that we're going to need so it's time to go back to low earth orbit to see how much propellant we actually require for this if you check out this table here this shows the calculations for the refilling flights and the mars cargo ships delta v requirements in fact you might remember those tables from the moon shot video as much as we currently know about the numbers that we get for super heavy starship and the engines we think that spacex calculates quite conservatively when they're talking about NUMBER_TOKEN to NUMBER_TOKEN metric tons to low earth orbit engaging the launch trajectory model NUMBER_TOKEN plus metric tons looks possible considering the usage of the upcoming second generation of raptor depending of course on the ship variant used so when that's the case just five additional refilling flights are needed to get over NUMBER_TOKEN metric tons of propellant into low earth orbit to refill the cargo ship and have it land on mars with sufficient uncrewed margin the dry mass of the cargo ship we predict will weigh NUMBER_TOKEN tonnes more than the tankers and this is due to them not needing any of the zero boil off equipment if you're traveling to mars for eight to nine months you need good insulation and solar powered recondenses to stop the cryogenic oxygen and methane from boiling off now this is something by the way that still needs to be solved even before thinking about landing a starship on mars in fact it is also needed for a moon mission as well so as said at the start we're trying to see if we can get away without using any sort of refueling on mars via in-situ resource utilization systems that's of course all about generating the liquid oxygen and the liquid methane direct from mars so that a starship can refuel and return to earth now don't get me wrong here of course at some point this makes the most sense i'm certainly not saying that i'm against isru systems for mars because mid to long term it's essential for a successful self-sufficient mars colony saying all that though it is a colossal effort to establish that required infrastructure initially okay so roughly speaking a starship with a reasonable amount of payload needs around NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN tons of propellant to not only launch from mars but also to put itself on a trajectory all the way back to earth with the fuel margin to land back at home again those NUMBER_TOKEN metric tons of propellant will consist of around NUMBER_TOKEN tons of methane and NUMBER_TOKEN tons of oxygen to create both electrolysis and the sabatia process are required if we want to use the resources from mars the oxygen is merely a by-product in those processes so that's covered but for methane we need around NUMBER_TOKEN tonnes of carbon and NUMBER_TOKEN tonnes of hydrogen on top of that we need a whopping NUMBER_TOKEN gigawatt hours of electricity to generate it that is enough by the way to drive your standard tesla about NUMBER_TOKEN times the distance to the moon and back while the carbon is present everywhere on mars since the atmosphere is around NUMBER_TOKEN carbon dioxide water is needed for hydrogen luckily this is abundant with scientists estimating that there could be at least NUMBER_TOKEN million cubic kilometers of it existing on mars much of it though is in the form of dirty ice it needs to be extracted and the infrastructure just for that could be very extensive we'll talk more about that in just a moment but first a massive thank you to surfsharkvpn for sponsoring this video a virtual private network or vpn is a service that both hides
START_SPONSOR_TOKEN talk more about that in just a moment but first a massive thank you to surfsharkvpn for sponsoring this video a virtual private network or vpn is a service that both hides END_SPONSOR_TOKEN