Interworld Para Terraforming

Void · 2025-01-18 21:12:36

If Ascender will be real, then before they do the H1 version that supposedly could go orbital they would do lesser vehicles: https://jpaerospace.com/blog/?p=6869 Quote:

TransAtmospheric Ascender
The TransAtmospheric Ascender will be our first airship to reach space. The vehicle is 2100 feet long and will have a crew of three. It will have a peak altitude of 350,000 feet and a maximum velocity of Mach 5. Technically it is a hypersonic waverider. The TransAtmospheric Ascender is strictly a suborbital vehicle. It will fly from a Block 2 Dark Sky Station floating at 120,000 feet to space then return to the station. The airship will be driven by a single four chamber version of our symphony hybrid chemical/electric rocket engine.
The TransAtmospheric Ascender is still a few years away but as we get closer the design starts to firm up. Just thought you would like a look at where it stands.

I am very interested in knowing how their "symphony hybrid chemical/electric rocket engine" are to work.

These images may or may not apply: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=as … RE&first=1

https://www.reddit.com/r/hybridairships … ?rdt=52638

My pea brain struggles.

Anyway I am imagining thinking backwards with it for Venus and Mars. Basing it in orbit, and letting it drop down on occasion into the atmosphere to extract chemicals.

For Mars, with only .38 g, this could be easier than for Earth or Venus. And Phobos and Deimos are in orbit for solid mass. A question is, if an Ascender could navigate though the mixing zone for the solar wind and the atmosphere of Mars, could it pick up Hydrogen and Helium? And of course Nitrogen and Carbon would be wanted.

Could this machine do Soaring? A lot of these things I only understand fragments of at this point.

Dynamic Soaring is being contemplated to be able to exceed the speed of the solar wind at the Heliopause: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sp … 17442/full
Quote:

Dynamic soaring as a means to exceed the solar wind speed

It is a long shot for the upper Martian atmosphere, but a question might yield to an answer eventually.

I am not at all assured that an Ascender could land on Mars. But perhaps they could be based in orbit. And if no other source were available fuel might be extracted from the Mars atmosphere. At least CO2, which could be split into CO and O2, but maybe H2 as well. Carbon could also be a propellant for the Neumann Drive, and Oxygen might be propellant for some type of Mass Driver ships engine. But of course metals and Oxygen can likely come from Phobos and Deimos.

It would be very good to be able to refuel/refill ships in Mars orbits to access the asteroid belt and for trips inward in the solar system.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-18 21:37:35)

Void · 2025-01-20 12:40:43

So, I am not sure I buy into the "Kardashev scale" notions. To me Venus says, no you are not going to learn to utilize all of the energy of Earth, to become Type I.

Instead, you are going to find that a world like Venus has a lot to offer, even if it is not your "Nursery World".

So, I think you would have a long period of being both Sub Type I and also a bit of Type II.

For Mars and Venus, solar power might be very attractive, at least in orbits, provided you had mass to build things with that is not deep in a gravity well. For Venus, Terrestrial Crossing Asteroids, may allow for access to Venus itself for materials. And of Course Mars, itself has .38 g and also Phobos and Deimos and then the asteroids as well.

Ending Pending

Void · 2025-01-29 21:41:26

I am just goofing around here:

Could a Space Station be made of 10 Starship Cones? (Cargo/Crew Sections)

I have put a red circle in so we can see how close we might be to a torus:

Because they are not used as fuel tanks, you could prefab them on the ground.

You may or may not spin the device for synthetic gravity. But at current Starship sizes you might only get to Lunar or Martian simulated gravity, I estimate.

That might be good as for tourism you might give the tourist a variety of alien gravity experiences. Plus when spun up, your sanitation is going to be more convenient.

You could use it for microgravity manufacturing where I expect it would be inhabited mostly by robots.

It might also move in the direction of a medium scale craft for transit, perhaps in a cycler of some kind or maybe even an expedition to Mars. (Not for landing though).

