SpaceX创始人埃隆·马斯克
Last Thursday, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, gave an hour-long annual speech at Rocket Park in Star City, Texas. During his speech, Musk briefed employees and investors about the great achievements of SpaceX over the past year. At the same time, it also looks forward to the progress of the space program in the future.
It is worth noting that in his speech, Musk mentioned the time when humans will land on Mars. "Reusable rockets are the key to making humanity a civilization in space, and what SpaceX has achieved in the last 8 years is incredible," he said. In the next 8 years, we may also arrive on Mars and send humans to Mars. According to Musk, in the next 8 years, that is, around 2032, mankind may realize its wish to land on Mars.
In fact, this is not the first time that Musk has mentioned the time of human landing on Mars in public. As early as 2016, he predicted that SpaceX would make the first manned flight to Mars in 2024. At the end of December last year, he also wrote on social media: The United States needs to land on Mars in 2033.
In addition to Musk's repeated talks about the timing of human landings on Mars, he also proposed a controversial plan to immigrate to Mars. He plans to send 80,000 earthlings to Mars in the next 15 years or so. The earthlings who immigrated to Mars will serve as the "spark" of the earthlings, allowing humans to live and reproduce on another planet.
"Starship" data map
In order to realize the Mars immigration plan, Musk invested tens of billions of dollars in the development of the largest and most powerful launch vehicle "Starship" in human history. The cruel thing is that in the last two test flights of the "Starship", all ended in failure. However, Musk's enthusiasm and devotion to exploring Mars have not been weakened by short-term setbacks, but are still in trial and error, making him more determined to go to Mars.
So, some friends may be more curious, why is Musk so obsessed with exploring Mars?
Musk's dedication to Mars exploration, he himself has explained the reasons, a total of 3 points. Let me briefly share with you:
First, Musk believes that technological progress is not inevitable.
What does this mean?
In other words, even if the times are evolving and technology is constantly innovating, technology may stagnate or even go backwards.
U.S. moon landing program
For example, the United States landed on the moon more than 50 years ago. However, after the end of the "Apollo program", the United States did not launch a new lunar landing program. Therefore, if the United States wants to return to the moon now, it will need to re-study the technology of the past.
For example, the ancient Egyptians were able to design and build a very detailed pyramid of Khufu, but until now, people have not been able to decipher the secret of the ancient Egyptians' construction of the pyramids. Over the past few thousand years, I'm afraid this technology has been lost.
With the above two examples, I want to say that many people nowadays think that technology will automatically advance as the times evolve, which is a wrong view. The greatest driving force for technological progress is the result of human beings forging ahead step by step. Only by exploring Mars and going to the wider universe can human science and technology be perfected.
Second, like most of us, Musk believes there is a potential threat to the planet.
Imagery of an extraterrestrial object colliding with Earth
About 65 million years ago, a celestial body less than 10 kilometers in size crashed into the Earth, triggering global fires and a huge tsunami that led to the extinction of a million species, including dinosaurs. Today, human technology is still incapable of completely preventing the impact of extraterrestrial objects. With the current technology, human beings need to explore other planets, including Mars, and transform them into a second habitat for human beings to ensure the continuation of human civilization.
At present, the main view of the scientific community is that large amounts of carbon dioxide can be emitted on Mars, creating a greenhouse effect that will melt the ice at the north and south poles of Mars and produce liquid water. At the same time, after the problem of human drinking water is solved, some lower plants can also be planted to enrich the oxygen content of Mars. Of course, it could take hundreds of years to build an ecosystem that satisfies human self-sufficiency.
The third reason is that, like countless innovators in the past, Musk also believes that people must pursue great dreams.
Born in South Africa, to an engineer father and a model mother, Musk is a combination of his parents in character. Since he was a child, he has been more fond of science and technology books, especially science fiction. It was the magnificent alien world in science fiction that planted the seeds of exploring the universe in his heart since he was a child.
Due to his passion for knowledge, after entering the university, Musk studied all the way to the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University and other key universities for engineering degrees. The university's good educational environment prompted Musk to firmly choose his life goal - to immigrate to Mars and make humans a transplanetary species.
Later, Musk wrote in his biography: The difficulty of landing on Mars can be imagined, and in the process, there may be many people who cost their lives. But for humanity to have hope in the world, there must be something that uplifts people, just as Christopher Columbus did when he discovered the New World.
Therefore, judging from the above three reasons, Musk's obsession with exploring Mars is due to his lofty vision for human immigration to Mars, as well as his enthusiasm and innovation for space exploration. Admittedly, Musk's "Martian dream" may take quite some time to come true. However, in the future, we have reason to believe that his spirit of unremitting pursuit will inspire us to continue to pursue higher goals, and make us look forward to the journey of human conquest of space.