SpaceX’s owner also clarified when it believes the first unmanned vehicles will be available, which will seek to “verify the reliability of a damage-free landing.”
The tycoon of the technology and owner of SpaceX , Elon Musk revealed when he believes in the first flights to March .
In a publication on X (formerly Twitter), a social network which he also owns, He said they would be shipped “within two years.” when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens.
He stressed, however, that These first voyages would not be inhabited .
This, because First, “the reliability of a damage-free landing must be verified” on the red planet.
“If the landings go well, the first manned flights to Mars will take place within four years.” the billionaire stressed.
According to his predictions, from this point on, “the rate of theft will increase exponentially, with the aim of building a self-sufficient city within about 20 years “.
Musk hopes this will be possible thanks to advances in rockets Spacecraft which is presented as the largest and most powerful ever built.
What the Starship Rocket Looks Like and How Elon Musk Hopes It Will Reach Mars
Information retrieved by space They detail that it is constructed of stainless steel and brings together two elements: a first-stage booster called Super Heavy and a 50-meter-high upper-stage spacecraft also known as Starship.
With its stacked parts, it measures 122 meters high. approximately.
In addition to factors such as its power, the Starship stands out for It is designed to be fully reusable .
Until the beginning of September 2024, SpaceX has completed four test missions .
The premieres took place in April and November 2023, while The following happened in March and June of this year .
Although the rocket encountered various problems during its tests, showed better performance over the flights .
Recently, SpaceX has achieved all of its major goals .
It was about the first time they did a test without the Starship exploding The instance also planned to return to Earth to land in the Indian Ocean.
Currently, the company’s efforts They are focusing on what the next flight of the Starship will be. in which they will seek to land the Super Heavy on the launch pad, according to the aforementioned media.
But despite the tycoon’s enthusiasm for the red planet, The rocket is to first take astronauts to the Moon, then aim for Mars .
SpaceX Operations, In addition to interest, they have sparked debate. following various investigations.
A study published on August 26, 2024 in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters concluded that Starship explosions in 2023 contributed to one of the largest ‘holes’ ever detected in the ionosphere .
It should be recalled, in general, that The latter is the atmospheric layer that functions as a protective shield for life on Earth.
The episode was positioned as This is the first time that this type of disturbance in the said layer has been generated by a man-made explosion. .
According to investigators, this happened during its second test flight on November 18, 2023 .
“(On this date) SpaceX launched Starship, the tallest and most powerful rocket ever built. The Super Heavy engine separated from the Starship and exploded at an altitude of 90 km, while the Starship’s main core continued to rise to 149 km and exploded after about 8 minutes of flight. “, we read in the abstract (the brief summary) of the research.
“For this work, we used data from ground-based GNSS receivers and analyzed the response of the total electron content (TEC) to the spacecraft flight and the two explosions. For the first time, we observe the long-distance propagation to the north of intense V-shaped ionospheric disturbances 2,000 km from the rocket trajectory. “.
“The disturbances observed, Most likely they represent shock waves which propagate with a cone angle of ∼14° to the north and ∼7° to the south against the flight path that corresponds to the Mach angle of the shock waves in the lower atmosphere. The Starship explosion also produced a non-chemical depletion of the ionospheric TEC,” the authors state in their paper.
Other recent research has focused specifically on the red planet .
The one published on August 12, 2024 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used seismological data from NASA’s Insight mission and said the discovery of liquid water on Mars .
“More than 3 billion years ago, large amounts of liquid water temporarily existed on the surface of Mars. It is assumed that much of this water was sequestered underground. or was lost in space,” the authors wrote.
On the other hand, from a more theoretical and long-term perspective, Some specialists have proposed how to manage a possible civilization on the aforementioned planet. .
One of them is the astrobiologist Jacob Haqq-Misra of the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (BMSIS), which suggests Mars should have ‘self-contained’ system .
He is also the author of the book Sovereign Mars: Transforming our values through space colonization (University Press of Kansas, 2022) argues that if humans are to establish themselves on the planet, they should have independent mechanisms to those on Earth.
This would involve factors such as whether residents have its own economic and legal system in addition to naturally developing a local culture.
Even in June 2024, he presented Space policy an article in which proposed “a model of economic freedom on Mars” .
“Aspirations to sustain human life in space must be based on human factors rather than mere technological limitations. Advances in governance and ethics models are needed as human civilization becomes a spacefaring species “, Haqq-Misra emphasizes in the document.
Source: Latercera
I’m Rose Brown , a journalist and writer with over 10 years of experience in the news industry. I specialize in covering tennis-related news for Athletistic, a leading sports media website. My writing is highly regarded for its quick turnaround and accuracy, as well as my ability to tell compelling stories about the sport.