And this then is wanting to know what to do with the rest of the Starship, the Locomotive Section comprised mostly of tanks, and engines? Well, I have some notions as you might suspect.

1) Boosters for long range Starship missions.
2) Then perhaps reuse on the Moon.

So, of course the Starships do perhaps need two walls between the Nose Section and the Engine Sections. (But not necessarily).

But you can use the Locomotive Section as a "One-Time Tug" and then land it on the Moon.

When landed on the Moon, it is easier to tip over as it has been shortened by the removal of the Nose Section. And while it would not be prefabbed like the Nose Section may have been, the Moon can supply Insitu resources to upgrade the utility/habitability of these things.

So, the Locomotive Section may be able to boost a Starship on its way to another world, and then might land on the Moon, if sufficient propellants were available.

So, a Starship is supposed to be able to lift 100-200 tons to LEO, but if not to be re-landed, can lift more. Some of this would be eaten up by Prefabbing the Nose Section. But still you get to use all the parts for something that may be useful and you don't need flaps and motors or a heat shield. Of course you may need legs unless you have some sort of mechanism on the surface of the Moon to catch the Locomotive Section.

The Raptors might be removed and reused, I suppose.

So, then this is not quite like any of the Starship ideas so far, except for laying a Starship on its side on the Moon and upgrading it with Lunar Resources.

This would give Starship more reach, as you might use one or more Engine Sections to boost a Starship from LEO to another world.

If we then can have depots that can be moved around with electric rockets then we can arrange for propellants to be refilled near the Moon, as a further option.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-29 22:12:42)

Void · 2025-01-30 21:42:40

Based on the just previous post, some uncertainty exists.

The question of the value of the Moon.

The question of electric propulsive methods that may emerge.
New electric propulsive methods seem to be emerging. Among those could use Argon or Metals as propellants, maybe Carbon and Silicon. The obvious value of electric over chemical is efficiency with the larger consumption of time. For the transfer of stuff this may be OK. For transferring humans it may not be the best.

A Hybrid system which may be compatible with humans is to have a chemical booster or a nuclear thermal booster which pushes a electric propulsion system to a location, such as Mars. That is entirely my own opinion, as I have not seen support for it before.

Typically, what to do is evaluated in a zero sum way. We will have an argument for Mars Direct, and an argument for electric propulsion as the method. But I don't like that at all. I think that we will want both, so that we can evaluate and perhaps incorporate Mars, Phobos, and Deimos into the expansion of human activities.

This should allow for a flexible reaction to changes in reality. Reality may change due to discovery and inventions.

I think that SpaceX will likely attempt uncrewed missions to Mars at the very least. I see little problem with that other than actually being able to pull it off.

Discovery could be a thing like discovering a better value for the Moon. Lately, I have seen articles that suggest that the Moon may have considerably more water than we thought it did.

Here is an article which is already about 5 year old: https://www.bing.com/search?q=The+Moon+ … A0&PC=DCTS Quote:

<p>The moon has much more water than previously thought, a scientific team including Brown University has discovered. First-time measurements of lunar melt inclusions show that some parts of the lunar mantle have as much water as the Earth’s upper mantle.

So, if that is accessible, then it begins to suggest a changing future for the Moon. After all I think it has about the surface area of the Americas.

If as I suggested in the previous post, another type of Starship could be made, where the Nose Section is made into space stations and the Locomotive Section is used as boosters to help launch payloads such as a Starship into deep space, a Lunar aspect could be included. A Locomotive section might be used 1 or more times to do such a boost to a deep space Starship. It also might be used as a shuttle from the surface of the Moon, a number of times. But it also might then be retired to the Moon to become pressurized space.

Electric propulsion methods might be able to move chemical propellants around efficiently. For instance, Methane and Argon from LEO to refill orbital ships, and maybe Oxygen and metals from the Moon to orbits, where they may be propellants for Starships and Electric propulsions.

This whole setup might be just for Earth<>Moon, but also might eventually facilitate trips Earth/Moon<>Mars/Phobos/Deimos. We don't know yet.

