SpaceX has stated its ambition to facilitate the colonization of Mars via the development of the Starship launch vehicle. The company states that this is necessary for the long-term survival of the human species[1], though experts like Neil deGrasse Tyson have said this wouldn't be possible unless Mars is terraformed[2], which is not possible with current or near-future technology.[3]

Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX, first presented his goal of enabling Mars colonization in 2001 as a member of the Mars Society's board of directors. In the 2000s and early 2010s, SpaceX made many vehicle concepts for delivering payloads and crews to Mars, including space tugs, heavy-lift launch vehicles, and Red Dragon capsules. The company's current Mars plan was first formally proposed at the 2016 International Astronautical Congress alongside a fully-reusable launch vehicle, the Interplanetary Transport System. Since then, the launch vehicle proposal was altered and renamed to "Starship", and has been in development since. The company has given many estimates of dates of the first human landing on Mars.

SpaceX plans for early missions to Mars to involve small fleets of Starship spacecraft, funded by public–private partnerships. The company hopes that once infrastructure is established on Mars and the launch cost is reduced further, colonization can begin. The hypothetical Mars program has been criticized as impractical, both because of uncertainties regarding its financing[4] and because it only addresses transportation to Mars and not the problem of sustaining human life there. George Dvorsky writing for Gizmodo characterized Musk's plans for a Mars colony by 2050 as "pure delusion".[5] Lord Martin Rees, a British cosmologist and astrophysicist also described Musk's plan as a "dangerous delusion".[6]

Background

Growth of private spaceflight

Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster in space with Earth as the background, launched by the Falcon Heavy test flight

Before founding SpaceX, Musk joined the Mars Society's board of directors for a short time. He was offered a plenary talk at their convention where he announced Mars Oasis, a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse and grow plants on Mars, to revive public interest in space exploration.[7] Musk initially attempted to acquire a Dnepr ICBM for the project through Russian contacts from Jim Cantrell.[8] Russian officials were unreceptive to Musk's approach and on the flight back from Moscow, Musk worked on a spreadsheet and concluded that they could build their own rockets.[9] Over time, Musk's goal evolved from a small publicity mission to generate interest in going to Mars, to a full-scale effort to create an architecture that would enable a self-sustaining human settlement on Mars.[10] This led to the formation of SpaceX.[11]: 30–31 

Reusable launch system

Two Falcon Heavy boosters landing at Cape Canaveral, Florida in the Falcon Heavy test flight
This section is an excerpt from SpaceX reusable launch system development program.[edit]

SpaceX has privately funded the development of orbital launch systems that can be reused many times, similar to the reusability of aircraft. SpaceX has developed technologies over the last decade to facilitate full and rapid reuse of space launch vehicles. The project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site within minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad following orbital realignment with the launch site and atmospheric reentry in up to 24 hours. SpaceX's long term goal would have been reusability of both stages of their orbital launch vehicle, and the first stage would be designed to allow reuse a few hours after return.[12] Development of reusable second stages for Falcon 9 was later abandoned in favor of the development of Starship,[13] however, SpaceX has been developing reusable payload fairings for the Falcon 9.[14]

The program was announced in 2011. SpaceX first achieved a successful landing and recovery of a first stage in December 2015. The first re-flight of a landed first stage occurred in March 2017[14] with the second occurring in June 2017, that one only five months after the maiden flight of the booster.[15] The third attempt occurred in October 2017 with the SES-11/EchoStar-105 mission. Reflights of refurbished first stages then became routine. In May 2021, B1051 became the first booster to launch ten missions.[16]

The reusable launch system technology was initially developed for the first stage of Falcon 9.[17] After stage separation, the booster flips around (an optional boostback burn reverses its course), a reentry burn controls direction to the landing site, and a landing burn accomplishes the final low-altitude deceleration and touchdown.

