Producing Starship on Mars

[Hotblack Desiato]

There is one thought, that I have over and over again, when seeing the production-sites of Boca Chica and Cocoa: They assemble steel rings, weld them in place, add plumbing, computers, etc... and the engines.

So, it will take a while until a Mars-settlement will be able to produce microcontrollers, computers, etc, and it will be quite hard for them to produce raptor-like engines, but steel should be possible (transport a steel mill over there, that's just a "few 100 tons".

My take is, that a Mars-settlement will be able to produce its own Starship-derived crafts within a few years after they got the steel production running (which they will need for many other tasks aswell), maybe not with raptor-like engines, but something with lower manufacturing requirements (keep in mind, the RL10 was from 1950, something similar should be 3D-printable now or soon).

Which challenges do you see? Because I don't see any big roadblocks. And manufacturing rad-hardened microchips should be possible in space, with a vacuum, that is far better than anything we can produce on earth.

[PaulVla]

I guess they could in theory; and a couple of decades.
The real question is why, why not just build it on earth and fly it over.

Steel can be useful for construction of habitats and a small mill might be feasible in the next 10 years. But, to my limited view, a martian based shipyard would have limited advantages when compared to the disadvantages.

[schaban]

Low gravity
Probably would make super heavy unnecessary

[Eerie]

This is ridiculous on multiple levels. It's like building a car in your apartment instead of in the factory.

[Hotblack Desiato]

I guess they could in theory; and a couple of decades.
The real question is why, why not just build it on earth and fly it over.

Steel can be useful for construction of habitats and a small mill might be feasible in the next 10 years. But, to my limited view, a martian based shipyard would have limited advantages when compared to the disadvantages.

Sure, and that will happen. But it gives the inhabitants of a martian settlement some kind of independence. And due to their lower gravity, they are not bound to some to the restrictions, Starship has on earth, they can even produce a taller and wider variant.


Oh, and regarding "ridiculous" So many ideas that were deemed to be ridiculous turned to brilliant, after Musk wrote about them in a tweet. Just considering...

[Rigelleo]

This is ridiculous on multiple levels. It's like building a car in your apartment instead of in the factory.

This is not ridiculous. It is the reason why i think that the mars colony will inherit the solar system. Mars has an huge advantage. Mars can build a fleet of spaceships and deploy it in interplanetary space with considerably less effort than Earth.

[PaulVla]

I guess they could in theory; and a couple of decades.
The real question is why, why not just build it on earth and fly it over.

Steel can be useful for construction of habitats and a small mill might be feasible in the next 10 years. But, to my limited view, a martian based shipyard would have limited advantages when compared to the disadvantages.

Sure, and that will happen. But it gives the inhabitants of a martian settlement some kind of independence. And due to their lower gravity, they are not bound to some to the restrictions, Starship has on earth, they can even produce a taller and wider variant.


Oh, and regarding "ridiculous" So many ideas that were deemed to be ridiculous turned to brilliant, after Musk wrote about them in a tweet. Just considering...

There's just a terrible unattractive long list of things that first have to happen before we get close to a martian shipyard. It will be way after a martian settlement has become self-sufficient and would be the pinnacle of other world colonization just before terraforming.

Low gravity would help; needing a huge (earth-like) atmospheric room or working in spacesuits (technically Mars suites) won't. Resources required for such endeavors are, for the foreseeable future, better spend elsewhere as new ships can be flown in every two years.

I'd expect to see spaceship construction in LEO before on Martian surface.

[RoboGoofers]

this would be like "assembled Ithe USA from Chinese parts." it's  not like starship is just bulk stainless steel. There's a long tail of circuit components, pipes, wires, valves, actuators, sensors, seals, etc. etc. All the stuff that makes a spaceship more than just a water tower.

[RotoSequence]

There is one thought, that I have over and over again, when seeing the production-sites of Boca Chica and Cocoa: They assemble steel rings, weld them in place, add plumbing, computers, etc... and the engines.

So, it will take a while until a Mars-settlement will be able to produce microcontrollers, computers, etc, and it will be quite hard for them to produce raptor-like engines, but steel should be possible (transport a steel mill over there, that's just a "few 100 tons".

My take is, that a Mars-settlement will be able to produce its own Starship-derived crafts within a few years after they got the steel production running (which they will need for many other tasks aswell), maybe not with raptor-like engines, but something with lower manufacturing requirements (keep in mind, the RL10 was from 1950, something similar should be 3D-printable now or soon).

Which challenges do you see? Because I don't see any big roadblocks. And manufacturing rad-hardened microchips should be possible in space, with a vacuum, that is far better than anything we can produce on earth.

There's a very long trail of industrial infrastructure involved in being able to build modern industrial products from scratch. You need to be able to produce electricity, electrical equipment, electrical wire, building materials, material suppliers, material supply chains, logistics for all of the above, tool makers, tool maker's logistics, etc etc etc, just to attain the physical capacity to utilize a foundry you might produce on Mars. Using the products of the foundry effectively then requires their own logistics chains and specialized fabrication techniques according to their building materials. The sites SpaceX uses are spartan, but the industries used to keep those sites fed with men and materials are not.