One idea I am entertaining for Mars is that a Locomotive Section might boost a Starship converted to electric propulsion methods to a flyby of the Moon. The Locomotive would separate and then find means to land on the Moon with or without refilling in Lunar orbits. The Mars Starship from that point would already have been boosted so you might be cutting off some of the time penalty that electric propulsion creates. The electric Starship would achieve Martian orbit, and would not directly land humans or products sent.

I am not sure, but this might allow the windows to be opened a bit more as is said to be true for Ballistic Capture. You might indeed add Ballistic Capture methods.

Of course Large Ship Concepts could be fitted into this, I think, you would just scale it up.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-01-30 22:21:01)

Void · 2025-02-05 11:10:08

I have been busy here in the last few days: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 05#p229605
Quote:

I would like to suggest a two buckets synthetic gravity machine for orbit of Jupiter.
Easy to imagine. Two buckets connected by cables, spinning around a common pivot point.
Fill the buckets with water from a moon of Jupiter. This then allows for light to enter from the tops. The tops may be covered in a transparency which also will be pressed "Down" by centrifugal force.
A choice can be made water that supports living things, or water kept clear.
In the clear water situation, then you can put transparent diving bells into the bottoms of the water. And the centrifuging of the water will pressurize the situation.
And of course if you made a ring of buckets, you would have a toroidal habitat(s).
This may be well suited to the protected magnetic shell of Jupiter, as some locations in that shell are more merciful per radiation.
Ending Pending

So, I think that water buckets habitats could be very suitable to the process of expanding the human footprint in the solar system.

So, this may seem a little more visually understandable:

If we could find an easy source of water then we could put it literally into buckets that people could live in. Then the water could be transported to where it was wanted, such as a dry asteroid that you want to mine.

The roof of the device might be a window glaze of some kind and you may put as many weights on it as is needed to balance the internal pressure. For course it could have a dome shape rather than a roof peak.

A good hope would be to find large amounts of ice in the moons of Mars. However, I am not counting on that.
Instead, an early version would be to use Starship to lift Hydrogen and/or Methane and then extract Oxygen and Metals from the two moons to create water and structure.

An alternative would be to lift water itself from the surface of Mars to orbit to fill the buckets.

A next resort would be to process Carbonaceous Asteroids in the inner asteroid belt to get things like water. About 40% of the inner belt asteroids may be Carbonaceous Asteroids.

The next resort after that would be to reach large worlds in the asteroid belt like 10 Hygea or Ceres at about 3.0 AU out from the sun.

And then the next resort out might be the moons of Jupiter, Callisto in particular.

And then we get to Saturn and so on.

While conventional thinking says it would be too expensive to move these things to places like dry asteroids, Earth/Moon, and Venus, with robots and solar energy and an allowance of much time, that may not be true.

These could be houses people could live in, and if it takes 10 years or 100 years to move them that may not be a problem with robot labor and solar energy, and time.

So, a "Buckets" habitat may move to a dry asteroid which is terrestrial crossing and bulk up with materials from a dry asteroid, and then eventually take an orbit of Venus perhaps. At Venus then it could bulk up on Carbon and Nitrogen for instance and perhaps expand its space and habitat type.

Just another notion of possibility. If humanoid and other robots work out as expected, and solar energy can be tapped in space, then the economics we currently live under no longer apply. Hardware and energy become much less expensive.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-05 11:42:43)

Void · 2025-02-05 20:07:43

In the use of "Bucket" habitat sections, it seems you need balance, typically two at a time. But you could do multiple x2 to make a torus. Mirrors could direct light to the tops of the buckets, the mirrors being more towards the rotational center of the main structure.

Water is more viscous than air, so I reason that a leak would move slower. The ability to balance the situation and plug any leaks would be wanted of course. Obviously, you would not have simply a tin bucket but would have additional structure around it to handle issues like impactors and thermal exchanges.

