Elon Musk is confident of unmanned SpaceX Starships going to Mars in the 2026 launch window. The Starships will bring Teslabots and Cybertrucks to Mars as part of the payload.
SpaceX will need to bring systems to make methane fuel and liquid oxygen out of the Mars atmosphere.
It would be ideal to have the unmanned systems brought to Mars create the fuel and oxygen so that those resources will be waiting for the human astronauts sent in 2028.
It would also be good if the teslabots and cybertrucks could build landing pads for the future missions.
In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Strategy
Methane Production
Sabatier Reaction: SpaceX plans to produce methane on Mars using the Sabatier process, which involves reacting carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere with hydrogen extracted from water ice. This reaction produces methane and water.
Water Extraction: Water will be obtained by mining Martian ice, particularly from polar regions where water ice is abundant
Hydrogen Production: Water extracted from ice will be electrolyzed to produce hydrogen, which will then be used in the Sabatier reaction.
Liquid Oxygen Production
Electrolysis of Water: The electrolysis process not only produces hydrogen but also oxygen, which can be liquefied for use as rocket propellant.
Atmospheric CO2 Processing: SpaceX plans to capture carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere, which is composed of about 95% CO2, and use it in the Sabatier process to produce methane fuel
Infrastructure and Technology
Raptor Engines: SpaceX’s Raptor engines are designed to run on liquid methane and liquid oxygen, making them suitable for ISRU on Mars. These engines use a full-flow staged combustion cycle, which is efficient and reduces engine coking
Energy Sources: The energy required for these processes could be supplied by solar panels
The Mars Society- Marspedia describes Atmospheric processing. Atmospheric processing is the extraction of substances out of the Martian atmosphere and the usage as raw material for further processing.
CO2 chemical separation
This is usually a two step process of separation and regeneration. In the primary separation vessel, the Martian atmosphere is passed through a reactor where the CO2 is removed by contact with the amine/ionic solution, that binds it to itself with light chemical bonds. The CO2 rich amine/ion solution is pumped to the regeneration vessel, where heat and pressure changes are applied, to break the link with the CO2 and liberate it as a gas. The separated CO2 can be removed by a compressor, and stored. The regenerated amine or ionic solution is free to capture more CO2, and is pumped back to the separator vessel and the reactor area. The reactor can take many forms, but generally the basic principle is to increase the surface contact area to increase the mixing of the CO2 and the amine/ion solution.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Actually, I’d say the same about the proposed lunar mission for 2026…
OTOH, if the moon mission DOES happen, I guess there’s no reason an uncrewed Mars mission couldn’t also go. I’d guess the tanker launches for either mission would have to all fly within a single month to make the boil-off manageable, which provides the means to do a Mars mission, and leaves plenty of time to fuel a Mars mission within that launch window.
Boiloff in space is a different concept because radiative non sun facing surfaces are extremerly cold. Zero pressure does create boiloff, but the lower temperatures reduce the vapour pressure considerably.
Separate thought is that the space refueling tanker could be a lot larger and made up out of many tanks, storing way more than one starship load. The interplanetary fuel shuttle could also end up being larger than starship because speed is not necessarily important for the cargo transit.
Given the reduced cost of starship launches and the planned 25 per year over the next two years ahead of Mars that in theory puts at least 3,000t into orbit.
Fuel tanks for orbital refueling may well be more space constrained on launch rather than outright mass so the refueling station may end up a temporary transit point for the full Mars cargo. Each launch could be purposefully loaded up with the maximum mass with additional orbital fuel as the balance.
I wonder if any of the Optimus engineers have given serious consideration of making the robot operable on Mars. Overheating without air to cool it? Lubrication of surfaces moving in contact with each other? Effects of low air pressure and high daily temperature swings on electronic components? And of course, retraining for Mars gravity walking.
A better robot design for Mars would be a centaur – bottom half a wheeled or tracked rover, top-half a humanoid torso/head/arms-hands – with a lift-crane connecting them so the robot can be lifted to reach at least 10m up from the ground for construction and repair of structures without needing to climb up and down.
They need to put a plow on the front of the CyberTruck to move things out of the way and fill in low spots and level off high spots as it creates roads and landing zones, building spots and other things.
Very basic economics could be just the value of capturing a million ton high metal / rare earth asteroid. For processing the ideal location to do this may well be a location with a lower G for entry exit purposes. Cosmic rays and micro meteorite shielding has a massive overhead for orbital processing at this stage of technological development.
In terms of who goes, it will be robots and then a very selective group that are able to cope with the psycological demands being there would create. The typical billionaire would not cope at all with that type of environment nor the very distinct type of pressures you would face. If you would crack being in complete isolation for a month your off the list, which could be an easy selection process. All those wanting to be tested please enter this box and we will talk to you a month later…..
The refueling would not necessarily need a full load, however one of the launches will be to put in orbit around Mars the same refuleing type ship setup, which would reduce the onboard fuel load before landing on Mars. Particularly if Mars fule generation occurs the net balance of fule production and direction could reverse in time and fuel starts to come back to earth orbit for refueling purposes. Exit gravity of Mars vs Earth means getting fuel off the ground from Mars is a lot more efficient.
