Is humanity a step closer to Mars travel?
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Silicon Valley Insight” (ID: guigudiyixian ), by Susan Wu.
A human being is closer to Mars travel?
From “You can’t go to heaven” to “Ah? You want to go to heaven?”, “Silicon Valley Iron Man” Elon Musk is the whole earth (Tesla), oh No, the entire universe (SpaceX) has once again created a miracle.
Just on August 27th, US time, SpaceX’s “StarHopper” was ticked
StarHopper is the biggest jump in history, hanging about 150 meters off the ground
In the air, it hovered for dozens of seconds, and finally returned to the launching station safely and steadily under the guidance of its own navigation.
What is StarHopper? It is a prototype of a large passenger rocket built by SpaceX and is used to test the key technologies of the Starship and ultra-heavy spacecraft in the SpaceX program. The prototype also includes SpaceX’s new Raptor engine for future deep space rockets.
Looking at the excitement is not too big. Let’s first come and eat the message of the melons:
Ian Kluft: SpaceX let us see this scene is so amazing. ! The construction of the starship is a step closer, and the parameters of the flight envelope are also refreshed – higher flight altitude, low Earth orbit, moon, Mars.
Judy A. Jones: This wait is worth it! You see that this lift, move, drop, and landing are all controlled by the Raptor engine. The flying water tower completed two superb launches! Now follow the embarrassing big brother SpaceX on the moon and the Mars!
Austin Barnard: Starhopper did it! Congratulations to SpaceX and Musk, taking another step from Mars, I can’t wait to see the true meaning of the starship!
In short, is it both stimulating and smooth?
Although this is a small step in terms of distance, it is SpaceX’s new generation of Raptor methane engines that are not connected to ground equipment, and the largest free flight, once again ignited the world.
This is actually the fourth “trial jump” of StarHopper. It made two “short jumps” at the beginning of April this year. Because of security, it is tied to the cable.
The third jump, completed on July 25, was also the first “cordless jump” that rose to about 20 meters. Musk made a happy tweet, saying that the “water tower” can also go to heaven (the manufacturer of StarHopper is a local water tower company).
The fourth test jump should have been made on August 26, and the launch test was cancelled at the last minute. Musk then said that
The igniter needs to be checked.
On August 27th, the fourth test jump that I was looking forward to was finally successful. Although the original plan was to lift to a height of 200 meters, SpaceX adjusted the lift height to 150 meters at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). But even 150 meters, it also refreshed the record of StarHopper’s highest jump.
Mask said before that if the test is successful, he will hold a public speech in September to disclose the details of the Starship project.
Although Starhopper has not officially made its first flight, at this rhythm, it is possible to fulfill Musk’s promise:
In 2022, the super heavy arrow + starship first flew to Mars. In 2024, he first flew to Mars and rushed to Mars before returning to the moon.
Starship: Unlocking new poses for space travel
SpaceX has been flying on the road of new rockets and new spacecraft development. It can’t stop, it’s SpaceX, StarHopper, Starship…etc. .
To make it clearFor Starship, you have to sit and eat the products of SpaceX.
The story begins a few years ago. At the beginning, Musk’s plan was to build one of the most powerful launch vehicles, the FH Heavy Eagle rocket, but because of the new launch price of up to $150 million. The $90 million remediation price, and the structure is too complicated to be hidden after the only flight.
(FH Heavy Eagle Rocket, picture from Wikipedia)
Then, Musk plans to build a ship-to-ship system that goes to Mars, the ITS interstellar transportation system, which can theoretically travel to and from Jupiter, Saturn, and sub-orbital movements on the Earth’s surface (to create a 1-hour Earth circle). The total development budget is over $10 billion.
However, ITS was directly blocked internally because of its size.
(ITS Interstellar Transportation System imaginary map, picture from Wikipedia)
Later, Musk created a more reliable and smaller version of the ITS, the Big Falcon Rocket, a super interstellar transportation system that allows you to land on the moon and visit Mars. The most unique is the integrated and highly recyclable of the arrow ship, which is regarded by SpaceX as the ultimate idea. It has long been known to the global SpaceX diehard powder.
The most important thing is that this behemoth can supply enough people, food, water and other supplies to the surface of Mars.
Completely realize Musk’s dream: Colonial Mars.
(Great Falcon Rocket, picture from Wikipedia)
In 2017, Musk proposed to rely more onThe reduced version of the spectrum of BFR, but soon covered by the new design concept, announced the “all stainless steel version” of the Big Falcon rocket.
The design of the new Big Falcon Rocket consists of two parts:
The first part is named “Super Heavy”, used as a propeller to escape the Earth’s gravitational trap; the second part
Named “Starship”, a spaceship used for interplanetary navigation.
(New version of the Big Falcon Rocket, picture from SpaceX)
As we all know, SpaceX sold the first ticket for “send to heaven” last year. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and several artists will take Starship in 2023. Space travelling.
The StarHopper tested this time is the prototype version of Starship for pre-testing.
It is worth mentioning that the StarHopper is equipped with the SpaceX Next Flow Staged Combustion Cycle Engine.
The Raptor has three advantages over the current engine:
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The liquid oxygen/methane propellant combination has a high combined engine eruption efficiency;
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Engines with full-flow reburning staged combustion cycle have high performance and high reliability;
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Reusable designs don’t cost too much.
But the disadvantages are obvious, the pipeline is complicated, the production is not easy, and the cost is extremely high. But this is not a big deal for the $33.3 billion local spaceX.
Although the StarHopper only flew for a little while in the 150-meter air, this result was also replaced by countless failures.