I have shown a top of buckets that is a transparent roof that can be ballasted down. The temperature of the water in the bucket is important. Warmer temperatures are preferred, but in an emergency the water temperature, at least at the surface could be lowered, to reduce the pressure on the roof.

So, in an emergency it might be possible to cool the water to 1 degree C at least on the top, so a pressure of 6.5138 mbar.

The calculator: https://endmemo.com/chem/vaporpressurewater.php

For 20 degrees C the vapor pressure would be 23.2977 mbar. You could swim in this but not swim up to the surface of the water or you would likely die.

Frankly I would keep the air pressure above the column of water and under the transparent roof under 30 millibars. Just don't swim up there without a pressure suit.

If you want to swim in water where air is available, then just make a diving bell deep enough to allow for that.

Of course, corrosion is a concern, of course any wet surface on a metal is a concern in that case.

Ending Pending

I you wanted to you could insert Oxygen to the area above the water and under the roof, perhaps a pressure of 1/3 bar. Then you may survive a swim to the surface, if you did not get the bends.

The habitats near the bottom of the water column could have a pressure in them of 2/3rds of a mix of N2 and O2.

The habitats should be capable of a pressurization of 2/3 bar, even if the water leaks out, if you seal the hatches.

But if you pressurize the surface of the water with 1/3rds bar of O2 and then use water column to give another 1/3rd bar pressure, on Mars you would need about 33 feet of fresh water. Less if it is salt water.

In a centrifuge in orbit, the water depth needs to be more, depending on the nature of the centrifuge, as all parts of the water column may not have the same force applied to it by the spin.

If the water is heated, then to stop the centrifuge the transparent roof would have to hold the full pressure at the bottom of the water column. So if you need to stop the spin, then you might need to cool the water off first.

Anyway, there is some complexity. Obviously, the water jacket, helps a great deal with radiation and temperature fluctuations that may occur in space.

Last edited by Void (2025-02-05 20:30:19)

Calliban · 2025-02-06 05:10:03

Building a hab at the bottom of a pond. Compared to burying the hab under rock and dust, water has the advantage of allowing some natural light to enter the hab. On the other hand, the pond will need to be kept warm, clean and water level maintained. Soil provides insulation, water does not. The hab boundary also needs to withstand bouyancy related forces. The water will naturally protect a polymer dome from UV flux and micrometeors.

So there are pros and cons. One significant pro is that no specific airlock is needed. That avoids a very significant cost. As TH noted previously, dust decontamination is built in. Nuclear or solar thermal waste heat can be used to keep the pond warm. In fact, the pond can function as a waste heat radiator. So I think there is a good chance that this arrangement will be popular. But a prerequisite for doing this is the availability of abundant water. So there will be places on Mars where this would work from a resource viewpoint, others where it will be less practical. The Korelov crater would be an obvious place to try this.

Last edited by Calliban (2025-02-06 05:22:23)

Void · 2025-02-06 22:04:15

Thankyou for giving evaluations.

While the method may be suitable for Mars surface, I am most interested in using it to move water and other materials from a optimal source to the inner solar system. It could be adapted for large scale human habitation but I more think of it as having a small crew, with families that might put say a lifetime of work, maintaining the system as it would be moved inward in the solar system.

The best wish would be for large scale water ice inside Phobos or Deimos.
After that then the next move would be Hydrogen from Mars and Oxygen from Phobos or Deimos.
After than then you have to go into the asteroid belt for the water.
After that you might go to Callisto for water.

So, the thing would experience metamorphosis over it's travels perhaps.

It would be water-worlds at first.

Then at its next stop it would stop off at a terrestrial crossing asteroid which likely will be stony.

Let's consider Eros: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/433_Eros
Image Quote:

At that location although there is a bit of water from the solar wind available, the water bearing spacecraft would upgrade the value of Eros quite a bit I think. So, an expanding base would exist on Eros but also the water bearing spacecraft would be "Bulked Up". Collecting metals as propellants for an electric drive, and also some more standard land could be built, and some of the water put into those habitats.

