Life On Mars

The world’s most talked about space corporation, SpaceX, have consistently stayed in the public eye after they announced their plans to shoot rockets to Mars. To be honest, when the news dropped, there was a mixture of belief and speculation that Elon might’ve been smoking the stuff him and Joe Rogan shared on Rogan’s infamous podcast.

But no, he was confident and has kept to his promise ever since. He’s even recently announced at a press conference in Boca Chica, Texas, that the SpaceX ‘space tours’ might be happening as soon as next year.

Musk has made it pretty clear (since starting SpaceX in 2002) his intent to help humanity become multiplanetary. With the idea of space tourism rising in popularity over the years, with big names like Virgin Galactic, Boeing and Blue Origin, SpaceX wants to be at the forefront of that race with their Starship MK1.

There’s been some drastic changes to the rocket designs since the proposal of the Starship was first announced at the Astronautical Union meeting in 2016. During that meeting, Elon Musk unveiled the Interplanetary Transport System for colonising Mars. The plans showed a fully reusable spacecraft with 42 next-gen Raptor engines. In 2017, however, that design was remoulded into a 31 Raptor engine spacecraft called the Big Falcon Rocket, or the BFR for short. Not yet satisfied, it seemed, Musk updated it again in 2018 (with the new Starship name) with a three-Raptor engine lightweight stainless steel ship. The latest design, which was revealed in September, confirms that the prototype will include two tail fins and six dedicated standing legs for a smoother landing and a Super Engine booster in a two stage-to-orbit launch vehicle configuration.

At the conference in Texas, Musk announced that the ship that will be taking 100 passengers up to the moon, or Mars. Elon’s even started prototyping the MK2 and MK3 for SpaceX.

Image: SpaceX