Scientists believe that Mars is the best planet for people to migrate to. The choice falls on it because it is as close as possible to Earth – according to calculations, the flight of a manned spacecraft to it takes approximately 300 days. Also, this planet is much more similar to our native planet than others. Right now, thousands of people are working to bring the day of colonization of Mars closer, and specialists from SpaceX are especially working on this. They are developing the Starship spacecraft, which will be used to fly from Earth to Mars and back. Recently, the head of the company, Elon Musk, held a short conference, during which he spoke about future plans for space exploration. He announced that he wants to send a million people to Mars.
Humanity could fly to Mars in just a few years. Image: Elon Musk's social network account X
Tests of the Starship spaceship
The Starship spaceship is a huge structure, 120 meters high. It is taller than the Statue of Liberty in the United States, and if you lay it on its side, the rocket will take up the entire football field.
Starship spacecraft at the private SpaceX launch site. Image: businessinsider.com
SpaceX regularly conducts test launches of the world's largest rocket. For example, on March 14, experts successfully sent the structure into the sky – it accelerated to 26,000 kilometers per hour, and then its two stages successfully separated, as a result of which one of them successfully reached orbit. Unfortunately, the ship was later lost, but the test was still considered successful.
Required reading:You can’t even imagine how big the StarShip SpaceX rocket is
Fourth Starship rocket flight
During a recent speech, Elon Musk announced that the fourth flight of the Starship spacecraft will take place “in a month or so.” This means that we will observe this event around the end of May 2024.
Speech by Elon Musk on April 6, 2024
For the fourth test, SpaceX wants Starship to be able to withstand the heat of passing through Earth's atmosphere. After this, it is necessary for the Super Heavy launch vehicle to carefully land at the specified location in the Gulf of Mexico.
It's possible that future Starship tests will go poorly, but SpaceX is usually prepared for that. Image: space.com
If everything goes well, during the fifth test of the Starship ship, the company will try to catch the launch vehicle using the Mehazilla robotic tower. We previously talked about the operating features of this design in this article. According to Elon Musk, the probability of successful launch of the launch vehicle onto the manipulator in 2024 is 90%.
Read also:SpaceX will send a landing module to the Moon to study the surface
How people will fly to Mars
In addition to all this, the billionaire spoke about the company’s longer-term plans. SpaceX is currently testing a Starship prototype. Future missions will use Starship 2 and Starship 3, capable of lifting 100 and 200 tons respectively. The cost of launching Starship 3 could drop to $3 million, although it typically requires a minimum of $10 million. The final versions of the rockets will be reusable, but Elon Musk did not specify when exactly they will appear.
Characteristics of different versions of the Starship spaceship. Image: spacex.com
With the help of Starship 3 spacecraft, SpaceX wants to send a million people to Mars. During the flight, each ship will need 5-6 additional refuelings. The company will try to demonstrate the technology for transferring fuel from one ship to another in 2025.
Starship spaceships will need to be refueled in space. Image: spacex.com
It goes without saying that such a huge number of people will not be sent to Mars at once. The company intends to increase the production of spacecraft – to achieve its goals, it needs hundreds of spacecraft to fly in space.
Before going to Mars, people will have to build a lunar station. Image: spacex.com
Elon Musk warned that people who went to Mars are unlikely to return back. It turns out that some people of the future will be able to live their entire lives on a colonized planet and learn about Earth only from stories, books and videos. But when people go to Mars, how the selection of colonizers will take place is currently unknown. But many sources say that this will happen in the coming years.
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SpaceX Starship is the largest and most powerful spacecraft ever created by man. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, it is larger than the Statue of Liberty, and its ability to lift hundreds of tons of cargo is absolutely amazing. There is an excellent article on our website that will help you learn all the most interesting things about this technological masterpiece. Read our material “SpaceX Starship – a rocket that will send people to Mars and the Moon.”