Discussion about this post

User's avatar
J.K. Lund's avatar

Great article. I had a question about this though "Note, the number of Tanker Starships (used to refill these depots) could be relatively low because they are designed to be rapidly reusable."

I am not sure I understand how the rapid reuse pertains to the number of tankers required to refill a depot.

I am also curious of the relative merits of using a refilling a depot vs refilling a Starship (all concept videos from SpaceX show direct refilling of the Starship en-route to Mars.)

Expand full comment
Jeffrey Morse's avatar

I am still wondering the mode of fuel transfer and what % can can be moved from A to B. Every mode will have some fuel loss.

I posted an idea at https://www.reddit.com/r/space2030/comments/135s9hg/some_thoughts_and_spreadsheet_analysis_about/

You can also do some spin gravity moves, which can be more efficient. I am sort of waiting (probably til 2025) to see a real test. One item that I still find interesting is that the notional SX depot depiction shows a larger ship, despite that it is main tank to main tank direct, so you could have a shorter depot ship. It seems to point to 2 specialized tanks with some pumps and they won't use the depot main tanks for shuffling fuel. As with most SX renders I think they are place holders and the final systems won't look so sleek.

I also suggest another use of an expendable fuel depot ship will be on the move, as part of a Venus flyby to Mars LLO mission with a small lander option (removes the need for Mars produced MethLOX): https://www.reddit.com/r/space2030/comments/trjoov/notion_to_eliminate_the_need_for_mars_surface/

I fully agree that Mars (MethLOX) and Lunar surface (LOX) fuel depots will need to be part of the long term vision (2040+) for regular, lower risk, lower cost ops. You continue to be much more optimistic (10x) about the number of Starships that will be created.

Expand full comment
5 more comments...

No posts