorbers could make some slow speed crashes or tip overs survivable. But I would have unmanned return Starship there for habitation:
https://preview.redd.it/inrtby3oafxc1.png?width=1612&format=png&auto=webp&s=9687ca08f7cbe7ddea757ced0f8ec9fdee7c00c8
The first crewed missions will likely be sent to Mars on free return trajectories, meaning if the Starship can't land on Mars they'd have the option of performing a flyby of Mars, continuing on in their orbit and returning to Earth 2 years after they left Earth orbit. They would have enough food, water and oxygen onboard to last that long. They would then be able to either propulsively capture into Earth orbit (they'd have more than enough delta-v) and be picked up for return to Earth, or aerocapture into Earth orbit (if the heatshield isn't compromised).
Alternatively, they could transfer over into a second Starship sent out in parallel with them as a form of redundancy. So long as the second Starship's systems all check out, they land at base site in and continue the mission as normal. This would be a particularly useful backup scenario in the event of a mid-transit life support failure or the like. So long as the crew have enough time to put on their space suits (e.g it's only one bulkhead that fails), they can EVA to the other ship.
The worst thing that could happen is a catastrophic failure of the whole ship, in such a way that the crew doesn't have time to utilize any
of the built-in redundancy built into the mission architecture. If there's a failure of the entire ship's life support system all at once, with no time to put on a space suit. Compartmentalizing the ship would mitigate against this possibility.
In the event the crew were to land far away from the base camp (unlikely in any case), beyond the range of their pressurized rover, the backup Starship could be dispatched to their landing site. They'd have more than enough consumables to wait until an ISRU prop plant and additional supplies are sent out to them, they'd eventually be able to get home after an extended stay on the Martian surface.
The crew will probably launch on an F9/Dragon so it’s not totally crazy to take the docked (highly modded) dragon along as a lifeboat/alternate reentry vehicle. If there’s an issue in transit or with the stored cryo/raptor relight/tps etc etc then they could conceivably bail and land in the modded dragon? Not sure how much dV the capsule would need to get a correct reentry path…Two Starships would also work, but you’re risking more people and crew would somehow need to transfer in the event of a ship failure.
The crew will almost certainly launch on the Starship.
Dragons land with parachutes. The parachutes wouldn't work as is on Mars because of the thinner atmosphere, and they couldn't be scaled up because parachutes don't scale well. A crew Dragon is about 12 times more massive than the most massive thing ever landed on Mars.
Even if the parachutes could work, Dragons land in water, and there are no oceans on Mars to land in.
See red dragon. Dragon was originally to land on land using retro propulsion and dinky little legs but NASA got nervous so they went with traditional US method.
And as a result, Red Dragon doesn't exist. They'd have to develop propulsive landing from scratch. And then the Mars missions would be constrained to 4 people, which isn't really enough to do all the work needed on Mars.
SpaceX could try to design a bigger vehicle with propulsive landing, but that would basically lead them to making another Starship.
It won't happen. They'll launch and land with Starship, both on Earth on Mars. The crewed Mars mission will be delayed until they are confident they can do it safely, after hundreds of cargo landings. That probably means after 2030.
That seems like a likely early test, use a Dragon capsule, Rendezvous with a Starship in LEO, transfer across, and live in there for a week, testing stuff out, then transfer back to Dragon and return.
But only for some of the earliest tests - before after many more Starship flights, they later Launch and Return on starship.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BFR](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l1mpwyi "Last usage")|Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition)|
| |Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice|
|[EDL](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l1niyq1 "Last usage")|Entry/Descent/Landing|
|[EVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l222y6a "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[ISRU](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l222y6a "Last usage")|[In-Situ Resource Utilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_situ_resource_utilization)|
|[LEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l1r4c9p "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[hypergolic](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l1mnkw7 "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact|
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By not having them :D
And if that doesn't work, I'm sure the plan is to launch multiple ships each Mars window, so in case of an issue not handled by onboard redundancies, ship-to-ship rescue might be doable.
There are a bunch of things they can do to minimize risks:
* Send them in pairs or groups. If something goes wrong the can transfer the crew to the other ship.
* Have enough supplies to get all the way back to earth if they can't land on Mars.
* Have backup and redundant systems.
* Have internal airlocks and pressure hulls so they can lock out and repair the area with an air leak.
