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Elon Musk unveiled this 120-ton ‘Starship’ he plans to take people to Mars in 🚀 (via NowThis Future)
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has unveiled the latest iteration of his space company’s newly assembled Starship, outlining a speedy development timeline for the centerpiece vehicle of SpaceX’s quest to launch humans to the moon and Mars.
Musk showed a crowd of space enthusiasts and reporters at SpaceX’s rocket development site late on Saturday in the remote village of Boca Chica, Texas, animations of Starship landing on the moon and Mars and predicted that the rocket’s first orbital flight could come in the next six months, followed by missions to space with humans aboard the next year.
“This is basically the holy grail of space,” Musk said, standing between a towering, newly assembled Starship rocket and Falcon 1 — the company’s first vehicle whose debut orbital mission was celebrated by SpaceX 11 years ago.
During Saturday evening’s hour-long, particularly windy press conference, Musk announced that the next test would take place in “about one to two months” before detailing how Starship would control its landing.
“This is quite a new approach to controlling a rocket,” Musk said. “Much more akin to a skydiver than a plane.”
Musk laughed as he showed the crowd in Boca Chica how the craft would control the fall, with his hands acting as the ship. Getting into the specifics a little more, Musk explained the importance of a steel heat shield that would only cost a fraction of a carbon fiber heat shield. “I’m in love with steel,” Musk said.
We should be farther than this by now but it is a start.
It can soar at 4,000 mph—or five times the speed of sound.
This latest design has held to the present day; SpaceX is still shooting for a 387-foot-tall Starship-Super Heavy stack, with six Raptors on the spacecraft. The number of engines on Super Heavy could vary from flight to flight; Musk said the rocket has space for up to 37 Raptors, and each mission will probably require at least 24.
With the design nailed down, SpaceX plans to move fast. The company wants to reach Earth orbit with a Starship prototype in about six months. And people could start flying aboard the vehicle in the next year or so if the test program continues to go well, Musk said.
While Musk and SpaceX have been lauded by their ambitious push for a Starship capable of deep-space travel, the road has not always been smooth.
Like many new technologies, light propulsion was originally conceived as a tool of war and national defense. But the “Star Wars” missile defense system may eventually send rockets, rather than missile-destroying lasers, into space.
Elon Musk is doling out more and more details about SpaceX’s next Starship prototype ahead of his big presentation this weekend.
On Saturday (Sept. 28), Musk will reveal the latest design of Starship and Super Heavy, the reusable spaceship and rocket that SpaceX is developing to take people to the moon, Mars and other distant destinations.
The case for a present-day ‘Starfleet Academy’ as a global, non-governmental hothouse incubator for space exploration.
SPACE agencies such as NASA and the ESA could theoretically one day travel the universe faster than the speed of light after one expert revealed that warp drive technology could be possible.
