Author Topic: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission  (Read 21207 times)

Offline Lar

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #60 on: 12/25/2018 03:38 am »
Now the ship will be made of steel, better have some welding tools.
For what?

Stainless is not the easiest to field weld, by the way...
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline Slarty1080

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #61 on: 12/25/2018 03:55 am »
I will add my request - a fairly large mobile automated drilling rig capable of drilling down many tens of metres possibly 100m, sufficient pipework, a method of sealing the well and equipment to compress CO2, pump it down the well and recover water from the gasses and liquids that come back up the pipe.
My optimistic hope is that it will become cool to really think about things... rather than just doing reactive bullsh*t based on no knowledge (Brian Cox)

Offline Lar

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #62 on: 12/25/2018 04:11 am »
I will add my request - a fairly large mobile automated drilling rig capable of drilling down many tens of metres possibly 100m, sufficient pipework, a method of sealing the well and equipment to compress CO2, pump it down the well and recover water from the gasses and liquids that come back up the pipe.
Why that instead of a rodwell? (Rodruigez well). That just requires warm water (not CO2) after you drill and plumb it.

Hopefully 100m is way more than what is needed.
« Last Edit: 12/25/2018 04:17 am by Lar »
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Online DigitalMan

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #63 on: 12/25/2018 04:19 am »
Now the ship will be made of steel, better have some welding tools.
For what?

Stainless is not the easiest to field weld, by the way...

How are SpaceX going to weld the production Starships?  Some sort of FSW I expect?  If so it does stand to reason having one on Mars could be important.

I remember when I was in high school I enjoyed metal shop immensely.  After finishing all the projects towards the end of the year I recall looking for things to make the instructor had me weld pieces of sheet metal (steel/steel, al/al).  I was going to help him build a BBQ but he wouldn't let me until I could handle it.  It was a lot of fun, something I wish I kept up with.

Offline Slarty1080

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #64 on: 12/25/2018 04:26 am »
I will add my request - a fairly large mobile automated drilling rig capable of drilling down many tens of metres possibly 100m, sufficient pipework, a method of sealing the well and equipment to compress CO2, pump it down the well and recover water from the gasses and liquids that come back up the pipe.
Why that instead of a rodwell? (Rodruigez well). That just requires warm water
We don't know exactly what we would be drilling into. There's probably an overburden of rock of uncertain depth and there might be a lot of debris in the ice further down. Wouldn't want a rock/mud column at the top of the well as it might gum up the works.
My optimistic hope is that it will become cool to really think about things... rather than just doing reactive bullsh*t based on no knowledge (Brian Cox)

Offline Cinder

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #65 on: 12/25/2018 05:02 am »
Is it known that in-situ scanning into the ground would give inadequately detailed images before drilling?  ISTR a Mars probe imaging underground ice banks from orbit.  SHARAD?
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Offline guckyfan

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #66 on: 12/25/2018 09:29 am »
The presentation by Paul Wooster had a slide, though crude, that showed open trench digging for water, not drilling. This is what I expect to happen. So a rover that can dig, that can prepare a flat landing pad without rocks too.

Offline Slarty1080

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #67 on: 12/25/2018 09:41 am »
Is it known that in-situ scanning into the ground would give inadequately detailed images before drilling?  ISTR a Mars probe imaging underground ice banks from orbit.  SHARAD?
Firstly I'm not an expert so perhaps someone knows that there is relatively pure ice without any top cover at the surface in likely landing areas (please post a link if you have one). Or perhaps this remains to be established. An article I read recently reported IIRC tens of metres of ice under as little as 1-2m of top cover. Or to put it another way you are probably going to have to drill through at least 1-2m of top cover before you hit the ice.

The first crew might get lucky, but if I was going and needed to extract hundreds of tons of water from some sort of underground ice source I would be keen to have a drill with me in case the top cover was 4m instead of 1m (for example) or the surface ice turned out to be a frozen rock slurry or brine. The drill could also be used for taking extended cores through rock and ice which would be scientifically useful.
My optimistic hope is that it will become cool to really think about things... rather than just doing reactive bullsh*t based on no knowledge (Brian Cox)

Offline Slarty1080

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #68 on: 12/25/2018 09:57 am »
The presentation by Paul Wooster had a slide, though crude, that showed open trench digging for water, not drilling. This is what I expect to happen. So a rover that can dig, that can prepare a flat landing pad without rocks too.
A multipurpose utility rover would certainly be a good idea. One that has a lot of attachments, that could bulldoze small and medium sized rocks out of the way or aid in the placement of solar panels, had a crane and drill attachment or trailer etc.

Lar has championed the idea of using a Rodruigez well where the ice is melted vertically downward (as used in Antarctica). This is probably the best way to do it if the ice is accessible and not too rock contaminated. Other people have suggested all sorts of methods digging trenches being one, but this method is very sensitive to the depth of the over burden and as far as I can see would likely involve removal of a great detail more material per kg of water recovered.
My optimistic hope is that it will become cool to really think about things... rather than just doing reactive bullsh*t based on no knowledge (Brian Cox)

Offline rsdavis9

Somebody posted a pdf in a different thread with a geologists analysis of valles marineris valley floor where it is estimated to have a km deep glacier under a cover of glacial till. This is located almost on the equator and is very low in altitude. Also will probably be a very picturesque place to land.
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Offline Slarty1080

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #70 on: 12/25/2018 05:43 pm »
Somebody posted a pdf in a different thread with a geologists analysis of valles marineris valley floor where it is estimated to have a km deep glacier under a cover of glacial till. This is located almost on the equator and is very low in altitude. Also will probably be a very picturesque place to land.
Excellent news! It would be a magnificent site for sure and I sincerely hope that a Starship can be sent there, but there are a lot of imponderables.

