Mars Direct 3.0 - Miguel Gurrea - 23rd Annual International Mars Society Convention

um so this is smash direct 3.0 um my name is miguel gurreau i am from the master society spain i'm a collaborator there um and i'm going to present mass direct 3.0 which is based on work by spacex and dr robert supreme uh first of all i have to thank gustavo igon and juan rodriguez for having developed the animation especially for this presentation you will see that they are very very good so thank you very much to them so what is mass direct 3.0 well it's a proposal for a general architecture for the first mos mission using spacex technology it's designed to be safe flexible and resilient these three things are different different ways to say the same thing which is that let's be real if the astronauts die in the first mission it'd be a terrible loss and also it would be very hard to get support for future mass missions so it's extremely important that the astronauts return safe and it also has to be affordable so that the trip actually does happen um so how did this start um this all started back in 1990 when robert truman presented mass direct 1.0 it unfortunately didn't happen and then in 2016 spacex presented their plan um which introduced the ship that is now known as starship um and it didn't focus too much on the details on what to do once on mars uh but it did give a very good overview on uh on the ship they're planning on using um so then in 2019 uh dr supreme presented mass direct 2.0 which was mostly a revision of spacex's plan rather than his original plan so master direct 3.0 gets ideas from these three plans and also adds some original ideas so let's start with uh spacex's plan as uh all of you may know they use a starship to launch people from the earth uh get them to land on mars refuel on mars getting uh water ice from the ground and co2 from the atmosphere refilling the ship um coming back to earth in the same starship um so what are the uh the advantages of this plan well it's a huge ship so you can take a lot of cargo and also a cargo that is big in volume so that's something very good to say about the starship but it also comes with some disadvantages the main one is that it requires a lot of power uh to refuel uh so it's 342 kilowatts according to dr schubert's calculations and i have i have also read um estimates that it's around eight cargo starships worth of solar panels to install so that's something to consider and it also requires ice mining and processing to get people back so if i know it's 19th century industrial technology but there's many things that could go wrong they could not find the water it could be contaminated some of the machinery could could malfunction so that's a big risk factor so what is mass direct 2.0 i'm going to get the translucent injection version so it's basically the same thing as spacex's plan except for the fact that there's a new vehicle that's a mini starship that separates from starship in translunar injection and then that's the ship that completes the trip to and back from moss and that's where the crew is so here we have an as a good animation some bits are stolen from spacex videos but now we'll start to see some original animations um so this is basically what um master right 2.0 would look like um and small spoiler this will also happen in my direct 3.0 but then this this is the ship that then proceeds to go to mars so what are the advantages of this plan well it's a cheaper vehicle that's sent to mass for three years and not being uh able to be reused but the most important advantage is that it requires less power and fuel to come back however it also comes with some disadvantages which is less mass and size for cargo it still requires size mining and processing to get people back and then there's the cost and time of developing another vehicle so even though it requires less power you can also take less solar panels launching from tli means you can take more solar panels spare amount of um power that you need but yeah it's still a problem um so now let's start with master direct 3.0 and we'll start with uh best of both worlds and making the mini starship simpler and cheaper so best of both worlds why not use both so spacex has already said that they are planning on leaving the first starships on the surface so why not use the bigger starship for cargo and then the smaller starship for crew that way you can have more volume and mass of equipment and you need to refuel you need less power and less fuel to refuel the mini starship um so that yeah that's the first thing that this architecture introduces we will use both ships um here we can see a comparison because this mini starship will be a bit different from the one that um mr supreme originally proposed and it has two key differences so the first one is that um i'll get into this a bit later but mr dr shubin's uh mini starship would get back to the earth's atmosphere it will enter from it from interplanetary space which is a very very hot reentry and so it would need a very thick heat shield uh it's going to land on on earth so it will need an atmospheric uh raptor engine and the ministation version 2 uh which is the one uh that's going to be used for mass direct 3.0 if all goes well let's be optimistic um this ship would not re-enter the earth's atmosphere and it can use a thinner heat shield that that just uh meant to enter moss um you could only need one rather vacuum engine which is good enough for landing on masses thin atmosphere so here we have a reduction in cost and in development so that may be good to convince uh musk to take this approach so i said um i said that uh the ship didn't need to re-enter the earth's atmosphere so how is that possible well instead of re-entering the earth's atmosphere it could have some excess fuel or do an orbital maneuvering around the moon or air breaking um but the ship needs to get into earth orbit even if it's a very eccentric orbit and then once it's in orbit you'll see you can see now i mean it starts lifting off from mars then a starship that's waiting for it in orbit that this ship that's designed to actually have the ministership inside of it is waiting there and grabs it it stores it in its cargo bay and then uh the the big starship with the ministership inside of it lands on earth so that way it uses its own heat