🧵 Landing on Mars is impossible
Anonymous at Mon, 8 Apr 2024 21:14:34 UTC No. 16119816
Humanity has only landed around 2,200lbs on Mars.
SpaceX wants to land 100+ TONS on Mars per mission.
This is currently completely impossible, even with a full fuel tank, which the Starship wouldn’t have after a journey to Mars.
The entire idea of humanity landing on Mars is dead in the water if this problem isn’t solved.
And sending dozens of tanker vessels to Mars to refuel Starship when it arrives to Mars is completely infeasible.
Why doesn’t anyone question this?
The reality is we cannot land on Mars. The only technology that might make it feasible would be nuclear rockets, but anti-science NASA is against using anything that would actually work.
Anonymous at Mon, 8 Apr 2024 23:30:07 UTC No. 16120049
There are no articles I can find discussing this problem.
Are science journalists and engineers afraid to state the obvious?
https://www.space.com/spacex-starsh
Anonymous at Mon, 8 Apr 2024 23:33:05 UTC No. 16120055
Has anyone calculated how much fuel requirements it would take to land on Mars?
This is how NASA had to land a 2,000lb rover on the surface.
How will that look for 10,000lbs?
Or 100,000lbs?
https://youtu.be/M4tdMR5HLtg?si=5H9
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 10:53:12 UTC No. 16120686
This thread has potential to become interesting, have a bump from me OP
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 11:01:07 UTC No. 16120694
>>16119816
Are you really this retarded?
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 11:11:42 UTC No. 16120706
>>16120694
Go ahead and explain how to land any of those dumb behemoth rockets on Mars.
It’s not physically possible.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 11:13:42 UTC No. 16120707
Even if they could, the liquid hydrogen will boil off leaving almost empty tanks when reaching mars after 6 months of journey
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 11:14:34 UTC No. 16120709
>>16119816
Whatever, we don't need more rocks. We should be chad civilization that goes straight into business, Dyson Sphere, general AI, rest will come along by itself.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 12:24:06 UTC No. 16120762
>>16120709
Asteroid mining, and nuclear and fission energy, are basically the only ways to even attempt to land humans on Mars.
SpaceX is way too early to even attempt, they’ll just waste billions of dollars.
It’s like trying to build an SR-71 Blackbird in the 1920s.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 12:28:18 UTC No. 16120765
Why is it "unfeasable" to refuel Starship in Martian orbit? Sounds like just a cost problem, not a tech problem. And Elon doesn't care about cost. Landing on Mars is the sole reason he has done anything.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 12:29:25 UTC No. 16120766
>>16120706
Play Kerbal
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 12:30:21 UTC No. 16120767
>>16120706
Its very easy to takeoff from Mars. You leave the Xbox Heug starship in orbit and land with a babby starship.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 12:43:41 UTC No. 16120782
our data suggests yes
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 13:00:50 UTC No. 16120795
>>16119816
There won't be a crewed mars landing in our lifetime and the spacecraft that will carry first humans to mars definitely won't be the starshit
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 13:38:03 UTC No. 16120840
>>16120765
It’s not.
Starship, even fully fueled, doesn’t have enough rocket fuel to allow it to land on Mars.
It would take something like 8 Starships, all flying to Mars, just to deliver the propellant for one landing attempt.
And that’s only if it’s technically feasible, which it hasn’t been proven to be yet.
Starship doesn’t have enough surface area to bleed off speed to land on Mars.
>>16120766
No you.
>>16120795
Yup
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 14:14:22 UTC No. 16120871
Nice Starship you got there.
I hope you enjoy flying in to the atmosphere of Mars upside down with barely any fuel left.
Oh and if the landing procedure doesn’t go exactly according to plan with zero margin for error, you and the entire crew crash into the ground at terminal velocity.
https://youtu.be/pUK0KIZAa9E?si=4q6
This is completely laughable and no one with a brain could sign off on such an insane mission.
There isn’t even a plan to supply the Starship crew with power while on board.
SpaceX has made no progress on a crew compartment for Starship, not even any company sponsored mockups.
SpaceX is a grift against the shareholders and US government.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 14:18:41 UTC No. 16120875
>>16120706
They just dump the shit on mars from orbit. it's not coming back.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 14:42:56 UTC No. 16120893
>>16119816
It is perfectly feasible and possible from a purely physical perspective. The Martian gravity well is much weaker than ours. The only thing preventing it is economics and political/social will. If we all of a sudden decided we were going to support the technological development to do it, no matter how much it cost, then it would absolutely happen.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 14:54:17 UTC No. 16120898
>>16120893
>Mars has much weaker gravity well
>Also much thinner atmosphere, meaning that it will take about 5 times as much energy to land than it does on Earth
How many Starships would it take to land one on Mars?
How many billions of dollars per spacecraft?
And even with a fully fueled Starship, any anomalies in the atmosphere/gravity would be enough to cause it to crash. A fully refueled Starship has barely enough fuel to land on Mars, and possibly not enough which would require a complete redesign of any landing craft.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 16:30:32 UTC No. 16120990
>>16120898
>fully refueled Starship has barely enough fuel to land on Mars, and possibly not enough which would require a complete redesign of any landing craft.
Source?
In the first place the point of starship is it being cheap which is why they can afford to explode it during tests.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 17:16:28 UTC No. 16121068
>>16119816
>And sending dozens of tanker vessels to Mars to refuel Starship when it arrives to Mars
You don't need to refuel the starship. It's not a round trip.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 17:24:11 UTC No. 16121074
>>16120990
>Source?
