Elon Musk hints at cutting half the engines from Mars ship – Gears Of Biz

Elon Musks plan to send 100 people to Mars in a gargantuan reusable rocket that looked like something out of Star Wars always seemed like science fiction to many, but it appears theSpaceX founder himself is now realizing he was a little too ambitious.

Musk will soon reveal a revised plan for his Interplanetary Transport System, which was originally supposed to have a massive 12-meter diameter and host 42 Raptor engines and he has given the first clue to how he will do it.

After a fan representing the SpaceX Reddit board begged the founder on Twitter to throw a bone and give a hint as to how much smaller the rocket will be, Muskreplied,A 9-meter-diameter vehicle fits in our existing factories

If he scales back the diameter by three meters 25 percent of the original rockets size hell have to cut the number of engines in half, from 42 down to 21.

A vehicle like that would reportedlyhave 50 percent less mass and cost significantly less, possibly alleviating a major concern that fiscally, this rocket would not be possible to develop.

Musks original interplanetary transport system to take man to Mars in 80 days and build a sustainable human colony of a million people there.

The Interplanetary Transport System would use a giant shuttle capable of carrying 100 passenger to the Red Planet at a time, and Musk hopes to take a million people to set up a sustainable city there.

It would launch from Earth on a giant version of SpaceXs reusable rocket booster, unfurling solar sails to power its journey to the red planet.

The nine-meter rocket would not also save money by being smaller, but it could be built in SpaceXs existing facilities, also cutting costs.

Musk is expected to reveal his new plan for the Interplanetary Transport System during the 2017 International Astronautical Conference in Adelaide, Australia on September 29.

The Raptor engine is supposed to be three times stronger than the engines that power the famed SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Its still in development, so halving the number needed could be a big cost-saver.

The other key to making the Mars colonization fiscally possible is making the rocket reusable.

You could use any form of transport as an example of the difference between reusability and expendability in aircraft, he writes.

A car, bicycle, horse, if they were single-usealmost no one would use them; it would be too expensive.

However, with frequent flights, you can take an aircraft that costs $90 million (71m) and buy a ticket on Southwest right now from Los Angeles to Vegas for $43, including taxes.

If it were single use, it would cost $500,000 (392,000) per flight.

Right there, you can see an improvement of four orders of magnitude.

He added that key to building an all-powerful reusable rocket is establishing a way to produce fuel on Mars.

Producing propellant on Mars is obviously also very important.

Again, if we did not do this, it would have at least a half order of magnitude increase in the cost of a trip, he writes.

It would be pretty absurd to try to build a city on Mars if your spaceships just stayed on Mars and did not go back to Earth.

You would have a massive graveyard of ships; you have to do something with them.

The giant rockets will launch from Cape Canaveral, then release the capsule once in orbit, where it will park while waiting for a refuel for the trip to Mars.

It will then return to Earth to pick up a fuel tank for the shuttle, saving money on the launch and launch again to rendezvous with the shuttle again.

It will repeat this process 3-5 times to refill the fuel tanks and take cargo.

Once on Mars, the shuttle will make methane for its return journey.

On the way to Mars, solar panels will deploy to create energy for the shuttle, taking it to the red planet at a speed of just over 100,000km/h.

It will glide to the red planets surface, landing horizontally allowing for an easy relaunch once enough fuel has been made.

Musk has shared ideas for how to finance the mission, including a potential plan to use satellites to provide low-cost internet to rural customers and another business opportunity to do Earth observation for crops, climate, and natural disasters.

In June, he published a scientific paper in which he said the only way of attracting enough people to build a settlement on the red planet would be to cut the cost of a one-way ticket.

The entrepreneur aims to get the price down of the ticket down to the cost of an average house in the US or around $200,000 (157,000).

I want to make Mars seem possible make it seem as though it is something that we can do in our lifetime, Musk wrote in thefreely available paper published in New Space.

In the past, the usually optimistic Musk hassaidthe the maiden flight to colonize Mars stands a real good chance of failure.

He added that the first passengers will need to be brave and that going to Mars is not for the faint of heart.

If safety is your top goal, I wouldnt go to Mars, he said.

He also said he wouldnt be vying to be the first man on Mars.

The risk of death would be quite high, and Id like to watch my kids grow up.

He admitted he would take the trip one day.

Id definitely like to go to orbit, visit the space station and ultimately go to Mars, he said.

Id need to make sure if something goes wrong theres a succession plan in place investors taking over the company would be my biggest fear.

This is less about who goes there first.

The thing that really matters is making a self-sustaining civilization on Mars as fast as possible. This is different than Apollo.

This is really about minimizing existential risk and having a tremendous sense of adventure, he said.

NASAs spaceflight boss have admitted the space agency does not have the budget for manned mission to Mars.

During a meeting of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics on Wednesday, NASAs chief of human spaceflightWilliam H. Gerstenmaier revealed the agency was unable to put a date on missions due to the lack of funding.

The embarrassing admission comes days after Vice President Mike Pence vowed to usher in a new era of American leadership in space, with a return to the Moon and explorers on Mars.

I cant put a date on humans on Mars, and the reason really is that at the budget levels we described, this roughly 2 percent increase, we dont have the surface systems available for Mars, said NASAs William H. Gerstenmaier, responding to a question about when NASA will send humans to the surface of Mars.

The entry, descent and landing is a huge challenge for us for Mars, he said.

We think an unfuelled mars asset vehicle would weigh around 20 tons, thats a 20 fold increase on a rover.

Gerstenmaier also hinted the agency may instead look at returning to the moon instead, and spoke of fiscal realism.

If we find out theres water on the Moon, and we want to do more extensive operations on the Moon to go explore that, we have the ability with Deep Space Gateway to support an extensive Moon surface program, he said, according to ars.

If we want to stay focused more toward Mars we can keep that.

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Elon Musk hints at cutting half the engines from Mars ship - Gears Of Biz