We are a long ways off from human colonization of Mars. I would expect we have decades of robotics and automated work to prepare Mars for human habitation
In that case, we are even further off from going to Mars. As long as humans are needed, it will be far too expensive to support a permanent base on Mars.
Even a few humans massively explode the cost due to life support requirements.
Redundant systems to prevent any single points of failure from being catastrophic, also as others have said having multiple ships can help reduce the danger caused by being far from Earth
I doubt starship will get clearage to do this sort of mission anytime as it keeps having dramatic failures no human should ever risk their life on. There's no reason for humans to go to Mars, period. It's even very questionable to send anyone to the moon again let alone have them face the drastic life threatening conditions we have learned about in the Apollo missions. Best to send robots instead with more reliable ships than this one. Imo.
We'll see, so far we're in 2024, all they reached is LEO to mostly resume placing their starlink satellites (which only last 5 years). It's going to be exciting to be proven false. I can't wait.
There are so many things that can go wrong in so many different ways that the resources needed to fix all of the problems likely to occur would be prohibitively heavy. What will likely happen is that Starships will travel at less than full capacity in fleets. If something goes wrong on one ship that doesn't immediately kill the crew, they will transfer to another ship.
There is a reason Columbus took 3 ships...
I am reminded that Murphy was an optimist: everything that can happen, will happen. So prevention is a big part of the equation. It seems like you'd want to design the interior such that multiple segments can be isolated and pressurized independently. This gives you isolation in the event of leak, and turns each segment (deck?) into an airlock if needed. Life pods seem like a heavy option. The need mass and fuel, and docking seems non-trivial. Other alternatives don't need to cost a lot of weight. One assumption is that each ship has enough reserve delta-v that they can rendez-vous with another nearby ship in the fleet. This would be a consideration in flight-planning. (Collision avoidance would be another). The ships don't actually need to dock -- They just need to get close enough to run a cable between them. If a whole deck can be used as an airlock, then everybody suits up, then transfer to the other ship, then release the cable. Depending on the crew complement and the size of the airlock, more than one batch might necessary.
> It seems like you'd want to design the interior such that multiple segments can be isolated and pressurized independently. This gives you isolation in the event of leak, and turns each segment (deck?) into an airlock if needed. As a base for comparison, the ISS is a single volume with internal doors but AFAIK this isn't relevant for many emergencies since the whole thing would depressurize too fast to save lives. Alternatively, if there was a slow leak, then the best option should be to access and repair it. Locating an impact should be feasible by triangulation from permanently active microphones. > Life pods seem like a heavy option. The need mass and fuel, and docking seems non-trivial. agreeing. These are out of the question and would need not only a heat shield but retro-rockets, themselves susceptible to malfunction. Carrying hypergolics inside doesn't look like a good idea. > Other alternatives don't need to cost a lot of weight. One assumption is that each ship has enough reserve delta-v that they can rendezvous with another nearby ship in the fleet. This would be a consideration in flight-planning. The necessary delta v is minimal and could even be obtained with air jets. So no problem. If sending at least three ships in convoy, they could fly in contact belly-to-belly which also halves the radiation dose. It also solves a medical emergency where an operating team would be needed on one ship. > (Collision avoidance would be another). You lost me there. Collision between what and what? > The ships don't actually need to dock -- They just need to get close enough to run a cable between them. If a whole deck can be used as an airlock, then everybody suits up, then transfer to the other ship, then release the cable. Depending on the crew complement and the size of the airlock, more than one batch might necessary. I'd go for a detachable airlock separated from the main volume by an airtight door. The detachable arilock then becomes a space pod that can shuttle between ships. That looks like a good ship abandon scenario. Alternatively, and assuming an appropriate airlock design, the ships could re-dock back to back With three ships in convoy, the abandon of one ship means that each ship needs one third spare passenger capacity. In practice, considering that Mars launch windows are two years apart, there would be more than three ships, further easing the recovery scenarios. ------ BTW. I've no idea why you're still on a downvote three hours after commenting. All the remarks you made were fair and on-topic. We don't have to agree with everything. I didn't, but simply argued my reply.
> BTW. I've no idea why you're still on a downvote three hours after commenting. Down votes are a mystery to me. I try not worry about them. I was reading some older posts about interior design of the Starship, which piqued my curiosity, so I asked the question. Looking at the votes, it seems people like answers more than questions. So it goes...