[Ace]

Which challenges do you see? Because I don't see any big roadblocks.

To get to the point where we can fully produce Starships on Mars from raw mineral components, the list of challenges is huge.

To name a few:

-- There's no oil on Mars, so replacements / alternatives would be required for all oil-derived components, including plastics
-- Ore deposits, mining, refining, milling and machining would be required for a long laundry list of materials. Iron is among the easiest, but I could imagine 40 or more different elements being needed, plus alloys and a wide range of chemical compounds
-- Energy. Solar is nice, but the energy requirements for something like a steel mill are huge. Without oil, coal or hydro, nuclear seems like an inevitable pre-requisite, including all of the associated infrastructure from mining on up

It may not be obvious, but it wouldn't surprise me if the number of people involved in mining, refining, construction, transportation and distribution of all of the parts required to build Starship and all of the downstream tooling it needs was more than a million. Literally.

The most likely progression, IMO, is that heavier items that are needed locally, that have readily identified sources of raw materials, will be the first to be produced on Mars. Other items will follow slowly over time as the foundations are built. I don't see any reason they would rush Starship production vs. the many other things a colony would need.

[Norm38]

There is first going to have to be a long period of prospecting to locate mineral veins that are rich enough to be industrially useful.  Then the mining and processing communities have to spring up.  It's unlikely that one mine will contain all the elements needed for an early colony, let alone manufacturing for export.
Basically we're talking industrializing the planet.

100 years, that's my prediction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore_resources_on_Mars

[Hotblack Desiato]

Which challenges do you see? Because I don't see any big roadblocks.

To get to the point where we can fully produce Starships on Mars from raw mineral components, the list of challenges is huge.

To name a few:

-- There's no oil on Mars, so replacements / alternatives would be required for all oil-derived components, including plastics

Fuel: Methane, they need to produce that stuff anyways.
Other plastics: Hook two methane together to get ethane, convert it to ethylene, and the whole world of plastics is wide open.

-- Ore deposits, mining, refining, milling and machining would be required for a long laundry list of materials. Iron is among the easiest, but I could imagine 40 or more different elements being needed, plus alloys and a wide range of chemical compounds

Sure, but they also need to solve that for essentially every larger structure, they want to make locally on Mars. Steel will be a basic building material, besides stone/sulfur concrete/ice with polymeres etc.

-- Energy. Solar is nice, but the energy requirements for something like a steel mill are huge. Without oil, coal or hydro, nuclear seems like an inevitable pre-requisite, including all of the associated infrastructure from mining on up

Again, easy enough:
At some point, Mars will require a nuclear reactor, that's for sure. But for the production of iron, it's rather simple: take iron ore (preferred: hematite) and directly reduce it to iron with methane or hydrogen. Afterwards, use it in an arc furnace (yes, requires electricity) to produce steel. But the real advantage is, that both resources are already available because they are required for fuel production.

It may not be obvious, but it wouldn't surprise me if the number of people involved in mining, refining, construction, transportation and distribution of all of the parts required to build Starship and all of the downstream tooling it needs was more than a million. Literally.

The most likely progression, IMO, is that heavier items that are needed locally, that have readily identified sources of raw materials, will be the first to be produced on Mars. Other items will follow slowly over time as the foundations are built. I don't see any reason they would rush Starship production vs. the many other things a colony would need.

I'm not suggesting, that their primary goal should be: let's produce Starships on Mars, but it is an important step towards self sufficience, if they are capable of producing the main parts for a Starship over there.

And since they are not restraint to building spacecrafts, which need to leave the deep gravity well of Earth, they can produce these ships to explore the outer solar system, where they have different requirements: no need for highly aerodynamical crafts, but they need high volume and high mass.

Also, 90% of whats needed for a Starship-derived ship, will also be required for habitats, rovers, etc. They will need that infrastructure regardless of their wish to go further out.

[Lar]

This is ridiculous on multiple levels. It's like building a car in your apartment instead of in the factory.

This is ridiculous on multiple levels. It's like receiving a knockdown kit of the hard to fabricate car parts, then building the easy to fabricate parts of a car and doing final assembly in a less sophisticated factory local to you instead of in the original factory 12000 miles away...

Oh wait, car companies do that all the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knock-down_kit

The experience gained, and the supply chains built up, often enable companies to locally source more and more of the parts over time. Decades of time in  many cases...

[RoboGoofers]

This looks like it's going to be a rehash of a lot of the stuff discussed in the Mars Export Economy thead:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=44411.0
A self sufficient mars colony doesn't really need spaceships, just like earth doesn't need spaceships to be self sufficient.
When mars gets to the point that it can make a rudimentary rocket, like in 100 years or more, Earth's rocket construction industry will be 100 years further along. Hulas Motors, the nepalese car manufacturer, has better odds competing with GM.

[Wargrim]

If this is ridiculous or obvious depends on the timescale we are looking at.

