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How SpaceX Will Build a City on Mars — Transcript

by The Space Race · 2,900 words · 422 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:01There will be a city on Mars in the year
0:042050.
0:06It will be humanity's second home, our
0:09first outpost away from the shelter of
0:11the Earth, and a construction project
0:13that will cement our future [music] as a
0:15multilanet species.
0:18SpaceX is determined to make this vision
0:20a reality, but it's going to require
0:22more than just ambition and big rockets
0:25to colonize Mars.
0:28The biggest thing that would set a Mars
0:29city apart from some other off-world
0:31colony like a moon base for example is
0:34this idea of being self- sustaining. You
0:37see, a person living on the moon could
0:39still return to the earth as often as
0:41they like. There's only about 1 day of
0:43travel time between the two. And
0:45likewise, that would mean that any
0:47resources the people of the moon might
0:49require from Earth would be within easy
0:51reach at all times. Mars is a different
0:54story. Now we are looking at 8 months of
0:57travel time one way from Earth. This
0:59could be improved in the future with
1:00nuclear propulsion systems. But even if
1:03that works out as good as can be
1:05expected, the trip to Mars would still
1:07be around 45 days. That means the people
1:11of Mars cannot be dependent on the
1:13resources of [music] Earth. They have to
1:16learn to harvest everything that the red
1:18planet has to offer. And what it has is
1:21really not much. But that will drive the
1:24creation of a massive industry on Mars
1:26to extract those resources and transform
1:29them into the necessities of human life.
1:33With the idea being that one day the
1:35ships from Earth will just stop.
1:37Whatever the reason for that might be,
1:39support from our home world will come to
1:41an end and humanity will continue on
1:44from our second planet. This is going to
1:47require around a million people or more
1:49to be living and thriving in a Martian
1:52city before anything goes wrong on
1:54Earth. So that means we need to build
1:57deep roots on Mars, both figuratively
2:00and literally.
2:02First, there were robots. The planet
2:04Mars will be inhabited by dozens, maybe
2:07hundreds of robots before any person
2:09ever sets foot there. And when we do get
2:12there, we'll be following in the
2:13footsteps of this thing, Optimus, the
2:16Tesla bot. It's probably not a
2:18coincidence that a sister company of
2:20SpaceX is making the exact technology
2:23that they're going to need to start
2:25building on Mars. Optimus is a fully
2:28autonomous AI powered humanoid, and it's
2:31designed to take over any job that is
2:33currently done by people. But on the
2:35flip side of that, Optimus could also
2:37begin doing a job that will eventually
2:39be taken over by a person, like a Mars
2:42colonist, for example. The thing about
2:45Mars is that it's just too far away and
2:47too inhospitable to simply launch a crew
2:50of human beings out onto the frontier
2:52and let them fend for themselves. It may
2:55have worked for the Europeans colonizing
2:57the new world, but the journey to Mars
2:59will be by far the most dangerous
3:02migration that humankind has ever
3:04experienced. The surface of Mars is
3:06colder than Antarctica. It's drier than
3:08the Sahara Desert. But with even bigger
3:11dust storms and the atmosphere is so
3:13thin that liquid can't even exist.
3:16There's just not enough pressure to hold
3:18it together. So what you get is instant
3:21evaporation. People are mostly liquid.
3:23So outside of a pressure suit on Mars,
3:26you would instantly start to freeze,
3:28boil, and suffocate all at the same
3:30time. And even if you did stay safe
3:33inside your suit, you're still likely to
3:35get a heavy dose of radiation. The lack
3:37of atmosphere out there means that
3:39there's almost nothing separating the
3:41Martian surface from the colossal
3:43nuclear reactor in space that we call
3:46our sun. This is why SpaceX has already
3:49made their plan to launch the first
3:51ships to Mars [music] with Optimus
3:52robots on board. Optimistically, this
3:55could happen as early as 2026. SpaceX
3:58has a road map that shows five Starship
4:00landers heading to Mars, each one loaded
4:03with 10 tons [music] of payload. Now,
4:05the only real goal of that first transit
4:08will be to land at least one ship
4:10without crashing. That's why they want
4:12to send more than one at a time because
4:14there will probably be a learning curve.
