A huge colony on Mars through the eyes of SpaceX founder Elon Mask
Not so long ago I translated an interview with Elon Musk. Mission to mars . Another material on the topic is how to ensure a cheap flight to Mars and establish a Martian colony.
Billionaire Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive officer of SpaceX, a private space company, wants to help found a colony of up to 80 thousand people on Mars, providing researchers with a flight to the Red Planet worth about 500 thousand dollars for a flight.
By vision mask, ambitious
')
"On Mars, it is possible to create a self-sustaining civilization that can grow into something more," said Musk on November 16 at a conference of the Royal Aviation Society in London. Here Mask talked about his business plans and received a special gold medal for his contribution to the development of commercial space exploration.
[ exclusive video space.com: SpaceX - quest for the Holy Grail of rocket technology ]
Accompany the first founders of the colony on Mars will be numerous equipment, including machines for the production of fertilizers, methane and oxygen from the nitrogen contained in the planet’s atmosphere and carbon dioxide and underground ice reserves.
The pioneers of the Red Planet will also bring materials for the construction of transparent domes, which will raise the pressure of the Martian atmosphere, mainly carbon dioxide, under them to a level that allows them to grow earthly crops in alien soil. As the colony becomes more self-sufficient, the rocket will bring more and more people and less equipment. ( Slideshow on space.com - the future of manned space flight )
The proposed Maskom architecture of manned exploration of Mars does not imply a watch and constantly cruising ship between Earth and Mars, at least in the initial period.
"Probably, there will be no Martian watches, it requires a large number of shift workers," Mask told space.com. “You must have fuel to keep up the schedule, because the distance between Earth and Mars is not always the same. In the beginning there will be no shift workers. ”
Musk also ruled out the possibility of being used as a descent vehicle, delivering colonists to Mars, the Dragon capsule, which SpaceX is developing to deliver astronauts from a low earth orbit. Asking Space.com about the transport used for landing, he said: "I think you will just plant this whole thing."
When asked whether the new huge reusable rockets, which are rumored to be abbreviated as MCT, the Mars Cargo Transport or the Mars Colony Transport, are “this thing”, Musk said: “Maybe.”
Mask was thinking about what his ships would need until the end of the flight. He believes that the oxygen concentration inside should be 30 - 40 percent, and suggests using the storage space of liquid water of the spacecraft as a barrier between the Martian pioneers and the sun.
Mask determined the price of a ticket to Mars at $ 500 thousand, because he considers it affordable.
“The ticket price should be low enough so that most people in developed countries could raise enough money for this trip by the age of forty,” he said, comparing this price with the cost of buying a house in California [ Photo of the first space tourists on the Space portal. com ].
He also estimates that out of eight billion people who will live on Earth by the time of possible colonization, about one in 100,000 will be ready for relocation, which is potentially 80,000 migrants.
Musk believes that the colonization program of Mars, which he proposes to develop as a private-public partnership, will eventually cost about $ 36 billion. He calculated this figure on the basis of an estimate of the acceptable value of the colony of 0.25-0.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
US GDP in 2010 amounted to $ 14.5 trillion, 0.25 percent from $ 14.5 trillion - $ 36 billion. If all 80 thousand colonists pay $ 500 thousand for a place for their journey to Mars, this will increase this amount to $ 40 billion.
“Some money should be spent on creating a base on Mars. This is a fundamental investment in the establishment of a base in place, ”said Musk. “This was true of the English colonies [in America], their founding entailed considerable expenses. But when there are regular flights to Mars, you can pay up to half a million dollars for someone to go to Mars. Then, I think, there will be enough people who would buy a ticket, which for me becomes a reasonable rationale for business.
The fully reusable rocket, on which Mask wants to send colonists to Mars, is a development of the SpaceX rocket carrier, launching Dragon.
It will be much more [than Falcon 9], but I do not think that we are ready to state what its payload will be. We will talk about this next year, ”said Musk, stressing that only fully reusable rockets and a spacecraft will provide a ticket price for a flight to Mars of only $ 500,000.
SpaceX is already experiencing the next generation Falcon 9, reusable rockets that can take off and land vertically. The prototype, called the Grasshopper, is the first stage of the Falcon 9, landing on supports.
Grasshopper made two short flights. September 21, he reached a height of 6 feet (2 meters); The second test, November 1, was up to a height of 17.7 feet (5.4 m). Planned milestone for the project - Grasshopper should reach a height of 100 feet (30 m). [A test flight of the Grasshopper rocket to the height of the second floor (Video) ]
“In the next few months, we will gradually increase altitude and speed,” said Musk. “I think that we will probably have several craters along the way; we are very lucky if we manage without them. Vertical landing is an extremely important breakthrough, exceptionally fast reusability. This is as close to sending rockets as planes as possible.
