New Mars Forums

AI Overview
Robert Zubrin proposes integrating his "Mars Direct" philosophy with SpaceX's Starship through the "Starboat," a smaller, reusable vehicle that serves as a surface-to-orbit shuttle for early Mars missions, reducing the need for the large Starship to land on the planet. The Starboat would use less propellant, operate as a mini-Starship with a smaller crew, and act as a shuttle for a Starship parked in Mars orbit, making Mars exploration more flexible and efficient. This approach provides a pathway for early human missions to Mars by leveraging the reusable infrastructure of a larger Starship in orbit and the efficiency of a smaller vehicle for surface operations.
Zubrin's Mars Direct and the Starboat
Mars Direct Philosophy:
Zubrin's original Mars Direct plan emphasized a "live-off-the-land" approach, utilizing a nuclear-powered rover to produce fuel on Mars for the Earth Return Vehicle (ERV).
Starboat Concept:
The Starboat is Zubrin's adaptation of this idea to the SpaceX Starship architecture, envisioning a smaller version of the Starship as a dedicated surface-to-orbit shuttle.
Key Aspects of the Starboat for Mars Missions
Reduced Propellant Needs:
The Starboat requires significantly less propellant to land on Mars and return to orbit compared to the full-size Starship.
Efficient Surface Operations:
Instead of a large Starship landing on Mars, a Starship could remain in orbit, and the Starboat would shuttle crews and cargo between the surface and the orbiting Starship.
Flexibility and Crew Size:
The smaller size of the Starboat makes it more suitable for early, smaller-crew missions focused on establishing infrastructure on Mars.
Refueling and Reusability:
The Starboat's high reusability and lower fuel requirements would make missions more efficient.
How it Works with Starship
Orbital Starship: A full-sized Starship is sent to Mars orbit and remains there as a "parked" asset.
Starboat as a Shuttle: The smaller Starboat would launch from Earth (potentially fully fueled by a single Starship), travel to Mars, and then perform the surface-to-orbit shuttle role.
Surface-to-Orbit Transport: The Starboat's primary role would be ascending from the Martian surface to the orbiting Starship, requiring less propellant than a full Starship would for the same task.
This concept offers a more scalable and efficient approach to early human Mars exploration, aligning with Zubrin's core principles of resourcefulness and efficiency

Robert Zubrin talks about reducing the mass of SpaceX Starship by a factor of 5 for a Starboat mini-Starship. The linear dimensions would scale by the cube root of 1/5 ≈ 0.58. This gives a diameter of 9 × 0.58 ≈ 5.2 meters. The mass would then be 1320 / 5 = 264 tons (assuming proportional scaling of dry mass and propellant). For a thrust-to-weight ratio of 0.91, the required thrust is 0.91 × 264 ≈ 240 tons. One Raptor (200 tons thrust) is slightly insufficient, while two Raptors (400 tons) provide excess thrust, yielding a ratio of 400 / 264 ≈ 1.52, which is reasonable for an upper stage. There are more advanced Raptors where one engine could get the thrust.

Mars surface to Earth using 120 tons of propellant or perform a low-Mars-orbit rendezvous using just 50 tons of propellant, with a single tanker in low Mars orbit being able to support five such return flights. It could also be lifted to Earth orbit fully fueled by a single Starship and sent directly to Mars with five tons of cargo without any Earth-orbit refueling, or 25 tons of cargo with a single tanker refueling.

Mars Landing and Operations
Efficient Design: The Starboat needs five times less propellant than the Starship for landing on Mars and returning to orbit. For comparison, refueling the Starship on Mars requires approximately 600 tons of propellant, while Zubrin’s Mars Direct plan uses vehicles needing only about 120 tons.

By a rough estimate, to make the 600 metric tons of propellant required to refuel the Starship once on Mars within a year and a half would require a power source with an average round-the-clock output of 600 kilowatts. A solar array that could do that would cover 60,000 square meters — that’s over 13 football fields in size — and weigh about 240 metric tons. It would require three Starship flights just to deliver such a solar array to Mars, and it would then be a major burden to deploy and maintain. A more practical alternative would be to use nuclear power. We could imagine a plausible reactor design at this power level with a mass of about ten tons.

NASA is gearing up to send its first astronauts toward the moon in five decades.

The Artemis II mission is currently set for early next year and will use NASA’s next-generation SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft.

Although none of the four crew members will be stepping foot on the lunar surface, they will come The much-anticipated mission will take about 10 days from launch to splashdown, making it 15 days shorter than the uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022 that operated as a test run for Artemis II.