4:17One of the things we know about SpaceX
4:19is that they learn through trial and
4:20error and oftent times that means stuff
4:23blows up at first. But once they get it
4:25right, they're able to lock in and just
4:27keep executing very consistently.
4:30So assuming that one ship lands safely
4:32and releases a handful of Optimus robots
4:35into the Martian landscape, they're
4:37still not going to have a whole lot to
4:38do until the next wave arrives. 2 years
4:41after the first successful landing is
4:43when the first real colonial fleet
4:45arrives. 20 Starship landers, each
4:48carrying 75 tons of cargo, most of which
4:51is going to be infrastructure for the
4:53first people to [music] arrive. Now,
4:56let's talk about where this Mars colony
4:58is going to be located. SpaceX has
5:00already identified the Arcadia region as
5:02a prime candidate for settlement. This
5:05is just northeast of the volcano Olympus
5:07Mons, the tallest mountain in the entire
5:10solar system. [music]
5:11Arcadia is a flat plane that's close to
5:14the equator, yet still believed to
5:15contain large deposits of water ice,
5:18which is going to be the single most
5:20important resource on Mars for a couple
5:23of reasons. When we talk about the
5:26infrastructure that the Optimus robots
5:27are going to be building for their
5:29future human comrades, there are two
5:31critical machines that they need to get
5:33up and running. One is a water treatment
5:36plant. People need to drink, but water
5:38is really heavy. Just bringing enough of
5:41it to keep everyone alive on the 8-month
5:43journey from Earth to Mars is going to
5:45be a challenge. And that already
5:47involves using a lot of recycled water.
5:50But there are only so many times that
5:52you can turn last night's pee into this
5:55morning's coffee. Now, the cool thing
5:57about water is that it can serve many
5:59purposes beyond just hydration. For
6:02example, you can break water apart into
6:05two base elements, oxygen and hydrogen.
6:08So, as part of the same process that
6:10converts ice into drinkable water, our
6:12robot scouts can also produce oxygen for
6:15future colonists to breathe. Then
6:18there's hydrogen. Not particularly
6:20useful for human consumption, but very
6:23important for making rocket fuel. Now,
6:26here's something to consider in the long
6:28run. Signing up to be a Mars colonist
6:30[music] is probably going to involve a
6:32one-way ticket to the red planet. But in
6:34the short term, before we have a big
6:36awesome city for everyone to live in,
6:38people are going to want a return trip.
6:40And just like with water, rocket fuel is
6:43very heavy. Just bringing enough of it
6:45to last the journey and land on Mars
6:47will be difficult, which means there
6:49won't be fuel left over to launch a
6:52second time and come all the way back to
6:54Earth. So, a second big infrastructure
6:56project for the Optimus bots is going to
6:59be constructing a rocket fuel production
7:01plant. Now, there are some rockets that
7:04burn pure hydrogen as their fuel source,
7:07but it's not a popular choice because
7:08hydrogen is a very difficult element to
7:11work with. It's very prone to weird
7:13chemical reactions and is extremely hard
7:16to contain because it's the lightest
7:17element [music] in the universe. That is
7:20why SpaceX chooses methane as their fuel
7:23for Starship. It's hydrogen with a
7:25little bit of carbon mixed in. One
7:27carbon atom for every four hydrogen
7:29atoms. And that carbon just helps to
7:31stabilize the mixture and weigh it down
7:33enough to make this whole process a lot
7:35easier. Now, we know hydrogen comes from
7:38water, but carbon will come out of thin
7:40air, literally. What little atmosphere
7:42Mars does have is mostly carbon dioxide.
