How It Will Be Living Inside SpaceX Starship For First Trip

How will one hundred humans live comfortably in a big whale-like starship as it propels itself all the way from earth to Mars? How would you feel sitting down in the starship for six months? Is it an adventure you’d like to try out?

Before now, only astronauts are trained and qualified to travel in a rocket. And that happens if they are traveling to the ISS, if that is not the case, a rocket will most times liftoff from earth to the lower earth orbit to deliver satellites in orbit.

But Spacex and Elon Musk wants to go beyond the norm, by transporting ordinary people to Mars, not just that but in hundreds. So, these people that will be transported in the starship don’t really have a knowledge of how rocket science works, some may not be a complete novice, but definitely not trained astronauts. So, how can ordinary people survive in this enclose vessel without suffocating?

Now, try to imagine a case where the starship will be your home for six months, of course, we can adapt to it, but it will not be your usual comfortable apartment, the spaces are not convenient, they are practically small cubicles for a living space.

Take for instance, the Apollo, the soyuz, and the dragon – they look more like a small pointy box trapped to a rocket engine, and constructed as an actual ship. Well, don’t think of moving freely in this rocket because you may kick your legs on one of those components on the floor or hit your head against one, to tell you how narrow these rockets are.

That’s just a glimpse that reveals that these rockets don’t have the highest level of comfort you would crave for, even the latest Orion spacecraft is so compact that you cannot stand straight inside the Command Module, that means, you will be exerting a huge stress on your spinal cord. But now, spacex has given us different levels of big promises.

Elon Musk claims the starship will contain everything humans will ever need on a six months journey to Mars. In theory, it’s a mind-blowing idea, but six months is a very long time to spend in a tiny metal box hurtling through the vast emptiness of interplanetary space. You may have a high expectation or reminisce how the starship interior will look like; of course, it won’t just look like a metal box but – the space inside the Starship.

Spacex may adopt the interior of a tesla EV, but not exactly close and here’s what we think it might look like; The starship will have a luxurious interior. You’d guess to know Elon Musk has a thing for luxury, even though he likes keeping things simple.

Although the starship will feel so luxurious in many ways you could imagine, but ideal number of people that will travel in it, will tell how rosy or cranky, it’d feel, because the greater number of people that are onboard, the more uncomfortable it will become – for each person will require a good amount of resources like food and water to stay alive.

Hence, since the total Mass the starship is expected to ferry is around 100 metric tons, then we have to be conscious of the true mass of a single crew member, couple with the food, water, and cardo. It’s a good idea to transport 100 people in the starship, but practically, it sounds like one of those tales in the moon light.

And secondly, we know that the mental health and well-being of the crew is going to be a major factor for these long duration mission. However, 100 people will definitely need medical care during the journey to Mars. That brings another question, can starship contain all medical doctors, and amenities, to curb casualties?

If there are too many people on board and not enough personal space then crew members might start to freak out. And we may see people slumping and dying due to insufficient oxygen to aid breathing, and we might see the first violent crime committed off the Earth just about halfway to Mars, and that will be a disaster.

On the other hand, if there are too few crew members then people might get so bored pretty fast, and crave for more new things to try out. Most experts seem to agree that a crew of 10 is the sweet spot for a Starship Mission to Mars.

Elon Musk enjoys talking about sending a hundred people at once but all signs point to that being a really bad idea. The full size of the current Starship is 50 meters in length by 9 meters in diameter and that tapers to a point at the nose. After Elon watched the Sasha Bara Cohen movie, he insisted that the nose be made pointier, like that of The Dictator in the movie, so that shaves off a bit of interior volume around the upper part of the starship.

And so, you can imagine, the lower portion of the Starship is going to be occupied by rocket components, and its fuel – you know at least six Raptor engines that might be upgraded to nine by the first crude Mars flight, the functions of these engine are; three sea level engines for landing burn and six vacuum engines to push off from low earth orbit and set it in the midst of the stars in space.

Given that this ship will have to make a vertical landing on Mars it definitely makes sense to keep the center of gravity as low as possible, so you can imagine that the first floor is going to be dedicated to the cargo bay.

Once people get to Mars they’re going to need resources and infrastructure to continue their survival like enclosed covens, remember that the Martian atmosphere is very toxic to damage the human flesh. Hence, for us to be alive, we have to be living in covens all through our stay on Mars, or be exposed in the Martian atmosphere wearing a space suite.

Starship is really tall so to get in and out there needs to be a lift system on level 2 is likely where food and essential supplies maybe stored, even some kind of a hydroponic Garden for growing small amounts of fresh vegetables like garbage, tomatoes, carrots, and water melon that will be later harvested for meal preparation as we ferry to Mars.

The restrooms and gym are located on the third level, which is a good location. To spend extended periods of time in microgravity, one must be physically fit. The strap down treadmill and a stationary bike have been mainstays on the International Space Station, where astronauts are required to exercise for several hours each day using a combination of cardio and resistance training.

Trainings are necessary for maintaining the circulatory system and preserving cardiovascular health. Maintaining your muscle mass and bone density with weightlifting is just as crucial. However, the ISS features a resistance machine that enables the crew to perform squats and deadlifts with up to 600 pounds of resistance. Obviously, barbells and free weights don’t function in zero gravity.

Unfortunately, there’s going to be no bathroom in the starship, so don’t expect to comfortably take your bath as you do in your apartment. Even though water is a precious resource it doesn’t flow in zero gravity so a faucet does doesn’t work.

For instance, astronauts on the ISS wipe themselves down with a wet towel and use a dry shampoo in their hair and then of course there is the space toilet, same will be applicable in the starship. SpaceX has been working thoroughly to develop a zero g toilet design for the Dragon capsule so they should have that well figured out by the time we head to Mars.

Moving up to level 4 would be the crew quarters, which won’t look close to anything fancy but given the volume of the Starship, everyone should be able to have a reasonably sized compartment, perhaps something similar to those cubicles where monks sleep. Level 5 would be a great location for a common area, even though it might be configured more vertically.

This is where the nose will start to really taper in, but there would still be enough room for people to just kind of float around and relax in an open space, perhaps with a really large viewing window that wraps around the room.

Moreso, the methane header tank is positioned directly in the nose of the present Starship design, which likely reduces headroom on this level and makes it suitable for the Command Deck, where everyone would trap into a chair for takeoff and landing.

The ship would presumably fly primarily autonomously, but there would likely still be some flight control personnels and other things of that nature. A central column would connect each deck. It will look more like a tube for easy travel between floors in zero gravity with also a ladder which will be used to navigate between different levels.

The starship interior at first launch will be very down to earth. Hence, everything will be a trial game to see what works and adjust, and design what’s favorable Would you want to take a trip in the starship to Mars same day? Comment.

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