Elon Musk has been selling PayPal and flying a lifetime mission to colonize Mars and send as many people into space as possible for several years. However, we are on the brink of incredible scientific discoveries that have brought regular space travel closer and closer year by year.
The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, with a talented group of physicists, engineers, rocket makers and programmers, is pouring his crazy ideas into the world. This time, he visited the 86th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, and shared some of his crazy plans that will revolutionize space travel and help us build a city (and a lunar base)!). ）。
Elon Musk's ambitions seem to be growing every year – and rightfully so! The Falcon 9 is a SpaceX-designed rocket that has been making all the fancy propulsion landings over the past few years, which is simply insignificant compared to what we'll see in the near future. Look at BFR, a rocket that will rule them all!
BFR (which stands for Big F*cking Rocket) is not an official nickname, but it is still the name that best describes the actual situation of the device — a huge 350-foot rocket capable of providing a 150-ton payload orbit to low Earth. Think that's a lot? Poor Little Falcon 9 can only do 15 tons at a time!
Not only can you load the entire stack on the Falcon 1 rocket into the BFR, but you can also use it for transportation. Yes, there's a reason for the huge payload capacity — Musk wants his rockets to turn into "ferries" that will take people from any city on Earth to another in less than an hour. In fact, he wanted it to be within 30 minutes!
Elon Musk wants the BFR to replace all SpaceX vehicles and become an affordable (yes, you heard it right) means of transportation that will eventually replace air flight. He plans to do this by combining reusability, such as the 747, which is used multiple times, thus reducing the cost per flight.
Elon Musk also noted that it's time for us to finally build at least "some sort of lunar base" because it's already 2017, but we still don't. All sci-fi movies point out that humans need to have a lunar base, so why haven't we built one yet? We certainly don't know the answer, but if Elon Musk says we should have one – it's coming soon!
He didn't say much about the lunar base, but named it the lunar base Alpha (as in the 1999 film In Space: And make fun of several photos of what it might look like in the future).
All of this — lunar bases, BFR — will help humanity become a multi-planetary species. That's where the City of Mars comes in! Of course, Elon Musk also mentions this, because bringing people to Mars is his long-standing dream (let them stay there, preferably with air, food, and water).
The BFR will be launched from Earth, carrying its priceless manned cargo, then refueled in orbit and sent to Mars. Sounds like a piece of cake, maybe once we see BFR carrying people roaming the sky of the earth! Of course, Elon Musk isn't just talking, he's sharing some of his practical plans that will bring the Mars mission closer. In 2022, he plans to send two cargo ships to Mars, with two corresponding goals: to build "power, mining and life support infrastructure for future flights" and "to identify water resources." Yes, you're right!
Musk acknowledges that these goals are large, but is currently building systems to make all of them possible. In 2024, he wants to send two more cargo ships to Mars, and two more ships with crews on board will look for water. Yes, it's like that – a manned mission to Mars in a few years to establish a water source. Not in a science fiction movie, but in real life!
Elon Musk may well be the biggest dreamer on the planet, but that's exactly what we need – dreamers with big goals and enough enthusiasm to at least work towards achieving them! This is what the martian city will look like decades later. The dawn and dusk skies on Mars are blue, and the daytime skies are red.