Starship: To Mars or in the Service of Mars

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Roman god Mars. (worldhistory.org)

While Elon Musk has talked endlessly about going to Mars with his Starship, it seems the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) in the service of Mars, God of War, has other ideas for his rocket.

A recent Washington Post article, “Elon Musk’s Martian Dreams are a Boon to the U.S. military,” stated that DOD is looking to use the Starship for Earthbound battles, such as the quick deployment of soldiers and materiel into the Chinese theater. Sending rockets directly into the war zone with troops and supplies can turn a multi-week trip into a 90 minute trip. Another option is to keep key military supplies in Low-Earth Orbit so that they can be timely delivered when needed (in the way the DOD already pre-positions military equipment at sea and elsewhere).

The article states that the U.S. Air Force already has a five-year contract with SpaceX to make this rocket-based delivery possible. Space News reported on the $102 million contract award to SpaceX back in January 2022, which was to help “determine exactly what a rocket can achieve when used for cargo transport, what is the true capacity, speed, and cost of the integrated system.” A similar contract was awarded to Blue Origin in December 2021.

The Washington Post piece makes reference to a 2024 Army story, “Supporting Warfare in the Indo-Pacific Through Space-Based Sustainment,” which highlights these benefits:

The space domain remains completely underdeveloped regarding providing terrestrial materiel support and offers an ideal platform to sustain smaller units of action within the joint force, which would otherwise divert aircraft or naval vessels that could be used to support larger formations…Space-based logistics can facilitate the delivery of blood, weapons, 3D-printed parts, power, and food to the joint force and has the potential for delivery time to be measured in minutes, not hours or days. The impetus for this idea can be traced to the Cold War.

The Army story makes reference to a separate 2022 The Journal of the Joint Forces Staff College article, “The World in 90 Minutes or Less: Rocket Logistics and Future Military Operations,” that discusses the pros and cons of this rocket-based approach. The article also cites numerous companies in addition to SpaceX that should be considered for this new approach, including United Launch Alliance (ULA), Rocket Lab, Northrop Grumman, and Blue Origin.

In terms of advantages, the journal article notes:

The most significant difference between Rocket Logistics and conventional methods is the speed of delivery; rockets are expected to transport tons of material across the planet in under ninety minutes by using an orbital trajectory to reduce transit time. This presents a variety of logistical options to deliver valuable cargo within tactically relevant timelines, as opposed to hours or days (e.g. fourteen hours of flight time for a plane traveling from New York City to Nairobi, Kenya). The second advantage of Rocket Logistics is that movement above 100 kilometers in altitude is not governed by national airspace regulations. This means that the rocket would only need permission to access the nation’s airspace from which it departed and the nation in which it will land.

Of course, there are some limitations, including limited launch facilities, specific fuel needs, long turnaround time, and G-forces that may limit the types of cargo carried. For instance, the journal article notes:

While cargo aircraft are relatively sedentary in their acceleration profiles, a rocket can produce more G-forces than fighter aircraft. NASA and civilian space companies recognize this and limit flight parameters for the protection of cargo. Despite acceleration limitations, G-forces must be considered when planning the operational usage of rocket cargo.

There is a lot of money to be made in wars, and potentially more ongoing demand than a risky mission to Mars. Is this the future of SpaceX? Will it become further wrapped into the military-industrial complex (with its Starlink and other assets) at the expense of missions off planet?

The planned review of NASA and other federal agencies by the Trump administration may have an answer. But one thing you can be sure of, particularly with Musk in the middle of the review, is that SpaceX will be making plenty of money whether its goal is landing on the Red Planet or defeating Red China.

Space Quote: Questions about the Space Launch System

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): NASA’s Space Launch System on the tarmac. (NASA)

“To be clear, we are far from anything being settled, but based on what I’m hearing it seems at least 50-50 that Nasa’s Space Launch System rocket will be canceled.”

-Comment by US space journalist Eric Berger as quoted in an article from The Conversation titled “Trump May Cancel NASA’s Powerful SLS Moon Rocket—What That Would Mean for Elon Musk and the Future of Space Travel.” The bottom line in the story is that SpaceX is not ready to replace the main component of the Artemis program, meaning any attempt to scrap the rocket will most likely scrap U.S. attempts to get back to the Moon before the Chinese.

