SPACEX AND THE HISTORY OF HUMAN SPACE-FLIGHT
It has been almost half a century since humans first set foot on the moon. It was infamously and undoubtedly “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. The success of this ambitious and seemingly impossible milestone can be attributed to the ‘Space Race’ that followed the second world war, between the US and the USSR as a display of domination and supremacy over each other. This became a driving force that brought together minds with unparalleled talent from the fields of science and technology to realize the then ‘most complex machine ever built by humanity’ — the SATURN V. Moreover, the governments of both countries were willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to bring such goals to fruition.
However, over the years, the passion and significance of the space program declined in the eyes of the general public as the patriotic connotations attached to it gradually dissipated. Organizations like NASA started receiving budget cuts and time constraints for its projects which acted as a major impediment for it’s space programme. It cost them not only money but also several lives of brave astronauts. As a result, other than the Space Shuttle programme and the International Space Station, there haven’t been any considerable breakthroughs in human space flight in over 20 years now.
Thankfully, in the past 3 years or so, private corporations like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin have emerged as the future of human spaceflight. These companies can offer brilliant resources and technology to organizations like NASA, JAXA, ISRO, ESA etc. to fulfill mankind’s insatiable desire of exploration in an unrestrained manner. Spacecrafts and rockets like The Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Crew Dragon and the most popular Starship are some of the projects that will carry future missions on its shoulders.
THE STARSHIP
A technological marvel, Starship is an upcoming project from SpaceX also termed as the ‘BFR’. The Starship system is a fully reusable, two‑stage‑to‑orbit super heavy‑lift launch vehicle. Moreover, SpaceX has recently signed a $2.9 billion contract with NASA to use Starship as the Lunar lander for the Artemis 4 mission taking the next man and first woman to the moon.
The first stage, known as the ‘Super Heavy’ is the booster stage containing 30 Raptor engines making it the most powerful and perhaps the heaviest launch vehicle ever built with a payload capacity of over 100 metric tonnes.
The second stage of this system is the Starship (payload) which is also equipped with 6 Raptor engines of its own. The body of both stages is made of Stainless steel instead of Carbon composites which has never been attempted before.
While the Moon is the next stop for Starship, it will only act as a pit stop to eventual missions to Mars and beyond, thus serving the main objective behind this futuristic vehicle. The most interesting feature of the Starship is its capability of in-orbit refueling from one starship to another during flight itself.
This boosts the reusability of the vehicle off the charts and dramatically reduces maintenance costs.
Another method to increase fuel efficiency and engine maintenance in the second stage is the ‘Belly Flop’ maneuver where the starship will remain parallel to the land during flight and up until 500 m away from the landing pad to increase its surface area which uses the assistance of aerodynamic drag to reduce some load from the raptor engines to conserve fuel.
YOU CAN FLY IN A STARSHIP TOO!
Taking advantage of its reusability, Elon Musk also envisions using starship as a Earth to Earth commuting vehicle with low earth orbit trips.
This mode of transport could complete a flight from London to LA within a staggering 35 minutes. This is a farfetched idea with its fair share of challenges and limitations, yet it is growing more plausible as each day passes.
Today, the future of human spaceflight looks brighter than ever which only makes me envy the generations to come who will witness the unreal and the unimaginable!
