The Part I article looked at current space payload and how only 2 to 4 Starships was all that was needed to meet the total mass into orbit in 2024 (not counting Starlink). It discussed the scale of future Starship production, highlighting the large amount of payload space coming online soon.
This article looks at how much payload will be needed to meet the requirements of the Moon and Mars missions.
Lunar Missions
Regular Moon trips would require a steady stream of cargo, including scientific instruments, construction materials for lunar bases, and resupply missions for astronauts.
While NASA's Artemis program is aiming for a sustained lunar presence, the current schedule would only deliver around 40 tons per year to the Moon.
However, a continuous SpaceX Starship Lunar mission profile involving only 6 Starships, with 2 for revolving cargo delivery, would still deliver around 400 tons per month of payload.
This is a lot compared to today's deliveries.
To put this into perspective, all mass to the Moon since the year 2000 only amounts to approximately 24 metric tons.
One SpaceX Starship, with only one landing, can deliver between 4 and 8 times that amount of mass to the Moon. Therefore, if one is landing every month, a lot more of the payload will be needed.
Mars Missions
SpaceX's vision involves sending thousands of Starships to Mars, with plans to launch about 1,000 every two years during favorable Earth-Mars transfer windows (assuming 1,000 Starships, half cargo, half people). Not just cargo but also human settlers and the infrastructure needed for a self-sustaining colony.
This means at least 500 Starships x 100 tons of payload is 50,000 tons of cargo loaded on the ships before they launch. Even if one launch per day during the prep time, there would still need to be 100 tons of space payload ready every week.
More payload to LEO in one month than in 2024 in total, every month!
Around 3,000 semi-trailers would be needed just to ship that amount of payload for the Mars missions alone.
Next . . .
Part 3 of this series will start to look what such mission readiness might look like.
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