SpaceX Mars base concept

[Dr Mordrid]

Higher res looks at a crew Dragon landing, a landed crew Dragon, and the Mars base concept (a NASA hab) with the Dragons Nest and a Dragon-derived orbit-return vehicle.

[UtwigMU]

Is this concept where they send return rocket first and then humans?

[Dr Mordrid]

Not much has been said explicitely, but the consensus is what looks like the parts for ISRU fuel generation seem to be on Dragon's Nest, and if so the RV would fuel & launch off of it. The crew would land in a crew Dragon, which may or may not be used for short excursions like a helicopter.

More tidbits;

By changing from machining to explosive hydroforming for thrust chambers and nozzles they say the production rate for the new Merlin 1D engine will be over 500 per year per line.

There will be two kerosene upper stages; the existing MVac (a vacuum Merlin 1C) for payloads up to 7 mt, a M1DVac (Merlin 1D vacuum) for larger payloads, and the Raptor liquid hydrogen stage for high energy trajectories like asteroids, the Moon, Mars & the outer solar system. Raptor would be both stretched in length and 5 meters in diameter vs. the standard diameter of 3.66 meters.

We'll likely know more Sept. 29th - Elon Musk will be at the National Press Club in Wadhington, DC talking about the future of human spaceflight, and rumors are he'll talk aboutmas yet secret engine developments. Hoping C-SPAN covers it.

[UtwigMU]

I hope we'll make it to Mars within my lifetime. It's always ~30 years away.When I was 5-10 I had this really cool illustrated child's encyclopaedia and technical encyclopaedia and I thought by 2000 we'd be living in glass dome cities and have colonies on Moon and Mars.

Also currently apart from Americans I think only India and Japan and partially ESA are doing something meaningful in space. Russians who did many firsts are only churning out Soyuz and Proton rockets from 1960s and are not landing anything on any celestial body (they landed quite a few probes on Moon, Venus and Mars during Cold War) and ESA is probably too bureaucratic to do anything efficiently.