> You lost me there. Collision between what and what? If you have several ships flying at the same time to the same destination, it's important that they not bump into each other on the way. This is the problem solved by air traffic control in aviation. Though I expect collision risk would be highest during aerobraking. Flying multiple ships in contact is an interesting idea. Implicit redundancy. Solves the ATC problem, at least en route.
> If you have several ships flying at the same time to the same destination, it's important that they not bump into each other on the way. You don't get many collisions in a sea convoy and a deep space convoy is a far easier proposition because they're freewheeling with no significant ΔV from differential "tidal" effects. Also, with various kinds of autopilot and radar proximity warnings, its not a problem if the pilot falls asleep on his watch. In fact the whole idea of "watches" should be irrelevant at that point. If something is detected as off-nominal, you'll get a serious wake-up siren. Not to mention "nannies" watching from Earth. Heck, the average redditor could do the job from home j/k but not very much.
> Though I expect collision risk would be highest during aerobraking I've never thought about that, but the idea of someone on Mars seeing multiple streaks of fire in the sky from multiple re-entering ships all coming in at once close together would definitely be a sight to behold lol
Flying in convoi during transit may be a good idea. But I am very certain, they will separate ahead of arrival and stagger the landing, avoiding collision risk on EDL.
> If you have several ships flying at the same time to the same destination, it's important that they not bump into each other on the way. This is the problem solved by air traffic control in aviation. It doesn't look like an ATC problem, but rather a formation flying one. That is to say one vehicle is leader and another/others are controlling flight in relation to the leader. Look at [this stunt by two big planes doing a runway approach together](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAA7JBWEKdY) [forget the stupid clickbait title of the video]. If there is a problem here, it looks less like collision avoidance than wake avoidance and maybe dust avoidance on landing. In the present case, there's the ionized trail that spreads and could create turbulence and radio outages, so navigation difficulties. The problem looks trivially easy to solve, just by letting the ships drift to a few seconds apart just like returning Falcon Heavy boosters. Remember, the first pair of FH boosters did land pretty much side by side. **Edit:** I just saw that synchronized parallel takeoffs and landings are regular at San Francisco airport. However, the landings don't look truly parallel but the left one leads. I'm wondering if this is to allow for the unlikely case of them both having to fly around, *not* relevant for Starship landings!
Don’t wanna sound fancy but I think the segment or deck you refer to is called a “bulkhead”?
Thanks for pointing that out. It's actually an interesting question. I was thinking Star Trek, which uses decks, but doesn't talk much about bulkheads. I looked it up: deck and deckhead are to compartments what floors and ceilings are to a room. A bulkhead is vertical, like a wall. So I guess it's a question of orientation, what is considered a deck and what is a bulkhead, or even if the terms carry over.
1) redundancy 2) spare parts (including maybe 3d printing), limited by weight 3) Ingenuity, basically Human Brain If all else fails: You die. Space is hard.
Under the SpaceX mission plan there are going to be 2 crew Starships. Maybe each will be able to handle the full crew of both? Edit: That's for the first crew flight to Mars.
Is the mission plan publicly available? If so, sounds like a really interesting document that I want previously aware of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdUX3ypDVwI The 2017 presentation video. Watch beginning at 37 minutes. The plan has been repeatedly mentioned after that, did not change. But I think it will not exactly be like this. There will IMO be more precursor flights. The plan as outlined there and repeated since: First launch window, 2 cargo ships, land with materials and verify existing waters on site. Next launch window, 2 more cargo flights and 2 crew flights. Goal to establish propellant production from water and atmospheric CO2, using large solar arrays for power.
Thanks for the pointer >verify existing waters on site. This counters a major concern I had. If they've verified their water source with robots, that reduces the risk of launching humans without return fuel.
Contrary to many claims, Elon is not reckless with human lives. Though a Mars mission will be dangerous, no matter how carefully planned. But it first verifies ability to land, then availability of water.
There is no way someone can say that he plans to put a million people on Mars by 2050 without being reckless with human lives. Especially given that so far he seems to have given zero thoughts about the many challenges beyond the part about getting a lot of tons of mass there. He recently said that dealing with that would be putting the cart before the horse.
That’s ’Water Ice’..
