Almost everyone knows about space maniac Musk. But few will know that he is also a scientist and engineer. How did this American land on the moon and explore? With doubts, we approached the legend. What was his dream? According to Musk's grand plan, he will send the first volunteers to Mars in 2024 aboard the SpaceX starship.
At that time, the first volunteers to go to Mars will enter the 39A gold launch pad of the Kennedy Launch Center in the United States, enter the starship spacecraft through the launch corridor, and once activated, the powerful rocket will use 6 Raptor engines to generate thrusts that exceed the N1 and Apollo Saturn V of the former Soviet Union N1, sending 100 people and 100 tons of aircraft into space.
Once in Earth orbit, the thrusters and starships leave. The thrusters will return to the landing field and the starship will continue its journey. After that, it will crash into the Martian atmosphere at a speed of 7.5 kilometers per second until it reaches Mars.
So, can this great vision be realized? In the future, can we still take spaceships to Mars expeditions? Now, let's step into the mysterious "Martian world" together! Why travel to the moon and other planets in a spaceship? Why? How does a starship ship achieve space travel?
Musk created SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of developing reusable rocket launch technology to reduce the cost of sending humans into space. Since then, SpaceX has had a string of successes with the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and the Dragon spacecraft.
In 2016, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at an international conference: "History will develop in two directions: one way is to keep us on Earth forever, waiting for some extinction event that will eventually happen; the other way is to become a space civilization and a multi-planetary species." ”
So SpaceX's ultimate goal is for humans to settle on Mars, and sending paying customers into space is just a step in between. Space X CEO Musk said in an interview: "Our goal is to turn Mars into a 'home', not an island." This is the first time Musk has publicly expressed his views on Mars tourism. Musk wants to show people that space travel can be done easily, and that tourism can be part of a revenue stream to support the development of a larger starship system for Mars in the future.
An important tool for making this dream come true is the Starship spacecraft.
According to public information, the final version of the "starship" consists of two parts, the "super heavy" spacecraft and the "manned" starship spacecraft, with two poles stacked on top of each other, 120 meters high, 40 floors, a diameter of 9 meters, and a capacity of 100 people. This is the Aqua Cati we see today, the largest and most complex space shuttle ever built by mankind. The behemoth surpassed the largest rocket in history, the Saturn V, which was used in the U.S. Apollo moon landing program and retired at the end of the Apollo program.
The top floor of the starship is both an exchange room for members' activities and an observation deck. It can accommodate 30 astronauts and an engineer working on it. The space has three layers: the first is a large hatch with a computer installed inside to store data; the third is a small space station. There is also an air conditioning system in the cabin. The second floor is a multi-functional activity area, below which is the passenger rest cabin, cargo hold and migration mission control center to Mars.
The starship part consists of 6 Raptor engines, while the rocket part is a super heavy Falcon rocket rocket with 37 Raptor engines. When completed, the starship will weigh 5,000 tons.
According to the design, future starship spacecraft can be divided into cargo spacecraft and manned spacecraft, all of which will have the ability to return from Earth's orbit and further afield and land vertically in deep space, which is crucial for the complete recycling of launch vehicles and future manned moon landings and even migration to Mars.
The most striking feature of the starship is its stainless steel shell, which is not easy to bond in space, and the more widely used in the aerospace field is carbon fiber composite material, which has a price of 130,000 US dollars / ton, while the price of the starship 301 stainless steel is 2500 US dollars / ton, and the price of its carbon fiber composite material is only 2%.
And stainless steel high temperature resistance, high strength, machinability and other characteristics, the only disadvantage is the weight is large, but because stainless steel has high temperature resistance, so when returning to the earth does not need to carry out a large number of thermal insulation material treatment, so the total weight of the rocket did not increase much.
In order to verify the launch and return to Earth, a series of high-altitude test flights are required, which is why we have repeatedly seen explosions. But this time the aerial test was a big surprise: a starship SN8 that had just taken off was crashed to the ground. How did this accident happen? And what are the serious consequences? The SN8SN8", "SN9SN9", "SN10" and SN11SN11" starships all underwent "unexpected rapid disassembly", including no pressure on the fuel tank during landing, no ignition before landing, too fast a landing that damaged the ship's internal structure, and engine failure that caused the spacecraft to disintegrate in mid-air.
It was not until 6 minutes after the newly upgraded "starship SN15" was lifted to an altitude of 10 kilometers and completed a series of complex operations that it landed safely, becoming the first prototype starship to survive the high-altitude flight experiment.
From the humble stainless steel barrel to the starship SN15, which took several iterations to finally fly, it is indeed moving toward its goal. After SN15, the next starship prototype will test basic stability, fuel supply issues, starship attitude control capabilities, durability of the new landing bracket, and more.
According to Musk's plan, the SN20 starship will conduct a full-process test in July, enter low-Earth orbit, enter the atmosphere at a speed of 8500 meters per second, and then try to glide back.
Musk said that in addition to manned spaceflight, the Starship spacecraft can also be used for intercontinental flights on Earth. He estimates that the future flight from New York in the United States to Paris in France will only take about 30 minutes.
Before the SN15 test flight failed, SpaceX took over NASA's Artemis Artemis manned lunar landing program, receiving more than $3 billion in funding to develop a lander and build a lunar module based on the starship that would enable astronauts to land on the moon from orbit around the moon.
In other words, NASA chose the starship as the only designated lunar module in the future U.S. manned lunar landing program. For more than 20 years, both Apollo 11 and Phoenix One have been the greatest spaceflight missions in human history. However, these two missions were not as well known to the public as they are now. In addition to focusing on the starship's $200 million one-time launch price, NASA also believes in SpaceX's technology, after all, SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft has successfully delivered supplies to the International Space Station, and in August 2020, "Manned Dragon Spacecraft 2 successfully carried two astronauts back to Earth."
While the starship is still in development and has not yet left the atmosphere, time and time again progress is narrowing the gap between SpaceX and Mars ( Musk 's ideal destination ) .