SpaceX is working to turn humans into a multi-planetary life. The company is developing a fully reusable starship that will be able to make long voyages and even reach Mars.
Currently, the company's engineers are working on a giant stainless steel spacecraft that can carry 100 passengers, as well as a super-heavy rocket that can send 100 tons of cargo into Earth orbit. Not only will SpaceX take on the challenge of developing fully reusable interstellar delivery vehicles, but will also create a well-established production system at the "Starbase" facility in Boca Chica Beach, Texas, to build hundreds of starships over the next 10 years.
In a recent TED interview, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that colonizing Mars would require 1,000 reusable starships because of the need to launch megatons of supplies to Mars in order to create the first self-sufficient Martian city by 2050.
Musk shared in the interview: "We have established a production system for 'StarBase', we are building a lot of spacecraft and boosters, we are currently looking forward to making one booster and spacecraft in two months, and then hope to shorten it to one per month by the end of this year." ”
Musk believes that high productivity is very important because it allows engineers to quickly test the next set of prototypes after a failure. "High productivity can solve many problems. If you have a high production rate, you have a high iteration rate. For almost any technology, progress depends on how many iterations you have and how much progress you've made between each iteration," Musk told reporters in 2020 and Musk told reporters in 2020. "If your productivity is high, then you have a lot of iterations and you can keep improving."
In the long term, SpaceX aims to build at least one starship per week to meet its goal of building 1,000 starships by 2050. At that rate, the company could build about 100 starships every two years. Musk also hopes that in the near future, the assembly line of the Starbase factory will eventually be able to build a starship every 72 hours.
Musk's plan is to launch about 100 starships every two years to transport passengers and cargo to the Red Planet. As we all know, the launch window period for Earth and Mars occurs about every 26 months, because this time the shortest time required to travel from Earth to Mars is about 6 to 8 months of flight time.
However, this window period lasts shorter, generally between July and August. So SpaceX only has one launch every two years, and launching 100 starships to Mars in such a short period of time is difficult to imagine.
Now, engineers continue to work around the clock in the Starship Factory, continuing to build prototypes of Starships and super-heavy boosters and conducting ground tests at the launch site. They have conducted several low-altitude flight tests since 2019 and are preparing for the first orbital flight test.
Musk is very optimistic about Starship's first orbital flight test, saying: "There is no guarantee that it will be successful, but it will certainly be exciting." "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently conducting an environmental assessment of the South Texas launch facility to ensure the safe operation of spaceflight.