Settling Mars requires powerful rockets. SpaceX, what do you think about this?

Elon Musk has always wanted to send humans to Mars. The earliest manned landing on Mars will not be realized until 2024. Elon Musk has invested huge sums of money in researching high-performance and high-propulsion rockets, Tesla and SpaceX All business plans are aimed at preparing for the future colonization of Mars. Elon Musk hopes to build a small-scale Mars city by 2050.

SpaceX and Elon Musk’s Mars plan is roughly divided into four stages. The first is 2022, which may be the first time that SpaceX’s Mars spacecraft or unmanned probe reaches Mars. In fact, at the International Astronautical Congress held in Australia in September 2017, Elon Musk stated that at least two unmanned spacecraft will land on Mars in 2022.

So what was the purpose of launching these two unmanned spacecrafts? There are many things inside the unmanned spacecraft, which may include the Mars construction robot jointly developed by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and NASA. There are still a few years to go. By that time, the research on Mars construction robots will be over.

In addition, the unmanned spacecraft will also include some large-scale 3D printing machines, compressors, oxygen-generating machines (compressing Martian dust, only bricks) and other facilities, which were required before colonizing Mars. It must be prepared to send some infrastructure or robots to Mars first, and then send astronauts to Mars. The plan is to arrange this firstly to test the stability and practicality of the spacecraft, and secondly because the Mars vanguard is actually necessary, directly In the past, basically nothing could be done to send astronauts...

Elon Musk is full of confidence in the early stage: "I am very confident that we can complete the unmanned Mars spacecraft and powerful rockets within five years. And be fully prepared for launch. Five years is a long time for me.”

The second stage is 2023. Before talking about this stage, what we need to know is. SpaceX's "Dear Moon" plan is a lunar trip jointly conducted by SpaceX, Elon Musk and Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. The rocket used for this lunar trip is a starship. Although this is not a mission specifically for Mars, But its success bodes well for future manned missions to Mars. According to Elon Musk's comments in February, this could be Starship's first major mission.

Seeing this, we can roughly summarize that SpaceX plans to send two or more unmanned spacecraft, and the next step is manned missions. The infrastructure mission requires the establishment of a propellant production plant to combine Martian water, ice and carbon dioxide to produce methane and liquid oxygen to fuel ships and achieve the purpose of traveling to and from home. In addition, oxygen generation chambers or factories, etc. are needed. Protecting the lives of astronauts is the top priority.

Regarding food, the first humans had to use solar hydroponic technology to grow food. Elon Musk said in an interview in March that the technology, which allows plants to grow without soil, is mature enough that it could be used immediately on Mars colonies.

The third phase of SpaceX’s Mars plan is from 2025 to 2027, during which SpaceX plans to launch more supply spacecraft. Elon Musk explained on Twitter that the company could complete a city by 2050 using 10 orbitally synchronized high-density launches.

By the end of the next decade, we will have reached the "beyond" part of SpaceX's Mars plan. SpaceX and Mars colonists are expected to colonize Mars. Elon Musk said that he has an 85% chance of visiting Mars in person during his lifetime, but there is also a high possibility of dying on the way to Mars. He has made preparations. After successfully arriving, he may visit this developing colony.

In fact, we know here that it depends on the progress of the first batch of settlements. Elon Musk said many times in his speech in 2016, “It is very likely that someone will die during exploration, including me. . But if it goes well, after multiple launches, it will be very safe and very comfortable. This is the prototype of the future space transportation industry, whether it is carrying people or transporting cargo."

In fact, living in a Mars colony is a fusion of scientists from multiple fields. The colony construction robot mentioned before is only part of it. It also requires help from the fields of architectural structure, biology, chemical fuels, astronomy, planetary geology and so on. As a creative company, SpaceX needs to create a very powerful rocket if they want to land on Mars and establish a colony on the surface of Mars. Speaking of which, our next content is here.

The average distance between Mars and the Earth is 120 million kilometers, so compared with the moon, it is indeed much further away, and even with a powerful enough rocket, it will take at least four months to half a year to get to Mars. During this period, rockets also involved many details and safety issues, so one of the obstacles to building a colony on Mars is to have a reliable and powerful rocket.

A rocket powerful enough? You may think of the Saturn V and the Soviet N1 rocket. The Soviet N1 rocket failed all four launches. NASA's Saturn V rocket has now been retired... This burden falls on SpaceX and NASA. However, NASA is planning to return to the moon, and landing on Mars will come later, and NASA's budget and plan, including the route, are fixed, so it ultimately depends on SpaceX's situation.

The Big Falcon Rocket rocket can also be abbreviated as BFR rocket. Before 2016, the name of the BFR rocket did not change, but last year the BFR rocket was renamed Starship, which can also be translated as starship or starship. There have also been many changes in appearance and configuration, which shows that SpaceX is finally going to vigorously develop starship rockets.

