we all remember the astonishing
revelation only a bit more than two
weeks ago that one of NASA's selected
human moon Landers for their Artemis
moon program was a moon variant of spacex's starship and there are really a
lot of details hidden in the two
renderings that were revealed so many
details in fact that we are now
dedicating this entire episode to
analyze the most interesting things
about the moon version of starship so
let's get started
very recently we were presented these
two new renders of a moon starship which
took many people by surprise these two
pictures are unfortunately all we were
shown but that's still enough as they
contain a lot of information first now
we know how exactly starship will land
on the moon often we heard the criticism
the starship wouldn't be able to land on
the moon the argument being the raptor
engines would shoot off the lunar
regolith at such insane speeds that the
debris would even reach lunar escape
velocity thus the lunar regolith
wouldn't be able to support a starship
landing without a landing pad well now
we see here how SpaceX is trying to
solve the problem namely not the raptor
engines will be used to decelerate
starship onto the lunar surface but some
new type of thruster possibly a variant
of the super Draco thruster which we
know from the crew dragon initially we
assumed it would be some form of a cold
gas thruster but many insightful viewers of this channel rightfully
pointed out that Cold gas thrusters
wouldn't be able to provide the needed
thrust to land such a behemoth on the
moon so more likely it will be a
modified version of the super Draco
thrusters or a smaller version of the
Merlin engines then another highly
fascinating detail we are seeing on the
renders is the lack of any heat
shielding now this is extremely
important as this indicates that the
moon starship will never again land on
earth once in space it will stay in
space the moon starship would of course
be launched by the super heavy into
Earth orbit then the next crucial step
in allowing large payloads of hundred
metric tons or more to be carried to the
surface of the Moon is of course orbital
refuelling this technology will be
absolutely crucial for all starships
missions to the moon but also to Mars
so once refueled the starship would then
conduct the famous translunar injection
burn or tli meaning it will create
thrust with its raptor
engines in order to leave Earth orbit
and inject itself onto a trajectory
towards the moon before reaching the
moon the spacecraft of course has to
decelerate again using its Raptor
engines in order to be able to inject
itself into a stable moon orbit after
probably circling the moon a few times
to carry out some scientific
observations the starship would then
further decelerate again using the
Raptor engines
thus slowly descending towards the lunar
surface it would continue to use the
raptors until at some point when it
would be near enough to the surface it
would then switch to the upper thrusters
that are shown here it will continue
using these thrusters to further
decelerate these engines will then
direct the thrust of starship carefully
such that starship would tilt until it
would be in a vertical position then the
thrust would be relegated downwards
enabling starship to land vertically we
can also see the landing legs here
preparing for touchdown after touchdown
the landing legs seem to retract as
shown on the second render here so now
that starship has touched down the crew
is descending onto the surface via a lift
we assume that this previous render here
which we often have been shown of a
cargo starship letting down a
pressurized Artemis rover we'll also see
some changes this one here is a crewed
version of a moon starship but a cargo
starship would also have smaller
thrusters mounted on the upside same as
the crew version however the difference
would of course be the cargo starship
would need to be able to re-enter
Earth's atmosphere because it would have
to bring cargo from earth to the moon
therefore the overall design of the
cargo moon starship will probably remain
similar to this one here apart from the
landing thrusters and the landing legs
now the astronauts arriving with the
white moon starship would walk to the
cargo starship
and then they would descend the
pressurized Rovers from the cargo
starship onto the moon surface in
order to have a much bigger exploration
radios these pressurized Rovers could
also serve as small mobile moon shelters
as they would allow a stay time on board
of a couple of days the cargo moon
starship would then depart again for
Earth using its upper thrusters after
the astronauts would have completed
their mission the moonship would lift
off the moon again as in the landing
sequence using its upper thrusters not
the Raptor engines same as the cargo
ship then once the moon starship is in
moon orbit it would initiate the Raptors
for the earth injection burn in order to
leave the moon's gravity well back to
earth approaching earth the moon
starship would then decelerate
exactly as when it approached the moon
in order to enter Earth orbit and now we
understand why the moon starship doesn't
have a heat shielding namely because it
will never land on earth it will remain
in Earth orbit and be refueled again by
a refueling starship before the start of
the next mission the moonship could
actually remain in orbit and serve as a
space station because of its gigantic
interior volume after having been
refueled by a fuel starship it would
