Rakaydos

Noone is arguing it isnt POSSIBLE. We are all saying it's stupid, and that all the technologies you would use for it would make a better TSTO.

I would imagine they do away with the gearing entirely, and use blade pitch on the impeller for any "gearing" that needs to be done.

You could call it a Pipe dream. :p

Build. Not including superheavy, which stays in use on earth, and not including the 2 mil marginal launch costs. And not including the fixed upkeep costs of spaceX facilities and personell.

I dont think you get it. DRM and mars direct are plans to visit. SpaceX plans an invasion. Complaints like "you need 8 cargo ships of solar panels to refuel a ship to come home" are answered with "ok, we'll do that then." Need food? Bring food for 2 synods, in case something goes wrong, in forms that store well and can make a variety of interesting meals. (a thousand frozen burger paddies is less than a cubic meter.) And you can bet there will be a test greenhouse on the first crewed starship, which in addition to any other projects will include potatoes for the memes.

"SpaceX plan disadvantages: requires 8 cargo starships to deliver the solar panels to make the fuel to come home. Also requires local resources to make fuel to come home" Why are these disadvantages? Even taking the number at face value, the marginal cost of constructing 8 new starships is planned to approach 40 million, total. Less than a falcon 9. Having that much solar power is actually a safety pro- in a 99% dust storm, turn off your fuel plant, and the remaining 1% is plenty for all essential base functions. Local use of resources is just forward looking. We have enough mars survey data to be sure of having accessable water on hand if we make it a landing target priority. And if nasa wants to send a cargo ship with enough hydrogen to make a starship"s worth of methalox, and a kilopower for mission assurance power, that's only one extra flight (plus government access to nuclear power).

Caveman Orbital rendevous is easy for me, so you saw my 4-launch minmus biome hopper above. Didnt get to any ladder riding in that run.

I'm afraid to try NCD. While I enjoy planning extreme missions using caveman limitations, I prefer LATE caveman to early caveman, and NCD seems like it would trap you in the early game for much longer. Plus, different reentry physics or something?

You haven't shown how ssto will reduce the cost of space, and we've all demonstrated that the same effort will improve the payloads of two-stage to orbit rocket better than ssto. Chemical ssto is an always will be pointless on earth.

Automated high-output production facility for advanced carbon capture devices.

Edit: Here's one way to look at it. The starship, with features required for earth return, can land with just enough header tank fuel to cancel mars terminal velocity, or about 300 m/s, plus gravity drag during the burn. Call it 350 m/s to be generous. A raptor is pushing 378 seconds of ISP at mars landing and 2.21x6= 13.26 meganewtons, divided over 220 tons (120 ton starship + 100 tons payload) is 66m/s^2. A suicide burn is about 5 ish seconds, call it 10 for easy math, times the mass flow of 6 raptors (650 kg/s each) gives a conservitive landing fuel load of... 39 tons of landing fuel. That's a little less than 2/3 the mass of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_Lunar_Lander (which isnt even rated for 100 tons payload on mars) What are you stripping out of Starship (that wont cripple it on earth return) to make up that kind of mass deficit, so that Initial Mass in LEO isnt made worse with the addition of a lander?

I suggest you watch this video: https://everydayastronaut.com/aerospikes/ Rocketlab already uses gimbal to get some aerospike-like effects out of electron. But actual aerospikes are just not worth the effort.

I dont have access to the video at work, but doesnt your lander need drag fins, thermal tiles, crew quarters, life support, landing engines, and tankage and structure? Plus associated plumbing/wiring, AND the lift capacity and plumbing to refuel the mothership? Perhaps it's explained better in the video, but you've got duplication of effort all across that archetecture. Earth is the wrong planet for SSTO, but Mars is the right one, and Starship is designed to take advantage of that fact.

The key point, IMO, is that any orbiter with empty tanks requires multiple refueling flights , which adds significant complication to conops. My assertion is that, unlike LEO, there are not any gains to be made from this archetecture, because while it would reduce the departure DV requirement relative to the POR (Starship single stage earth return), this reduction is rendered moot by the fact that the vehical configuration during mars departure is the same as the vehical configuration during earth departure, minus whatever payload is left on mars. You cannot reduce the performance of the mars departure stage without crippling the earth departure stage.

so what are you trying to accomplish? Because it looks like you want to build a rocket with next gen tech, but aiming for numbers where real next gen launchers will crush it, just for the claim to fame of being SSTO. Sure. You can do that, if you have a few billion lying around that you dont need anymore. But you're not going to get any investers on board, because there's no return on that investment. 9 engine starship SSPTP is as close as you are going to get, and even that requires commonality with a heavy lift upper stage to make the buisness case close.

Note that vacuum raptors, while cunningly designed to not explode at sea level, are going to lose some thrust to over expansion. So it's probably slightly less than that.

What about conops that track "depleted" jetpacks, even though the game does not, and sends replacements up to manage a particular mission?

...that doesnt actually answer the question. What are you leaving in orbit "that doesnt need to be be there", that doesnt require an additional copy on the lander anyway? What needs to be lifted from mars: Unitary starship- A complete starship, any return payload, and the fuel for mars departure burn. Zubrin-style MEM- enough refueling flights to refill the departure stage, (plus deorbit burns for the lander), and a separate flight for any returning cargo, plus the mass of the lander multiplied by the number of flights required. The number of refueling flights will quickly eliminate any fuel savings from using a smaller lander, while introducing many more failure points in the conops related to rendevous, docking, and precision relanding.

Staging events are usually benificial, of course. But you need a habitat on the surface big enough for the crew that used the ship habitat to get there. And you are using ISRU, unlike apollo, so you need to fill the departure tanks on the CSM, whether it be on the ground, or shipped to orbit. (and in general, larger launches are more efficent, and an additional fuel transfer is extra equipment you need to bring. best part is no part.) And you also need landing engines big enough to lift the refueling flights, which might as well be part of your departure burn. SpaceX is using the whole buffalo here. So what exactly are you leaving in orbit?

So why are you arguing for any other definition than... single stage, into orbit?

Because they cant weld internal stringers where they weld the common dome in place. They need external stringers JUST to cover that small area.

4th and final day of main caveman: Proof of completion Not my first caveman run, but the first time I've bothered to document it. a nice warmup to get back into kerbal after a long hiatus.

last night and this morning before work (day 3)

Day 2

Imagining something like canadarm plucking a rover out of a Chomper and transferring it to LSS, in orbit.