Author Topic: Tonnage landed on Moon vs. Starship  (Read 1253 times)

Offline geekesq

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Tonnage landed on Moon vs. Starship
« on: 08/28/2021 05:50 am »
I was looking at the Starship render thread, and the colossal size of Starship caused me to wonder:

How many Starship HLSs would have to land on the Moon before their combined mass (as landed, including residual fuel and cargo) exceeded the combined mass of all other objects mankind has landed on the moon?

I won't be shocked if the answer is "One."

Offline Yggdrasill

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Re: Tonnage landed on Moon vs. Starship
« Reply #1 on: 08/28/2021 06:52 am »
I believe the Apollo Lunar Module as landed would be around 8 tons, so that's 48 tons for six landings. I arrive at almost exactly 100 tons when adding in the other *landed* stuff here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_on_the_Moon

The full landed mass of a Starship would probably be greater, although it isn't entirely definite. If a lunar Starship is 80 tons dry, and the first landing has 15 tons of cargo and residuals, it would be less.

Offline geekesq

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Re: Tonnage landed on Moon vs. Starship
« Reply #2 on: 08/28/2021 06:56 am »
Turns out Wikipedia has a list, including mass, of all man-made objects on the moon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_on_the_Moon

The total is larger than I expected: about 200 tons, of which about 77 tons is 6 crashed rocket stages (5 Saturn V third stages, one Vostok third stage.)

So the answer might be that one landed Starship HLS (100 tons dry + 100 tons cargo + ascent fuel) may exceed all previous landed and crashed man-made mass on the moon.
Which is pretty impressive.

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