Ever thought Elon Musk likes to make bold claims? The billionaire, beloved by all space enthusiasts, said recently that he hopes that his company SpaceX will send people to Mars in 2024. If this may sound dubious to you, you simply do not follow the development of the commercial segment of space. Yes, a bit ambitious. But that's Musk.
“I think if everything goes according to plan, we can send people in 2024 with an arrival in 2025,” Musk said.
Musk is a famous person. He co-founded PayPal, and with the proceeds from the sale of the company, he launched the electric car company Tesla and SpaceX, a private space company. In a relatively short period of time, SpaceX has accomplished a lot and a lot, including the development of the reusable Falcon rocket and the Dragon delivery and resupply vehicle. An even more powerful Falcon Heavy rocket is in development, and we are compiling a serious list of Musk's ambitious projects.
Musk's statement at Code Conference 2016 in Los Angeles is extremely interesting. It continues the spring news that SpaceX will send the Dragon capsule to Mars in 2018, albeit without any personnel on board. Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of developing the technology needed to create a human colony on Mars, so for now, things seem to be going according to plan.
But the colony needs supplies, so Musk also announced his intention to send an apparatus to Mars every two years to establish a supply line.
“The basic plan is that we will send a mission to Mars whenever possible, starting in 2018,” Musk said. - The opportunity appears every 26 months. We will arrange cargo flights to Mars so that people can count on the cargo. This is necessary to create a self-sustaining or growing city on Mars."
Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done. There is currently no rocket powerful enough for such a mission. The most powerful rocket ever built was the Saturn 5, which was used to fly the Apollo to the moon. But that was 50 years ago.
NASA's Space Launch System rocket has enough power for a Mars mission, but it will not be built soon, and it is unlikely that it will be handed over to SpaceX. SpaceX has developed the Falcon rocket and is working on the Falcon Heavy, but that won't be enough to establish and maintain a presence on Mars. Nevertheless, Musk expects to cope with all this.
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The event will of course be incredibly expensive. But with SpaceX's growing customer base, which includes the US Army, NASA, and private companies, the money will be there.
When it comes to timing, Musk admits they are very aggressive. “When I talk about graphics, it's really a schedule that I think is correct,” Musk says. - This is not some fictitious schedule that I think is wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. It is quite possible and happens from time to time, but I never name dubious or deliberately false dates."
The statement itself seems simple. But Musk, like everyone else who plans such missions, knows that there are a lot of complex details behind it all. You need food, energy and other things that will be needed for the constant presence of people on Mars. Musk plans to talk more about them in September at the International Astronautics Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Of course, when Musk says things like that, he instantly hits the headlines. It should be so. But others are planning to get to Mars.
NASA plans to get to Mars, but in a different way. The agency plans to use its SLS and Orion to explore space near the moon, while testing deep-space operations, life support systems, solar-powered engines and housing. All of this activity will begin as early as 2021 and will ultimately result in a flight to Mars in the 2030s.
For a long time, it seemed that the mission to Mars was out of reach, impossible, and no one spoke seriously about it. But now we have two programs at once, which should eventually lead us to Mars.
A new space race will begin, in which not capitalism and communism will compete, as before, but governments and the private sector. Ultimately it doesn't matter. Our survival may depend on the success of the colonization of Mars.
ILYA KHEL