Elon Musk has been speaking publicly about his broad vision for colonizing Mars for nearly eight years, since a September 2016 speech in Guadalajara, Mexico.
This weekend at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in South Texas, Musk once again took on the task of “making life multiplanetary.” Address to employees at the company’s Starship factory site, Musk talked about it the “high urgency” required to expand the “Light of Consciousness” beyond the Earth. This is not because humanity’s home planet is lost or should not be preserved. Rather, Musk said he did not want humanity to remain a one-planet civilization that would inevitably face a catastrophe that would result in the extinction of the species.
All of this is pretty familiar territory for space enthusiasts – and Musk watchers. But over the last eight years he has become an increasingly controversial and polarizing figure. Because of his behavior, many people will dismiss Musk’s Mars comments as those of a megalomaniac. However, at least with regard to space travel, that would be wrong. Musk’s multiplanet ambitions are more credible today because SpaceX has taken steps to do what he thought the company would do.
SpaceX has real hardware today and has completed three test flights. A fourth is possible next month.
“It’s surreal, but it’s real,” Musk said this weekend, describing the bold Mars vision.
The booster and the ship
During his 45-minute speech, Musk discussed Starship’s booster, the upper stage, and the company’s plans to ultimately transport millions of tons of cargo to Mars for a self-sustaining civilization.
Although thousands of launches may seem impossible, Musk noted that SpaceX has conducted 327 successful Falcon launches and that 80 percent of them used used boosters. This year, he said, SpaceX will carry about 90 percent of the planet’s mass sent into orbit. China will bring about 6 percent to the market, he added, while the rest of the world will be responsible for the remaining 4 percent.
This kind of performance has made Musk confident that reusability can be achieved with the Super Heavy booster that powers Starship. During the vehicle’s next test flight, possibly in May, the company will attempt to land the launch vehicle on a virtual tower in the Gulf of Mexico. If this landing is precise enough, SpaceX will attempt to catch the booster using the chopstick-like mechanisms on Starship’s giant launch tower on the fifth test flight.
“This is a very achievement-oriented schedule, but it is within the realm of possibility,” Musk said. Since there are several test flights taking place this year, the probability of catching the launch vehicle with the launch tower this year is 80 to 90 percent, according to Musk.
Landing and reusing the spacecraft’s upper stage, which must survive the fiery re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere, will take longer. That vehicle broke up and burned as it attempted to return through the atmosphere during a flight test in March. On the next flight, Musk said, the goal of Starship’s upper stage is to survive this warming and make a controlled landing in the ocean. He expects SpaceX to reach that milestone sometime this year and then begin landing spacecraft again in Texas next year.
Build more, build bigger
SpaceX is also building additional ground-based infrastructure and making design upgrades to Starship.
Musk said the company will build a second launch tower in Texas to enable additional development test flights. And by the end of 2025, two Starship launch towers are scheduled to be constructed in Florida to support operational launches. Initially, these are expected to support Artemis lunar landing missions for NASA.