Will the first successful landing of a Starship on Mars carry a useful payload?
Successful landing means intact enough to transmit from the surface.
Useful payload includes things like a demonstration rover, a test factory to produce sample quantities of propellant, any cargo intended for use by later missions, or instruments of scientific value.
Not counted is engineering data from the ship itself, for example cameras or sensors that return data about how the reentry and landing went.
Close date will be extended as needed. If the Starship program is replaced by a similar large reusable rocket successor program, this question will track that instead. Resolves No if the Starship program is cancelled without a clear similar successor program.
1,000
3.00A. Suppose there is stuff that could be useful but there is a problem such that it cannot be offloaded from the rocket so that it is completely useless? Does it just have to be carried there or does it have to be useful when there?
B. What if it is only useful if humans arrive possibly many years later to put it to use? Do you delay the question indefinitely or are you able to resolve and if so yes or no?
C. Not sure if this is possible and maybe obvious enough but for sake of clarity: If there is no payload but the rocket itself is useful?
@ChristopherRandles Great questions—my own impressions are:
A: Rover trapped inside rocket: NO vs. colony supplies stuck inside rocket… YES, if a human could open the rocket later?
B: Future colony supplies: YES
C: Rocket useful for scrap / spare parts: NO… unless the rocket components were designed with the intent to be reused as, e.g., a storage vessel by colonists, maybe YES?
Mostly, if a piece of cargo is / was intended to fulfill a purpose at launch and seems likely to fulfill that purpose in the future (as assessed, e.g., a month after landing), it’s useful and YES. But a piece of cargo that only turns out to be useful later / is part of an improvised solution, NO.
Hopefully the boundaries get clearer when we see what the first Starships to Mars are carrying—block of concrete NO, unmodified Tesla NO, a pile of bricks YES (?), scaffolding for hydroponics inside the fuel tanks YES, a rover that broke on reentry NO, an earthquake monitor that gets stuck inside but still works… huh.
@TannerNewell I'm rooting for an Optimus robot that they expect won't be able to be useful but maybe with some software uploads might become useful.