Mask wants to have a reusable first stage for Falcon 9, using Grasshopper technology to return from orbit, "in the next year or two." And then he wants to use this vertical landing technology for the Falcon 9 top stage.
Musk hopes to get a fully reusable version of Falcon 9 in five or six years, but he acknowledged that this statement may be premature (“Famous Last Words”).
[ video showing the concept of a reusable rocket ]
The next important step to the planned reusable Martian rocket will be the Falcon Heavy carrier. The first flight of the Falcon Heavy is scheduled for the next year from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, when two more similar first stages will be attached to the first stage of the Falcon 9 at the edges.
Musk expects Falcon Heavy to eventually launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida, and this three-stage first-stage rocket will be able to deliver 116,600 pounds (53,000 kilograms) to a 124-mile (200-kilometer) near-earth orbit. But the Falcon Heavy is still much smaller than the reusable Mars rocket Mask, which will also use the new engine.
So far, Musk refuses to say what the payload of his Martian rocket is, but it says that it will use a new engine with a phased combustion cycle ( probably it is a closed type LRE ) called Raptor (Predator). The cycle of his work consists of two steps. First, the fuel mixture — the fuel and the oxidizer — is burned in the pre-combustion chambers, and the resulting high-pressure hot gases help to pump fuel into the main combustion chamber of the engine. In the second step, these gases are involved in the combustion of fuel in it.
Since Raptor is a pre-combustion engine — as are the main engines of the NASA shuttle fleet, it is expected to be much more efficient than the Merlin open-cycle engines used on the Falcon 9.
If Falcon 9 engines use liquid oxygen and kerosene, then Raptor will use liquid oxygen and methane. Musk explained that "the cost of methane energy is the lowest, it has a specific impulse slightly higher than that of kerosene, and does not have a single lack of hydrogen." (Hydrogen is difficult to maintain at cryogenic temperatures, it makes the metal brittle and highly flammable).
_______________________________________
PSMusk accompanied the interview with the following comment: “Millions of people are needed for the Martian colony, so 80k + is the amount to be sent to Mars per year. And yes, I know that in fact it sounds crazy. It did not escape me, and I do not think that SpaceX will do it alone. But if humanity wants to be multiplanetary, we need to figure out how to move millions of people to Mars. ”
Billionaire Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive officer of SpaceX, a private space company, wants to help found a colony of up to 80 thousand people on Mars, providing researchers with a flight to the Red Planet worth about 500 thousand dollars for a flight.
By vision mask, ambitious
Mars exploration program
will begin with sending to the Red Planet a group of pioneers numbering up to 10 people on board a huge reusable rocket working on methane and liquid oxygen.')
Space capsule Dragon, descending on the surface of Mars.
This is a frame from the SpaceX concept video. Dragon is a private development of a space capsule that provides unmanned delivery of payloads, and ultimately astronauts, into space.
"On Mars, it is possible to create a self-sustaining civilization that can grow into something more," said Musk on November 16 at a conference of the Royal Aviation Society in London. Here Mask talked about his business plans and received a special gold medal for his contribution to the development of commercial space exploration.
[ exclusive video space.com: SpaceX - quest for the Holy Grail of rocket technology ]
Pioneers of Mars
Accompany the first founders of the colony on Mars will be numerous equipment, including machines for the production of fertilizers, methane and oxygen from the nitrogen contained in the planet’s atmosphere and carbon dioxide and underground ice reserves.
The pioneers of the Red Planet will also bring materials for the construction of transparent domes, which will raise the pressure of the Martian atmosphere, mainly carbon dioxide, under them to a level that allows them to grow earthly crops in alien soil. As the colony becomes more self-sufficient, the rocket will bring more and more people and less equipment. ( Slideshow on space.com - the future of manned space flight )
The proposed Maskom architecture of manned exploration of Mars does not imply a watch and constantly cruising ship between Earth and Mars, at least in the initial period.
"Probably, there will be no Martian watches, it requires a large number of shift workers," Mask told space.com. “You must have fuel to keep up the schedule, because the distance between Earth and Mars is not always the same. In the beginning there will be no shift workers. ”
Musk also ruled out the possibility of being used as a descent vehicle, delivering colonists to Mars, the Dragon capsule, which SpaceX is developing to deliver astronauts from a low earth orbit. Asking Space.com about the transport used for landing, he said: "I think you will just plant this whole thing."
When asked whether the new huge reusable rockets, which are rumored to be abbreviated as MCT, the Mars Cargo Transport or the Mars Colony Transport, are “this thing”, Musk said: “Maybe.”
Mask was thinking about what his ships would need until the end of the flight. He believes that the oxygen concentration inside should be 30 - 40 percent, and suggests using the storage space of liquid water of the spacecraft as a barrier between the Martian pioneers and the sun.
