SpaceX
We’re going to take a tour of an interior designed for the near-future Humanity spacecraft, so let’s go right inside the SpaceX lunar starship to hope which version of SpaceX’s next-generation spacecraft turns up the embellishment.
The inside volume of a starship with an interior for humans is a large cylinder with the top locked into the cone you know like a rocket, so the bottom or rear part of the interior volume is all propellant and engines and the general design of the starship is what allows.
It’s really extraordinary for such a large part of the spacecraft to be full of payload giving us a lot to work with in terms of volume bears, although this volume is not the only constraint of the spacecraft, the propellant tanks around 1200 Tons of liquid propellant which supports the propulsion of a payload of 100 tonnes during a typical mission 100 metric tonnes is equivalent to one thousand mine.
I weigh about 100kg or 220 pounds so don’t worry if that’s a lot for your mind to handle And would be able to replace effectively and heavier now the usable volume of a starship would be roughly the same or slightly more than that of the International Space Station.
Of course the volume of IS is spread across a network of tubular modules that fit inside the payload bay of the Space Shuttle into a usable internal volume for a spacecraft even if you have a lot to work with, setting it up and Planning can be difficult, especially when it needs to be dynamic so that it can be effective in different gravity environments.
The ergonomics are very different for gravity and non-gravity situations. There are too many strange consequences to consider, for example. Astronaut Scott Kelly who spent almost a year in low-Earth orbit during the same mission, said that living in a microgravity environment you’re clear of your weight on your feet.
A rough alligator skin develops on the tops of your feet as you use the tops of your feet to move around causing the calluses on your feet to eventually fall off and the soles of your feet to become very soft. Like the feet of a newborn baby but never lands on the Moon and even though the Moon has only one-sixth the magnitude of the gravitational force that keeps us on the ground here on Earth.
It’s still gravity and that goes up for a long time. Since it doesn’t reach orbital or escape velocity must come down even on the Moon, you could actually hurt yourself by falling on the Moon and hitting the outside of your spacecraft. Falling while exploring the surface can be more treacherous than you might expect because there is no atmosphere.
Slows you down and gravity doesn’t keep up the speed it accelerates whatever it’s falling The reason you will be able to hit the ground hard on Earth is because the Moon lacks an atmosphere.
The atmosphere on Earth will limit your speed in spite of Earth’s strong gravity, so lunar starships have all sorts of habitable considerations of one-sixth gravity that other space-only spaceships don’t need thanks to the starship’s general size That is, most designs have a tube in the middle that is used to access the various decks as this is the only official SpaceX interior animation.
Which has been released to the public and is basically a well lit empty tube and deck position in 2020 I worked closely with space designer Eric Axe and we created version 1 of our dual-purpose starship interior concept Continued, I say dual purpose because we intend for the living space to be used by humans in microgravity.
Which is essentially zero g during flight. Our design had 64 beds through space and under enough gravity when landing on the Moon or Mars etc. and the mess hall featured a more zero G-oriented approach Deck 5 which meant Velcro panels for lunar starships to land on Mars But it will turn into a table.
We designed the interior for eight humans to live in gravity with a permanent bar as the centerpiece of the design to be used during meal times. Since the lunar constellation is a.
Moonlander for NASA’s Artemis program Most of the time it will be captured by humans. It will be upright on the surface of the Moon, sure they will spend hours or maybe a day or two at a time and transit from lunar orbit to the surface and back. This is nothing compared to the time a lunar starship will be able to support life on the Moon.
Don’t forget the potential to use it as a permanent lunar habitat after you retire from your career as a lunar lander. That’s why we designed it with permanent fixtures for enough gravity, but why do we go into such a large space with only eight astronauts if you haven’t already noticed that the lunar starship has no aero flaps which That there are protrusions like the wings of a regular starship.
There’s no heat shield and I’d bet that a regular starship will have hatch hardware in the nose instead of an oxygen header tank. What all this tells us is that the lunar starship will never return and land safely on Earth. It is specialized to do well in what is to support and support human life on the surface of the Moon.
The lunar orbit Orion capsule only carries four astronauts, so I wouldn’t be surprised if SpaceX designs the first Lunar Starship to support only the four moons that humans explore, assuming they’ll be used by NASA for further exploration. are selected for funding if they are not selected and this is just my opinion so take it with a grain of salt.
SpaceX will stop developing Lunar Starship altogether and shift all its focus to regular and Mars versions of Starship, we know Elon’s goals are set for Mars and not Moon and that doesn’t mean That SpaceX will not land on the Moon if they do not receive NASA funding for the Lunar Starship, with or without SpaceX.
NASA will land on the Moon and a lunar base with landing pads will eventually be built on the Moon as well as allow regular SpaceX starships to land there safely, regular starships need landing pads because they have lunar Starships do not have mid-side engines, which means they shoot rocket exhaust downwards during an ascent which is highly undesirable.
A reusable spacecraft to do this if it is landing on an uneven surface with loose material, which is known to the Moon at least in the regions where we would be in normal space before using the disposable descent stages of the Apollo lunar module. Speaking of vehicle design. Don’t be surprised if the lunar starship’s landing legs see an update.
These six feet don’t have a very wide stance to descend with a potentially uneven surface at the bottom of such a high tower thanks to Timberwolf for this great comment point it out and man do I like the comments now that leg About the splay, the legs themselves seem quite big and we know that for the Apollo missions anyone had ever gone to the moon.
There was concern that the lunar crust might become as muddy as quicksand, so the legs were equipped with the legs we now know were larger than necessary in 1971, the Apollo 15 lunar module definitively named the Falcon. It landed with one foot on the rim of the 20-foot-wide crater, causing one of the other leg pads of the lunar module to hang above the surface, and the entire lander came to rest at an inclination of 11 degrees.
The power of the present is also an important general design consideration for lunar starships as the Artemis program aims to establish a manned presence at the Moon’s south pole once they are vertical to all three of NASA’s current lunar lander options. Solar panels will be most effective when oriented vertically. There are solar panels that are glued to the surface and that is how you will design your solar panels.
If using them at the poles of the earth as well as at the equator you want your panels to be generally straight up and north or south the higher you go, you can use the equator to get the best angle of insulation Tilt the panel towards the line and absorb most of the power from the sun.
You can see the official SpaceX Lunar Starship images from 2020. Panels that cover a portion of the ship’s nose, which would make sense, although I’m not sure they alone would be enough, a regular winged starship probably would.