NASA has just shared an update on its preparations for Artemis II, focusing on some of the improvements made to the SLS rocket and the Orion since the Artemis I mission.

As with the SLS rocket’s first flight three years ago, the 322-feet-tall (98-meter) still comprises a central core stage, four RS-25 main engines, two five-segment solid rocket boosters, the ICPS (interim cryogenic propulsion stage), a launch vehicle stage adapter to hold the ICPS, and an Orion stage adapter connecting SLS to the Orion spacecraft.

NASA said that as the SLS rocket heads skyward next year, it will jettison the spent boosters four seconds earlier than it did in the Artemis I ascent. Dropping the boosters a little earlier will reduce the weight that the core stage needs to carry after booster separation. The saved weight should allow the rocket to carry more cargo or heavier payloads to space, and the Artemis II flight will allow engineers to compare data to confirm their calculations.as close as 4,000 miles (around 6,440 km) of it before flying around the moon and returning home.

The SLS rocket’s maiden flight in the Artemis I mission experienced unsteady airflow that caused higher-than-expected vibrations near the solid rocket booster attachment points, and so NASA has added a pair of six-foot-long aerodynamic surfaces for a smoother ascent. 

Upgrades to the flight system include optical targets fitted to the ICPS that will function as visual cues for the four Orion astronauts when they come to manually pilot the spacecraft around the rocket’s upper stage, at the same time practicing maneuvers to gather data for docking operations for the future Artemis III mission. During that mission, which is currently set for 2027, the Orion will link up with SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft for a crewed lunar landing — the first since 1972.

The rocket’s navigation system has also been enhanced — alongside improvements to its communications capabilities — by repositioning antennas on the rocket to ensure continuous communication with NASA personnel on Earth.

Notably, the emergency abort system has been refined to add a time delay to the self-destruct sequence. This will give the Orion and its crew more time to move clear of the rocket in the event of an abort, better protecting the astronauts from any destructive actions that occur soon after.

Other improvements include work on the core stage power distribution control unit, which controls power to the rocket’s other electronics and protects it from electrical hazards.

“While we’re proud of our Artemis I performance, which validated our overall design, we’ve looked at how SLS can give our crews a better ride,” said John Honeycutt, NASA’s SLS program manager.

Honeycutt added that some of the changes have been made in response to specific Artemis II mission requirements, while others are the result of ongoing analysis and testing, as well as insights gained from the Artemis I voyage.

he Artemis II crew includes NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, together with Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. The four astronauts have been in training since they were announced as the Artemis II crew in 2023.

AI Overview
Robert Zubrin proposes integrating his "Mars Direct" philosophy with SpaceX's Starship through the "Starboat," a smaller, reusable vehicle that serves as a surface-to-orbit shuttle for early Mars missions, reducing the need for the large Starship to land on the planet. The Starboat would use less propellant, operate as a mini-Starship with a smaller crew, and act as a shuttle for a Starship parked in Mars orbit, making Mars exploration more flexible and efficient. This approach provides a pathway for early human missions to Mars by leveraging the reusable infrastructure of a larger Starship in orbit and the efficiency of a smaller vehicle for surface operations.
Zubrin's Mars Direct and the Starboat
Mars Direct Philosophy:
Zubrin's original Mars Direct plan emphasized a "live-off-the-land" approach, utilizing a nuclear-powered rover to produce fuel on Mars for the Earth Return Vehicle (ERV).
Starboat Concept:
The Starboat is Zubrin's adaptation of this idea to the SpaceX Starship architecture, envisioning a smaller version of the Starship as a dedicated surface-to-orbit shuttle.
Key Aspects of the Starboat for Mars Missions
Reduced Propellant Needs:
The Starboat requires significantly less propellant to land on Mars and return to orbit compared to the full-size Starship.
Efficient Surface Operations:
Instead of a large Starship landing on Mars, a Starship could remain in orbit, and the Starboat would shuttle crews and cargo between the surface and the orbiting Starship.
Flexibility and Crew Size:
The smaller size of the Starboat makes it more suitable for early, smaller-crew missions focused on establishing infrastructure on Mars.
Refueling and Reusability:
The Starboat's high reusability and lower fuel requirements would make missions more efficient.
How it Works with Starship
Orbital Starship: A full-sized Starship is sent to Mars orbit and remains there as a "parked" asset.
Starboat as a Shuttle: The smaller Starboat would launch from Earth (potentially fully fueled by a single Starship), travel to Mars, and then perform the surface-to-orbit shuttle role.
Surface-to-Orbit Transport: The Starboat's primary role would be ascending from the Martian surface to the orbiting Starship, requiring less propellant than a full Starship would for the same task.
This concept offers a more scalable and efficient approach to early human Mars exploration, aligning with Zubrin's core principles of resourcefulness and efficiency