then be ready to receive the next crew
the crew would probably arrive via a
crew dragon which would dock to the moon
ship in orbit a dragon Xl might be
launched in addition and dock to the
moonship for supply and cargo the next
time starship lands on the moon some
pressurized moon Rovers would already be
waiting from the previous mission and
maybe another cargo starship would
already have landed delivering some Bigelow like expandable habitat modules
the astronauts would descend the modules
onto the surface this process could be
repeated and repeated again thus more
and more astronauts would be allowed to
travel to the moon first maybe only four
astronauts then eight then 20 and at
some point maybe even hundred people in
one go when the moon colony has grown
enough in size but not so fast yet let's first
analyze some other key features of this
white moon starship so why the white
paint actually we saw the cargo version
doesn't have a paint coating its steel
surface is glittering in the Sun our
theory is that the cargo starship wouldn't
need to have life-support systems and a
stable inside temperature however the
crewed version of starship has to provide
an even temperature now we know that the
temperature variations on the moon are
pretty wild from up to plus hundred and
twenty-seven degrees Celsius in the Sun
to minus 180 degrees Celsius in the
shadow that's a brutal difference in
order to minimize this variation a
coating with a very high reflectivity is
very advisable so that as much sunlight
as possible is reflected so the
temperature differences could be
somewhat reduced and the Sun facing side
of starship doesn't heat up too much and
then of course we have already briefly
mentioned the solar array on the nose cone
of the moonship but why on the nose cone
well we know that the most interesting
landing site for future astronauts will
be near or at Shackleton crater at the
lunar South Pole because there we have
perpetual sunlight and also giant water
ice reserves in the eternal shadows of
Shackleton and the other surrounding
craters the Sun is always on the horizon
line so there will be extremely long
shadows in order to minimize the risk of
falling into a shadow having the solar
panels at 45 to 50 meters of height
above the ground will be very beneficial
as it will increase the likelihood of
receiving sunlight now taking the
formula for the surface of a cone and
estimating the height of the solar array
we estimate that the surface area of the
solar array is at least seventy square
meters half of which would always
receive sunlight remember the moon
rotates once every 28 days but at the
South Pole the Sun would just wander
round and round directly on the horizon
line assuming an efficiency of 30% for
the solar cells we get
300 watts per square meter of power so
times 35 square meters which receive
sunlight this would yield 10.5 kilowatts
of power generation from this quite
small looking solar array 10.5 kilowatts
that's not so bad from this quite
inconspicuously looking solar array so
now that we know the exterior features
of the moon starship what will exactly
be its mission its goal well as we
mentioned it will be pretty easy to
build quite large moon bases very fast
using only a few of the white crew
moonships and a few of the silver cargo
moon ships one of those beasts can
deliver 100 or more metric tons of cargo
to the surface of the Moon in one go and
since we know that starship will be
brutally cheap thus be ready to fly
immediately again after landing without
lot of maintenance we could imagine
several crew and cargo moon ships in
continuous rotation from earth to moon
and back if NASA really will commit to
starship which would be really awesome
an Artemis base camp would very quickly
transform into Artemis station and then
Artemis City starship is so
transformative and so much cheaper than
anything we ever had that it will be
really easy to build large cities on the
moon to build huge radio telescopes on
the far side of the moon to build large
mining facilities and even to build
large factories because if we really
want to colonize the entire solar system
and later other star systems we should
be extremely aware of one thing the moon
is the perfect starting point because
the gravity on the moon is so much lower
therefore giant spaceships built from
moon resources and assembled in moon orbit
could leave for distant destinations
much easier than from Earth require much
less propellant but this will be the
topic of the next weeks and months when
we take a closer look at how exactly we
could colonize the moon and why the moon
first then Mars
strategy would make a lot of sense and
we are also planning a collaboration
with our good friend the angry astronaut
it will be a series of four videos
analyzing Elon's Mars colonization plans
and also potential joint Mars missions
between SpaceX NASA and maybe other
companies or space agencies so we are
really looking forward to this
collaboration and you should definitely
check out his channel so do you agree
with our moon first strategy that we should first
colonize the moon and then afterwards
Mars and other parts of the solar system
and if you think that we have forgotten
any key features of this new white
starship be sure to tell us in the
comments so now we finished our starship
flaw fix series the videos of which you
can watch right here and next we'll talk
about colonizing the Moon and Mars and
if they are already out you can just
click here so thanks for watching and I'd say on 2 the future
