Mars First
New space race: Moon vs Mars
SpaceX was built to colonize Mars, something which now seems within their reach. It requires an unprecedentedly powerful rocket to reach the Red Planet as it must carry all the spares and supplies to last 2 years. Starship was specifically designed for this mission, with over 200 tons of payload and 1,000 cubic meters of pressurized volume – a true behemoth!
“Starship is now more than twice as powerful as the Saturn V Moon rocket and, in a year or so, it will be three times as powerful at 10,000 metric tons of thrust. More importantly, it is designed to be fully reusable, burning ~80% liquid oxygen and ~20% liquid methane (very low cost propellant). This enables cost per ton to orbital space to be ~10,000% lower than Saturn V [moon rocket]. Starship is the difference between being a multiplanet or single planet civilization. Building a new world on Mars is now possible.” ~ Elon Musk
Following 6 successful test flights of Starship, SpaceX has now progressed to second order problems, on their continued march to Mars.
Official Mandate
While the United States is a libertarian country, SpaceX will still need the government’s approval to colonize Mars due to geopolitical, policy and economic considerations. Fortunately Elon Musk is highly regarded by the incoming administration who applaud his entrepreneurial spirit and effective execution. Like most second term administrations they want to leave a shining legacy, hence putting Americans on Mars and creating a robust tech based economy come high on the agenda. Recently the president elect observed the last Starship launch, which suggests strong interest in SpaceX as he prepares for office. Of course the new administration can offer far more than its approval, the resources it can bring to bear are considerable.
NASA Support
Putting American boots on Mars would be a great win for the government, doubly so if NASA was involved. Fortunately Jared Isaacman has been nominated for NASA administrator, a tech entrepreneur and previous partner of SpaceX, who believes in them and Starship’s potential.
“Starship is going to be a revolutionary step forward, it’s a total game changer, and when it comes online we are going to very quickly return to the moon and Mars.” ~ Jared Isaacman/Bloomberg Technology
When Jared becomes NASA administrator he will likely institute a Mars program to run in parallel with the Artemis moon program, effectively creating a competition. Due to cost considerations, the Mars program has to be more commercial than Artemis, which relies on cost plus contracts traditionally used by NASA. While some might seek to end Artemis altogether, the US is committed to returning to the moon before China, plus an array of international agreements relating to Artemis almost guarantee its survival.
NASA can offer considerable resources for the Mars effort beyond finance, such as technical support and test facilities. Hopefully they will fund Starship development on a milestone basis, allowing SpaceX to make the best design decisions, and avoid the difficulties experienced with previous vehicles like the Space Shuttle...
Moon Mars Competition
NASA want to return to the moon for geopolitical reasons, unlike SpaceX who aim to go direct to Mars for strategic reasons, i.e. it’s a better place to live and work in space.
“We’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction” ~ Elon Musk
Hence SpaceX has pursued a shadow Mars program, building their own launch center in Texas, performing their own research missions through the Polaris Program and developing a Mars capable Starship. This has been done in parallel with NASA’s Artemis program, although there’s some overlap as NASA intends to use Starship as a Human Landing System (HLS) for the moon.
Recently NASA announced delays to Artemis missions, with the first crew landing expected No Earlier Than (NET) 2027. Further schedule slips seem inevitable for a number of reasons: -
NASA contracted SpaceX to build HLS in 2021, leaving insufficient time to complete development.
The Space Launch System (SLS) is built by Boeing under a cost plus profit contract, which incentivizes slow development.
NASA bureaucracy has fully engaged with SLS development, ensuring the few engineers Boeing assigns to this work spend more time in meetings or on paperwork.
By contrast SpaceX was built for speed; they went from scratch to the first Falcon 1 launch in 4 years, then 4 more years to develop Falcon 9 – lightning fast for the space industry. Now they are racing to complete Starship asap, to perform Mars missions and launch commercial payloads.
“The first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years.” ~ Elon Musk
Overall this suggests a race will emerge between Artemis and Mars programs, i.e. the first to launch crewed spacecraft, then land automated and crewed spacecraft on the moon or Mars. Elon’s schedule sounds ambitious but he has a trump card to play which should accelerate the Mars program…
Deregulation
“Starship is licensed under part 450 [regulations], Falcon is licensed under a different regulatory regime. I could not bring Dragon, this capsule that has gone to space carried over 50 folks, I could not get a license for Dragon to re-enter on part 450. So you can imagine the struggle we have with Starship.” ~ Gwynne Shotwell
Originally the FAA was tasked with improving regulations, to make it easier for commercial space companies to operate. Unfortunately the part 450 rules they created do the exact opposite and make compliance extremely difficult, particularly for innovative vehicles like Starship. No doubt FAA regs will be top of the list for the Department of Government Efficiency, although Elon will likely give this work to Vivek Ramaswamy to avoid conflict of interest.
“Unless we get rid of the mountain of smothering regulations (that have nothing to do with safety!), humanity will never reach Mars. This is existential.” ~ Elon Musk
Who will Win
Landing people on Mars will be a challenge, even for a capable company like SpaceX. Frankly their 2028 target seems over ambitious, 2031 would be more realistic. However, the original schedule for the Artemis 3 moon landing was NET 2028, and could easily slip into the 2030s…
One SpaceX year is roughly equivalent to 4 Boeing years for development purposes, so the longer it takes the more it favors SpaceX. Logically Boeing should accelerate SLS to reduce time available, but they seem incapable of raising their game, at least going by the Commercial Crew Program. The program commenced in 2011 and so far SpaceX has successfully launched 10 NASA and 5 commercial missions with Crew Dragon, compared to Boeing who managed one Starliner crew mission (partial). Taking everything into account, the race is SpaceX’s to lose; in which case Mars could come before the moon.
In Conclusion
NASA can expect big changes when Jared Isaacman takes the helm. The moon is necessary but Mars is the next frontier. When Starship lands on Mars it will set the standard for the competition.
Maybe Boeing’s new CEO Kelly Ortberg can rally the troops to finish first, otherwise SpaceX will overtake them in a blink of the eye.