Elon Musk’s Genius Solution on Starship refueling in orbit is unlike any others
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SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft won’t be able to make it all the way to the Moon, never mind Mars, all by itself.
To get into orbit and then continue its journey, each Mars- or Moon-bound Starship will have to meet up in orbit with its brethren in order to fuel up for the journey beyond Earth.
But how does it fuel each other? How many extra Starships will it take to get a single one to the Moon and Mars?
Let’s discuss everything about this in today’s episode of Alpha Tech:
The most important fundamental design goal of Starship is full and rapid reusability – propellant being the only thing intentionally ‘expended’ during launches. However, the overarching purpose of Starship is to support SpaceX’s founding goal of making humanity multiplanetary and building a self-sustaining city on Mars. For Starship to have even a chance of accomplishing that monumental feat, SpaceX will not only have to build the most easily and rapidly reusable rocket and spacecraft in history, but it will also have to master orbital refueling.
So, talking about the refuel equation first.
In the context of SpaceX’s goals of expanding humanity to Mars, a mastery of reusability and orbital refueling are mutually inclusive. Without both, neither alone will enable the creation of a sustainable city on Mars.
A Starship launch system that can be fully reused on a weekly or even daily basis but can’t be rapidly and easily refueled in space simply doesn’t have the performance needed to affordably build, supply, and populate a city on another planet.
A Starship launch system that can be easily refueled but is not rapidly and fully reusable could allow for some degree of interplanetary transport and the creation of a minimal human outpost on Mars, but it would probably be one or two magnitudes more difficult, risky, and expensive to operate and would require a huge fleet of ships and boosters from the start.
Elon Musk’s Genius Solution on Starship refueling in orbit is unlike any others
