At 21:00 local time on February 10, the southern town of Boca Chika, the starship base of SpaceX Company, silicon Valley god Elon Musk held a large public speech here, briefing the media and fans on the research and development of the starship spacecraft, and answering questions from the audience on the spot.
Starship is a new generation of interstellar transportation system of Musk's SpaceX company, which consists of two parts: a manned (and cargo-carrying) spacecraft called Starship, which is up to 50 meters high, and a powerful rocket, which is twice the thrust of Saturn 5, which was nasa's manned moon landing in the 1970s, known as the Falcon 9 super heavy rocket, which is 70 meters high, and the entire system is stacked to an altitude of 120 meters. Musk's immediate goal in developing the Starship spacecraft is to build a city of 1 million people on Mars, and the long-term goal is to make humanity a cross-planetary species in response to the devastating catastrophe that human civilization may face.
The Starship spacecraft has completed all testing and is awaiting approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for orbital-class flight testing. Due to the lengthy review of the FAA, it has been criticized several times by Musk, who has accused the FAA of being inefficient, saying that with such work efficiency, humans will never reach Mars. The application for the orbital flight test was submitted to the FAA as early as last September, but to this day, the latter has still not reached a conclusion, the FAA said earlier that it may complete the review work by the end of February this year, so at this moment, the starship spacecraft development work briefing was held, Musk is obviously interested in putting pressure on the FAA, which is a big background for this briefing.
Why?
Musk went straight to the subject as soon as he took the stage, saying, "Before we get into the details... I think it's worth talking about. Like, why are we doing this? Musk asked himself, saying, "I think this [the multi-planetation of life] is a very important thing for the future of life itself." "It's very important and vital for us to become a multi-planetary species in the long run, eventually even beyond the solar system, to perpetuate life for us," Musk said. Another reason, he noted, is to inspire humanity, saying that we have too many problems on Earth that need to be solved. "I totally agree that the vast majority of resources should be used to solve problems on Earth," Musk said, "and I would say that more than 99 percent of our resources should be used to solve problems on Earth." Musk's words are profound, because while he is committed to making humanity a transplanetary species, some people accuse him of paying more attention to things on Earth.
Rapid availability of starship ships
Rapid reusability is the main feature of the Starship spacecraft and an important means of supporting Musk to achieve his goal of mars colonization. Musk said, "We obviously need to do that. But unfortunately this is not yet done," Musk joked, "if it comes too fast and cuts the weapon, then I think it will be... Say goodbye to weapons. "There was a lot of noise at the scene.
The Starship spacecraft will launch 30 ships per day
Musk said in his speech, "Our immediate goal is to produce one spacecraft every month, and then eventually one every 3 days." Musk believes that there will be an extremely large fleet of starships in the future, which far exceed the number of boosters, because the boosters can be quickly recovered, and after launch, they can be recovered as soon as 6 minutes. Musk showed a chart at the scene showing that when mars colonization begins, the starship spacecraft will be able to achieve 3 launches per day, with 10 launches at a time.
Musk said: "If the spacecraft from Earth stops coming for any reason, this (Mars) city will die." In fact, Musk is referring to the early colonial phase, when the Martian city of 1 million people is built, it will be able to achieve self-sufficiency, but in the early stage, the main food and supplies will only rely on Earth transportation.
Earth 2.0
Musk said, "One day, we can make Mars a planet like Earth." Musk talked about how to make humans into a cross-planetary species and why there is such a need. He believes that catastrophes from civilization and uncertain catastrophes from interstellar space threaten humanity at times, and these threats are urgent, urgent, and not unfounded.
Musk also did not forget to illustrate the problem with realistic examples, saying: "Frankly, human civilization has felt a little fragile these days. Obviously, he was referring to the Ukraine crisis.
The world's largest heat shield
Musk also detailed Starship's heat shield.
"This is the largest heat shield in the world," he said, noting that it was made in a small factory in Florida known as a "bakery."
"We needed a heat shield that could withstand extreme heat but wasn't too expensive." He said the team has done just that.
The upcoming mission of the Starship ship
Musk revealed in his speech that Starship will work with NASA on the Starlink mission and manned space mission, but did not give a timeline for when it is expected to occur. He mentioned the DearMoon mission, a manned lunar mission that Japanese billionaire Tomosaku Maezawa has booked his first ticket for, which is expected to fly around the moon in 2023, but it's unclear if that timeline will materialize — there seems to be a lot of work to be done in less than 24 months.
He also hinted at what was about to happen.
"There's going to be some announcements in the future, and I think people're going to be very excited," Musk said.
When will the orbital flight test be conducted?
At the end of the speech, an audience member asked Musk: When will the first orbital flight test of the Starship spacecraft be carried out?
Musk didn't answer the question head-on, saying, "We don't know much about the federal aviation administration (FAA)," Musk said.
"We've got a rough indication that approval might be given in March, but that's all we have."
He later added that he was confident the starship would enter orbit by the end of the year.
For the first orbital flight of the starship spacecraft, the FAA is like an elephant in the room, and although Musk deliberately avoids talking about it, everyone knows what is going on, so silence here is better than sound.
Let's look forward to the first orbital flight test of Musk's starship spacecraft!