Elon Musk Reddit AMA Takes Humans On Mars To Stay There
Elon Musk is a man with many dreams and many companies to make those dreams come true. But as far as moon shots, or perhaps Mars shots, are concerned, his dream of populating the red planet with inhabits, human or otherwise, is perhaps the most eccentric and most incredible, in the literal sense of the word, of them all. But to prove that he means business, and hard science, Musk took to Reddit to answer fans' and doubters' burning questions on how he plans to get people to Mars for good.
A project as ambitious as putting humans on Mars naturally has a lot of moving parts, with three major themes in particular. The first involves creating rockets that are not just powerful enough to ferry a hundred people to Mars, it also has to be reusable to cut down on costs. Musk's SpaceX has already been working on that with the Falcon 9 rockets, but the boosters that are needed will be exponentially bigger and badder than those.
The second part of the equation involves where and how humans will live and survive on their new home. Musk isn't yet spilling the beans on the ultimate plan, but he does share that they could start out with "glass panes with carbon fiber frames to build geodesic domes on the surface". The first phase will also involve a lot of mining and drilling droids, which explains Musk's obsessions with robotics as well.
The third aspect is one that is probably not as often considered or hyped. In order to actually sustain missions and migration, there also needs to be a refueling system. Musk admits that it is also the least fleshed out part of the equation at this point. The goal is to first make a few unmanned scouting missions that will figure out how to land a Dragon spacecraft without littering Mars' surface with craters.
Those are the broad strokes of Musk's grand plan to turn humans into multi-planet species, an evolution he deems necessary for survival. Interestingly, part of the long term plan is to also change the project's name from Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) to something with a catchier name. If you want to read more of Musk geeking out on space exploration and travel, hit the link below for the rather length Q&A.
SOURCE: Reddit