On Monday afternoon, Elon Musk said that he “absolutely” still plans to build a base on Mars for humans to populate, as SpaceX continues to launch spacecraft in anticipation of that lofty goal.
Musk responded to a post on X from journalist Ian Miles Cheong, calling for humanity to pursue the idea of permanent bases on both Mars and the moon.
“There should be a base on Mars, and on the Moon,” Cheong wrote. “Humanity’s future depends on its ability to become an interplanetary civilization, and later, interstellar.”
Musk agreed wholeheartedly, simply writing, “absolutely,” in a reply.
Musk has long expressed his desire to be among the first trailblazers on another planet. Among SpaceX’s missions is to make humanity “interplanetary,” utilizing their latest line of spacecraft, the “Starship,” which is “capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable.”
“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great – and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars,” Musk said previously, in a quote posted to SpaceX’s website.
SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Musk with the goal of revolutionizing the aerospace industry and making spaceflight more affordable and accessible to the average human, according to Brittanica.
Since their founding, SpaceX has made great strides in the field, being among the first commercially-owned spacecraft to make several major milestones into space. In 2008, the company’s Falcon 1 spacecraft was the first commercial spacecraft to reach Earth orbit.
In 2012, the company’s Dragon spacecraft was the first privately-owned spacecraft to make a delivery to the International Space Station, and in 2020, the company began delivering researchers to the orbital laboratory under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
SpaceX has also made great strides in the field of reusable spacecraft. Musk has garnered praise for the technology, which would significantly reduce waste and costs associated with launching and retrieving spacecraft.
“On December 21, 2015, the Falcon 9 rocket delivered 11 communications satellites to orbit, and the first stage returned and landed at Landing Zone 1 — the first-ever orbital class rocket landing,” the company’s website reads.
SpaceX then followed up the feat several years later, in 2017, when they sent a rocket that had previously landed back up into orbit, and successfully landed it a second time.
While Mars may seem like a lofty goal, Musk seems confident that it may be possible to not only colonize the Red Planet, but terraform it over the span of years.
Ars Technica reported on Musk’s April speech outside of their Texas Starbase facility, in which he expressed his belief in the possibility of terraforming, acknowledging that in order to make Mars a self-sufficient colony, SpaceX would have to send nearly 1 million people and tens of millions of tons worth of supplies. In order to send that number of people and supplies, SpaceX would need to send 10 rockets per day, and that fleet would need to be dispatched during the trajectory window giving the shortest distance between Earth and Mars, which only comes around every 26 months.
However, many are becoming increasingly convinced that if anyone can do it, SpaceX can.
“People have been underestimating SpaceX for years,” Ars Technica reporter Eric Berger wrote. “Generally, the company’s talented employees have done what Musk has said they would do. Why stop now?”
SpaceX is currently recruiting individuals for their manned missions to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
The post Elon Musk Reiterates Plans To Build Base On Mars appeared first on Resist the Mainstream.
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Author: John Symank
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