shield and you do not need to take uh a big heat shield to mars and back and you also have a more tested and more reliable ship that's landing people on the ground so that's how you avoid the interplanetary entry of the mini starship so what vehicles and technologies are needed for mass direct 3.0 first you have the starship cargo for orbit and surface then you have on-orbit refueling for getting to translunar injection and then you have to develop the mini starship so let's compare the spacex's plan to mass direct 3.0 spacex has elon has said that they're planning on launching two cargo starships on the first launch window and then in the in the next launch window they're planning on launching another two cargo uh ships and two cruise ships so to show this this is not something uh extremely unaffordable um this is going to uh be one big starship and one small starship uh in each launch window it could be more but in principle these four ships would be enough um please pay attention to the names i have named each of these ships uh with the name of spanish vessels uh i'm here a bit representing spain so uh what better names uh for the ships getting to the new world so let's see the first launch window which would be starship victoria which is uh the first ship to travel around the earth so here we see a simple animation of this cargo starship which would be the first land on mars so yes yes i told you before its name after the now ship victoria the first to circle the world so this ship is the main isiu element it's a fuel facility so it's not that it contains all the elements that will have to be deployed on the ground no it's all integrated so the eyes we have to get inside it's all inside of it so this is the main icu element it will contain a co2 collector an electrolyzer a water electrolyzer a salvation machine a hydrogen tank and a solar panel rover it's it's important to focus on this hydrogen tank this is a concept being rescued from uh mass direct 1.0 because i think it's the best idea in that system um for safety which is you launch the hydrogen needed to produce uh the field just with uh martian co2 no need to refuel with uh water ice this would be for safety on the first missions and this hydrogen tank launched in a starship would have enough um enough hydrogen to produce the fuel for the return trip of two mini starships so uh here we have the second ship that we will be launched in the first launch window which would be the mini starship pinter this would be uncrewed ship and it would demonstrate the ability of uh of the mini starship to land on mars uh it's named after one of columbus's scarable ships the first to actually return to spain it just contains a co2 collector and electrolysis equalizer and suppliers and supplies for um for the return trip because this may be the vessel they used to come back so after the two ships are landing landed the solar panel rover starts deploying solar panels around starship victoria and then slash victoria will have to use that power to produce a fuel from the martian co2 uh and the hydrogen that it has stored using the savateer reaction so before the astronauts launch they will already have enough fuel there for hopefully more than enough for the return trip so uh yes it's the second starship this is the second launch window so this would be two years later it's also named after one of columbus scarable ships the nina this would actually be the first mission and it's important to know that it would take the six-month three-return trajectory not just for safety but also for all the reasons that we'll see later so this contains a co2 collector and electrolyzer to produce oxygen for the astronauts a field transfer rover that's going to be important and six to eight astronauts so this would land some distance away from uh the other ships not to damage solar panels or any other equipment and then after that i will get later into the second ship that's launching this launch window but once the ship is landed phase one would start which would be planting the flag doing basic science um transporting fuel and doing the initial exploration so as you can see here um this ship deploys uh this rover the uh fuel transport rover uh which they will use to transport fuel from sashi victoria which has already uh more than enough fuel for the return trip in its tanks so it's taken from the big starship to the small starship the first to arrive which is pinta so the other that was launching in the second launch window uh is starship santa maria which is also named after one of columbus's ships and this one was actually scrapped in america to be turned into the first settlement this one takes the seven and a half month trip which means it will arrive one and a half months after the astronauts have landed we'll see later why that's important this contains the first basic habitat ice mining equipment and a pressurized rover and maybe more solar panels so here we can see the ship landing safe distance away from the others and this would be uh the last ship to arrive maybe it could be more ships but this is just meant to represent uh the plan should be enough with one um so then once the ship has landed phase two would start which would be exploration ice mining and base deployment so the um the pressurized rover will deploy which they could use to explore long distance locations then they can start mining for ice because yes they will do that it's just that they do not depend on that on that for their survival hopefully they'll start producing fuel there and they they will deploy the fog as well the initial habitat which they could use to live there for the last months of the trip so i said this month needed to be safe so this plan is prepared to survive in many many scenarios um uh engine uh ship failures and many let's let's start with it so let's start easy what if the fir any of the first two ships crash well this one's easy the coup would never leave the earth because they wouldn't have launched it yet and the crew would be alive same thing if the co2 is a urine fuel production does not work uh if so so if starship victoria is unable to produce a fuel with co2 on the hydrogen it has inside then there's the us the astronauts would never leave the earth so no one would die so what if ice mining isiu doesn't work um well if this was uh