Mars Is Slipping Through Musk's Fingers

And the reason why is utterly moronic.

Photo by Harsh Kumar on Unsplash

Starship’s tenth test flight is imminent — or, it was, as the second stage set to be used for that launch (Starship 37) catastrophically exploded while being filled with fuel for a static test fire, which completely destroyed it. While this is a deeply embarrassing mishap, it is especially devastating for those within the Musk sphere who are excited about his Mars ambitions. You see, the window to launch to Mars only comes around roughly every two years when our orbits come close enough together. The next launch window is in 2026, which is when Musk had planned to send a Starship to Mars. However, with this disastrous delay on top of all the previous failures, that simply isn’t going to happen. As such, SpaceX won’t be able to reach Mars until late 2028 at the earliest. And that isn’t the full story. This failure highlights a significant issue with the Starship concept that could prevent it from ever reaching the Red Planet or even the Moon.

Okay, so what caused this explosion?

According to SpaceX’s initial analysis, the incident was a failure of a COPV (composite overwrapped pressure vessel) tank containing nitrogen. Compressed nitrogen is used to purge fuel lines to stop any accidental explosions, given that it is an inert gas. This is essentially the same thing that happened to OceanGate. Apparently, the composite failed below its design threshold, causing the tanks to pop, which ruptured the fuel lines being used to fill up Starship with liquid methane and oxygen, causing a gigantic explosion.

This should never have happened. The space industry has been using COPVs for decades now. Both NASA’s Space Shuttle and SLS have used them extensively, as they save a significant amount of weight compared to metal pressure vessels. And NASA has never had a COPV failure. Why? Because they know how to build their rockets accurately so that their pressure rating is consistently reliable and also how to check if they aren’t. SpaceX has obviously failed to do both of these things. I suspect there was a fault with the COPV that they failed to spot, and then the cold shock of refuelling liquid fuel caused its failure.

I have seen a few rumours that SpaceX will solve this by using metal pressure vessels, which isn’t going to happen. Starship already has a serious payload shortfall and structural integrity issues, and replacing such a significant component with one far heavier is likely to exacerbate both of these issues. No, SpaceX has to fix this problem. And, considering they are likely rapidly running out of money for the Starship program (read more here), that might be extremely difficult.

But that isn’t really the issue that will prevent Starship from reaching Mars. Ultimately, for a Starship to reach Mars, it needs to be refuelled in orbit. SpaceX will achieve this by launching other Starships that rendezvous with the Mars-bound one in orbit, dock, and cryogenically transfer the fuel. With the current huge underperformance in payload, which is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon, it will take at least 33 refuelling missions before Starship can head for Mars (read more here).

There are numerous issues with this scenario. For one, at the current rate of Starship launches, this refuelling process would take roughly eight years, and Starship’s rocket engines likely won’t survive eight years in the gruelling conditions of LEO. However, the primary concern is the risk of a catastrophic mission-ending refuelling failure.

There have been nine Starship launches, and each Starship has undergone static test firing before launch, meaning SpaceX has fuelled Starship roughly 18 times, with the 19th time failing. That suggests that unless SpaceX resolves this issue, there is a 5% chance of a catastrophic mission-ending explosion every time they refuel a Starship.

You might think that SpaceX will definitely solve this issue, but that isn’t guaranteed. Starship’s seventh and eighth test flights failed for the same reason: fuel leaks. They were the first launches of Starship V2, which was specifically designed to have more robust fuel lines to solve issues found in the previous test flights (read more here). So, there is no guarantee SpaceX can or will resolve this issue.

As I said, for a Mars mission to work, Starship will likely need to be refuelled 33 times in orbit via cryogenic fuel transfer from another Starship. This is something that has never been attempted before, and for good reason. It is insanely hard! The vast thermal gradient between components exposed to the sun and those in the shade causes dramatic levels of expansion, contraction, and stress in components, causing them not to function or fit together correctly. Furthermore, the vacuum of space and the absence of gravity make managing pressures even more challenging. Therefore, attempting to create a sealed connection in space capable of transferring tonnes of high-pressure cryogenic liquid fuels without leaks, pressure loss, or critical failures is nearly impossible.

With this in mind, the failure rate of refuelling in orbit will likely be significantly higher than that on terra firma.

But let’s be highly optimistic and say that orbital refuelling has the same failure rate as terrestrial refuelling. What would a Mars mission look like with these assumptions?

Well, a Mars-bound Starship would need to be refuelled before launch and then 33 times in orbit, for a total of 34 mission-critical refuelling events — given that if the refuel missions exploded on Earth before launch, it would just delay the Mars mission, not end it — each with a 5% chance of destroying the Starship. The statistical chances of all 34 of these refuelling events not ending in a mission-ending explosion are only 17.4%.

In other words, a Starship mission to Mars has an 82.6% chance of ending in a giant fiery explosion far closer to Earth than Mars.

So, even if Musk magically gets Starship to work and actually delivers a payload to orbit, this refuel issue is going to make a Mars mission — and, by proxy, the Moon mission — practically impossible.

Now, my maths here is incredibly rough. The sample size for our 5% figure is far too small to be accurate, and we are making some huge assumptions (like Starship actually making it to orbit), so please take what I say with a pinch of salt. However, as I mentioned, the chance of catastrophic failure during orbital cryogenic refuelling is much higher, as there are many more potential points of failure, and the systems are under significantly more stress. So, there is a chance this figure is too optimistic.

For comparison, NASA has never experienced a catastrophic terrestrial refuelling failure in its entire history. The fact that SpaceX has experienced even a single catastrophic failure like this suggests that their fuel systems and processes are seriously unreliable, even in optimum conditions. If SpaceX can’t even get that right, their rate of catastrophic refuelling failure in orbit will almost certainly be higher than 5%.

There is a simple fix, though: operational redundancy. This is when systems or processes are implemented to identify and rectify or mitigate potential failures. For example, NASA uses X-ray machines, sample stress testing and acoustic testing to ensure its COPV tanks are safe before using them. These tests together decrease the chance of a faulty tank being used to basically zero.

However, Musk appears to be firmly opposed to operational redundancy. Tesla’s FSD only uses camera-based computer vision to perceive the world around it, rather than the industry standard of combining computer vision with LiDAR, radar, and ultrasonic sensors, as this variety provides the system with operational redundancy. Starship’s retrorocket landing procedure also has no operational redundancy. Typical landers, particularly those that carry a crew, use parachutes and have backup parachutes in case the primary ones fail. However, Starship is designed to land with a full crew while relying solely on retrorockets to safely land — meaning that if those rockets fail, it’s goodbye crew. To this day, Falcon 9 booster landings suffer from this lack of redundancy, with around 3% of landings ending in failure.

Ignoring operational redundancy, particularly in high-risk applications, is wildly dangerous. The Soviets demonstrated that with Chernobyl. They had to stretch a shoestring budget, so they eliminated expensive operational redundancy measures, such as containment buildings and proper control rod tips. Look how that ended. Musk and his Silicon Valley mentality of “run lean” and “move fast and break things” is the exact same outlook. He is throwing operational redundancy out the window for the veneer of innovation. It’s already cost him Starship 37, but it will cost SpaceX far more than that in the long run. Sadly, with Starship development money almost certainly starting to run dry — given that SpaceX has raised $10 billion for Starship and has nearly spent all of that on these test flights — I think it might be too late for Musk to rectify the situation.

So, Mars is slipping through Musk’s fingers because he doesn’t understand a basic tenet of engineering that the rest of the world has been painfully aware of for at least 39 years.

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Sources: Phys.org, Futurism, Will Lockett, Will Lockett, Space.com, NASA