SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reported on Tuesday that the company is assembling a huge rocket to transport people and cargo to Mars with the eventual goal of inhabiting the planet. Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket is stranded, after gusting up for a second time. The maiden flight of its more dominant Falcon Heavy has delayed time and again.
Nonetheless, Musk has never been the one to quiet away from grand declarations. Hence he announced SpaceX’s theoretical plans for a spacecraft intended to initiate a self-sufficient city on Mars.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s Martian Mission
In a 60 minutes speech – “Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species” at the International Astronautical Congress, he reveals that his goal is to make the planet seem achievable. Musk has summarized his determined plan to create a human settlement on the Red Planet. The plan engages reusable rockets, carbon fibre fuel tanks, ultra-powered engines and spaceships able of hauling 100 passengers to and from the planet. The first flight is only possible as early as 2022.
Hannah Kerner, executive director of the Space Frontier Foundation, reveals that Musk is afoot on a long-term Martian settlement ever since the beginning of SpaceX. When compared to the pace that NASA’s ‘Journey to Mars’ has been moving, people are looking up to SpaceX to fulfill their promises.
For now, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claims that it plans to depart an unmanned spacecraft to Mars named ‘Red Dragon’ in 2018. This will be original in the usual rhythm of missions as the planets line up every 26 months.
Moreover, part of Musk’s goal is to divulge the newest and supreme spaceships from SpaceX. Furthermore, to do it in such a way that Congress is possibly to grant significant financial support to the Hawthorne-based private aerospace company. Elon Musk may be a billionaire. However, with all the finance sinking into Tesla, SolarCity and SpaceX, Musk’s pockets aren’t profound enough to take this Martian mission on himself.
Getting this kind of support from the government can be tricky. Apprehensions will be raised due to the latest Falcon 9 explosion. Furthermore, there’s rivalry from other private spaceflight companies such as United Launch Alliance.
Journey To Mars – The Vehicle
Musk exposed the ‘Mars vehicle’. This is a transportation theory that will ship humans from Earth to Mars to set up the first settlement. How this vehicle will operate? – has to do with the economics of getting to the red planet. Musk had put forth few notions on this theory. The first is to use completely reusable spacecrafts and boosters. SpaceX has already begun to reuse the primary stage of some of its Falcon 9 rockets.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 was able to land erect using retrospective thrusters at a selected spot in its primary stage. The second will be to generate right propellants on the planet. The propellant used ascertains the dimensions of the vehicle that will be motorized by it. Musk presently has his eyes set on deep-fry methalox. This is a liquid methane and liquid oxygen, in a SpaceX Raptor engine. The Indian cryogenic engine CE 7.5 uses cryogenic hydrogen and liquid oxygen as propellants.
Nevertheless, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s plans are still just hardly better than whimsical. In spite of the lucidity, the company seems to have concerns with the engineering. It isn’t clear how humans will survive in the vehicle, or even on the red planet for months. Neither there seems to be a mention on how they will safeguard passengers from the severe solar radiation.
