Let’s talk about life inside the SpaceX Starship, so far our only real-world concepts of spacecraft have mostly been a series of crew capsules with a rocket engine like Apollo the Soyuz and a small pointed box like the Dragon Tied to, then a real ship these things are not really the highest level of comfort.
Even the newest Orion spacecraft is so cramped that a person can’t stand upright inside the command module, with the older spacecraft proving to be our high water mark so far. A legitimate vehicle for interstellar exploration is still not the colossal but claustrophobic nightmare of its peers, but now we have the promise of Rocket Flash Gordon’s massive behemoth starship 9 meters in diameter.
This is the real ship Elon Musk has promised will transport thousands of people on a six-month journey from Earth to a colony on Mars. Which is a great idea in theory but six months is a very long time to spend in a metal box. Even though it’s a giant metal box peering through the vast emptiness of interplanetary space, we have some high hopes for the environment inside that starship and here’s what we think can be seen clearly that we have a reference point. There is a fairly wide area inside which a spacecraft can be.
The starship Enterprise managed to hook crew members with their own luxury condos to ride out the multi-year galactic trek, something like the Millennium Falcon and envisioned a janky patchwork of utilitarian tubes and cabins, Which would ideally suit SpaceX. Starship will fall somewhere in the middle, not the peak of comfort but room and amenities sufficient to overcome claustrophobia for the trip to Mars and back and that brings us to crew size.
What is the ideal number of Starship pilots? This is important for a few reasons as each individual will need vital resources such as food and water in order to survive. If we know that 100 metric tons is our maximum load capacity for a starship then we need to know the actual mass of a crew member and for two we know that the mental health and well being of the crew is an important factor Is. has been a major factor for these long duration interplanetary missions. If there are too many people on board and there is not enough personal space, crew members can start to panic and reach halfway to Mars.
But if there are too few crew members, people can get sick of each other. Very soon we may see the first violent crime committed on Earth, with most experts agreeing that a crew of 10 is the best place for a Starship mission to Mars. Elon Musk has talked about sending 100 people at once, but all the signs are pointing in this direction. Being a really bad idea the full size of the current starship is 50 meters in length by 9 meters in diameter and tapers down to a point at the nose.
Elon apparently insisted that Sasha Barra c. After watching Ohn’s movie The Dictator the nose was made more pointed so that the internal volume decreased a bit as Elon thought it would be weird luckily there is still a lot of room to work with apparently the rocket on the starship below Stuff is going to be occupied you know at least six.
Raptor engines that can be upgraded to nine by the first crewed flight to Mars, three sea level engines for the landing burn and six vacuum engines for pushing from low Earth orbit and propellants to make the massive tank enough to set the course for the stars above. that happens and that section is going to be closed by something called a normal dome where the cargo and cruise section starts, we’re estimating that the length of this top section will be about 17 meters and that’s going to be the highest height and more Will tax is distributed at each level.
Based on that splitting it into six vertical levels means you’ll probably want higher ceilings in the cargo bay and floor to ceiling in the cruise section should be about two and a half meters down or low enough to float comfortably without hitting your head. Given that this ship will have to make a vertical landing on Mars, it certainly makes sense to keep its center of gravity as low as possible, so we imagine the first floor will be dedicated to cargo bays. Is going
When these people reach mars they will need resources and infrastructure like rover and robot and other stuff to continue their existence so we consider all life support system of ship with power generator and ground elevator starship . System on level 2 to move in and out where we will store food and supplies needed to grow small amounts of fresh vegetables like leafy greens on level 3 maybe a hydroponic garden of some sort a good place to have a gym and bathroom facilities Is.
Physical fitness is important for long stays in microgravity astronauts internationally. The space station requires several hours of exercise per day with a combination of cardio and resistance training, the strap-down treadmill has been a mainstay on the ISS. Along with long periods of a stationary bicycle that are important for maintaining cardiovascular health and the circulatory system, weight lifting is equally important for maintaining muscle mass and bone density.
Obviously barbells and free weights don’t work in zero gravity, but the ISS has a resistance machine that allows the crew to do squats and deadlifts with 600 pounds of resistance. Zero doesn’t flow even in gravity so a faucet doesn’t work on the ISS astronauts wipe themselves with a wet towel and use dry shampoo in their hair and then of course the space toilet SpaceX uses some of its vacuum working through iterations.
So they should be well aware that by the time we get to level 4 on Mars, there will be crew quarters, it won’t be anything fancy, but given the volume of the starship everyone should have a reasonably sized compartment , maybe something like a capsule hotel in Japan. Although it could be set up in a more vertical orientation level 5 would be a great place to have a common area, that’s the point where the nose is going to start.
Would actually taper but have enough room for people to float and relax in the open space, probably with a really big viewing window that wraps around the room and then the top floor would be very small because of this taper. The current Starship design has the methane header tank located in the nose, so headroom is reduced at this stage, so probably the best location for the command deck where everyone would be strapped into a chair for launch and landing.
There will probably still be some flight controls and things like that there will be a central pillar connecting each level, it will be a tube for easy travel between floors in zero gravity with a ladder for use on Earth and Mars, we also Considering that the plumbing and wiring will be routed through the center column and that it will also provide a structural element to the core of the ship, this will be the biggest struggle for those who as astronauts will come into contact with the rest of humanity on the starship.
While physically isolated in low Earth orbit, they are still connected to the Internet and can communicate with Earth in real time, but the crew of Starship Journey will be unable to communicate with each other as time goes on. The interval will get longer and longer. Unless there’s so much delay that you can’t even have a two-way conversation with Earth anymore, about 10 seconds for a message halfway through Earth or Mars. It’s going to take minutes and then 10 minutes for the reaction to come back again, if we’re talking about the psychological toll it’s going to be hard to manage.
Especially in a modern world where we are all instantly connected, there is a lot of loneliness out there. Now here’s the real trick to this whole starship situation, how do we keep the lights on and the massive amounts of electricity out there to keep the air flowing? There is no simple answer to where solar energy will be needed and where solar energy will come from. The first thing that comes to mind is how they power the ISS. But keep in mind those solar arrays are the eight primary solar wings that are 112 feet long by 39 feet wide. Now try and imagine that many solar panels. With so many sides for our starship to easily fold and deploy after launch.
They may have a solar panel module that is built in space and attached to the ship after refueling in orbit. also the further away you are from the sun the less efficient those solar panels are at generating electricity so they may need to be made even bigger and then what happens when you go to mars you use that can use and can’t get off with all that here’s a little dirty idea number two is the battery Elon Musk is also the owner of an electric vehicle company called Tesla, you must have heard of him, not only that Tesla has an advanced battery pack that they use in their vehicles, they have that too.
The storage products are called Powerwalls. Each power wall packs 13 kilowatt hours of energy and can power an average home for a day, with a list of these battery packs that ship a smaller, more manageable solar array. Can provide the energy needed to work for six. Over a month, the walls of power on Mars could be slowly recharged using giant solar arrays on the ground and prepared for the return trip.
The downside here is that the batteries are extra heavy, each unit at about 250 pounds, so the amount of usable cargo capacity in the ship quickly grows and wears away, which makes colonizing Mars a bit more difficult. will make it difficult High hydrogen fuel cells are a strong candidate. They convert hydrogen gas into electricity and produce water as a byproduct, kind of killing two birds with one stone. And hydrogen is the lightest element in the known universe, so that’s an added bonus. Well, we’ve already figured out how to power a car with a hydrogen fuel cell, so it’s certainly possible that this could be scaled up to a starship.