How deep is the cover of glacial till? How uneven is the surface and what size of boulders are laying around? Can you safely land a Starship on it? Are there crevasses? Will extracting hundreds of tons of water destabilize the surface? Hopefully it will be a boulder free even surface with a shallow even covering of till over a crevasse free pure ice field capable of supporting a Starship close by and a Rodwell. But we better check it out first.
My optimistic hope is that it will become cool to really think about things... rather than just doing reactive bullsh*t based on no knowledge (Brian Cox)

Offline rsdavis9

Somebody posted a pdf in a different thread with a geologists analysis of valles marineris valley floor where it is estimated to have a km deep glacier under a cover of glacial till. This is located almost on the equator and is very low in altitude. Also will probably be a very picturesque place to land.
Excellent news! It would be a magnificent site for sure and I sincerely hope that a Starship can be sent there, but there are a lot of imponderables.

How deep is the cover of glacial till? How uneven is the surface and what size of boulders are laying around? Can you safely land a Starship on it? Are there crevasses? Will extracting hundreds of tons of water destabilize the surface? Hopefully it will be a boulder free even surface with a shallow even covering of till over a crevasse free pure ice field capable of supporting a Starship close by and a Rodwell. But we better check it out first.

Yes definitely send unmanned starships with just rovers and drills to verify availability of purity and depth of glacial ice.
Also could theoretically hop short distances to other sites.
With ELV best efficiency was the paradigm. The new paradigm is reusable, good enough, and commonality of design.
Same engines. Design once. Same vehicle. Design once. Reusable. Build once.

Offline AC in NC

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #72 on: 12/25/2018 07:32 pm »
Somebody posted a pdf in a different thread with a geologists analysis of valles marineris valley floor where it is estimated to have a km deep glacier under a cover of glacial till. This is located almost on the equator and is very low in altitude. Also will probably be a very picturesque place to land.
Excellent news! It would be a magnificent site for sure and I sincerely hope that a Starship can be sent there, but there are a lot of imponderables.

Probably off-topic and mostly to be discussed elsewhere but I was curious and located this for anyone that cares:

Paper:  http://www.dmzone.org/papers/Gourroncetal2014_VM.pdf
Linked by kdhilliard in 2015 here:  https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=37657.msg1381808#msg1381808

Offline DaveH62

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #73 on: 12/28/2018 03:54 am »
I’d like to see some small 5g cell towers deployed with those distributed charging stations and some drones for advanced reconnaissance. Once you have a few small charging stations distributed around the base station, drones could cover hundreds of miles and find promising locations for rovers to follow up on.
I’m guessing Elon will deploy a small starlink satellite system for ground support and relay back to earth. 5g chips will be smaller than starlink and needed for device connectivity and starlink would be for base station and larger rovers.

Offline rakaydos

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #74 on: 12/28/2018 12:24 pm »
I’d like to see some small 5g cell towers deployed with those distributed charging stations and some drones for advanced reconnaissance. Once you have a few small charging stations distributed around the base station, drones could cover hundreds of miles and find promising locations for rovers to follow up on.
I’m guessing Elon will deploy a small starlink satellite system for ground support and relay back to earth. 5g chips will be smaller than starlink and needed for device connectivity and starlink would be for base station and larger rovers.
I'm going to steal this for a topic in the mars missions forum.

Offline MikeAtkinson

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #75 on: 12/28/2018 12:38 pm »
Starlink systems by their nature cannot be small, they give global coverage while only a small area near the settlement needs connectivity. Starlink is also not designed for a high data rate to earth. A single satellite in stationary orbit would be a better match for the first decades of a settlement.

Offline 50_Caliber

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #76 on: 12/28/2018 02:31 pm »
I’d like to see some small 5g cell towers deployed with those distributed charging stations and some drones for advanced reconnaissance. Once you have a few small charging stations distributed around the base station, drones could cover hundreds of miles and find promising locations for rovers to follow up on.
I’m guessing Elon will deploy a small starlink satellite system for ground support and relay back to earth. 5g chips will be smaller than starlink and needed for device connectivity and starlink would be for base station and larger rovers.

I wonder about what their plans are for communication? Would a satellite be part of their cargo on the unmanned starships to be released before they descend from orbit?

Offline Mongo62

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #77 on: 12/28/2018 02:37 pm »
I wonder about what their plans are for communication? Would a satellite be part of their cargo on the unmanned starships to be released before they descend from orbit?

I would expect so, it would be a minor portion of the cargo mass (although maneuvering into the correct orbit might require significant propellant). Probably two satellites in stationary orbit for redundancy.

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #78 on: 12/28/2018 03:48 pm »
Simple solution.
For first deploy have six rollout solar arrays from the six aft end cargo slots. They would lower the roll to the surface and then rollout.

Are you thinking they could be self-deploying or is that too Rube Goldberg?  I'm imagining some possibilities but afraid I'm just being silly.

Elon has mentioned some mechanism, if you can call it that. Like these party things where you blow in air and they make a sound and they stretch out. I think they are called party horn. For Mars solar panels you may omit the sound part of it. Should be dead simple for initial deployment of a minimum solar array.

Offline jak Kennedy

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Re: Cargo manifest for first Starship (BFS) Mars mission
« Reply #79 on: 12/28/2018 08:45 pm »
If I were SpaceX I'd use FH to toss a few rechargeable mini-road graders and a solar charging station to clear target LZ's  and an initial solar field. 

CC: Tesla

If they after landing they mount wheels onto the legs a grader/digger could move a Starship closer to another lander or settlement. This would mitigate damage from landing close to infrastructure.
... the way that we will ratchet up our species, is to take the best and to spread it around everybody, so that everybody grows up with better things. - Steve Jobs

Tags: BFR Mars cargo Manifest 
 

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