SpaceX doesn’t need to focus their senior staff on the HLS, they can just do like the SLS consortium and say to nasa that the project is having some delays and will take 5 more years to be done and will cost some billions more. Just that easy.
I’ve got to point out that at this time it’s not at all certain that humans can survive on Mars simply due to it’s low gravity. Humans in zero gravity basically seem to slowly die at the cellular level and there has not been any study done about low gravity conditions to say that they are not any less perilous. Therefore, we need to spend years on the Moon studying this before before we can say that Mars is even a possibility. If we don’t do this study any attempt to colonize Mars might be little more than a mass death sentence.
I agree this is an issue, but why would you study it on the Moon? A couple of Musk’s Starships suitably weighted and connected by a tether could be spun up to provide lunar gravity on one, and Martian gravity on the other. Thus allowing biological testing and testing long duration life support in LEO.
He should probably set up such a lab as soon as Starship is proven to work. Doing the test on the Moon would just add expense.
A very simple fairground type structure on Mars may be a lot more simpler to provide a short term higher G environment and avoids the problem of greater cosmic radiation.
Rotational LEO would require an interesting docking arrangement and not just a teather, unless you then intend to slow down for docking and then speed up again with zero energy recover in that process.
Jokingly, they just need about 10,00 robots to build a ring rail system around the planet and then just board a train that runs at something like 25,000kph in a vaccume tube and then live on the train ceiling…
Mars as our first Dyson Ring orbit? – the key gateway to orbital power, a sail ship fleet shipyard to percentage-of-c low-mass flights to interstellar spread…
Huh. Why even have a Mars surface presence in advance of such a solar system grand central station?
The joke was in it being a surface train loop, all aboard the gravity express…. Pickup enough speed and then periodically you could then just fire the train into orbit as a side benefit.
End of the day everything built still needs the source atoms and we are more decades away from capturing passing commets and mining them for Dyson rings / spheres.
If an hour a day in simulated Earth gravity is enough to make a difference, riding bicycles in a circular chamber would be far simpler (and less mass) to implement than a ‘fairground’ contraption.
And weighted uniforms worn continuously should counter much of muscle deterioration.
First cargo likely to contain (50-80t) :
TeslaBots – 10+ (including integrated charging pods)
Small initial battery solar module to charge TeslaBots for larger solar construction
Battery packs – 1MWh or more
Solar array(s) – would likely be 100kW or larger (circa 1MWh per day)
Methane generation modules
Rover(s) (cybertruck) stripped down for TeslaBot transport and crane
Fuel storage tanks (permanent ground mount tanks)
Boring machine (to avoid long term solar radiation degredation)
Laser 3d printer module for basalt powder print of tunnel wall segments
The initial step would be to put a comms network in place around the planet i.e starlink
This facilitates stable command and control of orbital and planetary resources
Add an entangled pair for comms back to Earth and you have a solid comms foundation
All robotic and static resources should have some semblance of rudimentary Ai and low latency access to a central Ai with machine learning / reasoning
Mars should be mapped into a virtual environment by one or more orbiters for coordination purposes enabling efficient progress by ground resources
Specialized robotic units would be required for maintenance, building, mining and replication. Having the ability for units to bring new units online is exponential, parts can be sent over in well packaged compact format
Power should be provided by space based power such as concentrated solar and/or microwave. Concentrated solar could be an option for hydrogen production
Modular reactors should also be part of the mix for baseload heat and power planet side
Whether you believe that the technocrats want an enclave and their very own breakaway civilization or not, at the end of the day this first real step to becoming multiplanetary is without doubt a very worthwhile endeavour
We stand on the shoulders of those who have enabled us to see beyond the horizon…
I agree that beaming power from space should be considered, though maybe more so as the base/colony expands, and develops the ability to locally produce the antennas (far simpler than making solar panels locally). Especially using relatively low (and fast moving) power sats that beam down power intermittantly to keep the receiving area on Mars to a feasible radius – at the cost of losing energy to extra passes through batteries.
But another solution to consider is concentrated solar with heat engines that can also run by burning methane and oxygen at night or during dust storms. Again, mainly because most of the components for that should be manufacturable on Mars fairly early in a colony’s technology-ladder.
Emotionally and politically conflicting.
Good to have something There, soon, but what then?
What is Elon’s true 2020s plan? — a token Mars ‘establishment’ of Tesla toys strewn about for future generations? An Elon retirement and expiry habitat — to be one of a handful of $B one-wayers living away from Humanity in a glorified Space1999 hospice? -or- a legitimate seed to a future branch of human civilization finding its own Path? These are very separate ideas that wil inform very separate Starship cargo manifests, for the first several missions/landings in 2026/2028/2031. A 10-person outpost leading to a 100-person multi-generational base leading to a 1000+ person-colony seed is a significant planning and mobilization enterprise not handled by some inside-pet/high-maintenance/heavy-charge teslabot -or- some wannabe buck-rogers hummer cyberTruck – completely out of their element. This is about energy, excavation/tunneling, and food/life-support autonmomy. I don’t know if Elon is being purposefully vague for intentions of evading criticism/oversight or whether the true scope is more overwhelming than even the sum of his fortune, companies’ prospects, and his unbelievably-fortuitous political situation that he chooses to be so coy. In any case, some kind of pre-civilization plan is the least of what he owes his Mars-fanatics and the public at large.