$ 500,000 per ticket
Mask determined the price of a ticket to Mars at $ 500 thousand, because he considers it affordable.
“The ticket price should be low enough so that most people in developed countries could raise enough money for this trip by the age of forty,” he said, comparing this price with the cost of buying a house in California [ Photo of the first space tourists on the Space portal. com ].
He also estimates that out of eight billion people who will live on Earth by the time of possible colonization, about one in 100,000 will be ready for relocation, which is potentially 80,000 migrants.
Musk believes that the colonization program of Mars, which he proposes to develop as a private-public partnership, will eventually cost about $ 36 billion. He calculated this figure on the basis of an estimate of the acceptable value of the colony of 0.25-0.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
US GDP in 2010 amounted to $ 14.5 trillion, 0.25 percent from $ 14.5 trillion - $ 36 billion. If all 80 thousand colonists pay $ 500 thousand for a place for their journey to Mars, this will increase this amount to $ 40 billion.
“Some money should be spent on creating a base on Mars. This is a fundamental investment in the establishment of a base in place, ”said Musk. “This was true of the English colonies [in America], their founding entailed considerable expenses. But when there are regular flights to Mars, you can pay up to half a million dollars for someone to go to Mars. Then, I think, there will be enough people who would buy a ticket, which for me becomes a reasonable rationale for business.
Large reusable rocket
The fully reusable rocket, on which Mask wants to send colonists to Mars, is a development of the SpaceX rocket carrier, launching Dragon.
It will be much more [than Falcon 9], but I do not think that we are ready to state what its payload will be. We will talk about this next year, ”said Musk, stressing that only fully reusable rockets and a spacecraft will provide a ticket price for a flight to Mars of only $ 500,000.
SpaceX is already experiencing the next generation Falcon 9, reusable rockets that can take off and land vertically. The prototype, called the Grasshopper, is the first stage of the Falcon 9, landing on supports.
Grasshopper made two short flights. September 21, he reached a height of 6 feet (2 meters); The second test, November 1, was up to a height of 17.7 feet (5.4 m). Planned milestone for the project - Grasshopper should reach a height of 100 feet (30 m). [A test flight of the Grasshopper rocket to the height of the second floor (Video) ]
“In the next few months, we will gradually increase altitude and speed,” said Musk. “I think that we will probably have several craters along the way; we are very lucky if we manage without them. Vertical landing is an extremely important breakthrough, exceptionally fast reusability. This is as close to sending rockets as planes as possible.
Mask wants to have a reusable first stage for Falcon 9, using Grasshopper technology to return from orbit, "in the next year or two." And then he wants to use this vertical landing technology for the Falcon 9 top stage.
Musk hopes to get a fully reusable version of Falcon 9 in five or six years, but he acknowledged that this statement may be premature (“Famous Last Words”).
[ video showing the concept of a reusable rocket ]
Rocket stage
The next important step to the planned reusable Martian rocket will be the Falcon Heavy carrier. The first flight of the Falcon Heavy is scheduled for the next year from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, when two more similar first stages will be attached to the first stage of the Falcon 9 at the edges.
Musk expects Falcon Heavy to eventually launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida, and this three-stage first-stage rocket will be able to deliver 116,600 pounds (53,000 kilograms) to a 124-mile (200-kilometer) near-earth orbit. But the Falcon Heavy is still much smaller than the reusable Mars rocket Mask, which will also use the new engine.
So far, Musk refuses to say what the payload of his Martian rocket is, but it says that it will use a new engine with a phased combustion cycle ( probably it is a closed type LRE ) called Raptor (Predator). The cycle of his work consists of two steps. First, the fuel mixture — the fuel and the oxidizer — is burned in the pre-combustion chambers, and the resulting high-pressure hot gases help to pump fuel into the main combustion chamber of the engine. In the second step, these gases are involved in the combustion of fuel in it.
Since Raptor is a pre-combustion engine — as are the main engines of the NASA shuttle fleet, it is expected to be much more efficient than the Merlin open-cycle engines used on the Falcon 9.
If Falcon 9 engines use liquid oxygen and kerosene, then Raptor will use liquid oxygen and methane. Musk explained that "the cost of methane energy is the lowest, it has a specific impulse slightly higher than that of kerosene, and does not have a single lack of hydrogen." (Hydrogen is difficult to maintain at cryogenic temperatures, it makes the metal brittle and highly flammable).
_______________________________________
PSMusk accompanied the interview with the following comment: “Millions of people are needed for the Martian colony, so 80k + is the amount to be sent to Mars per year. And yes, I know that in fact it sounds crazy. It did not escape me, and I do not think that SpaceX will do it alone. But if humanity wants to be multiplanetary, we need to figure out how to move millions of people to Mars. ”
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/160357/
All Articles