SpaceX plans to take humans to Mars by 2024
While NASA has said it expects to send humans to Mars sometime in the 2030s, it seems like SpaceX founder and iconic billionaire Elon Musk just can’t wait that long.
At this year’s Code Convention near Los Angeles, Musk said he plans to have SpaceX send humans to the Red Planet a decade earlier than NASA.
“If things go according to plan, (we) should be able to launch people by 2024 with arrival in 2025,” said Musk.
The tech mogul said the plan is for SpaceX to start launching cargo deliveries to Mars as soon as 2018. To do that, the private space exploration company will likely use its Dragon Version 2 capsule, which is a about the size of an SUV. Musk said to achieve his goal of building cities on Mars, his company will have to develop a transport capsule capable of moving large groups of people and a lot of cargo.
Getting to Mars will require a new rocket
To move all that weight, SpaceX is going to need a really big rocket, and the Falcon Heavy rocket, slated to launch later this year, is expected to be able to do just that. The Falcon Heavy is “the most powerful rocket in the world by a factor of two,” Musk told the conference.
The Falcon Heavy rocket will be necessary to make it to Mars. Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX has also been working on the landing of rocket boosters for later reuse and successfully did so twice this year. The cost savings of pulling of such a maneuver is around $30 million.
“Think of a pile of cash hurtling through the atmosphere, imagine it was going to burn up and smash into pieces,” Musk asked. “Wouldn’t you try to save it?”
The tech billionaire also talked about how laws might work in a future Mars civilization.
“Most likely the form of government on Mars would be direct democracy, not representative,” he said. “So it would be people voting directly on issues. And I think that’s probably better because the potential for corruption is substantially diminished in a direct versus a representative democracy.”
“I would recommend some adjustment for the inertia of laws,” Musk added.”It should probably be easier to remove a law than create one.
“Laws have infinite life unless they’re taken away,” he concluded.
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Image credit: SpaceX
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