/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12210808
>The hardest part now is going with some sort of plasma or chemical engine or something to get you to Deimos.

The /sfg/ obligatory standard answer is "use a plasma magnet sail to double your delta V budget." For the thruster itself I'd say the plasma thrusters from
>>12210491
>great Isp
>surprisingly good thrust
>over 2N/kWe input if you use superconducting solenoids
>Starships can gulp up CO2 from Martian atmosphere to refill propellant tanks

>>12041817
Even then it would be tight, the average Amerigun eats almost a ton of food each year, but lets assume you concentrate that all down into high calorie, high protein, fiberous nutritional blocks or astronaut paste, or vacuum packed foods. Say a thousand pounds per person per year, at the very least you'll likely want to have at least twice as much food aboard the crewed ships as needed, to account for appetites and any potential emergency. They'll also need probably a half ton of air per person, assuming you cut the air pressure down to about half Earth normal, each person will probably need about a hundred gallons of water just for drinking, much of that can be recycled so you might be able to cut it down to 70 or something.
I'd say resource margins would be pretty tight in that crew Starship, if the life support needs of one person for one year are around 1.5 tons say, that will leave a crew Starship with only 25 tons for everything else, shielding, inner bulkheads, cooking, cleaning, sleeping and eating spaces, exercise equipment. If SpaceX can really uprate it to 150 tons then there will be no problems at all, they could take 50 people with enough payload left over for double those living requirements and a 50 man crew could live in relatively luxury at least so far as life support, food and water are concerned.