spacex's plan or mass direct 2.0 the astronauts would die because if they cannot mine ice they have no way of producing the fuel they need to return to earth so unfortunately that would mean the death of the astronauts but in this case they already have enough fuel there produced with the hydrogen and the co2 for the return trip so the crew would survive uh the trip no problem uh this was actually a great concept from master race 1.0 so what is the last ship to come the starship santa maria crashes well it would mean no ice mining no pressurized rover and no initial hab which would be a sad day no doubt but this is not a mission critical element so the crew would still be able to return to earth um so what if the cruise ship crashes well okay there's no way around this okay um this is the only ship that actually needs to land um or else the crew would die okay there's no way around this but what if the cruise ship lands but it lands far away well it would be a very weird trajectory if you landed on the other side of mars but let's imagine it lands for example 400 kilometers away well they will start phase one as normal they will plan the flag do basic science around the place and then starship santa maria which is the one that's still one and a half months from landing on mars which check would change its trajectory ever so slightly to land next to it um and it would deploy the pressurized rover and then the crew could take the pressurized rover to reach the other uh two ships and the propellant uh they need to return home so once again the coup would survive uh this situation um what if the return ship which is spinned up is found to be damaged um well there's no problem because the crew has too many starships on mars ready to come back so the crew would just use um the mini starship they used to land uh which is nina um as the return trip so again um even if that ship explodes they still have a backup so let's get to uh one of the most feared situations on a human mass mission which is a global dust storm and we're assuming a very tough situation which is no nuclear power uh because this is the preferred solution to this problem um but some say space spacex will not get their hands on fishable material so unless nasa develops their killer power and puts it at their disposal we're going to assume just solar panels so what will happen in this case solar panels will be enabled to get energy from the sun so the crew would use fuel cells to burn the the excess lethal locks and power basic life support systems so as i told you sasha victoria had produced more than enough fuel for the return trip and so they could just burn some of that fuel to power the basic life support systems so if this lasted for let's say one or two months or even three the crew would be able to survive running on methylox so if everything goes well [Music] the astronauts will return safely to earth they would bring important samples with them which would be analyzed on earth science and exploration will have been done on the surface of mars ice mining are nicer you will have been tested on the surface hopefully it will have gone all right fuel for future missions will already be there if there's some leftovers and they have produced a field from the ice and the initial base will have been deployed so this will set the first stones for a sustainable settlement on the surface of mars certainly further missions could um continue with uh the development of the of the base but this would be uh very good things to leave behind on the first mission um so this is it this is the end of the presentation but i would just like to say one thing before we turn to questions um and it's that um i'm part of the committee organizing the european mass conference for 2021 it was originally going to be this year's um european conference uh but due to kobe 19 will have we have had to let it slip to next year so if all goes well and the pandemic is up um we will be having this event in madrid in 2021 uh maybe in october november something like that um so if you're interested um it'll be great to have you in the in the conference so i i would also like to say that i know elon wants big ships going to mars and back so i think the mini starship is important for the first missions to make sure that the problem of of the fuel and the energy is solved but uh once the initial base and everything uh field production is working well with the ice then the ministership will probably not be uh necessary anymore uh but i think it's madness to start with the big starship because it requires so much power to refuel so this is it if any of you wants to make any questions i'll be happy to [Music] answer hi miguel thank you um i'll go ahead and just read off some questions that i've seen in chat here um i don't have an official account today there's a bit of a last-minute change to available volunteers but uh first question uh we have here is uh what gave you the idea to start working on mars direct 3.0 well thank you for the question it's a very good one um well to be honest uh when i first watched superintend uh master rake 2.0 i didn't like the idea because um i it would mean a huge volume and cargo reduction um it will also make the uh the development time longer so i actually offered uh someone to debate him on the european mass conference of 2019 um there was no time on the schedule but um i started thinking about that and i actually um there was one day i was going to sleep and then this idea came to mind and i was sleepless until 4am until all the idea was fully developed this was um one year ago more or less so i wrote it the next morning and i decided to present it um when i had the chance to present it here but yeah there was a this was a sleepless night i had the first idea of simplifying the the mini starship uh with um this maneuver here the first uh the start of the presentation um just recoupling back on low earth orbit which i think uh it's uh all this way uh so yeah this was the first idea that made me think about uh master direct 3.0 and then um i wanted to develop um on what actually happens on the surface of mars uh to make it more safer because spacex just focused on on the ship which is great they're focusing just on that um and driven just introduced the good idea of the mini starship um so i i wanted to add apart