Mark Shares His Knowledge

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I’ve been pouring my mental energy into helping SpaceX establish a foothold on Mars, treating it as a fascinating intellectual puzzle rather than a practical goal. My Foothold Plan tackles some of the technical challenges, but I’m skeptical about colonizing Mars.   Starship Reentry and Power Solutions To cut heat flux on Starship’s reentry tiles by 50%, I propose three 90-second aerodynamic braking maneuvers. For power on Mars, I suggest adapting a Virginia-class submarine’s nuclear reactor, which operates for 33 years without refueling. Using pressurized helium for cooling and turbine operation, this reactor could be placed in…

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Hybrid reentry system reduces Starship’s heat flux by 50%!

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For several months, I’ve been exploring solutions to improve the heat shield tiles on SpaceX’s Starship, discussing ideas with Grok-3. Ultimately, I concluded that my lack of specialized education limited my ability to advance tile design, so I paused my efforts until a new avenue emerged. Recently, discussions on X highlighted a contrast: Blue Origin’s capsule, which carried passengers on a suborbital flight, showed no reentry scorch marks, while SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which returned stranded astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS), did. The reason is clear: Blue Origin’s capsule travels straight up and down, while Dragon…

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