Martian Space Stories: Ocean Shoreline Located, Rings Turned to Moons, and Ancient Liquid Water

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Red Planet. (NASA/JPL)

Here are some recent stories on Mars.

—Earth.com: “China’s Mars Zhurong Rover Finds an Ocean Shoreline on the Red Planet“

The Chinese Mars rover Zhurong is adding an exciting twist to the story and history of water on Mars. After landing in southern Utopia Planitia on Mars in May 2021, the now-defunct Zhurong rover went to work exploring the Martian surface, and its latest findings might just change the way we think about the Red Planet. Bo Wu and a team of researchers from Hong Kong Polytechnic University believe they’ve found compelling evidence of an ocean shoreline for a massive body of water that once covered Mars’ northern lowlands.

—New York Times: “An Asteroid’s Destruction May Have Given Mars Rings, Then Moons“

Something’s not quite right about the moons of Mars. They are too small — Phobos is 17 miles across, and Deimos is a mere nine miles in length. And they aren’t round, but lumpy, misshaped objects. Frankly, they don’t resemble moons at all…A study published Wednesday in the journal Icarus makes a case that the moons did indeed start out in asteroid form. But it’s not the genesis everyone was expecting. Using supercomputer-powered simulations, scientists describe a situation in which a large-enough asteroid was captured by Mars long ago and torn to shreds by the planet’s gravity, briefly forming a debris cloud — and possibly a ring system — around Mars that ultimately clumped together to form two moons.

—Astrobiology News: “Meteorite Contains Evidence Of Liquid Water On Mars 742 Million Years Ago“

An asteroid struck Mars 11 million years ago and sent pieces of the red planet hurtling through space. One of these chunks of Mars eventually crashed into the Earth somewhere near Purdue and is one of the few meteorites that can be traced directly to Mars. This meteorite was rediscovered in a drawer at Purdue University in 1931 and therefore named the Lafayette Meteorite. During early investigations of the Lafayette Meteorite, scientists discovered that it had interacted with liquid water while on Mars. Scientists have long wondered when that interaction with liquid water took place. An international collaboration of scientists including two from Purdue University’s College of Science have recently determined the age of the minerals in the Lafayette Meteorite that formed when there was liquid water. The team has published its findings in Geochemical Perspective Letters.

Space Stories: Questions About Orion, NASA’s Impact on Economy, and a New Crew for the Chinese Space Station

Posted on by onespaceman2000

Image (Credit): Components of the Orion spacecraft. (NASA)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—ARSTechnica: “For Some Reason, NASA is Treating Orion’s Heat Shield Problems as a Secret“

For those who follow NASA’s human spaceflight program, when the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield cracked and chipped away during atmospheric reentry on the unpiloted Artemis I test flight in late 2022, what caused it became a burning question. Multiple NASA officials said Monday they now know the answer, but they’re not telling. Instead, agency officials want to wait until more reviews are done to determine what this means for Artemis II, the Orion spacecraft’s first crew mission around the Moon, officially scheduled for launch in September 2025.

—NASA: “New Report Shows NASA’s $75.6 Billion Boost to US Economy“

In its third agencywide economic impact report, NASA highlighted how its Moon to Mars activities, climate change research and technology development, and other projects generated more than $75.6 billion in economic output across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., in fiscal year 2023…Combined, NASA’s missions supported 304,803 jobs nationwide, and generated an estimated $9.5 billion in federal, state, and local taxes throughout the United States.

—ABC News: “China Launches New Crew to its Space Station as it Seeks to Expand Exploration“

China declared a “complete success” after it launched a new three-person crew to its orbiting space station early Wednesday as the country seeks to expand its exploration of outer space with missions to the moon and beyond. The Shenzhou-19 spaceship carrying the trio blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 4:27 a.m. local time atop a Long March-2F rocket, the backbone of China’s crewed space missions.

Pic of the Week: Spacewalk Outside the Chinese Space Station

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Image (Credit): Extravehicular activity on China’s Tiangong space station this past July. (CMSA)

This week’s image is from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA). It shows taikonaut Li Cong on a spacewalk outside China’s Tiangong station on July 3, 2024. 

The space station was first launched in April 2021 and has been permanently crewed since June 2022. The current crew, called Shenzhou 18, consists of Commander Ye Guangfu, Operator Li Cong, and System Operator Li Guangsu.