what do you do while you build the most
powerful spacecraft on earth you
announce an even bigger and more
powerful spacecraft most people won't do
that but that is exactly what elon musk
is doing while building the starship
which no other rocket comes close to the
ceo has revealed the next version of the
starship which is simply a monster what
does the next generation starship look
like and why does spacex need such a
huge rocket join us as we dive into the
starship 2.0 just revealed by spacex
spacex is an ambitious company under the
control of elon musk it has been moving
from one huge milestone to another the
company currently operates the most
powerful rocket the falcon heavy while
still owning one of the most active
rockets in operation the falcon 9 spacex
regularly sends payloads to orbit for
private companies including itself and
government entities like the us military
spacex is also a close launch partner
for nasa ferrying cargo and personnel to
the international space station the
working relationship is even set to go
deeper with spacex featuring heavily in
nasa's missions to the moon and beyond
but owning the most powerful rocket
flying has not stopped musk from
dreaming even bigger spacex is currently
developing a rocket that will allow musk
to achieve his biggest dreams musk has
accomplished a lot already but his most
ambitious aim is to start a colony on
mars putting people permanently on the
planet
that is no mean feat as the plan calls
for about 1 million people to be
transported from the earth to mars but
you can't just take a million people and
dump them in the harsh environment of
mars you have to prepare the environment
ahead of their arrival this requires
tons and tons of cargo to provide
everything needed including life support
systems food tools and more currently no
spacecraft can take humans from the
earth to mars not to talk of the many
tons of cargo musk has to move but he
has taken the bull by the horns by
developing the spacecraft he needs the
starship while still in development many
people already see the potential of the
massive rocket nasa wants to use it to
land american astronauts on the moon the
pentagon will use it to move military
cargo worldwide in minutes astronomers
satellite companies and aspiring space
tourists are eyeing its potential to
slash the cost of getting to space
drastically musk calls it the holy grail
of space technology the starship stands
taller than the statue of liberty when
fully stacked together at nearly 400
feet it is also taller than saturn 5 the
rocket descent american astronauts to
the moon during nasa's apollo program
the starship is designed to be roughly
twice as powerful as the saturn v and
has a wider diameter than other orbital
spacecraft at 30 feet this will make it
possible to transport large amounts of
cargo or many people at once to get to
orbit starship sits atop a towering
rocket booster called super heavy
however as soon as the two pieces of the
spacecraft escape from the earth's
atmosphere the two parts separate near
the edge of space as starship continues
to orbit the super-heavy booster that
helps it off the ground returns for a
landing near its launch pad but the
booster will not land per se because a
massive tower equipped with mechanical
arms which musk calls chopsticks or grab
the descending rocket to land it softly
starship will also return to the earth's
atmosphere on its side shortly before
landing the starship will reignite its
engines to flip itself vertically for a
soft landing also to be caught by the
chopsticks even before the first orbital
test flight of the starship the
spacecraft has seen lots of upgrades for
example spacex has been developing the
rocket engine known as the raptor that
provides the thrust on the starship
spacex is now working on the version of
these engines which offers more thrust
is easier to produce and costs less to
make about the new raptor musk said a
complete design overhaul is necessary
for the engine that can actually make
life multi-planetary he also revealed
the new engine wouldn't be called raptor
spacex has also revealed it will
increase the number of raptor engines on
both the starship and the super heavy
booster this will increase the total
payload the spacecraft can lift from
about 100 tonnes to over 150 tons the
company uses a different approach to
rocket building that has allowed it to
proceed at a quick pace it tests out
whole prototypes instead of separate
components
sure many prototypes have ended up in
flames but the disasters have helped
spacex learn and make adjustments
quickly what is amazing about the
starship even before the new larger
version revealed by musk is the many
uses people outside of spacex have
dreamed up for it and are currently
spending money researching the us
military has its own concepts for spacex
rockets in january the air force gave
spacex 102 million dollars to study
using the spacecraft as a cargo ship
that could deploy resources to various
parts of the world in a matter of
minutes or point-to-point transportation
potentially starship would launch to
orbit and re-enter over a particular
region to deliver humanitarian supplies
or military cargo in a fraction of the
time needed by traditional military
aircraft the legality and logistics of
such a concept the only things remaining
to be worked out something else that was
mind-blowing even before musk revealed
the new starship is the cost
implications despite its power and size
the rocket system is cheaper than the
falcon 9 primarily because of its
reusable design musk has revealed that
the starship flights could cost as low
as 2 million dollars per launch compared
to each falcon 9 which costs roughly 62
million dollars so imagine what the new
bigger and more powerful starship 2.0
will be there is no other way around it
starship 2.0 is huge musk revealed it is
up to eight times larger than the
current version the ceo has said 2.0
will be 18 meters in diameter doubling
the nine meters of the version his
company is working on the original
design of the starship was 12 meters in
diameter before it was slimmed down
which means musk is not content with the
reduction and wants to go bigger one
thing about building rockets is that
they follow proportions for example
after doubling the diameter you have to
adjust the height so let's say spacex
doubles the current height currently 120
meters that means starship 2.0 is 240
meters tall that will yield a 9 times
volume increase but the new height is
the same as the popular woolworth
building in new york and three quarters
the height of the eiffel tower in paris
with this calculation starship 2.0 could
be lifting about 1 000 tons of payload
per launch if spacex had stuck to the
original dimensions of the starship it
would probably be able to lift 300 tons
per launch but this massive upgrade will
be more than triple that carrying
capacity of course starship 2.0 will
require more raptor engines we could be
looking at more than 100 engines per
launch this is why spacex is working on
making the raptor and its successor
cheaper and faster to build because it
would soon need lots of them musk plans
to bring the cost down to about two
hundred thousand dollars per raptor far
below the current cost of about two
million dollars the most powerful rocket
ever conceived was the sea dragon
designed by robert truax in the
it stood 150 meters tall and could lift
550 tons of payload at once but of
course it was never built that would not
be the case with starship 2.0 which is
even more powerful because musk has his
goal for the upgraded rocket this brings
us to why musk wants a more powerful
version of an already powerful rocket
it's simple he needs a more powerful
rocket to hasten up his mars plans and
solve some logistical challenges for
example the current starship can
transport about 100 people at once that
would take about 10 000 trips to meet
his 1 million colonizer target however
with the 2.0 he could be transporting
between 800 and 1000 people per trip
significantly cutting the number of
trips required also starship 2.0 will
allow musk to move cargos that cannot be
broken down setting up shelter on mars
will require heavy equipment like cranes
and bulldozers which are not easy to
pull apart and reassemble other
equipment that will produce the fuel
needed for return trips must be
transported from the earth as well at
least initially
let's hear what you think of musk's
starship 2.0 in the comments section
below