Hi, I’m Priyanka Sunil- A final year MBA student from Amrita School Of Business majoring in Operations and Marketing. Welcome to my progressive learning space for Logistics and Supply Chain Management.
Beginning of An Out of this World Journey
You
want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great - and
that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing
in the future and thinking that the future will be better than in the past. And I
can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the
stars.”
-Elon
Musk
An “Out of this World” Proposition
“This day heralds a new age of space exploration. We're gonna go to the moon we're going to have a base on the moon we're going to have sent people to mars and make life multi-planetary. SpaceX has big ambitions and it plans to achieve them with starship”, Elon Musk said in his conference.
SpaceX Mars program is a development program initiated by Elon Musk and SpaceX in order to facilitate the eventual colonization of Mars. The program includes fully reusable launch vehicles, human-rated spacecraft, on-orbit propellant tankers,rapid turnaround launch, and landing mounts, and local production of rocket fuel on Mars via in situ resource utilization (ISRU). SpaceX's aspirational goal since 2017 has been to land the first humans on Mars by 2024
This mission will consist of 2 cargo ships and 2 crewed ships, carrying around 6 to 8 astronauts each. The astronauts could be staying on Mars anywhere between a few months or a couple of years while they continue to set up the propellant plant. One of the most important things the astronauts will have to do when they arrive is to set up a base. It’s unclear what the first Martian base will look like, although many have suggested that it should have a similar design to the International Space Station, with compact pressurized modules, allowing room for expansion. Others have suggested that the initial base on Mars should be built underground, to protect the astronauts from the intense radiation and extreme weather experienced on Mars. It’s possible that Elon Musk’s Boring Company could be used to dig tunnels and create underground habitats for astronauts to live on Mars.
How
will astronauts get their food?
The first astronauts on Mars will take a 2 year supply of vacuum-sealed packets of food, which are light and compact, just like the ones used on the ISS. The astronauts won’t be relying on Mars grown food, however, it’s likely that they will bring a greenhouse on their first mission to experiment with growing food and possibly supplementing their food with freshly grown produce.
Navigation
In order to navigate the
surface of Mars, the astronauts will also need a vehicle that can deal with the
roughest of terrains. NASA has been developing the “Space Exploration Vehicle”
for this exact purpose.
This is a pressurized vehicle that can support up to 4 astronauts for 72 hours. With multiple SEV’s
on the surface of Mars, it would allow astronauts to travel more than 125 miles
in any direction, a major leap forward from the maximum 6-mile range that the
lunar rover had on the moon.
Starship will fly us out
SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket (collectively referred to as Starship) represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crews and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Starship will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, with the ability to carry in excess of 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit.
Before making the long trip to another planet starship needs to refuel in earth's orbit. One starship will meet another one that could have launched from the moon for example powered by its own raptor engines and then once it reaches mars it could refuel again there for another trip None of SpaceX's ambitions would be possible if it were not for the one standout feature of a starship. It is a fully reusable rocket. Never has that existed before. You can imagine that if planes were not reusable, very few people would fly. Because all parts of the rocket will be reused the cost of each launch will drop significantly. For example, a NASA space shuttle flight was around 450 million. SpaceX has estimated a starship launch could be as little as 2 million at its factory at the southeastern tip of Texas. SpaceX plans to churn out one starship every 72 hours with a goal of having a fleet of about 1000 in service.
But how
will starship make money right now???
· It can be used to carry Starlink satellites into orbit as part of SpaceX's plan to provide internet coverage anywhere around the world and revenue from Starlink could eventually bring in 30 billion dollars a year
· Another use is providing earth-to-earth transport for example going from new york to shanghai in 39 minutes which will likely be expensive
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Mazawa will also help fund starship's development as SpaceX's first private passenger to fly around the moon in 2023
“Welcome back to planet earth- thanks for flying
SpaceX”
References
https://www.spacex.com/human-spaceflight/mars/
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/08/tech/spacex-mars-profit-scn/index.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/spacex-plans-how-elon-musk-see-life-on-mars.html
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