The SpaceX starship and the Saturn V are both groundbreaking rockets.
One of them is about to make history by sending the first people to Mars.
Starship is an amazing piece of technology, but what's inside?
How is this 390 feet tall rocket going to get people to land on Mars and return them
safely?
Let's find out in this video.
Elon Musk wants the Starship to be a fully reusable rocket that can take off and land
by itself.
He also wants to lower the overall cost of a launch.
Elon Musk himself wanted Starship to have a shiny exterior and a very pointed cone,
which make it a very unique and dynamic design.
Elon Musk saw the movie "The Dictator," where the main character told his engineers to make
his rocket point more toward the nose so that his enemies would be afraid of him.
What can Starship hold for the 100 to 200 passengers SpaceX will inevitably transport
on board?
That is what we are here to discover.
According to the official user handbook, starship Interiors are required to sustain life onboard.
From the starship manual, the Starship crew layout includes private cabins, vast shared
areas, centralized storage, solar storm shelters, and a viewing gallery.
There's a lot of useful information in just that tiny part.
Most notably, SpaceX will have a dedicated Starship crew arrangement.
That indicates that things could get a lot crazier than expected.
Consider storing 100 people aboard a spaceship where everything is designed for humans versus
half the capacity being filled with commercial items.
We're talking about a cargo volume of 1100 cubic meters.
It may have appeared crazy at first to claim that Starship might transport between 100
and 200 people into space.
It's much easier to see how straightforward this may be.
Of course, this includes SpaceX's laundry list of various room and configuration adjustments.
Starting with private cabins, they appeared to be a no-go.
At first, for a spacecraft like a Starship, especially since the closest we've ever been
is SpaceX's Dragon two capsule.
Even so, Dragon two only has 9.3 cubic meters of pressurized volume or 0.85% of a starship's
total capacity.
So, even with the overall capacity of a Dragon two capsule at 9.3 cubic meters, Starship
would need only 465 to 700 cubic meters of its cargo volume if it had 50 to 75 private
cabins with two to three people in each, for a total of 100 to 225 people.
That's 42 to 64% of a starship's pressurized payload volume, leaving 36 to 58% for open
spaces, additional shelters, restrooms, storage, life support, and other amenities.
A lot must be considered when discussing cabin space, and these are absolutely included.
Bathrooms are definitely required.
If you stay in space for several weeks, you'll use the restroom before you land on earth.
So we need to find out if there are public bathrooms and halls or private room bathrooms.
However, we know they would all have to be interconnected and flow to waste management
and water reclamation facilities, where water could be filtered and reused, and trash could
be disposed of.
Again, Musk would need to include enough food in Starship storage.
And would this take the shape of a central food bank or restaurant, or would everyone
on Starship be given rations?
With the amount of empty space left by private cabins, it could go either way.
In that vein, consider how general life support might work or even fit in a Starship.
After all, you can only devote part of the pressurized volume of the ship to living quarters.
Fortunately, SpaceX has been looking at this issue for quite some time.
So, many people disregard life support until they need something basic, SpaceX is already
on it.
In reality, the company tried to hire Starship Medical Engineers months ago, as evidenced
by a June 4th Twitter post by user Toby Lee.
In this tweet, photographs of two job advertisements, a Starship medical engineer and a radiation
effects engineer for the previous SpaceX, were posted.
The former SpaceX started developing operations, medical systems, protocols, and technologies
aboard Starship.
The company advertised the radiation effects engineer role as involving investigating,
designing, and testing many technologies meant to prevent fluctuating radiation levels.
SpaceX has proposed collaborating with other development teams to integrate security and
other features.
While neither of these posts expressly mentions the interior of a starship, they are both
extremely illuminating.
The most important takeaway is that SpaceX is currently invested in developing the greatest
life support systems aboard.
The most effective application of pressurized space is starship Life support, omitting rooms
such as air regulation, water, oxygen supply, waste disposal, temperature control, pressure
regulation, and even food supplies and rations.
There's much to what's commonly thought to be locked to breathing.
Of course, life support is far more complicated, with hundreds, if not thousands, of distinct
components and small items working together to keep the entire crew alive.
It will also consume a huge amount of electricity, limiting even more of the usable area aboard
Starship to the essentials.
After all, in addition to human demands, Starship will provide a completely pressurized volume,
advanced waste disposal, water purification, and much more.
All these, will almost certainly constitute an important use of the vehicle's entire volume.
However, while most spacecraft rely on refillable oxygen tanks that are pressurized to contain
high amounts of breathing air, there is a rising justification for using onboard oxygen
generation.
There will be a lot of air which will be expended aboard Starship because hundreds of people
will live in open spaces for weeks, if not months at a time.
Again, one average person uses 660 liters of oxygen every day, implying that SpaceX
would require a tremendous amount of onboard oxygen or a gigantic generator.
Fortunately, the technology behind oxygen generation is relatively tiny and easily accessible.
The space Station has been manufacturing oxygen for years through a process known as electrolysis,
which separates water into hydrogen and oxygen.
This method would assist Starship with a few other support chores, like reclamation, garbage
disposal, and fuel management.
In addition, astronauts can produce water and methane by mixing newly obtained hydrogen
with carbon dioxide emitted by each crewmate.
Obviously, this water can be filtered and used for human consumption, with the methane
potentially contributing to the supply of methyl locks on star ships.
Of course, this procedure is not without flaws.
Because there is still a very substantial difference between demand and generation,
SpaceX would still need to dedicate some of its onboard volume to oxygen, water, and other
similar containers.
However, that would most likely be kept in the Starship's centralized storage or in a
specific area restricted to the general crew.
The consolidated storage might be used for personal items, extra oxygen supplies, water
sources, and basically whatever SpaceX wants on board.
It would also serve as a gathering place for the onboard crew members, with various common
places to pick from.
These communal areas are most likely designed like cruise ship, which usually has many neighborhoods.
While this is not a common parallel, it does make logic.
Cruise ships are also massive, with identical life support systems, limited space, and much
more.
Private cabins, huge shared areas, potential shelters, and public viewing galleries would
be included.
The Starship will most likely contain big chambers connecting to smaller neighborhoods.
A few levels would be dedicated to electrolysis, oxygen, and water supplies in communal areas
like cruise liners.
It's amazing that there are so many parallels between a starship and a cruise ship, even
though they share the word ship.
They are both excellent illustrations of what humans can do when they have limited space
and unlimited wants.
Fortunately, Starship has more than enough space for what it requires.
Check private cabins, common rooms, centralized storage, and so on.
What about solar storm shelters and observation decks?
A board Starship will most likely be an easy fit as well.
After all, a future deck or level of Starship chambers could serve as a large shelter and
another as a viewing gallery.
The same notion would apply to almost everything else that was included.
If Starship can achieve this level of modularity or compartmentation, SpaceX can switch out
and replace whatever they choose.
Private cabin levels might be reconfigured, and features such as a zero-gravity Sports
court could be added.
It is possible to include a theatrical floor.
It makes no difference.
The possibilities are limitless.
Regardless, we'll need to see some form of proof of concept first.
Then SpaceX would have to pull out all the stops in design and engineering to do all
this while keeping everyone on board alive.
What are your thoughts?
Will SpaceX use the modular approach or pack the payload space with rooms?
Do you believe they'll eventually figure out how to make a trip into be filled with entertainment
while onboard, or you think the starship will not have enough space?
All this could be Sooner Than YOU Think, Did you know Elon Musk Officially has Announced
The SpaceX 1st Orbital Starship Launch?
Click on the video to know more.