Musk had a StarHopper hover test on the 16th of last month, the 50th anniversary of the US moon landing, but it exploded. During the ignition, the flame started to spray from the bottom of the engine and swallowed the entire StarHopper in a matter of seconds. Subsequently, SpaceX closed all roads and beaches around the launch site and also terminated the live broadcast of the test.
Musk, who wanted to get a good head, touched his nose.
Afterwards, Muskirk said that the cause of the fire was a fuel leak and did not cause any significant damage to Starhopper. However, it was still rumored on the Internet that StarHopper’s launch may be delayed indefinitely.
But Musk does not allow this to happen. He has never been a Buddhist.
After several hardships, the test on July 25 was finally completed. The Starhopper flew up about 20 meters and traversed about 20 meters before falling back to the ground.
This small step made the Raptor the first “full-flow staged combustion cycle” engine with a record in real time.
And this time, we have witnessed another miracle, the biggest jump of 150 meters.
Next, in 2020, the full-size Starship starship will be tested for the first time. Compared to StarHopper, only one raptor will be equipped. The actual spacecraft will be equipped with six, while the overweight rocket will be equipped with 35 raptors.
According to Jonathan Hofeller, vice president of commercial business at SpaceX, the first commercial mission can be implemented in 2021, and at least three different customers are interested in the first flight, all of which are communications company satellites.
Although it seems that there are still two and a half years, in fact, time is also very urgent.
Before being delivered to the commercial,
SpaceX must at least complete Starhopper and Raptor testing, Starship’s Super Heavy thruster off the Earth’s gravity trap test, Starship’s own manufacturing and flight test, and Starship and Super Heavy’s first flight after manufacturing and assembly.
During this period, every part of the test needs to be adjusted, improved, corrected, and counted.It’s enough SpaceX is busy.
The ambition of the ambition of the ambition VS the hard work of the cadres
As the coolest tech in the tech world, Musk’s commercial map is no longer limited to the Earth.
Maybe you know that SpaceX’s best-known project is that they are responsible for NASA’s mission to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. However, when it was founded in 2002, they had a very clear, ambitious and idealized ultimate goal, which was “colonial Mars”.
Muske’s 67th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Mexico City, with the Mars Immigration Program broadening the boundaries of people’s imagination of the world, people finally realized that Mars has become An alien terrane that is most likely to be developed in depth in the years to come.
The full set includes four items:
Recyclability, space orbit replenishment, propellant on Mars, and use of the right propellant.
First of all, of course, everyone can understand that SpaceX has been playing a lot in recycling rockets. The rocket is the only basic means of transportation to space, and the rocket launch cost can be reduced to solve the human immigration Mars. Traffic problems.
As far as the second point is concerned, after the rocket booster returns to the launch pad, it will be loaded again with a full-filled spacecraft, which will be merged with the previously launched spacecraft. This process will be repeated several times until the fuel is replenished. When done, this will make the fare drop by 500 times.
The third point is that if someone regrets returning to Earth.
Methane is the first choice for the right fuel. Mars has a lot of water (ice) and carbon dioxide (the main gas in the Martian atmosphere), and it is convenient and simple to produce a propellant composed of liquid oxygen and methane.
In the end, the cost of going to Mars may be about the same as the price of buying a small house, about $200,000.
Of course, there are still many unsolved questions in the key parts.
For example, how does the aircraft resist the ultra-low temperature of space? How to deal with the threat of cosmic radiation? and many more. Similarly, humans on Mars will not really depend on potatoes to survive?
According to Musk’s idea, the role of SpaceX is only to create a path for logging in to Mars. He hopes that entrepreneurs will be able to colonize Mars in the future.Building more infrastructure, including iron foundries, pizza shops, bars and more. He also speculated that “most likely, the form of government on Mars will be some kind of direct democracy,” residents will vote directly on certain issues.
However, like the previous style of Musk, even if there are still many things that have not been resolved, he still made a lot of Flags for himself:
The propeller was tested in 2019, Mars was officially launched in 2023, and humans were sent to Mars in the second half of the 2020s.
As with the previous autonomous driving technology, there are still many technical problems that are not completely resolved. However, last year, Musk put a Tesla into the SpaceX Falcon heavy rocket and flew to Mars. In Musk’s own words, there have been countless failures before, and he has used the “chewing glass to stare into the abyss”. Therefore, no one can assert that he is “daring to be first” or too ambitious.
Before returning to life, Hawking left us with the last gift that I could understand – “The Ultimate Q&A.”
For human exploration of space, Hawking said, “When the sails are exhausted, I see the human triumph.”
If Hawking left us with questions, then Musk might give us the answer.
Depending on SpaceX, “send to heaven” may be really a play. After all, Xiaoyan himself wants to look at space too!
What do you think of Star Trek and Colonial Mars? Welcome to leave a message.
Silicon Valley insight into the contributing author: Susan Wu
About the author: Susan is a member of the founding team of the world’s top three digital currency exchanges in the high-tech financial sector of Silicon Valley, focusing on the world’s cutting-edge technology and innovation, popular science columnists, three-body powder
Acknowledgment: Liu Bin, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Astrophysics at Cornell University, USA, also contributed to this article
This article refers to:
D’Agostino, As told to Ryan (22 January 2019). “Elon Musk: Why I’m Building the Starship out of Stainless Steel”. Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
GEbhardt, Chris (3 April 2019). “Starhopper conducts Raptor Static Fire test”. NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
SpaceX considering SSTO Starship launches from Pad 39A, Michael Baylor, NASASpaceFlight.com, 17 May 2019, accessed 18 May 2019.
Stephen Hawking (2018). “Brief Answers to Big Questions”.