Mars, the carbon dioxide-rich planet with red soil and blue sunsets, is the distant planet that SpaceX founder Elon Musk aspired to. The Red Planet's closest distance to Earth is about 55 million kilometers, and the farthest distance is more than 400 million kilometers.
Musk envisions building a base on Mars called Alpha, which would be the first permanent human settlement on the surface of Mars.
SpaceX describes on its website why Mars is a great candidate planet to become a second home for humanity: "With an average distance of 140 million miles, SpaceX is one of Earth's closest habitable neighbors. Mars is about half as far from the Sun as Earth, so it still has plenty of sunlight. It was a bit cold but we could warm it up. The atmosphere is mostly CO2 (carbon dioxide) with some nitrogen and argon and some other trace elements, which means that we can grow plants on Mars by compressing the atmosphere, "The gravity on Mars is about 38% of the gravity of the Earth, so you can lift heavy objects around." In addition, the day is very close to Earth. ”
The Starship launch system to Mars is being actively developed at Starbase South Texas. Musk recently said in an interview with Time magazine that SpaceX plans to land a starship on Mars within 5 years. "I would be surprised if we couldn't land on Mars in five years," he said. ”
The orbits of Earth and Mars approach every 26 months, and when Mars orbits about 56 million kilometers, it's a great opportunity to launch a spacecraft to Mars. In 2019, Musk said, "If we start in 5 years and do 10 orbital synchronous launches, it is possible to build a self-sufficient city on Mars by 2050." ”
In addition, Musk is "confident" that Starship will be in orbit in 2023. "I think we may be able to fly around the moon as soon as 2023" and land on the lunar surface in 3 years, he said. SpaceX does plan to make its first manned circumlunar voyage around the moon in 2023. The Dear Moon mission will allow entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa to embark on a historic journey around the moon with at least 10 passengers.
Starship is scheduled to conduct its first orbital-class flight test in early 2022. The company could make at least 12 launches next year to rapidly develop the methane-fueled giant spacecraft. Although Musk has set these seemingly unreliable goals, his expectations of himself are also very realistic. Taking the first orbital starship test flight as an example, even Musk himself thinks that the spacecraft may fall into devastating flames, "I would not say that the chances of us reaching orbit for the first time are high... I'd say optimism is 50 percent," he told Time magazine, "so, the launch day is definitely exciting!" ”
Musk also said that "the overall goal is to make life multi-planetary, to make humanity a space civilization", not because it is good for him, but because "making life multi-planetary is exciting". He has stated on several occasions that he is using his wealth to "expand the scope and scale of consciousness" for the benefit of all humanity.
Once SpaceX successfully lands multiple unmanned starships on Mars, Musk plans to perform a robotic cargo mission before sending the first astronauts to Mars and back. Ultimately, SpaceX's goal is to make humans truly live on the surface of Mars, and Musk even envisions that once astronauts create a self-sustaining colony, they will also launch "animals and creatures on Earth" to Mars, making Starship "like a futuristic Noah's Ark."