SpaceX planned from at least 2014 to develop reusable second stages, a more challenging engineering problem because the vehicle is travelling at orbital velocity.[18][17][19] Second stage reuse is considered vital to Elon Musk's plans for settlement of Mars. Initial concepts for a reusable Falcon 9 second stage have been abandoned.[13]

As of 2023, SpaceX is developing the Starship system with a fully-reusable two-stage launch vehicle, intended to replace all of its other launch vehicles and spacecraft for satellite delivery and human transport—Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon—and eventually support flights to the Moon and Mars. It could theoretically be used for point-to-point transportation on Earth.[20]

Tenets

As early as 2007, Elon Musk stated a personal goal of eventually enabling human exploration and settlement of Mars,[21] although his personal public interest in Mars goes back at least to 2001 at the Mars Society.[11]: 30–31  SpaceX has stated its goal is to colonize Mars to ensure the long-term survival of the human species.[4]

Starship's reusability is expected to reduce launch costs, expanding space access to more payloads and entities.[22] According to Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer and advocate for human exploration of Mars, Starship's planned lower launch cost could make space-based economy, colonization, and mining practical.[11]: 25, 26  According to Robert Zubrin, lower cost to space may potentially make space research profitable, allowing major advancements in medicine, computers, material science, and more.[11]: 47, 48  Musk has stated that a Starship orbital launch could eventually cost $2 million, starting at $10 million within 2-3 years and dropping with time.[23] Pierre Lionnet, director of research at Eurospace, claimed otherwise, citing the rocket's multi-billion-dollar development cost and its current lack of external demand.[24]

Launch vehicle

Starship prototype assembled and stacked at Boca Chica

Starship is designed to be a fully reusable and orbital rocket, aiming to drastically reduce launch costs and maintenance between flights.[25]: 2  The rocket consists of a Super Heavy first stage booster and a Starship second stage spacecraft,[26] powered by Raptor and Raptor Vacuum engines.[27] Both the rocket stages' body are made from stainless steel.[28]

Methane was chosen for the Raptor engines because it is relatively cheap, produces low amount of soot as compared to other hydrocarbons,[29] and can be created on Mars from carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and hydrogen via the Sabatier reaction.[30] The engine family uses a new alloy for the main combustion chamber, allowing it to contain 300 bar (4,400 psi) of pressure, the highest of all current engines.[29] In the future, it may be mass-produced[29] and cost about $230,000 per engine or $100 per kilonewton.[31]

Starship is the launch vehicle's second stage and will serve as a long-duration spacecraft on some missions.[32] The spacecraft is 50 m (160 ft) tall[33] and has a dry mass of approximately 100 t (220,000 lb).[31] Starship's payload volume is planned to be about 1,000 m3 (35,000 cu ft),[34] larger than the International Space Station's pressurized volume by 80 m3 (2,800 cu ft),[35] and could be larger with an extended 22 m (72 ft)-tall payload bay.[36]: 2  By refueling the Starship spacecraft in orbit using tanker spacecraft, Starship may be able to transport larger payloads and more astronauts to other Earth orbits, to the Moon (Starship HLS), and Mars.[36]: 5 

Program manifest

SpaceX plans to build a crewed base on Mars for an extended surface presence, which it hopes will grow into a self-sufficient colony.[37][38] A successful colonization, meaning an established human presence on Mars growing over many decades, would ultimately involve many more economic actors than SpaceX.[39][40][41] Musk has made many tentative predictions about the date of Starship's first Mars landing,[28] including 2029.[42]

Exploration

Four astronauts looking at Mars
A scene of astronauts on Mars in the 2016 IAC presentation

Musk plans for the first crewed Mars missions to have approximately 12 people, with the goals of "build[ing] out and troubleshoot[ing] the propellant plant and Mars Base Alpha power system" and establishing a "rudimentary base." The company plans to process resources on Mars into fuel for return journeys,[43] and use similar technologies on Earth to create carbon-neutral propellant.[44]

Colonization and terraforming

A series of four illustrations of a planet, each successive one featuring more liquid water, vegetation, clouds, and atmospheric haze
Artist's conception of the process of terraforming Mars