from the idea of um recoupling with a big starship on low earth orbit i wanted to add um a plan for the first mission um yeah this was just a sleepless night and i'm grateful to have the opportunity to present it here gotcha and do you have the actual dimensions on the mini starship like how much cargo can it can it carry in comparison to a full-size starship especially when it involves crew yes uh well um um this the volume would be constrained by the volume of the cargo bay of the starship because it has to fit inside um and in the numbers i would have to refer you to dr shubert's presentation because the ministership idea is inherited from from his and he has um the calculations on his presentations you can find them online quite easily you just have to look for master right 2.0 and he explains he gives all the numbers um i i just had 25 minutes to present this so i didn't get uh deep into the numbers but yeah it's the same thing it's except it's going to be lighter because it will have i will not need atmospheric engines and it will need the lighter heat shield but uh apart from that it's going to be dr dr sugarin's calculations dr zubrin also gave updated version of those calculations for the space tube sure what about it um so it might also be worth looking at that if someone was looking for dimensions of the mini starship oh yeah it's just the the cargo bay of the starship gotcha and with the crew launch inside the mini starship while the main starship launched or how exactly um would that work yes so they will launch inside the mini starship which would be inside of a starship we have to remember that the starship does not have an abort system either so it's not less safe than a normal launch so yes it would just launch uh this is a current version of the starship it didn't have another video but yeah there's it will launch normally inside the starship and then the mini starship with the crew instead of it would deploy and go for mars [Music] gotcha how are you would you clear the solar panels that the robot deploys uh from sand and dust that's a good question too uh i was actually it was this was a topic of conversation between me and gustavo who's one of the designers he's the one that designed that rover so um i actually one of the things we changed is that i suggested leaving some space between the roles of solar panels and this robot would have um these are just preliminary designs these are things he designed but this could look totally different uh but the rubber below it it would have um some uh things to clean it like um air pumps or something like that um so yeah this rubber would go over the solar panels and hopefully clean them up or just like a rubber opportunity some dust could uh ease the job for us here but yes that's the idea would there be a scenario where the mini starship could itself could land on earth or was it only designed to land on mars uh well uh if if this was mass direct 2.0 uh the ministership would be designed to land on earth but in in this case the idea is to have a thinner heat shield uh and no atmos atmospheric raptor engine um to make it all simpler so this version of the mini starship would not be able to land on earth with air brake on earth to slow itself down to get into earth orbit but it would not be able to land on earth on earth it would burn and blow up so you had to transfer the crew from the mini starship to another vehicle to land so like a full-size starship um not exactly you would not need crew transfer it would just um it's back here [Music] it would just need to get inside the starship so the the crew would be um no also it would re-dock with the starship to land i see yes that's the idea that the crew would launch from us in this mini starship uh then the starship would travel to mars it would slow down um and once in earth orbit it would the crew would still be inside of here they would uh dock with the starship it would close and then this whole thing uh would land on earth with a crew inside [Music] that's the idea gotcha okay got a couple questions here uh we had some questions on the fact there's only a single raptor on the mini starship is there any idea or possibility of using two raptors in case of redundancy for you know if one were to fail during landing um that's a good question it's a bit tricky because if you have two engines like uh for example this version uh i imagine how subane's version would look like having to have a vacuum engine but let's imagine we have two engines and this one fails the one at the bottom would not be in the center of mass so it would the the ship would uh unbalance so it would not help to have two engines so they would have to rely on one engine because in this case if either of the two engines fail it would be doomed anyway so having two engines would probably not help with redundancy okay and i had the last question i think we got time for because almost the end here is a question on feathers on the solar panels um do you know how many solar panels could fail and you could still reliably produce the amount of fuel needed or is there a kind of mitigation plan for maybe bringing extra solar panels um yes so the idea is that well first of all this is going to be very safe because if there is not enough fuel produced on the surface of mass for the crew to return before they launch they will not launch okay so it's not something that could risk the astronauts but the idea is to take uh obviously have some margin have more solar panels than you need um there's also going to be dust on top of them so a calculation would need to be done on on that on calculating how much dust is going to be on top of it and how much you need um how many could fail uh solar panels are quite quite a reliable reliable technology but yeah that could be a problem so yeah you would probably need to take more than than you need um so i think that's all we have time for so thank you very much for um watching this presentation if you're interested interested in contacting me you can do so at these two twitter accounts and thank you for for listening goodbye thank you very much you

Channel: The Mars Society

Views: 4,232

Rating: 4.9170985 out of 5

Keywords: mars, The Mars Society, MarsSocCon2020

Id: bS0-9BFVwRo

Length: 30min 55sec (1855 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020