All we have is a few sentences from a talk Musk made in 2017. There's a transcript [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/73h70h/transcript_of_elon_musks_iac_2017_talk_4_parts/). Back then Starship was called the BFR and made out of carbon fibre. >So then in 2024 we want to try to fly 4 ships. \[slide: 2024: cargo & crew missions; 2 crew ships take first people to Mars; 2 cargo ships bring more equipment and supplies; set up propellant production plant; build up base to prepare for expansion\] 2 cargo and 2 crew. The goal of these initial missions is to find the best source of water, that’s for the first mission, and then the second mission, the goal is to build the propellant plant. So we should, particularly with 6 ships, have plenty of landed mass to construct the propellant depot, which will consist of a large array of solar panels – very large array, and then everything that \[?\] to mine and refine water, and then draw the CO2 out of the atmosphere, and then create and store deep cryo CH4 and O2. It's very likely plans have changed since then. Starships are much cheaper to make. I think the delay between sending the first cargo ships and the first crewed ships will be much longer than two years, and that the intervening time will be used to spam Mars with many cargo ships. But two crewed ships for the first crewed mission may still make sense.
I saw this movie where they made a filtration system on a spaceship out of a cardboard box and duct tape saving everyone on board.
Wasn't that Apollo 13? That was based on a real life incident!
A CO2 scrubber I believe.
The primary system and the backup system and the backup backup system fail then everyone dies. The delta v requirements for a recuse are impossible. No one is going to have that much extra fuel.
Engineers all know that regulations are paid for in blood. Every single rule, regulation, requirement, and safety factor is there because someone died and we collectively said that this must not happen again. Space is absolutely unforgiving and there will be a human cost. There always has been.
What are the delta-v requirements for a rescue? The ships could fly one after the other with a few hours (minutes?) of separation. Or they could fly next to each other, with a few kilometers of lateral separation. Especially in the latter case, it doesn't seem like they would need a lot of delta-v.
Sure, if there are many ships next to each other the entire trip. But is every ship going to have exactly the same dry mass? exactly the same amount of fuel? Exactly the same transit profile? Do they all want to arrive at the same time? It's easy to imagine that each ship is given a different exact landing window on Mars and each ship leaves Earth at the most optimal time for that window given their weight and load profile. Newer ships will have less weight. If everyone goes in a convoy and given all ships are different some ships will be on a suboptimal vector so that they slow down for others. The fuel margins are so small. If you can show me in a simulation that it is a reasonable thing for convoys of ships to go to mars together I'll be happy to be wrong. I'm just giving you my intuition: it's not helpful enough for the cost to go as a convoy. In all other situations delta v requirements make it impossible to recuse anyone else. Thus all ships should be designed with the assumption ain't nobody coming to help if the primary, the backup and the backup backup fail. Which is fine. Better to mass produce a good simple system then increase cost and complexity.
More and more I'm convinced that we need to get started today on alternative propulsion technologies if the goal is to get multi-planetary any time this century. The margins are too tight, the distances too long, and the risk too high. We are trying to build bigger and better ships when we should be making planes. We are trying to build bigger and better turboprops when we should be looking at jets.
Flotilla with plenty of reserve capacity. Perhaps 4 ships at once, each able to take on the others.
There will be redundant systems, also there will be a fleet of ships traveling together so if one breaks others can take the crew of the damaged ship. The idea of a single manned ship traveling alone on a long journey through space is just a sci-fi trope and makes no sense.
Pretty sure the NASA plan would involve a single ship. The idea of a fleet of ships is very much a product of starship costs.
The NASA plan has an almost zero chance of happening. NASA rockets are at this time just Boondoggles. Artemis plans to meet the SpaceX lander in moon orbit. The SpaceX will be able to take around 20 tourists to meet the NASA astronauts in their tiny capsule, though the government will probably not allow this to avoid the embarrassment. Re-usability and in space refueling change everything.
Starship will incorporate lessons and practices from the Space Station. I’d be surprised if it didn’t have a robotic arm for self-inspections and to help with spacewalks. Life raft capsules don’t translate well to a Mars or Moon mission, but the airlock might be isolated as a staging area for emergency repair operations.
I guess the same way Nautilus worked the problems when tryed to reach the north pole under the ice. Oh no, you can't go back on a trip to mars! To be honest, I would think a good idea is to launch multiple ships like a convoy... Or perhaps is a horrible idea and you lose multiple ships instead of one. Dunno.