7:45So, a carbon capture device would be
7:47able to extract the necessary atoms from
7:49the air. You get carbon to make methane
7:51and some bonus oxygen for people to
7:53breathe. Now, in order to support the
7:56new robotic manufacturing industry on
7:58Mars, there's going to need to be a
8:00mining operation as well. The water ice
8:03that we are going to need is located
8:05under the ground. That means we need to
8:07dig it up. And again, probably not by
8:10coincidence, SpaceX is going to have
8:12access to some boring technology from
8:14another sister company. Now, a
8:17full-scale tunneling machine is not
8:18going to be practical for early
8:20construction on Mars. But taking that
8:22same design and scaling it down into a
8:24Martian mining rig is going to start
8:26unlocking those resources that make it
8:29possible for humans to survive and
8:31eventually [music]
8:32create a sustainable colony. As a bonus,
8:35all of the soil and rock that they dig
8:36up while mining can be processed into a
8:39kind of ashalt and used to lay down hard
8:42surfaces [music] for roads and landing
8:44pads. And that is where we end up about
8:472 years after our first large-scale
8:49robot landing. This could be as early as
8:52the year 2030. There's nothing wrong
8:54with a little optimism from time to
8:56time. And now it's time for the first
8:59people to arrive on Mars as part of this
9:01massive Starship fleet with 100 landers,
9:04each carrying
9:06150 tons of cargo. There are going to be
9:09two new construction projects that need
9:11to begin once the first human settlers
9:13arrive. One is a power plant. Up until
9:16now, the robots have only needed enough
9:18electricity to recharge their batteries,
9:21something that could easily be handled
9:23by a few solar panels. But now that
9:25people are here, their energy needs are
9:27going to be much higher. So once the
9:29power plant is ready, all of the
9:31infrastructure that the robots have been
9:32building gets turned on. Life support
9:35systems that provide oxygen, water,
9:37heat, and air pressure need to run 24/7.
9:41The length of one day on Mars is almost
9:43exactly the same as a day on Earth,
9:45which means that every 12 hours or so,
9:48[music] it's going to get dark. And that
9:49means solar panels need to be hooked up
9:51to batteries, big [music] ones. By now,
9:54we can probably say it's not a
9:56coincidence that Tesla has been
9:57manufacturing large battery storage
9:59systems that they call the mega pack.
10:02You can fit a couple of these inside of
10:03a Starship lander. And just one mega
10:06pack can power a small town for a couple
10:08of hours. So, keeping [music] a small
10:10Mars colony alive overnight is actually
10:13more than doable. But people also need
10:16homes on Mars. The advantage of the
10:18Starship lander with its gigantic size
10:20is that it can continue to provide
10:22adequate shelter for people long after
10:24they touch down on Mars. So, there's no
10:27rush to move out. But Starship is also
10:29not an ideal long-term home. It's very
10:33tall and narrow, and you have to take an
10:35elevator every time to get in or out. So
10:38now people and Optimus bots [music] work
10:40together to build the first permanent
10:42habitat on Mars. These habitats can take
10:45many forms. The first one that comes to
10:47mind for most people is going to be a
10:49big glass dome. And that's maybe
10:51something we can figure out a lot
10:53further down the line of city
10:54construction. But for the first Martian
10:56homestead, that's just way too hard. For
10:59example, we don't build a lot of giant
11:01glass domes on Earth, but the closest
11:03thing ever made to a sci-fi Mars city
11:05would be the Singapore airport nature
11:07dome. This covers 135,000 square meters
11:10of internal space. And the structure
11:12itself weighs 3500 tons, which would be
11:16at least 350 Starship loads of material
11:20just to build one dome. Plus all of the
11:22construction machinery you would need on
11:24Mars to actually assemble something of
11:26this size. Now, we can build domes. We
11:30just have to think more about working
11:31with the natural environment of Mars.
11:33For example, we can make an ice dome.
11:35It's an idea that's currently being
11:36studied by NASA's Langley Research
11:38Center. And it takes advantage of the
11:40natural insulating power of water. This
11:43is the same reason why Inuit people in
11:45the north make igloo. Frozen water will
11:48keep heat in, but just as important on
11:51Mars. It's going to [music] keep
11:53radiation out. You see, water is
11:56actually one of the best shields against
11:58deadly radiation from the sun. The ice
12:01dome begins with an inflatable
12:02doughut-shaped module at its base. Then
12:05a solid mold for the dome shape goes up
12:07around that. And finally, autonomous
12:09robots would fill the dome with water
12:11ice sourced from the Martian surface.
