SpaceX surface habs & infrastructure (from IAC 2017)

[Robotbeat]

So what are these buildings?

They don't look like generic Mars habs. Looks like some thought went into them. The tan buildings look modular, i.e. Flat pack so they fit in the cargo hold efficiently. And there are shields of some sort over the windows that can be opened/tilted up. Maybe some way to get decent radiation shielding?

Thoughts? This is the highest resolution I could find for this image, but the other "Mars SimCity" view used many of the same buildings.

SpaceX must have done some analysis on surface habs and how large ones can efficiently pack into BFR.

[Robotbeat]

Also, by my calculations, the 240 tons of methane to fill the BFS requires 60 tons of hydrogen (540t of water) but some of that has to be electrolyzed again due to the Sabatier process, so if we say 120 tons of hydrogen at 142MJ/kg and 50% electrolysis efficiency, you need about 1 Megawatt of power on average to electrolyze that in 1 Earth year. Considering the 20% capacity factor and being further from the Sun, they need roughly 12 MW (at AM0 sunlight) of solar panels, or about 10 acres (10 football fields), to provide enough juice for one full BFR per Earth year.

[Pipcard]

So what are these buildings?

They don't look like generic Mars habs. Looks like some thought went into them. The tan buildings look modular, i.e. Flat pack so they fit in the cargo hold efficiently. And there are shields of some sort over the windows that can be opened/tilted up. Maybe some way to get decent radiation shielding?

Thoughts? This is the highest resolution I could find for this image, but the other "Mars SimCity" view used many of the same buildings.

SpaceX must have done some analysis on surface habs and how large ones can efficiently pack into BFR.

Or it could be just a preliminary "for show" design.

Also, there is a Mars mod for SimCity 4 and those images reminded me of that:

[Nibb31]

Come on, people have got to stop the kremlinology of these CGI models. They are just artist concepts. A lot of fundamental details are missing or shown just as notional concepts. This is not how it's going to look.

[guckyfan]

Come on, people have got to stop the kremlinology of these CGI models. They are just artist concepts. A lot of fundamental details are missing or shown just as notional concepts. This is not how it's going to look.

Except for the geodesic domes. Those are real, according to Elon.

[Nibb31]

According to Elon, FH should have been flying years ago, Red Dragon would be landing on Mars, and they would be reflying complete Falcon 9 (including upper stages) on a routine basis for less that $10 million.

[JamesH65]

According to Elon, FH should have been flying years ago, Red Dragon would be landing on Mars, and they would be reflying complete Falcon 9 (including upper stages) on a routine basis for less that $10 million.

According to Elon, we will soon have 1st stages returning to Earth, landing safely, maybe even on a barge , and we might even have them launched again! He proposed REUSABLE ROCKETS! Madman.

I hope you get the point.

[Nibb31]

Did you get mine ?

You shouldn't trust everything that Elon says just because he's Elon.

[Robotbeat]

Did you get mine ?

You shouldn't trust everything that Elon says just because he's Elon.

No one is forcing you on this thread.

We get it. These might be just totally random CGI assets. But they don't look like it, they have what looks like intentional design features made for Mars and that fit with SpaceX's architecture.

[KelvinZero]

Re the pics in the OP, I like the photorealistic one more than the SimMars one.

The photorealitic one shows what seem to be some quick prefabs/sheds and a large dome with greenery. (lets not get into how it is anchored right now  )

(by shed I mean something a bit flimsy on the surface that could hold surface equipment. I guess rovers go in some sort of shed for servicing too)

A large part of the area on the surface is that dome containing greenery. This seems natural to me. The prefabs come first, and you would always have something like that on the surface near the ITS. But when you get going there is probably little reason for additional habitable volumes on the surface if they do not provide beautiful views and greenery. Just a few more sheds.

The Mars SimCity picture has those modules I interpret as initial prefabs or sheds, and then it has some more which are not connected above ground.. Implying you either have to get into a suit or there are underground tunnels. There is a low proportion of greenery on the surface.

[DreamyPickle]

The base pics are nothing but CGI, all the serious engineering work at SpaceX goes into to the rocket. In particular take a lot at this landing area progression (from reddit):



My bet is most habitats will be mostly underground for radiation protection, it's just that mounds of regolith don't have pretty shiny colors. This doesn't exclude domes, you just need to cover them. Maybe greenhouses or some meeting areas will be exposed.

[Robotbeat]

If it were me, all these things would be under a huge, 2-5psi pressure-stabilized dome (filled initially with just Martian atmosphere with large blowers until it could be well-sealed deep into the ground, which is a challenge) so everything could be built without requiring inflated pressure suits. Perhaps workers at first would wear equivalent of flight suits or something even thinner for safety and warmth but without restricting movement. The actual habs would also be pressurized to, say, 7-12 psi, so you have a more comfortable environment indoors as well as an extra layer of safety.

But this is not my architecture, it's SpaceX's.

[Robotbeat]

It takes 540 tons of water to fill a BFS, so if water is plentiful, it could be used as rad shielding for surface habs. A meter of water on the roof would provide a lot of protection. It could even fill the cells of that beautiful green dome, providing shielding even there. This is made more viable by the low gravity on Mars.

Rad shielding is not critical at first, though.

[Nibb31]

We get it. These might be just totally random CGI assets. But they don't look like it, they have what looks like intentional design features made for Mars and that fit with SpaceX's architecture.

