Space X’s CEO Elon Musk says that he has a plan to put people on Mars in 50 to 150 years from now.
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Speaking at the International Astronautical Congress, a meeting of multiple international space exploration associations in Guadalajara, Mexico, the CEO laid out his plans to colonize the red planet.
His goal is to bring down the price of human space travel to only $200,000 per person which is the price of a house in the United States compared to $10 Billion which is what it would cost if he wanted to put people on the Red Planet today.
The CEO talked about how some crucial technology changes would need to happen for that goal to become reality, including making rockets that are reusable.
Musk’s company has successfully landed six rockets that completed missions to orbit, and it intends to send one of those “used” rockets back into orbit later this year.
On the technical front, Musk has already introduced the world to the Raptor rocket engine he plans to use to take people to Mars, which is different that the engines used for the Falcon rockets that SpaceX has already sent on missions. The Raptor uses a different fuel and is far more powerful. The company completed a successful test fire of a Raptor rocket on Monday.
Musk said a spacecraft headed to Mars would need to use 42 Raptor engines at once
“You could lose multiple engines,” he said Tuesday, “and continue the mission safely.”
The initial goal is to pair the enormous rocket with a spaceship capable of carrying about 100 people (plus their luggage.)
He admits “not too many people” will want to head to Mars at first. But on the bright side, he says there will be plenty of jobs.
“Mars would have a labor shortage for a long time,” he added.
Once people are on Mars, Musk said they’ll be able to grow crops in contained buildings with compressed atmosphere. They’ll also have the resources they need to make more rocket fuel — allowing them to send spaceships back to Earth.
About an hour before Musk took the stage to unveil his master Mars plan, a video depicting an artificial rendering of SpaceX’s “Interplanetary Transport System” was posted to YouTube.
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