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SpaceX is almost ready to begin building a permanent human settlement on Mars with its massive Starship rocket.
The private space flight company is on track to launch its first unmanned mission to Mars in just four years from now, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said at the convention on Friday (October 16). of the International Society of Mars.
“I think we have a great chance of achieving that second window of transfer to Mars,” Musk said in a conversation with the founder of the Mars Society, Robert Zubrin. You can watch a replay of the talk here.
That window Musk referred to is a launch opportunity that pops up every 26 months for the Mars mission. NASA, China, and the United Arab Emirates launched missions to Mars in July this year. The next window opens in 2022 with Musk referring to the 2024 Mars launch opportunity.
The mission will launch to the Red Planet in a SpaceX Starship vehicle, a reusable spacecraft and rocket combo currently in development at the company’s South Texas facility. SpaceX also plans to use Starship for missions to the moon starting in 2022, as well as point-to-point travel around Earth.
Related: Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX’s Mars colonizer vehicles in pictures
Musk has long said that humans must establish a permanent and self-sufficient presence on Mars to ensure “continuity of consciousness as we know it”, should planet Earth become uninhabitable by something like nuclear war or attack. asteroid. .
But SpaceX has no plans to build a base on Mars. As a transportation company, your sole objective is to transport cargo (and humans) to and from the Red Planet, facilitating the development of someone else’s Mars base.
“SpaceX is taking on the biggest challenge, which is the transportation system. There are all kinds of other systems that will be needed,” Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin said during the convention.
“My personal hope is that we see Starship in the stratosphere before it comes out this year, and if Elon is right, we will reach orbit next year or the next,” Zubrin added. “This will change people’s minds about what is possible. And then, you know, we’ll have NASA looking to fund the remaining pieces of the puzzle or entrepreneurs stepping forward to develop the remaining pieces of the puzzle.”
If Musk’s projections are correct, he is known for offering overly ambitious timelines, the first SpaceX mission to Mars would launch the same year that NASA astronauts return to the moon under the Artemis program. SpaceX also plans to take space tourists on a Starship mission around the moon in 2023. NASA has also chosen SpaceX as one of three commercial teams to develop lunar landers for the Artemis program.
Musk said Friday that if it weren’t for the orbital mechanics that require launches to Mars every 26 months, SpaceX “might have a chance to send or try to send something to Mars in three years,” Musk said, adding that Earth and Mars you will not be in the best position. “But the window is four years away, because they are in different parts of the solar system.”
Musk unveiled plans for SpaceX’s Starship plans in 2016. The project aims to launch a 165-foot (50-meter) spacecraft atop a massive thruster for deep-space missions to the Moon, Mars and elsewhere. Both the Starship and its Super Heavy power-up will be reusable.
This year, SpaceX launched two Starship prototype test flights, called SN5 and SN6, from its Boca Chica test site in Texas. Those flights reached an altitude of 150 meters (500 feet).
SpaceX is currently preparing another Starship prototype, called the SN8, for a 20-kilometer (12-mile) high test flight in the near future.
Email Hanneke Weitering at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