Then it is to travel to Venus, where it can pick up a lot of Nitrogen and Carbon. Carbon will work in the Neumann Drive, and perhaps the Magdrive??? Anyway if then then want to move the device to another location over long stretches of time they could.

So this could be an action that is continual, making more and more habitat in the solar system.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-06 22:17:41)

Void · 2025-02-07 10:06:56

Isaac Arthur provided this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJveFUreHOk

It is nice to have a history of space habitat ideas.

The major thing I note that Isaac Arthur said is with mirrors and optics, it would be possible to have solar power for these all the way out to Pluto, and inside of the orbit of Mercury.

Ending Pending

Void · 2025-02-12 11:58:37

(th) has opened some topics about plasma, or electric propulsions:
Universal Method?
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 14#p229714
Water>Plasma:
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=11007

I will leave those alone, but they may have information which could be useful, over time. Particularly the water propulsion is of interest for things that I have recently been posting about.

In fact, I have been working on a water redistribution notion. That is, for instance the Moon may have value, but it may have greater value if it has more water. Similar may be true for some asteroids that are more accessible from the Earth/Moon.

That could later be expanded to the Asteroid Belt proper and Venus, I think.

And all of this could and should be reviewed over and over again, because of the likelihood of inventions, new priorities might emerge that would modify a "Loop".

We can be fairly certain that Callisto could supply lots of water and other things, but the outer asteroid belt might be easier to access first. And before that can we consider Mars/Phobos/Deimos as donor to Earh/Moon?

So, water loops, could go all the way out to the Kuiper Belt, and perhaps inside the orbit of Mercury. But that would be for the deep future, I think. Lesser ambitions would have Icy Asteroids<>Venus. Less ambitious than that would be Mars/Phobos/Deimos<>Earth/Moon.

It seems obvious that this loop is more attainable at current times: Mars/Phobos/Deimos<>Earth/Moon. But I would add in accessible asteroids which may cross the paths of these worlds.

Supposing we had machines to work with resembling the Starship, perhaps they can be put to creation of wealth in the Mars/Phobos/Deimos sub-system. And perhaps that could enhance the value of the Earh/Moon sub-system. And of course Earth/Moon will have enormous amounts of things to barter with to obtain those products.

I have established a position presuming that Phobos and Deimos do not have as much Hydrogen as is wanted for this process, so then Mars could be the donor of some to them. This could be modified, of course if it turns out that these moons do actually have a lot of Hydrogen.

I think that a Starship as we know it would be very overpowered for lifting things from the surface of Mars to orbit, provided it was not being tasked to fly back to Earth/Moon.

Among materials to lift to orbit could be Hydrogen, Methane, and Ammonia. Hydrogen is the most direct, but it is very troublesome. Methane is natural to Starship. In the scheme I am thinking of Starship would lift off from Mars with a totally filled Methane Tank, but only enough Oxygen for assent to orbit and perhaps an emergency landing. (Optional, the emergency landing, if the ship is a robot without humans on board).

In the case of Ammonia, then most likely it would be regular cargo in a tank.

It may be true that Phobos and/or Deimos would have significant Carbon in them. It has been suggested. If so then it would probably be better to tilt towards lifting Ammonia to orbit, because the two little moons are not likely to have Nitrogen.

For now, I think that Nitrogen in the Mars/Phobos/Deimos sub-system is going to be considered semi-precious, as there are limited amounts in the atmosphere of Mars.

The reason we will not lift lots of Oxygen to Mars orbit, is that Phobos and Deimos seem certain to have lots of it.

The materials Hydrogen and Carbon could be reacted with the silicates of Phobos and Deimos to extract Oxygen and to reduce the silicates. The resulting H20 and CO2 could be put into greenhouses for plants to pull them into plant matter and Oxygen. Then the plant matter could be reacted with silicates again, over and over, presumably with some losses, but with the ability to make up those losses with Methane and/or Ammonia from Mars.

Solar energy could be involved, where pyrolysis could be a part of process mentioned above.

