What will it take to refuel starship on mars.

Illustration of starships landed on mars
(Credit-spacex)

When humans will land on mars onboard a starship in 2024 they will need a way to return back to their home planet .This can't be done if spacex can't produce propellent on mars because starship on its own without any refuelling on mars can't come back to earth .In this article we will take a look on how it can be done using insitu resource utilisation ,what are the option for energy sources to do that and if that really makes sense to produce propellent on mars.

•How will spacex produce propellent on mars

Starship uses liquid methane as a propellent and liquid oxygen as its oxidiser both of which can be easily produced on earth through chemical reactions but creating methane and oxygen on mars is on whole another level .It needs a lot of energy to do so ,methane and oxygen on mars can be produced on mars by a process called sabatier process in this process water and carbon dioxide is required as reactants and sabatier process will convert them into methane and oxygen as products .It seems easy but it requires a lot more than that which you will see in the points below.

•What will spacex use as a energy source to do this.

Currently spacex is pursuing solar panels .Elon wants to go with just solar for every bit of energy needed on mars but how much solar panels will be required to refuel 1000 starships every 26 months?The numbers are insane .As an estimate solar panels of total area of 10 football fields are required to refuel just one starship which is around 5000m² ,for 1000 starships this will be around (5000m²×1000×10) 500 lakh m² or 50 km ² .Its not that hard but what about mars 5km² area of solar panels will weigh too much it will not be economical to carry them on starship .solar panels need to be produced on mars to make it economical and that will require huge colonies and factories but lets say spacex can do it ,even then there are some more challenges to overcome like mining water ice and then purifying it,also the storage of methane and oxygen in storage tanks .

•Does it make sense to produce propellent on mars.

Many of you will think that leaving a starship on mars is a good idea just because of its manufacturing cost is 5 million dollars and also it will work as an apartment once landed on mars .It seems like a good idea to return just crewed starship with people who want to come back .Will this solve all the problem ?in this way spacex will not be able to make a colony of millions by 2050 it can never be done if they don't make all the starships return back .The first few ships will not return and its good because the colony will want to save energy for mining and other important purposes .But after establishment of big colonies and increasing solar panel production on mars returning a starship back to earth is a good idea.

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