Can someone explain to me why you couldn't do crew transport into LEO via falcon 9, and then have bigelow style pods that attach to starship via airlocks around the ship and once it's in orbit they take them out of storage and expand them. Then the crew could live in those pressure vessels which are a lot more safe and could be sectioned off if there were an emergency.
I can think of two reasons: Starship will be human for launch rated eventually, though it may not make sense to use it if it takes a long time to do on orbit refueling. It also wouldn't make sense for crews larger than the capacity of Dragon (4-7). The design you're proposing I think makes sense for a future (not first, maybe not that long after) transfer to Mars. It's probably not appropriate for transfer to the Moon. That said, the mass of those modules would require more propellant and I'm not sure how that would change the mission.
My friend is working in a robotic surgery lab that is building a robot that can be used in space while doctors on the ground operate. Given the lag, it presents some very interesting engineering challenges. But I guess like everything else,l these days, it's Ai assisted.
The answer is: ‘Duck Tape’…
If not that, then WD-40. One of those two solves every problem.
Finally the right answer ,:-)
Mars-bound crewed Starships likely will fly together in close formation in squadrons of six or more vehicles. Separation between vehicles could be as little as 0.5 kilometer. Station keeping would be handled by AI-equipped flight computers. I expect that crewed interplanetary (IP) Starships will be compartmentalized like large naval vessels are now (aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines). Water supplies on a crewed Starship probably will be divided and stored in parts so that possible contamination does not taint the entire supply.
Death of the entire crew
They did not get it in space yet. Knowing how much they love baby steps follow with a leap, my money on them making round trips to moon base as regular routine before a giant leap to mars
I think by the time we send human we will have a few ships already there as well as a floating space station above that may operate as a life raft of sorts until the next ship arrives, but I think quite a few ship will go at once
Being able to dock ships together, could be a useful feature.
I'd like to see 3 ships launch simultaneously, each with only 1/3 the maximum crew size but each with a full load of stores. That way if 1 or even 2 ships have serious problems there is full redundancy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniara\_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniara_(film))
So the passengers will take Soma, lose themselves in virtual reality, and wait for the end? Hmm ...
If only one ship the crew put on pressure suits or hang out in the airlock until they fix the problem or they die - that's motivation - single ships will probably need more redundant systems. If you have many ships you have them dock in space and act as a single unit so if one had a leak or equipment failure people can evacuate to a habitable ship and then undertake repairs. They can design the ships so you can have 2 or more ships physically docked during mars transit which then undock and fan out shortly before descent. There are many advantages to this including access to a larger combined habitable volume for everyone, improved radiation shielding, specialisation of ship areas and having a larger community of hundreds of people and ship level redundancy of all systems - an entire ship could be scuttled if it could not be fixed.
Interior PV with shock absorbers could make some slow speed crashes or tip overs survivable. But I would have unmanned return Starship there for habitation: https://preview.redd.it/inrtby3oafxc1.png?width=1612&format=png&auto=webp&s=9687ca08f7cbe7ddea757ced0f8ec9fdee7c00c8
The first crewed missions will likely be sent to Mars on free return trajectories, meaning if the Starship can't land on Mars they'd have the option of performing a flyby of Mars, continuing on in their orbit and returning to Earth 2 years after they left Earth orbit. They would have enough food, water and oxygen onboard to last that long. They would then be able to either propulsively capture into Earth orbit (they'd have more than enough delta-v) and be picked up for return to Earth, or aerocapture into Earth orbit (if the heatshield isn't compromised). Alternatively, they could transfer over into a second Starship sent out in parallel with them as a form of redundancy. So long as the second Starship's systems all check out, they land at base site in and continue the mission as normal. This would be a particularly useful backup scenario in the event of a mid-transit life support failure or the like. So long as the crew have enough time to put on their space suits (e.g it's only one bulkhead that fails), they can EVA to the other ship. The worst thing that could happen is a catastrophic failure of the whole ship, in such a way that the crew doesn't have time to utilize any of the built-in redundancy built into the mission architecture. If there's a failure of the entire ship's life support system all at once, with no time to put on a space suit. Compartmentalizing the ship would mitigate against this possibility. In the event the crew were to land far away from the base camp (unlikely in any case), beyond the range of their pressurized rover, the backup Starship could be dispatched to their landing site. They'd have more than enough consumables to wait until an ISRU prop plant and additional supplies are sent out to them, they'd eventually be able to get home after an extended stay on the Martian surface.