In the short-medium term (whatever this means, i do not know, but some years at least for short term) there needs to be an efficient work-split between Earth and Mars. It makes sense for Mars to reinvest any production capability on Mars back into Colony growth and production capability growth. From a martian perspective, a Starship built on Earth is an import article and grows the available tools&resources, but a Starship built on Mars is an export article and slows the growth of locally available tools and resources. Even more so when you assume that the first flight of each ship Mars<->Earth should not fly empty.

In the long run however, such concerns will increasingly diminish.

True self - sustainability must include the ability to independantly uphold a spaceflight capability.
There are both advantages to building Spaceships on Mars (e.g. lower gravity & lack of corrosive atmosphere) as well as a clear need. However at that point, Earth launch and landing capability might no longer be part of the list of requirements. So we probably will never see Starship 1.0 being manufactured on Mars.

In my view, true self-sustainability in terms of any space settlement also should include the ability to self-replicate. The first level of self-replication would be once a martian colony can found other martian colonies without the help of Earth needed. The second level of self-replication would be once a martian colony can found colonies on other planets/moons/locations. That second level would be the latest possible point to introduce a domestic spaceflight capability.

But it is highly likely that there will be a very, very long transition period where every significant space settlement must be built with the help from Earth. Multiple decades at least. Possibly centuries. There is just so much more of everything on Earth. People, resources, technology, production capability, you name it.

Just like a big old tree will produce many, many, many small trees long before any of the small trees will produce its own little trees.

[Mandella]

This looks like it's going to be a rehash of a lot of the stuff discussed in the Mars Export Economy thead:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=44411.0
A self sufficient mars colony doesn't really need spaceships, just like earth doesn't need spaceships to be self sufficient.
When mars gets to the point that it can make a rudimentary rocket, like in 100 years or more, Earth's rocket construction industry will be 100 years further along. Hulas Motors, the nepalese car manufacturer, has better odds competing with GM.

And yet, Hulas Motors exists. In your view of the world, they couldn't since they are not as advanced as GM.

People often get mired into the technical and forget how much political and social issues shape things. I could well see Martians wanting (needing) to build their own ships due to various non-technical pressures. Sure, they may have to import (smuggle even) a lot of the parts, but just assembling them out in the open and using Martian refined steel would be a huge source of pride -- not to mention a potential political necessity.

[RonM]

This is ridiculous on multiple levels. It's like building a car in your apartment instead of in the factory.

This is ridiculous on multiple levels. It's like receiving a knockdown kit of the hard to fabricate car parts, then building the easy to fabricate parts of a car and doing final assembly in a less sophisticated factory local to you instead of in the original factory 12000 miles away...

Oh wait, car companies do that all the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knock-down_kit

The experience gained, and the supply chains built up, often enable companies to locally source more and more of the parts over time. Decades of time in  many cases...

Don't know about building SS, but the knock-down concept could be useful if a Mars settlement needed smaller spacecraft for orbital or suborbital operations. Something like that wouldn't fit in a SS pre-assembled, so send a parts kit and use local steel for the hull.

[displacedkiwi]

Long time lurker. First post.

Martian point to point? Once there are even 2 colonies a significant distance apart, there will soon be requirements for point to point transportation. Raw materials, goods and people. An interplanetary SS is probably overkill for this. I could see single (or dual for redundancy) Raptor "mini Star Ships" being built on Mars quite early on, rather than being transported as dead weight cargo from earth. Especially cargo versions. Start there using Lars' knockdown kit scenario, and ramp up as desired/required.

Cheers,
Mike von D

Ninja'd by RonM

[Lar]

Don't know about building SS, but the knock-down concept could be useful if a Mars settlement needed smaller spacecraft for orbital or suborbital operations. Something like that wouldn't fit in a SS pre-assembled, so send a parts kit and use local steel for the hull.

Exactly. Surface hoppers to get elsewhere on Mars easily, or fuel tankers, might be something we see sooner than full up Starship Mk 3.5 with corinthian leather seats in the deluxe passenger compartments built on Mars.

[Twark_Main]

This is ridiculous on multiple levels. It's like building a car in your apartment instead of in the factory.

This is not ridiculous. It is the reason why i think that the mars colony will inherit the solar system. Mars has an huge advantage. Mars can build a fleet of spaceships and deploy it in interplanetary space with considerably less effort than Earth.

Isn't this putting the cart before the horse?

"I think Mars will inherit the Solar system. This contradicts that thought, therefore it must be false."

Yes you need less fuel to escape the gravity well, but OTOH the fuel is fantastically more expensive (no ecosystem to provide "free" highly concentrated methane and diatomic oxygen). This disadvantage alone negates the lower gravity, let alone all the other costs with manufacturing on Mars.

Unpopular truth ahead: Earth will inherit the Solar system, because that's where the cheap labor is (due to the aforementioned "free" ecosystem). All other economies will be at such a huge comparative disadvantage due to the expensive effort required just to maintain their own human populations. Extraterrestrial colonies will be (at best) dependent mining outposts or expensive tourist destinations.