As for how the manipulation of materials in orbit of Mars could be accomplished, I think it seems likely that robots would be the core of that process. The involvement of humans would likely be to live in "Bunkers" protected from the space environment, probably both on the surface and under the surface of Mars, and in orbital constructions.

I think I will rest this for a while.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-12 12:33:21)

Void · 2025-02-12 13:23:51

Building on the previous post, it seems obvious that electric drives are going to be important, if there is to be hope to export products from Mars/Phobos/Deimos to Earth/Moon.

For an electric drive, while nuclear can be very popular as it sort of associates with danger and masculinity and force, at least to some people, solar in Martian orbit should not be confused with solar on the surface of Mars. Solar in orbit of Mars is clockwork in nature as there is no weather concern, or prolonged seasonal absence of energy.

Typically, it is not considered desirable to use solar to drive missions to Mars, as the further you go from the sun the less well a solar powered device is likely to perform. A solar engine needs to have it's inertia changed along the way, but the further out it goes the less well if performs.

But, for two other uses that problem is not so important. If you construct mirrors from materials of Phobos and Deimos, and use the mirrors in orbit, you can have the same heat as you would at the Planet Mercury or even more heat. You would not be changing inertia as much as for a trip from Mars/Phobos/Deimos >>>Earth/Moon.

As for Mars/Phobos/Deimos >>>Earth/Moon, we have the problem of more energy available as you go on your way. It is a good problem to have as some might say.

If that is considered to be a problem, we can munch our mirrors on the way to Earth/Moon: https://gardeniaorganic.com/plants-with-holes-leaves/
Image Quote:
So, starting out at Mars/Phobos/Deimos, the mirrors could be "Unholy". But with cut-outs built into them little pieces could be removed to maintain a more constant power to a heat engine as moving closer to the sun.

As you moved close to the sun, the mirrors would become more "Holy".
A pig would just eject the mirror cut-outs, making collision hazards, but being more responsible, perhaps they could become propellant in some type of electric propulsion, or could be fashioned into something of value.

There may be several electric drives that could expel mirror mass along the way. Magdrive, Neumann Drive, and Mass Drivers could be among them.

We also have the emergence of water>plasma drives which expel valuable Hydrogen but also for the greater part waste Oxygen. (th) has recently been working with that idea: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=11007

So, while Mars/Phobos/Deimos might build and ship these devices inward to Earth/Moon or even Earth crossing asteroids, on Earth the mass production of specially tuned, Starship derivatives could be sent to Mars. These would be specifically made to lift things like Methane and Ammonia from the Martian surface to support the building of the devices previously mentioned. These "Starship" would be completely robotic. It may be possible to service them either in orbit or on the surface of Mars, but you would run them until they crashed or were unable to make a landing. After that they would become scrap materials to be recycled/repurposed.

So, I am hoping that that can be a economically viable "Loop" of commerce between Earth/Moon<>Mars/Phobos/Deimos.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-12 13:47:34)

Void · 2025-02-14 10:36:06

I have had something bouncing around in my head. "Very Low Orbit Atmospheric Mining of Outer Planets".

I am avoiding starting a new topic by introducing it here.

I think this would require that Helion be successful in multiple methods of fusion.

Pause......

https://www.helionenergy.com/

To be sure, if you have icy worlds, then there is not now a need to skim the atmospheres of worlds like Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn. But we might ask the question, "What Would Aliens Do?".

If they had expanded sufficiently, then they might want to draw on Gas Giants, Ice Giants, Mini-Neptunes, and Hycean planets, I think.

Helion, if it can be made to work, will be able to manufacture Tritium, which will decay into Helium3. So, if that is efficient enough then maybe you don't bother with a Dyson Sphere. Maybe you skim gas off of the planets I have already mentioned.

For the moment, I am thinking of large platforms that only skim the upper atmosphere during the low pass of an elliptical orbit. Perhaps not so much a circular low orbit.

Supposing they had sufficient propulsion, they could maintain that orbit, safely and also harvest Hydrogen, Helium, Deuterium, and Helium3.

