SpaceX‘s billionaire founder Elon Musk says that regardless of Starship setbacks, the area firm hasn’t taken its eyes off the ball — and that ball is huge, crimson, and roughly 140 million miles away.
In a 42-minute video posted to X on Thursday night, Musk laid out a plan to launch the mammoth spacecraft to Mars for the primary time as early as subsequent yr.
His final imaginative and prescient has been to make use of a fleet of Starships to ship 1 million people to Mars by 2050. To be clear, he would not simply wish to go to the planet; he desires to determine a everlasting, impartial metropolis there.
The brand new timeline is tough to fathom, particularly for individuals who watched one other Starship prototype explode this week. Although the ship reached area throughout the take a look at, it failed to attain lots of its objectives. Musk has earned a popularity for wildly underestimating schedules — he as soon as aimed to ship an uncrewed ship to Mars by 2018 — however that did not cease him from presenting one more formidable timeline.
“If we have two planets, we keep going,” he mentioned. “We can be out there among the stars, making science fiction no longer fiction.”
Listed here are the important thing takeaways from Musk’s newest Mars replace:
Elon Musk gave a presentation known as “The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary.”
Credit score: SpaceX / X screenshot
1. A Mars touchdown in 2027
Musk is now focusing on late 2026 for the primary uncrewed Starship flight to Mars, making the most of an orbital alignment that might shorten the journey between planets. The ship would arrive seven to 9 months later in 2027. Musk considers the chances of launching in that upcoming window to be about 50-50. If SpaceX misses it, the following alternative would not come for an additional two years.
Mashable Mild Pace
With the intention to head to Mars that quickly, SpaceX first has to grasp tips on how to refuel a Starship in low-Earth orbit, after it has already blasted off the planet — one thing that, by the best way, has by no means been achieved earlier than.
2. First simply robots, then people
Although the primary flight will not carry individuals, SpaceX nonetheless intends to place some butts in seats. The “crew” will encompass humanoid Optimus robots, constructed by Musk’s electrical automotive firm, Tesla. Throughout his speak, Musk introduced some renderings of the sci-fi robots, together with one meant as an homage to the well-known Lunch atop a Skyscraper photograph, with Optimuses (Optimi?) sitting collectively on a metal beam.
“That would be an epic picture to see Optimus walking around on the surface of Mars,” he mentioned.
NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft checked out Arcadia, a area with ice, in 2001.
Credit score: NASA / JPL / Arizona State College
3. The potential touchdown spot: Arcadia
SpaceX is a number of potential areas on Mars the place Starship might land, however the lead candidate thus far is a area often called Arcadia, which additionally occurs to be the identify of considered one of Musk’s kids.
It is one of many few areas the place a number of shallow ice exists comparatively close to the Martian equator, in line with NASA. SpaceX will likely be prioritizing a location that is not near the poles, has ice as a supply for water, and is not too mountainous for the rockets, Musk mentioned.
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4. A fleet of ships within the 1000’s
With every Mars alignment launch window, SpaceX desires to extend its cadence of flights. To do this, they will want much more rockets and ships. Proper now the SpaceX plant in Starbase, Texas — which residents simply voted to make a metropolis — could make a brand new Starship each two to a few weeks, Musk mentioned. The corporate will construct two so-called “Giga Bay” services — one in Texas and one other in Florida — to ramp that as much as a number of per day.
He envisions 1,000 to 2,000 ships heading to the Purple Planet each couple of years, with the flexibility to catch and reuse boosters inside hours. The aim is to ship sufficient individuals, infrastructure, and provides in order that if for some cause cargo shipments from Earth cease coming, the Martian metropolis will not die.
“My guess is that’s about a million tons, but it might be 10 million tons. I hope it’s not 100 million tons,” he mentioned. “That’d be a lot.”