12:15The ice would be translucent enough to
12:17allow natural light to shine through,
12:19which is going to benefit the natural
12:20sleep cycle and mental health of people
12:23living inside. This makes the ice dome
12:26ideal for a house, but it might lack the
12:28versatility required for bigger and more
12:31diverse infrastructure like research
12:33labs and factories. So, keeping the
12:36inflatable module at the core, which is
12:38something that we can make on Earth in
12:39pretty much any shape and size we might
12:41need, and then fairly easily ship to
12:44Mars in a single rocket, then we just
12:46need a more versatile material to cover
12:48it over and provide that extra strength
12:50in a solid shell. Again, we need to take
12:53advantage of local resources. So, if ice
12:56mining operations are going to keep
12:58progressing as humans arrive, then we're
13:00going to end up with plenty of rock that
13:02gets dug up along the way to finding
13:04that ice, which we can then turn around
13:07and use as construction material. We
13:10already looked at using this mining
13:11waste to make ashfall, but for building
13:13a sturdy shell around an inflatable
13:15house, we'll need something that's more
13:17like concrete. In order to do this on
13:20Mars, you need a binder that's going to
13:23help the rocks stick together [music]
13:24and form into a solid material. And this
13:27binding agent is also going to be easy
13:30to find in our Mars colony because it's
13:32going to come from human waste. This is
13:36a concept often referred to as
13:38astrocrete or biocrete and it actually
13:40turns the bodily fluids of astronauts
13:43into a building material. The idea for
13:46biocrete comes from a study at the
13:48University of Manchester, and they've
13:50tested this process using human blood,
13:53sweat, and urine. Now, for an ideal Mars
13:57colony, we would hope to avoid shedding
13:59too much blood and sweat, but assuming
14:01we can all stay hydrated, there should
14:03be an abundance of urine to go around.
14:06[music] We know that it's possible to
14:08extract drinkable water from our pee,
14:10but there's also a lot of waste product
14:12that gets filtered out. That's called
14:14urea. And that's the good stuff. It can
14:17actually be mixed with the soil on Mars
14:19to make a concrete even stronger than
14:22what we build with today on Earth. I
14:25know that sounds crazy, but medieval
14:27stonemasons actually used to mix animal
14:29blood into their mortar when they were
14:31building castles to make it strong. So,
14:33this isn't entirely new. And then
14:36there's food, which is arguably going to
14:38be one of, if not the hardest aspect of
14:41a self- sustaining city on Mars. Just
14:44like water and fuel, there's only so
14:46much food we can possibly bring down
14:48along with us from Earth. So, at some
14:51point, we will need an abundant supply
14:54of Mars grown nutrition. Farming is
14:58difficult under any circumstance, even
15:00on Earth. It's one of the toughest jobs
15:02around. But Mars poses a unique
15:05challenge to growing food. The soil is
15:08literally toxic. Martian soil is laced
15:11with something we call perclorates,
15:12which contain chlorine, which is the
15:14stuff we put in swimming pools to stop
15:17bacteria from growing. So, the same goes
15:20for anything you might want to plant in
15:22Mars soil. The percllorates are going to
15:24stop it from growing. And that leaves us
15:27with two solutions that are about
15:30equally as challenging. Either we need
15:32to transport all of our soil for
15:34agriculture from the Earth to Mars,
15:37which even a starship full of dirt is
15:39not that much when we're trying to grow
15:41food for a million people. Or we need
15:44yet another Mars-based industry for
15:46processing soil, removing perchlorates,
15:49and making sure that there's adequate
15:51nutrients available to make it viable
15:53for growing plants. Now, luckily,
15:56there's another outlet for repurposing
15:58human waste. If urine can be used to
16:00make cement, then the number two can be
16:02used to fertilize the fields and feed a
16:05million people. No one said this was
16:08going to be pretty. But if we can lock
16:10down those basic necessities of life,
16:12power, water, oxygen, shelter, food, and
16:15if we can produce those things in a way
16:16that is self- sustaining, that doesn't
16:19rely on the Earth to ensure the future
16:21survival of humans on Mars, then this is
16:23the first step towards becoming a true
16:26multilanet species.
16:28Now, where do we go next?

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