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> while storage tanks can be built from local materials Just use the starships themselves. Actually,to further reduce cost, I would design starship to be useab
by MayeulC 7y ago
> while storage tanks can be built from local materials
Just use the starships themselves. Actually,to further reduce cost, I would design starship to be useable as a Mars habitat: even fuel tanks could conceivably be converted into living quarters,I guess. Further the efficiency by recycling other parts of the starship as building materials.
Also, most of the reasoning in this article revolves around power plant mass. I wonder how a nuclear power plant would affect the outcome.
- sp332 7y agoThe trouble is that the Starships need to refuel very quickly after landing to hit their return launch window. If you need to generate all the fuel right then, you need a much larger fuel plant. If you can store the fuel ahead of time,before the Starship has arrived, you can use a much smaller fuel plant, but you need storage space.
- fit2rule 7y agoYou build a version of Starship which produces fuel. You launch a fleet of them to Mars and have them operate for a year or so. Then, you send the human-carrying version. I think the way this is going to work, is when there are 1000 Starships on the surface, some of them with workshops, some with power plants, others with science labs, human quarters, and so on .. and they land in a big field. Humans arrive, string them all together.
- projektfu 7y agoSimilar to the approach seen in "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson.