>>13389981Mars transfer window opens up every 2 years. SpaceX intends to produce 1k raptors per year. That translates to 25 Super Heavy and Starship/Cargoship/Tankership flights.
Let's assume that they make 12 boosters and rotate them per *ship variant. 6 primary and 6 as redundancy. That removes 396 engines from circulation, leaving 604 engines for the others. With 6 engines going into *ship variant, we're looking at 18 engines per set of 3 ships. Which means each year, SpaceX will be able to produce approximately 33 ships in total, 11 Crew, 11 Cargo, 11 tanker. I suspect that initially SpaceX will limit it to a maximum of 5 crew ships to Mars. Which with say a conservative 25 people per ship, gives you 125 people per Mars launch window. With the Moon being only a 1.5 day journey with Starship's dV potential, you could bump that Starship number back to 11 and get yourself 275 people to the Moon per launch.
Anyways, 5 crew ships to Mars = 125 people, with 17 cargo ships to Mars = 1700 tons to its surface. Half that payload is going to oxygen, food, water, and lifesupport materials in double or even triple redundancy. So I'd argue that around 500T of that cargo will be that, which leaves 800T for establishing a Mars base. Another 400T will undoubtedly go into equipment and materials to setup ISRU fuel production. Another 500T or so will likely go into hab + habtech (water reclaimer, oxygenator, solar panels for energy generation), which leaves 300T. Of that 300T, I fully expect that 200T will be dedicated to tools that can be used by the colonists to clear several 50-meter circumference spaces on Martian surface and setup a landing pad for future Starships. Which leaves 100T for science experiments. Perseverance rover is approximately 1 metric ton, so basically having the equivalent of 100 of those in terms of science experiments and related equipment is still a truly crazy amount.
Every 2 years after, another 125 people + 1700T arrives and some go back.
