In a recent interview with Lex Fridman, a researcher in artificial intelligence from MIT and podcaster, Elon Musk said he is seriously considering exploring Mars for the first time in the near future, five years at best and ten years at worst. According to him, Starship – the most complex and advanced launcher ever built, in Musk’s words – has the potential to bring humans to Mars safely.
The super-heavy launcher has the particularity of being fully reusable, which makes it possible to reduce costs and seriously consider the colonization of the red planet. Prior to that, Starship will be operated by NASA to bring Man back to the Moon by 2025. ” I think we have to become a multiplanetary species », Said the CEO during the interview, adding that this is the first time since Earth has existed, 4.5 billion years, that it is possible to extend life beyond our planet.
For Elon Musk, allowing humans to access other worlds constitutes an emergency exit in the event that the Earth becomes uninhabitable; the billionaire evokes in particular a cataclysm similar to that which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, the harmful activities of the Man or the fact that the Sun grows gradually and that the Earth will inevitably become hotter as it s ‘brings it closer. ” We must act quickly as long as the window [d’opportunités] is open, just in case it closes », Summarizes the CEO.
Costs still too high to establish colonists on Mars
The fear that something serious is affecting our planet should be, according to him, sufficient motivation to conquer other planets. ” There is a likelihood that something bad will happen on Earth », Underlines Elon Musk, recalling that Stephen Hawking had made the same speech a few years ago, during a conference at the Oxford Union in 2016; the astrophysicist then estimated that humanity would not survive 1000 more years on Earth and that we must continue to explore space to ensure our survival.
 100vw, 900px”/>
</picture>
</noscript><figcaption id=)
Starship under construction. © Flickr / SpaceXElon Musk insists he doesn’t want to stick to setting a foot (and a flag) on Mars and not returning for another half a century, like lunar exploration. When Lex Fridman asks him what will be the biggest challenge to colonize Mars, the businessman points to the financial aspect. According to him, the costs of a mission to Mars are currently in the order of a billion dollars per tonne – a sum that includes not only the launcher and the spacecraft, but also a heat shield, a guidance system, the systems of space communication, or a landing system.
However, this sum is still too high to create a self-sufficient civilization – it will indeed be necessary to plan several trips to bring to Mars all the materials and equipment necessary for the construction of a new civilization. ” This should be improved by at least a factor of a thousand », He believes. Ideally, the costs should come down to less than a million dollars per tonne, he said. But to begin with, it is simply a question of putting a first foot on Mars in the next decade and SpaceX a priori has all the necessary assets to accomplish this feat.
A deferred first orbital flight for Starship
From a technical point of view, the project seems indeed possible. It will still be necessary to find volunteers to settle on this inhospitable planet … But Starship, of which Elon Musk appears so proud, must also prove itself: if the last test flight, carried out in May 2021, is took place successfully, remember that the four previous flights carried out at high altitude resulted in explosions on landing. And the machine has not yet completed an orbital test flight, during which it will be powered by a prototype of the Super Heavy.
However, it was finally postponed for several months. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) American announced at the end of December that it needed more time to respond to the more than 18,000 public comments received following the first draft of the programmatic environmental assessment; the final version is expected to be released on February 28. As it turns out, SpaceX’s launch site, located in Boca Chica, South Texas, is located in an area where a dozen endangered animal species live. Preserved from all human activity before the arrival of SpaceX, the area now suffers the full brunt of the nuisance caused by the company.
If the FAA does not give the green light, the company could be forced to completely overhaul its operations, arguably causing quite a bit of delay for upcoming test flights – a dozen are slated for this year. SpaceX had also mentioned a first orbital flight for this month of January. But it seems that the company is preparing for all scenarios since it is in the process of build a new launch pad for its Starship rockets at Cape Canaveral, Florida.