It would be an almost infinite power supply, I think.

So this would be a bit of a ram-scoop, on the low pass into an upper atmosphere. One way to capture the Hydrogen/Deuterium, would be to burn it in Oxygen, and radiate off the heat. The Helium would need some type of compression.

This concept might work for some types of rogue planets, especially if they had a rocky moon or two.

Just though I would put it out there.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-14 10:48:45)

Void · 2025-03-05 08:58:46

Calliban made a post here: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 45#p230145 Quote:

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,932
Email
Brian Wang has posted an article on the scaled down (20% size) Starship version proposed by Robert Zubrin. Compared to Starship, this vehicle will require only a single orbital refuel before departure for Mars.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2025/03/z … rboat.html
Zubrin makes the point that attempting to explore the surface of Mars from a single base is impractical. Mars is too big and ground vehicles are too slow. But it occurs to me that there is nothing to prevent a Mars base from using rocket vehicles to explore any area of the planet. These can be far more compact than any expedition sent from Earth, because the base is never more than 10,000km away.

But I don't want to pollute that topic. I would like to be able to do a less professional response here.

My guess is that Elon Musk and SpaceX will want to have the Starlink capabilities and the HLS capabilities before they might deviate somewhat from their current plans.

I think that what is about to happen will be a hardware rich era, and what we are leaving is a hardware limited era.

Neutron and Nova are likely both to create engines for their first stages that are smaller than Raptor, and use Methane and Oxygen. This might allow SpaceX to move ahead faster, if they could collaborate with two or more companies to make a "Mini".

I like the idea of a Starship-Starboat pairing in deep space missions.

It looks as it does as it was easy to create the image. Even so, it should convey much of the idea. This is to some degree an Apollo type configuration.

My notion is that the Starship can to some degree protect the Starboat from radiation. Also if an impact event occurs, it seems somewhat likely to me that the damage would be mostly to one ship and not to both.

If this were used first for the Moon, then an HLS Starboat could be made first, not needing flaps or heat shield. This would cut the cost of creation, particularly if some other companies engines could be used.

There can be two basic logics for this and the Moon.
1) Starship is cargo, and lands on the Moon, and does not leave but is incorporated into base creation. Starboat can land and leave. Of course, they would disconnect from each other prior to landing.
2) Starship remains in orbit, and Starboat lands and lifts off back to Starship. This is sort of like Apollo.

Some lessons can be learned from Apollo 13: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13
Image Quote:

They were able to recover the crew, since they had two ships, and the mishap happened on the way to the Moon. By intention, a two-ship method might offer some similar protections.

We might also hope to use Andromeda as a Starboat:

https://www.stokespace.com/introducing-andromeda/
Quote:

Introducing Andromeda, our rapidly reusable high-performance upper-stage rocket engine
Updated design upgrades performance, simplicity, and rapid reusability.

Image Quote:

Andromeda then has Hydrogen and Oxygen propellants. I am not sure how compatible it would be with Mars use, but I think it would be OK to use on the Moon.

In its current size, I speculate that Andromeda could host a Dragon type capsule in its upper parts. And then that capsule might have even another propellant system.

So, depending on the hardware selected, you could have all 3 components land on Earth independently, or in the case of a very deep space return, only the Capsule landing on Earth. In such a method, the Starship and Andromeda would either be discarded or might be retrieved slowly using some type of electric propulsion to return it to Earth/Moon orbits.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-03-05 14:35:33)

Void · 2025-03-05 14:36:07

I guess a bit more about the prior post.

Quote:

We might also hope to use Andromeda as a Starboat:

I am hoping that the idea of facing the Starship engines to the sun, will not only block harsh radiation, but would also help to keep the Andromeda's Hydrogen tank cold.

But of course I am not an expert.

I also am hoping that in that situation the Starship might host a method of cooling the Andromeda's by active method. Of course, I am not so sure how that can be done.

But I do think that the Andromeda might be useful for the Moon, if large water ice reserves are discovered, not just to LEO.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-03-05 14:40:37)

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