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 17:33:53 UTC No. 16121086
>>16119816
Why is NASA not re-adopting nuclear pulse propulsion and whatnot now that cold war MAD fearmongering is no longer a thing? I care not if they have a fraction of the budget they had for the Apollo missions if the world is more concerned with self-destructing into a globohomo slave state than looking towards the stars. I must know.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 18:36:04 UTC No. 16121175
>>16120706
Like this?>>16120706
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 18:45:35 UTC No. 16121190
>>16121175
Wrong webm. But this is how they land it
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 18:46:36 UTC No. 16121193
>>16121086
They are...
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 18:47:37 UTC No. 16121194
>>16120871
>SpaceX has made no progress on a crew compartment for Starship
NASA says otherwise.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 18:50:26 UTC No. 16121198
>>16121175
>>16121190
That is physically impossible to do on Mars from terminal velocity.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 18:54:23 UTC No. 16121202
>>16121194
Cool.
Anything more updated than this “guide” from 2020?
https://www.spacex.com/media/starsh
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 19:08:05 UTC No. 16121226
>>16119816
I think where you fail to understand is that most of the fuel used in space travel is consumed to gain velocity, not necessarily distance from Earth, but once that velocity has been obtained, you can preserve it for a long time as an orbit and eventually use it to facilitate travel to Mars. Even if we continue to launch loads as small as 1 ton into space, each load had a large amount of energy to get it to orbit around Earth, or the moon, or a transfer point. Once there, one or more 1 ton fuel shipments can be put at that same point and now all that energy, the energy of the desired load in its orbit, the energy of the fuel in the same orbit, and the energy contained in the fuel itself can all be used to help get loads much larger than 1 ton to Mars. In other words, iterative launches are very effective (or at least not too heavily penalized) when considering space travel. The only downside is once an orbit has been selected, cost effective transit window become limited quickly.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 19:30:51 UTC No. 16121268
>>16121198
Why do you think this is impossible? Honestly, Earth needs more motive force to maneuver starship than Mars needs due to higher gravity. Lower atmospheric pressure can be overcome limits with bigger control surfaces. Easy problems really, so I need to know what you think.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 19:35:07 UTC No. 16121274
>>16119816
How will humans survive the radiation on the way to mars? You'd have a whole colony of ARS victims.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 19:50:59 UTC No. 16121303
>>16121190
LMAO thats so clearly AI video
its theoreticaly and practically impossible
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 20:23:02 UTC No. 16121363
>>16121226
What are the energy requirements of a crew of 10 people on a 6-9 month journey from Earth to Mars?
How much air and water will the crew need?
Even the ISS requires a refuel of water every 3-months. And Starship is a smaller vessel with more people.
The current configuration of Starship doesn’t have enough solar panels to provide all of the energy.
And again, a fully fueled Starship will just barely be able to land on the surface if everything goes correctly.
If they need to burn the engines longer for any period of time, the craft may run out of fuel and crash into the planet.
There is a reason why the largest payload ever landed on Mars was around 2,000lbs.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 20:24:57 UTC No. 16121366
>>16121274
That’s a whole separate issue which gets even worse when humans arrive on Mars.
As of now we do not have the technology to protect humans from cosmic rays in space.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 20:28:03 UTC No. 16121369
>>16120706
Make the nosecone a detachable drop pod. In Martian orbit nosecone comes off, de-orbits, lands. Empty starship returns to Earth orbit. In Earth orbit new nosecone dropships are put on old starships, which get sent back.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 20:33:49 UTC No. 16121376
>>16121086
I'm unironically open to using near-expiry warheads for NPP in atmosphere. Just do it in the Pacific. Literally who cares.
Anonymous at Tue, 9 Apr 2024 20:46:11 UTC No. 16121392
>>16121274
Unironically I don't see any feasible, serious alternative to Aldrin cyclers for Mars colonization. Given the duration of transit, the savings from keeping all of the life support, shielding, and habitation at velocity would accumulate rapidly.
Anonymous at Wed, 10 Apr 2024 11:37:32 UTC No. 16122196
>>16121392
We should create a Lunar cycler to test and refine the concept.
Could be like the ISS except in permanent orbit between the Earth and Moon.
Anonymous at Wed, 10 Apr 2024 12:26:05 UTC No. 16122253
>>16121366
>which gets even worse when humans arrive on Mars
can't they just live underground for radiation protection?
Anonymous at Wed, 10 Apr 2024 12:28:30 UTC No. 16122254
>>16122253
who's digging
Anonymous at Wed, 10 Apr 2024 12:31:04 UTC No. 16122256
>>16122254
>who's digging
robots
Anonymous at Wed, 10 Apr 2024 12:40:23 UTC No. 16122263
>>16122256
the robots we have there have been defeated by fucking dust
Anonymous at Wed, 10 Apr 2024 12:52:41 UTC No. 16122273
>>16122263
Probably need heavy earth moving equipment like bulldozers and backhoes to dig shelters instead of these tiny rovers that have been sent so far. The US astronauts can borrow some of this equipment from the Chinese who will likely also have a base on Mars by that time.
Anonymous at Wed, 10 Apr 2024 13:34:08 UTC No. 16122329
>>16121363
>Even the ISS requires a refuel of water every 3-months
That's mainly for the oxygen generators. Starship will have enormous tanks of liquid oxygen.