Giant Cyclers for Radiation Safe Earth to Mars Journeys
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/05/giant-cyclers-for-radiation-safe-earth-to-mars-journeys.html
Mass production of SpaceX Starships is likely by 2030. There is a Raptor engine factory that will make 4000 engines per year. Each Super Heavy Starship stack would use about 40 engines. Full production is 100 Super Heavy Starships per year.
Each SpaceX Starship has 1000 cubic meters of volume. One hundred of them would have 100,000 cubic meters of volume. Ocean going cruise ships are measured in terms of gross tonnage (GT), which is a measurement of the internal volume of a ship. The average cruise ship has a gross tonnage of 120,000 GT.
300 meters by 30 meters by 11 meters would be 99000 cubic meters. The picture above is of Space Shuttle External fuel tanks arranged into a rotating space station configuration. There are about 24 tanks. Space Shuttle fuel tanks were similar in size to the SpaceX starship. There are about 20 tanks going around the outside ring and about 4 bundled in the center. If there were 100 Starships, then there could be a triple ring going around the outside and bundles of 25 in the interior. Three stack of eight bundled together. There could be Super Heavy Boosters or other engines in the central part.
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