Elon Musk has always been very vocal about his dreams to build cities on Mars and with
his latest venture through SpaceX called Starship,
he might actually be getting much closer to his
goal than we think. Suit up everyone, the future of space travel
is coming. This is Tech Space and welcome to the “The
Technology Behind” series. In today’s video we will
be taking a closer look at the technology behind SpaceX New Rocket!
Elon Musk's ambitious space company SpaceX has had a pretty good run in 2020, launching
mission after mission and all of them pretty much successful and it looks like 2021 is
going to be no different.
The basic founding ethos that drives the company and the company’s CEO is to make cities
on Mars someday.
Well you can’t really expect to do that without spaceships to take us there now can
we? In order to be a spacefaring civilisation
and a species that can move from one planet into the
other it is important that we have the right vehicles to take us there.
This is the very thing that spacex has so focused its attention and resources on.
SpaceX has now developed a space vehicle that could quite possibly be a game changer for
space travel. The vehicle is called Starship and will be
a fully reusable transport system that is reported to be
able to carry a total of 100 people to the Red planet, Mars.
Let’s take closer look into The New rocket from SpaceX :
At its launch, the spacecraft was called Starship and it sits on top of the rocket that has
been named “Super Heavy ''.
Clever play on words right there ! DESIGN OF THE STARSHIP
The combined system of the two of these has been called Starship and it stands tall at
120m or 394 feet!
The vehicle is made stainless steel and it bears a close resemblance to rocket ships
from the golden ages of science fiction.
This doesn’t come as a shock because most of everything that Elon musk seems to come
out with whether it’s his Tesla Cybertruck or
the alien looking astronautical wear that he launched for
the Dragon mission, they all seem to be heavily inspired by sci-fi and old movies that had
their versions of what the future would look like.
It has massive nose cones and landing fins. At its rear, it has 6 highly efficient Raptor
engines. These report engines have painstakingly been
developed by SpaceX over the course of a decade.
Well, all good things take time and this surely stands true for the Starship.
When the combustion takes place, it takes place in stages and the design of the engine
is able to cut back on the amount of propellant that’s
wasted. The middle of the vehicle has propellant tanks.
These propellants feed liquid methane and liquid oxygen to the Raptors.
It is in fact the combination of the methane and oxygen which gives the chemical reaction
that will then cause the fuel to burn.
Meghan is known to generate plenty of thrust and the fact that this is being used for the
starship just shows that SpaceX knows their stuff really
well. It is not the most common choice of fuel for
rocket engine squally, but it works well here. It also is a very careful and strategic choice
when it comes to Musk's plans and designs that he
has for Mars. The CEO has said that the CH4 could possibly
become synthesis from Martian subsurface water as well as the atmospheric carbon dioxide
using the chemical process that is popularly known as the Sabatier reaction.
It is this process that they are relying on to fuel up the starship for the return trip
to earth. Using these Martian resources would allow
them to achieve a level of self sufficiency which
would make the journey to and from earth to Mars very self sufficient and cost effective.
At the front of the spacecraft or also known as the upper stage of the spacecraft, there
is a huge payload compartment that can be used
to haul large cargo and people to destinations deep into space.
Now that’s some very futuristic planning right there.
When it comes to the rocket part of the spacecraft, this is where things get very interesting.
Known as Super Heavy, it measures at around 230 feet long and can be filled with upto
3400 tonnes if cryogenic or chilled methanol, that
is the combination of methane and oxygen. The rocket is supposed to be lowered by 32
raptor engines and is believed to be able to achieve
more than 70 mega Newton’s of maximum thrust. The rocket is expected to be able to lift
up 100 tonnes of payload and quite possibly 150 tonnes
when it comes to low earth orbit. If it really will be able to do all of this,
then this would mean that Super Heavy is much more
powerful and immense than the Saturn V launcher that was used for the Apollo Missions all
the way back in the 60s and the 70s.
Trust Elon Musk to push boundaries and break records!
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videos from us! Let's continue to see how the
landing happens.
The engineers have craftily designed the spacecraft in such a way that when it is ready to land,
the ship will re-enter the atmosphere at a 60 degree angle and from there it is supposed
to belly flop on the ground in a horizontal position.
This may seem far fetched and comical but the engineers have made it so !
Long gone are the days when they would rely on parachutes and landing mechanisms for a
runway for the rockets. Honestly, that’s exactly what we would expect
something from spaceX to do. This mode however, will heavily rely on the
atmosphere itself so that it will be able to slow down
the descent of the vehicle. The vehicle has four landing flaps made of
steel positioned near the front as well as the end so
that the descent can be properly controlled. The concept is similar to skydiving when the
diver uses their arms and legs to kind of steady
themselves and control the fall. It’s basically like doing somewhat of a
controlled fall. WHAT WILL IT BE USED FOR?
Keeping true to his vision, Musk has stated that the spacecraft will be used for long
haul trips that will be made between earth and Mars and
should take upto 9 months each way! He is now looking to install about 40 cabins
in the payload area right near the front portion of the
upper stage for this very purpose. The founder has stated that they could have
around 5-6 people per cabin at the highest capacity.
It would prefer to see only 2-3 people doing so.
That’s why they have set the estimate to around 100 people per flight for the trip
to Mars. Along with the cabins the payload area is
also expected to have a common area, storage space,
a galley and also a shelter in the vent that people would need to take shelter during the
solar storms.
You thought storms only happen here on earth? Well, guess again.
SpaceX has even said that because the payload capacity is so much it could open up other
possibilities like robotic science missions, telescopes and more.
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM STARSHIP? Starship is expected to play a huge part in
the Artemis programme by NASA, which is seeking to establish long term human life and presence
on the moon. The company was even awarded a whopping 2.89
billion dollars worth of contract to develop the starship into something that was capable
of landing and delivering astronauts to the lunar
surface, during this very decade. The money was given by the US space agency
themselves and spacex will surely make good use of the money and any capital that they
can possibly get their hands on. If developed successfully this system could
actually be used for space tourism and high speed
journeys between the earth and various other destinations in space.
The starship could eventually be carrying people to destinations even like the Greater
Solar System and big gas giants like Jupiter, but
then again that would remain as the long term dream.
The fact that technology and spacecrafts kike the starship are already here, is exiting
and we have a lot to look forward to with the new
SpaceX rocket.
And with that being said, it’s time to end our video but before that, we want to know
from you what you think about the Starship and would
you want to travel in it ? Let us know in the comment section. Consider
liking the video and subscribing to the channel. Thanks for watching and see you next time.