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We've had people in space for close to a year, so the trip to Mars shouldn't kill them. Once on mars they'll still need shielding. One option for shelter might
by phkahler 2y ago
We've had people in space for close to a year, so the trip to Mars shouldn't kill them. Once on mars they'll still need shielding. One option for shelter might be to bore some underground tunnels. A smallish electric tunnel boring machine that could fit in a starship might just be the ticket to building sheltered habitats on Mars. Funny that Elon already has another company that makes these.
- rtkwe 2y agoThe ISS is situated safely deep inside the Earth's magnetic sheath which protects you from a lot of high energy radiation though. You can use mass for shielding but you also desperately need that mass for cargo too and most cargo isn't going to be as dense as water which makes good shielding. The ISS has some fancier lightweight shielding but has issues with secondary radiation from particles hitting the metal skin of the modules which we'd expect to see on Starship too but higher since it'd be in interplanetary space instead of nicely close to Earth like the ISS.
- dole 2y agoAlready there as long as they're not filled with squatters. https://www.usgs.gov/news/caves-mars https://www.usgs.gov/news/caves-mars