Without the capabilities of Starship, none of the scenarios can play out so SpaceX will implement the rockets and reusability first and make a lot of money out of Starlink and other payload. When the infrastructure is proven and the money flows, the rest will happen. Elons time plans may not play out…
There will be a lot of innovation from other directions when it is a proven fact that you can launch thousands of tons of hardware to anywhere without it costing a fortune and having to wait for decades. Space projects do not yet seem to account for Starship capabilities in their planning. It’s still tiny machines, doing things in the most clever way possible to save a small amount of mass. It takes a long time, costs a lot and limits the functionality.
Two or three things would be very useful to engineer before getting serious with Mars.
1. Spin gravity long haul shuttles for humans.
2. Heavy duty propulsion system with much better ISP than methalox.
Save the chemicals for launch and landing.
3. Launchable nuclear reactor for electric power. Goes in hand with #2 and is an enabler once landed on Mars.
Robots will play a huge role on Mars…well, everywhere (including Earth).
But the Cybertruck on Mars…? no
It’s not pressurized, I see no need to drive around an alien world, while still stuck in an uncomfortable suit. So unless they can slim them down a LOT, I’d rather have a pressurized vehicle.
Cybertruck can be used to transport the robots and for marketing purposes…and probably could be useful for human transportation, if we consider that the mars pressurized suits will be way more slimmer and dexterous.
It makes sense to send robots first and then after things are tested, prepared send humans.
I mean financially shouldn’t be a problem, they have enough money to send a few Starships, they will get some from scientific payloads and gov. The main issue is fuel transfer and refuelling.
There’s a fan video rendering showing a Starship landing and three astronauts going down the elevator to the surface, then one of them taking off the helmet to reveal a robot’s head.
Cybertruck, Optimus bots, Lunar spacesuits, fit the “the best part is no part” philosophy by minimizing special engineering. Traditional space especially NASA produced fantastically expensive bespoke technology for space exploration vs SciFi depictions which often described adhoc efforts trying whatever was available that seemed to work. Doing the minimum necessary mods to off the shelf technology gets back to the SciFi narrative.
Optimus bots ought to be able to do almost anything human crew could do – in spacesuits outside or standard life support inside.
Cybertruck with minimal mods should be able to operate on Mars. It would have the most advanced AI5 FSD and Optimus could drive it if needed.
Nothing would return better data testing equipment for crewed missions than trying the closest possible dress rehearsal with Optimus bots and CyberTrucks instead of humans. Nothing would create better HiDef video feeds to drive interest and involvement on earth.
The Landing site chosen for the first base needs to have water ice, decent sunshine and atmosphere as thick as possible anyway. Optimus bots would go about using these resources, deploy equipment and accumulate oxygen, methane and fresh water.
Yes – all Musk endeavours have a common theme in the fact that they are compatible with the Mars project (solar energy, electric cars, rockets, methane propulsion, satellites, communication, tunnel boring, hyperloop, Neuralink, AI, flame throwers etc.).
Elon has been planning this for a long time.
Programming the bots, if they send a bunch of them and a charger, would be an interesting challenge, conceptually, but in practice rather dull and daunting.
Even if they are autonomous for linear movements and some other things, they still need to be painstakingly micro-managed for accomplishing anything the first time.
They might learn some things as skills, but every operation and task would need to be created first by humans doing them & telling the bot exactly what to do.
And of course, while ensuring the bots are safe and operational, including periodic walks to the recharging station.
The cybertruck would be a bad choice: It’s not really designed for off roading.
I’ve no doubt a very extensively modified one could work. But by then it would hardly look like a cybertruck.
Yep, Mars rovers are like they are for a reason.
I think they would do it for publicity mostly, and for that a mostly intact Cybertruck would do better, even if it only can be put in the dirt and advance a few meters.
The prestige of having the first regular brand car on the Martian surface is enough.
2026 for manned missions to Mars? No way. And the fuel production for Starship would need massive scaling of the ISRU process AND for everything to go right at a massively accelerated rate.
I stick by my prediction that atomic rockets will be the first vehicles to actually land astronauts on Mars, sometime in the early 2030s.
No, 2028 – the next synod, if the uncrewed robotic first mission succeeds.
unmanned
Energy is going to be a problem. They will need a nuclear reactor to get started.
Beamed solar would make sense for Mars but the technology is not there yet.
Not sure how useful but it surely would be a masterful publicity stunt.
If they do something, though, things can get more interesting.
But my expectations for them are rather on the theatrics: get the Tesla down the crane, drive a bit on Mars, take pictures and bot selfies from the outside. That memetic goodness alone makes it worth it.