Musk says uncrewed Mars landing "feasible" within 4 years
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During the 2023 International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan, Elon Musk expressed optimism about the potential of landing on Mars using an unaltered version of SpaceX's Starship equipped with unique legs and minor changes on the moon.
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Elon Musk, CEO of X, the company formerly known as Twitter, tightens his tie as he arrives for a closed-door gathering of leading tech CEOs to discuss the priorities and risks surrounding artificial intelligence and how it should be regulated, at Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023 (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
According to Elon Musk on Thursday, it is "feasible" to try an uncrewed landing on Mars' surface within the next four years, but it would need a massive increase in the number of launches and cargo transferred to orbit and beyond.
During the 2023 International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan, the SpaceX owner and billionaire expressed “I think it's sort of feasible within the next four years to do an uncrewed test landing [on Mars]."
Musk disclosed that building a self-sustaining city on Mars will necessitate a significant increase in space launches to roughly 1000 per year, to deliver about a million tons of useful load to the planet's surface, which will necessitate the delivery of at least 5 million tons of cargo into orbit.
Musk also expressed optimism about the potential of landing on Mars using an unaltered version of SpaceX's Starship equipped with unique legs and minor changes on the moon.
Musk claims that after a propellant plant for fuelling spacecraft is created on Mars, it will be possible to go to the asteroid belts and Jupiter's moons. If a propellant factory can be established there as well, the path to Saturn's moons and all the way into the Kuiper belt in the outer Solar System is clear.
SpaceX is preparing to set off the first test flight of Starship, which is reportedly designed to send astronauts to the Moon and Mars and beyond.
For the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972, the US space agency NASA has chosen the Starship spacecraft to carry men to the Moon in late 2025. This mission is known as Artemis III.
'Objective is to establish bases on the Moon and Mars'
SpaceX held a successful test-firing of the 33 Raptor engines on the first-stage booster of Starship back in February.
During the test-firing, also known as a static fire, the Super Heavy rocket was attached to the ground to stop it from taking off.
In November 2024, NASA will send astronauts to the moon on its own, using the Space Launch System (SLS), a hefty rocket that has been in development for more than ten years.
More than twice as much thrust as the Saturn V rockets used to launch the Apollo astronauts to the Moon, it produces 17 million pounds of thrust.
In the future, SpaceX plans to launch a Starship into orbit, refuel it with another Starship, and then send it on its way to Mars or beyond.
Musk said the goal is to make Starship reusable and bring down the price to a few million dollars per flight.
"In the long run -- long run meaning, I don't know, two or three years -- we should achieve full and rapid reusability," he said.
The eventual objective is to establish bases on the Moon and Mars and put humans on the "path to being a multi-planet civilization," Musk said.
"We are at this brief moment in civilization where it is possible to become a multi-planet species," he said. "That's our goal. I think we've got a chance."
