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But why not use starship to carry a heavy but efficient ntr engine up, and use that for the trips to and from Mars? Build a special-purpose starship (like is p
by mabbo 6y ago
But why not use starship to carry a heavy but efficient ntr engine up, and use that for the trips to and from Mars?
Build a special-purpose starship (like is planned for the moon landing) that replaces the rap-vacs with NTRs instead. Boom, you don't need an oxygen tank anymore, creating more living space.
This ship can't land, but if you're heading to the belt for mining or on a manned trip near Venus or Jupiter, you weren't going to anyway.
- valuearb 6y agoYou can’t replace Raptors with NTRs because of size/thrust mismatch. A NTR with the same vacuum thrust as a Raptor would weigh at least 80 times more, and likely be far larger. Then you have shielding and radiators, it’s never gonna be able to lift off the Moon. And you aren’t saving space losing the oxygen tank. First you will need that space for hydrogen propellant which doesn’t have the density of Methane. Worse is it also offset by requiring expensive (in energy and cost) additional cooling for Hydrogen.