One of the richest people in the world, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, has reaffirmed his long-standing goal of landing humans on the surface of Mars over the next five to ten years. Musk’s idea is to make humanity a multi-planetary species through a colony on Mars.
According to the Daily Mail, Elon Musk wants to achieve his goal as quickly as possible – to ensure the stability of the colony on Mars before “the Earth becomes too hot for life in about 500 million years.”
Musk stated this during a talk on Lex Friedman’s podcast, adding that the opportunity is now open for humans to leave Earth.
The billionaire’s fortune is estimated at $ 278 billion, and with the help of SpaceX, he is creating a Starship rocket, which, in his opinion, will be able to deliver humanity to the Red Planet.
However, the Starship project failed this week when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) postponed the release of an environmental assessment of a proposed orbital missile test in Boca Chica, Texas. It won’t be released until February 28, 2022, making the earliest possible test launch of the giant rocket in March 2022.
When it came to establishing a colony on the Red Planet, Musk told host Lex Friedman, “At best, about five years, at worst, 10 years.”
There is a long way to go to Mars as the massive rocket is still at the prototype stage, as it has never been tested with the Heavy Lift accelerator required to exit Earth’s atmosphere.
“This is fundamental engineering,” Musk said when asked about factors that can cause latency. “I mean Starship is the most sophisticated and advanced rocket ever made … This is really the next level.”
In May, the Starship project completed its fifth high-altitude test flight with the successful return of the main part of the rocket back to the launch pad. The next important stage is a test orbital flight, in which the Heavy Lift launch vehicle will be involved, and it will end with a splashdown in the ocean.
After this test flight, SpaceX is to be sent to the moon, enter orbit, and return to Earth in 2023.
It currently takes at least six months to get to Mars, but Musk believes it can be done faster with flights every two years. This two-year gap is associated with the orbits of Earth and Mars.
But in order to achieve any of his goals, Elon Musk must reduce the cost of flying to Mars, which is associated with the transition to fully reusable rockets. “There is a certain price per ton of Mars surface where we can afford to build a self-sufficient city, and we can’t afford it anymore,” Musk told Friedman in a podcast.
“Right now, you can’t go to Mars for a trillion dollars,” he explained. “No amount of money can buy you a ticket to Mars.”
Despite these difficulties and technical problems, Musk believes that the window for human colonization of the Red Planet will open completely and believes that we need to start building a sustainable colony as soon as possible.
He worries that in 500 million years the Earth will be too hot for life, which he says is “a long time”, but only a tenth of the time the planet has existed.
“The earth was about 4 and a half billion years old, and for the first time in 4 and a half billion years, it was possible to extend life beyond Earth,” Musk said. “This window of opportunity can be open for a long time, and I hope so, but it can also be open for a short time. I think it would be wise for us to act quickly while the window is open, just in case. “
In an earlier interview, he told the social network Clubhouse that the first colony will be a tiny, dangerous, “borderline” environment as its residents begin to establish fuel production, food production and power plants.
According to his 10-year worst-case scenario, he is still likely to outstrip NASA on Mars by about two years – as the US aerospace agency hopes to get there by 2033. It will be part of the Artemis program, according to which, by 2024, the first woman and another man will walk on the lunar surface, creating a stable presence on a natural satellite of the Earth. After landing on the moon, which will be completed in a modified version of the SpaceX Starship capsule, NASA will work to land on Mars.
Musk’s goal is to move forward and move as quickly as possible in order to use the full version of Starship to reach Mars.
Upon completion, the major version of Starship will become “the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever built” for launching crews and cargo.
While Musk hopes to achieve his goal of landing humans on the Red Planet by 2026, he remains realistic and accepts that this is not a deadline due to technical hurdles.
Musk says there are a number of technological advances that need to be made before 2026 before humans can travel to Mars in a starship. These include ensuring that Starship is fully reusable and can reach orbit where it can refuel and prepare for its long six-month voyage to Mars.
Musk said that if you have a large, fully reusable rocket with orbital refueling and “highly efficient cheap fuel,” then you can go to Mars. He hopes to reduce the travel time from Earth to the Red Planet from the current six months to one month in the future.
“One last thing: on Mars, you need local fuel production,” Musk said in an earlier interview with the Clubhouse. For this to work, you can “take CO2 from the atmosphere and combine it with water ice to create methane and oxygen, CH4. If you have these elements, life can become multi-planetary and we can have a self-sustaining city on Mars. “
After a series of successful test flights, Musk hopes to send the uncrewed spaceship to Mars and back at some point in 2024 – before a crewed flight in 2026, although he now admits that in the worst case, the interplanetary flight could be postponed to 2031.
“What will be the first – a self-sufficient city on Mars or the Third World War?”, Elon Musk asked.
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