Elon Musk Leaked SpaceX Artificial Gravity Starship 2022

This spacecraft will be the most advanced ever constructed, and its design will accommodate both people and cargo. The Starship is unique in numerous aspects. It can transport more than 100 tonnes to orbit, which is important considering the masses of supplies that will be transported ahead of the colonists.

There will be measures in place to ensure their survival. Remember that the environment on Mars is quite hostile. Therefore, specific arrangements should be made for human necessities. Musk must provide water, food, materials for building shelters, equipment for producing rocket fuel, and all labour.

As designed by SpaceX, at the point of separation, the starship has both an upper and lower stage. The bottom stage, or the Super Heavy rocket, will return to Earth, and the spacecraft will continue on to Mars after refuelling in orbit in order to reduce costs. The Starship's two stages are reusable.

The booster returns to the ground and is immediately inspected and readied for the next mission. The spaceship is propelled by around 30 Raptor engines. SpaceX designed and built the Raptor engines.

The upper stage reenters the Earth with heat-resistant tiles that prevent it from being harmed by the heat created. SpaceX plans to build about a thousand of these starships and launch three per day. This will expedite Elon Musk's goal of settling one million people on Mars.

Obviously, the starship is not limited to Mars travel. NASA intends to deploy the Starship on its future Moon trip. The spacecraft will transport astronauts to the moon's surface and return them to orbit once their missions are complete.

Advertisement

As a freighter, the Starship's design is straightforward. However, when the starship is designed to transport humans, issues arise for shorter journeys, like missions to the moon. SpaceX does not need to be concerned about this because it is self-sustaining for several days.

The voyage from Earth to Mars takes months and exposes passengers to deadly radiation in the starship's hostile environment. However, this particular issue can be resolved by repairing the starship's shields, but the gravity issue is somewhat more problematic.

This problem impacts astronauts who do not travel to Mars because they are required to adhere to strict workout regimens while aboard the International Space Station. This is not always sufficient, as astronauts returning from month-long trips must sometimes be stretched out of their spacecraft upon arrival.

If you have seen films about space travel, you will have seen a large spacecraft inhabited by actors. They reside in the car, where they fight and even fire at one another.

The majority of the time, however, the script is silent concerning gravity in the spacecraft when the survivors of the conflict arrive at their destinations, dismount, and walk away. Musk must therefore generate gravity on the starship to properly comprehend the magnitude of the microgravity problem SpaceX must tackle.

These are the impacts of microgravity on the human body, according to Nitza Cintron, chief of the Space Medicine and Healthcare Systems Office at NASA. Bone loss occurs at a monthly rate of 1 to 1.5 percent, accelerating age-related changes comparable to osteoporosis, and losses in bone density and strength are especially pronounced in certain skeletal locations, such as the pelvic.

Although a significant portion of the loss is manageable upon return to Earth. Additionally, prolonged exposure to zero gravity increases the risk of kidney stones and bone fractures. Long durations in space have an effect on the muscles. Particularly in the lower limbs, there is a decrease in muscular mass, strength, and endurance.

Astronauts are susceptible to tiredness and injury due to changes in muscle function, the impact of microgravity on connective tissues, and the demands of activities with varied intensities.

Astronauts use a cycler, a geometer, and a treadmill with downwardly-applied pressure to maintain fitness throughout extended missions, where exercising efficiently reduces major muscle atrophy.

The astronaut, Scott Kelly, confirmed these facts. After spending a year in space as part of NASA's twin study, he found it difficult to return to life on Earth, as described in his book Endurance.

Since Musk desires the Mars civilization to be self-sufficient, he will ensure that all travellers arrive there in optimal health. Consequently, they will all perish, and his plot will fail.

Although SpaceX is the first business to address the severe impact of microgravity on rocket development, it is not the first to seek to find a solution. The proposal of Konstantin Ziolkowski was one of the earliest examples of microgravity solutions.

In 1903, he was one of the founders of rocketry and astronautics. Investigation of Space Rocket Devices was the title of his study. In his book, he suggests that rotating forces can provide artificial gravity in space.

Subsequently, other variants of this concept have been proposed for space stations and habitats, including the Von Braun wheel, the O'Neill cylinder, and the Stanford Torus.

Some designs, such as NASA's Nautilus X Space Station, which would employ a revolving torus to produce artificial gravity, and the Gateway Foundation's plan for a commercial space station, are being examined for construction.

However, each of these approaches has flaws that prevent them from functioning with Elon Musk's Starship. Several of them have awkward forms that will make launching challenging. Others are too cumbersome to be useful. while certain processes will require considerable fuel.

The YouTube channel Smallstars has a fantastic design suggestion for SpaceX's flagship spacecraft. It employs a system of three interconnected starships. Each side of the system contains a payload starship and a passenger starship.

As the spokes of the wheel spin, the cargo bay is filled with a thrust that folds and deploys robotically. Each starship will be launched independently from Earth, but once connected to the passenger ships, it will reposition itself and fire its thrusters to give momentum to the wheel.

Once sufficient velocity was attained to imitate Earth's normal gravity, which is 9.8 metres per second squared or 1G, the passenger ships would rotate themselves to face the hub ship or the centre of the cargo starship for the duration of the journey.

The passengers aboard the passenger ships would feel as if they were being pulled down. Smallstars attribute the design entirely to the centripetal force caused by the wheel's spinning.

The gravity-linked starship design provides a spin gravity that repurposes the main engines, tabs excess fuel, and omits impractical spacewalks for space construction. The payload compartment of the GLS is filled with a truck that can fold out and lock into a location that serves as the wheel spokes. The GLS is essentially a hub ship, like the hub of a wheel instead of humans in cargo.

What velocity must SpaceX achieve for the starship to imitate Earth's gravity? Small stars determined using a spin calculator that the system had maintained a rotational velocity of 31 metres per second.

If the system's radius is close to 100 metres, this will result in the sensation of 1G, or three rotations every minute. In addition, small stars determined that this procedure would require the least amount of fuel to initiate and terminate the spinning and to prepare the starships for landing. Therefore, if the travellers rigorously adhere to the fitness regimens, they have a greater probability of landing safely and in excellent health on Mars.

Advertisement