What makes you think that ? They look like the Mars colony in the opening credits of The Expanse or a mars-themed RTS game. In fact, they look like most of the generic pictures of Mars colonies that we've seen for decades for NASA or science fiction movies or games. Just type "Mars colony" in Google Images and you'll get dozens of very similar designs.

So what makes you think that more thought has been put into this than any other generic "artist's impression" picture ?

[Darkseraph]

It looks to be a pretty cool but notional depiction of what a future Mars base/ colony could look like with solar arrays, greenhouses, chemical silos, habitats, pads, batteries, comunications and so on. I wouldn't read too much into it beyond being a nice visualization.

SpaceX has stated itself to be a transport company that sells the ride to Mars so I don't expect they will be engaging in large scale civil engineering millions miles away in the next decade. If they're not exactly in a rush to build new faciltiies for BFR/BFS on Earth to make the logistics of that system easier (where it's vastly easier and cheaper to do so), that should give pause to any notions of SpaceX doing so on Mars any time soon. Things like that will probably be done by other companies and governments buying transport from SpaceX in the future.

[envy887]

It looks to be a pretty cool but notional depiction of what a future Mars base/ colony could look like with solar arrays, greenhouses, chemical silos, habitats, pads, batteries, comunications and so on. I wouldn't read too much into it beyond being a nice visualization.

SpaceX has stated itself to be a transport company that sells the ride to Mars so I don't expect they will be engaging in large scale civil engineering millions miles away in the next decade. If they're not exactly in a rush to build new faciltiies for BFR/BFS on Earth to make the logistics of that system easier (where it's vastly easier and cheaper to do so), that should give pause to any notions of SpaceX doing so on Mars any time soon. Things like that will probably be done by other companies and governments buying transport from SpaceX in the future.

SpaceX needs all of those things for ISRU, except maybe greenhouses. And you know Elon wants greenhouses. They will do some work on them, though obviously the scale and the particular implementation shown is mostly notional.

[envy887]

If it were me, all these things would be under a huge, 2-5psi pressure-stabilized dome (filled initially with just Martian atmosphere with large blowers until it could be well-sealed deep into the ground, which is a challenge) so everything could be built without requiring inflated pressure suits. Perhaps workers at first would wear equivalent of flight suits or something even thinner for safety and warmth but without restricting movement. The actual habs would also be pressurized to, say, 7-12 psi, so you have a more comfortable environment indoors as well as an extra layer of safety.

But this is not my architecture, it's SpaceX's.

I can't imagine that dome without a sealed floor and vertical tension cables throughout it's area anchored in the ground to hold down the roof. Internal tension elements permit pressurized volumes that aren't complete spheres or domed cylinders.

[Jdeshetler]

If it were me, all these things would be under a huge, 2-5psi pressure-stabilized dome (filled initially with just Martian atmosphere with large blowers until it could be well-sealed deep into the ground, which is a challenge) so everything could be built without requiring inflated pressure suits. Perhaps workers at first would wear equivalent of flight suits or something even thinner for safety and warmth but without restricting movement. The actual habs would also be pressurized to, say, 7-12 psi, so you have a more comfortable environment indoors as well as an extra layer of safety.

But this is not my architecture, it's SpaceX's.

I can't imagine that dome without a sealed floor and vertical tension cables throughout it's area anchored in the ground to hold down the roof. Internal tension elements permit pressurized volumes that aren't complete spheres or domed cylinders.

Maybe this dome is non-pressured but talcum free environment so they can move around from pressurized containers to others in space suits and their machinery without going thru cleaning processing. Mars talcum powders is salty and abrasive.

[Hauerg]

It looks to be a pretty cool but notional depiction of what a future Mars base/ colony could look like with solar arrays, greenhouses, chemical silos, habitats, pads, batteries, comunications and so on. I wouldn't read too much into it beyond being a nice visualization.

SpaceX has stated itself to be a transport company that sells the ride to Mars so I don't expect they will be engaging in large scale civil engineering millions miles away in the next decade. If they're not exactly in a rush to build new faciltiies for BFR/BFS on Earth to make the logistics of that system easier (where it's vastly easier and cheaper to do so), that should give pause to any notions of SpaceX doing so on Mars any time soon. Things like that will probably be done by other companies and governments buying transport from SpaceX in the future.

Right. Just like EM would just concentrate on electric cars. Not building tunnels ....

So maybe not SpaceX, but XtraBoring.

[envy887]

If it were me, all these things would be under a huge, 2-5psi pressure-stabilized dome (filled initially with just Martian atmosphere with large blowers until it could be well-sealed deep into the ground, which is a challenge) so everything could be built without requiring inflated pressure suits. Perhaps workers at first would wear equivalent of flight suits or something even thinner for safety and warmth but without restricting movement. The actual habs would also be pressurized to, say, 7-12 psi, so you have a more comfortable environment indoors as well as an extra layer of safety.

But this is not my architecture, it's SpaceX's.

I can't imagine that dome without a sealed floor and vertical tension cables throughout it's area anchored in the ground to hold down the roof. Internal tension elements permit pressurized volumes that aren't complete spheres or domed cylinders.

Maybe this dome is non-pressured but talcum free environment so they can move around from pressurized containers to others in space suits and their machinery without going thru cleaning processing. Mars talcum powders is salty and abrasive.

For what it's worth, in the picture there is vegetation growing inside. Temperature, pressure, and gas mixture have to be fairly Earth-like.