Robert Zubrin talks about reducing the mass of SpaceX Starship by a factor of 5 for a Starboat mini-Starship. The linear dimensions would scale by the cube root of 1/5 ≈ 0.58. This gives a diameter of 9 × 0.58 ≈ 5.2 meters. The mass would then be 1320 / 5 = 264 tons (assuming proportional scaling of dry mass and propellant). For a thrust-to-weight ratio of 0.91, the required thrust is 0.91 × 264 ≈ 240 tons. One Raptor (200 tons thrust) is slightly insufficient, while two Raptors (400 tons) provide excess thrust, yielding a ratio of 400 / 264 ≈ 1.52, which is reasonable for an upper stage. There are more advanced Raptors where one engine could get the thrust.

Mars surface to Earth using 120 tons of propellant or perform a low-Mars-orbit rendezvous using just 50 tons of propellant, with a single tanker in low Mars orbit being able to support five such return flights. It could also be lifted to Earth orbit fully fueled by a single Starship and sent directly to Mars with five tons of cargo without any Earth-orbit refueling, or 25 tons of cargo with a single tanker refueling.

Mars Landing and Operations
Efficient Design: The Starboat needs five times less propellant than the Starship for landing on Mars and returning to orbit. For comparison, refueling the Starship on Mars requires approximately 600 tons of propellant, while Zubrin’s Mars Direct plan uses vehicles needing only about 120 tons.

By a rough estimate, to make the 600 metric tons of propellant required to refuel the Starship once on Mars within a year and a half would require a power source with an average round-the-clock output of 600 kilowatts. A solar array that could do that would cover 60,000 square meters — that’s over 13 football fields in size — and weigh about 240 metric tons. It would require three Starship flights just to deliver such a solar array to Mars, and it would then be a major burden to deploy and maintain. A more practical alternative would be to use nuclear power. We could imagine a plausible reactor design at this power level with a mass of about ten tons.

Korean researchers have unlocked a new way to bank clean energy and turn it back into power on demand.

Scientists at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) have developed Korea’s first homegrown Liquid Air Energy Storage system, which uses surplus electricity to chill air into liquid, store it, and later release it to generate power.

The team recently achieved the production of up to 10 tons of liquid air per day, representing a significant milestone in advancing the technology toward large-scale commercial viability.

Power on demand
When the grid has more electricity than it needs, the surplus is used to cool air to extremely low temperatures until it becomes liquid. This liquid air is stored in insulated tanks like a giant energy reserve.

When demand spikes, the air is warmed again. As it rapidly expands about 700 times its liquid volume, the pressure drives turbines to generate electricity.

When demand spikes, the air is warmed again. As it rapidly expands about 700 times its liquid volume, the pressure drives turbines to generate electricity.

Led by Principal Researcher Dr. Jun Young Park, the KIMM team designed two key components entirely in-house.

A turbo expander that spins faster than 100,000 revolutions per minute and a cold box equipped with multi-layer insulation and a powerful vacuum to keep air at cryogenic temperatures.

These innovations enabled Korea’s first successful air liquefaction test for energy storage. It shows that liquid air storage can work using domestic technology.

“This is an essential step for Korea’s renewable future,” said Dr. Park. “Large-scale energy storage is the missing piece and our work shows LAES can deliver it without geographical limits.”

Most large-scale storage today relies on pumped hydro or compressed air. Both can be effective but they require mountains, valleys, or underground caverns. They also come with environmental trade-offs.

Liquid air avoids those problems. It can be built almost anywhere which makes it a flexible option for cities and industrial hubs. It also comes with added benefits. The extreme cold can be tapped for industrial cooling, and waste heat from factories can be reused to make the process more efficient.

A global race
Korea is not the only country chasing this technology. Companies in the UK, China, and the United States are already exploring liquid air as a storage medium. What makes KIMM’s achievement stand out is that it is fully homegrown.

That is a critical step for Korea’s plan to build an energy superhighway to carry renewables across the nation.

The current system is modest compared to the country’s power needs. But its successful operation is proof of concept. If scaled up, bottling air could become one of the cleanest and most versatile ways to store renewable energy.

For now, it is still early days. But in a world desperate for long-duration storage, Korea’s breakthrough shows that the future of power might be hiding in plain sight.