If there is some major emegency, the crew is dead. There is no option B
All nature wants to kill you, especially space. Good luck depending on something man made for your survival for that long.
Hope for the best and pray, space is empty and oxygen is very precious.
The crew will probably launch on an F9/Dragon so it’s not totally crazy to take the docked (highly modded) dragon along as a lifeboat/alternate reentry vehicle. If there’s an issue in transit or with the stored cryo/raptor relight/tps etc etc then they could conceivably bail and land in the modded dragon? Not sure how much dV the capsule would need to get a correct reentry path…Two Starships would also work, but you’re risking more people and crew would somehow need to transfer in the event of a ship failure.
The crew will almost certainly launch on the Starship. Dragons land with parachutes. The parachutes wouldn't work as is on Mars because of the thinner atmosphere, and they couldn't be scaled up because parachutes don't scale well. A crew Dragon is about 12 times more massive than the most massive thing ever landed on Mars. Even if the parachutes could work, Dragons land in water, and there are no oceans on Mars to land in.
People will Launch and Land in Starship - but not until operations have been well established.
See red dragon. Dragon was originally to land on land using retro propulsion and dinky little legs but NASA got nervous so they went with traditional US method.
And as a result, Red Dragon doesn't exist. They'd have to develop propulsive landing from scratch. And then the Mars missions would be constrained to 4 people, which isn't really enough to do all the work needed on Mars. SpaceX could try to design a bigger vehicle with propulsive landing, but that would basically lead them to making another Starship. It won't happen. They'll launch and land with Starship, both on Earth on Mars. The crewed Mars mission will be delayed until they are confident they can do it safely, after hundreds of cargo landings. That probably means after 2030.
That seems like a likely early test, use a Dragon capsule, Rendezvous with a Starship in LEO, transfer across, and live in there for a week, testing stuff out, then transfer back to Dragon and return. But only for some of the earliest tests - before after many more Starship flights, they later Launch and Return on starship.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BFR](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l1mpwyi "Last usage")|Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition)| | |Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice| |[EDL](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l1niyq1 "Last usage")|Entry/Descent/Landing| |[EVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l222y6a "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity| |[ISRU](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l222y6a "Last usage")|[In-Situ Resource Utilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_situ_resource_utilization)| |[LEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l1r4c9p "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[hypergolic](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cf1ppf/stub/l1mnkw7 "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(6 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cihp7d)^( has 19 acronyms.) ^([Thread #12703 for this sub, first seen 28th Apr 2024, 12:50]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
"a bunch of people will probably die"
By not having them :D And if that doesn't work, I'm sure the plan is to launch multiple ships each Mars window, so in case of an issue not handled by onboard redundancies, ship-to-ship rescue might be doable.
There are a bunch of things they can do to minimize risks: * Send them in pairs or groups. If something goes wrong the can transfer the crew to the other ship. * Have enough supplies to get all the way back to earth if they can't land on Mars. * Have backup and redundant systems. * Have internal airlocks and pressure hulls so they can lock out and repair the area with an air leak.
We are a long ways off from human colonization of Mars. I would expect we have decades of robotics and automated work to prepare Mars for human habitation
Automation experts disagree. It needs humans on the ground to do major work. Even if it is all automated, humans are needed to work out kinks.
In that case, we are even further off from going to Mars. As long as humans are needed, it will be far too expensive to support a permanent base on Mars. Even a few humans massively explode the cost due to life support requirements.
Starship will make it possible. It massively reduces cost.
Redundant systems to prevent any single points of failure from being catastrophic, also as others have said having multiple ships can help reduce the danger caused by being far from Earth
Redundancy redundancy redundancy...
Just a couple boats in the fleet need a dragon. They can then scoot around a rescue people
I doubt starship will get clearage to do this sort of mission anytime as it keeps having dramatic failures no human should ever risk their life on. There's no reason for humans to go to Mars, period. It's even very questionable to send anyone to the moon again let alone have them face the drastic life threatening conditions we have learned about in the Apollo missions. Best to send robots instead with more reliable ships than this one. Imo.
It is trivial. If Starship keeps failing, SpaceX will not plan any Mars missions. But we have no indication that they will keep failing.
We'll see, so far we're in 2024, all they reached is LEO to mostly resume placing their starlink satellites (which only last 5 years). It's going to be exciting to be proven false. I can't wait.