SpaceX’s Starship rocket is larger than NASA’s Saturn V rocket, and its carrying capacity is much greater than that of the Saturn V. If built, it will be the largest rocket ever built by mankind. The shell of the starship is made of stainless steel mirror polished to improve the reflectivity of the fuselage and also improve the aesthetics. In addition, SpaceX chose stainless steel to make the shell of the starship this time because this material performs better than lighter carbon fiber materials when passing through the atmosphere.

The Falcon Heavy rocket is about 70 meters high, and the total length of the future starship will be more than 115 meters. When the starship is launched, it is powered by 31 Raptor engines, which can produce 5,400 tons of thrust. Elon Musk said in a 2017 report that the sleek booster-topped craft would be more than 45 meters long and more than 9 meters wide, with a payload bay eight stories high.

But now SpaceX has recently been testing StarHopper, which is the main engine at the tail of the Starship. SpaceX is building Starships at factories in Boca Chica, Texas, and Cape Canaveral, Florida. of upper stage and super-heavy boosters. So the BFR in the rendering has not yet started construction, and is now testing the prototype model StarHopper.

StarHopper is the prototype of the tail of the starship. SpaceX built and tested StarHopper individually because StarHopper is the prototype of the tail of the starship, but StarHopper is smaller than the real starship StarHopper. In addition, StarHopper will also test SpaceX's new generation engine, also known as Raptor, which is StarHopper's most important task. SpaceX has conducted static ignition experiments and "jump experiments" on the bottom of Starhopper. The jumping experiment means controlling the Starhopper to conduct a low-altitude experiment. The static ignition experiment means that the prototype does not move and the prototype engine performs a jet ignition experiment.

The arrival of the plan shows that SpaceX and Elon Musk attach great importance to the development plan of the next generation reusable launch system. Now StarHopper, including other components, is being built at multiple locations simultaneously, which shows that building starships is more complicated than previous ones. Rockets are much easier and cheaper to build and launch.

Although the Starhopper test went smoothly, many netizens expressed their concerns. SpaceX is a very creative company, and their plans are very rigorous, but when building the StarHopper prototype, the surroundings (Factories) are completely unprotected, which means that building rockets outdoors is considered a scary, risky endeavor that fundamentally increases the likelihood of dangerous manufacturing defects, FOD object fragments, and other unpredictable hazards. .

From this external perspective, SpaceX seems to be missing some insight. However, regarding this matter, Elon Musk said that in the next half month, more workers will be added, weather detection will be strengthened, etc., and the safety of the prototype will be paid attention to at all times. But when it comes to confidentiality and indoor construction, Elon Musk means that it doesn’t matter, after all, it is a prototype. , mainly to test the engine.

The Falcon Heavy rocket itself is already a very powerful rocket. It is the most powerful rocket currently in service for mankind, but the Falcon Heavy rocket is not designed for Mars. However, the two rockets seem to have many similarities. For example, the Starship and Falcon Heavy rockets both use multiple rocket launch engines connected in parallel to produce the same force. However, in comparison, the Falcon Heavy The rocket structure is more complex and the probability of accidents is higher.

So SpaceX has been working on several rocket models recently, including the Falcon 9 Crew Dragon manned spacecraft, etc. As reusable booster rocket technology is fully developed, there will be less and less work on other rockets.

As SpaceX makes steady progress on multiple starship prototypes at its Boca Chica launch facility, Elon Musk explained that they are also building a starship in Florida. The Florida-based Starship is expected to launch from a SpaceX facility in Cape Canaveral rather than the company's launch site in Boca, Texas, and now SpaceX is also considering 39A at Kennedy Space Center launch pad.

In fact, many friends can now see that SpaceX’s StarLink planetary Internet plan not long ago includes all commercial orders received using Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, from the United States to Israel, the Canadian Space Agency , as well as a series of satellite plans in Europe, including India and Argentina in the future, all to "invest" in SpaceX's starships and starships

All of these funds will be used to invest in the starships' colonization of Mars plan. This is SpaceX’s desperate move, Elon Musk’s stubbornness, and the colonial dream of all mankind. In the future, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets will no longer be used, because as mentioned above, the two parts of the starship can be used separately, and low-Earth orbit, lunar orbit, and Mars orbit are all sufficient to build a starship. After that, just clone a few and develop more powerful rockets. Then the starships will be eliminated, just like the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets were eliminated. How long is it until this day? In fact, I think a conservative estimate is around 15 to 20 years.

Next, a set of pictures will show you what projects SpaceX has specifically for the starship program. Only some of the plans are listed for you:

Appreciation of the long picture of Falcon Heavy

Appreciation of the long picture of the finished BFR (starship)

In the future, the solar system will belong to all mankind, and space exploration will never end. Our goal is not only the stars and the sea, but also the distant galaxies!