Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: SpaceX and the prospects of Mars colonization.
by
Spendulus
on 29/01/2019, 02:25:09 UTC
....
You are wrong. There is a spacecraft planned, its what goes on top of the bfr "Super Heavy"... Called "Starship":



In this CGI picture the launch vehicle "Super Heavy" is returning back to earth while the spacecraft "Starship" goes to an earth orbit to refuel with a similar shaped (but fuel only) vessel; to then carry on with its mission carrying people and cargo.

Here is the official site of their plans: https://www.spacex.com/mars
And here are more details of the spacecraft: http://spaceflight101.com/spx/its-spaceship/

Some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations tell me this will burn up on re entry 100% reliably.

I tried to post this but seem to have messed up a prior post.

Anyway the idea was to use stainless steel with water cooling the skin for the heat of re entry. But using numbers for the Space Shuttle, that would take the better part of 2000 kilotons of water.

Double that for a return from Mars or the Moon.