The program aims to send a million people to Mars, using a thousand Starships sent during a Mars launch window.[45] Proposed journeys would require 80 to 150 days of transit time,[41] averaging approximately 115 days (for the nine synodic periods occurring between 2020 and 2037).[46] This plan has been described as 'pure delusion' by George Dvorsky, writing for Gizmodo[5], and as a 'dangerous delusion' by Lord Martin Rees, a British cosmologist/astrophysicist and the Astronomer Royal of the United Kingdom.[6] Serkan Saydam, a mining engineering professor from the University of New South Wales said that we will likely still lack the technology needed to create and maintain a martian colony of a million people by 2050. [5]

Red Dragon capsule

Artist's conception of two Red Dragon capsules on Mars, next to an outpost
This section is an excerpt from SpaceX Red Dragon.[edit]

The SpaceX Red Dragon was a 2011–2017 concept for using an uncrewed modified SpaceX Dragon 2 for low-cost Mars lander missions to be launched using Falcon Heavy rockets.

The primary objective of the initial Red Dragon mission was to test techniques and technology to enter the Martian atmosphere with equipment that a human crew could conceivably use.[47][48] The series of Mars missions were to be technology pathfinders for the much larger SpaceX Mars colonization architecture that was announced in September 2016.[49] An additional suggested use for a mission called for a sample return Mars rover to be delivered to the Martian surface.

The program was conceived in 2011 as a potential NASA Discovery mission launching as early as 2022, and evolved over several years once it did not receive NASA funding from the 2013–2015 Discovery Mission program cycle. In April 2016, SpaceX announced that they had signed an unfunded Space Act Agreement with NASA, providing technical support, for a launch no earlier than 2018. In February 2017, SpaceX noted this launch date was delayed to no earlier than 2020. In July 2017, Elon Musk announced that development would be halted and resources redirected to Starship.[50]

Mars Colonial Transporter

This section is an excerpt from SpaceX Starship design process § Mars Colonial Transporter.[edit]
In October 2012, Musk made the first public articulation of plans to develop a fully reusable rocket system with substantially greater capabilities than SpaceX's existing Falcon 9.[51] He referred to this new launch vehicle under the unspecified acronym "MCT",[51] reveled to stand for "Mars Colonial Transporter" in 2013.[52] This new launch vehicle was intended to be part of the company's Mars system architecture, then known as the Mars Colonial Transporter/Mass Cargo Transport (MCT).[53] According to SpaceX, the MCT system would include reusable rocket engines, launch vehicles and space capsules that would enable transportation of humans to Mars and back to Earth.[54] SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell gave a potential payload range between 150-200 tonnes to low Earth orbit for the planned rocket.[51] According to SpaceX, the MCT was to be "going to be much bigger [than Falcon 9]".[53][55] In February 2014, the planned principal payload for the MCT was announced to be a large interplanetary spacecraft, designed to carry up to 100 tonnes (220,000 lb) of passengers and cargo.[56] According to SpaceX engine development head Tom Mueller, SpaceX could use nine Raptor engines on a single MCT booster or spacecraft.[57][58] The preliminary rocket design was to be at least 10 meters (33 ft) in diameter and was expected to have up to three cores totaling at least 27 booster engines.[54]

Reception and feasibility

As of December 2023, SpaceX has not publicly detailed plans for the spacecraft's life-support systems, radiation protection, and in situ resource utilization, which are essential for space colonization.[59]

Notes

    References

    1. ↑ Sheetz, Michael (April 23, 2021). "Elon Musk wants SpaceX to reach Mars so humanity is not a 'single-planet species'". CNBC. Retrieved January 12, 2024.
    2. ↑ "Elon Musk's plans for life on Mars are a 'dangerous delusion', says British chief astronomer". Sky News. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
    3. ↑ "Mars Terraforming Not Possible Using Present-Day Technology - NASA". Retrieved January 12, 2024.
    4. 1 2 Chang, Kenneth (September 27, 2016). "Elon Musk's Plan: Get Humans to Mars, and Beyond". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 29, 2016. Retrieved September 27, 2016.
    5. 1 2 3 "Elon Musk's Plan to Send a Million Colonists to Mars by 2050 Is Pure Delusion". Gizmodo. June 3, 2022. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
    6. 1 2 "Elon Musk's plans for life on Mars are a 'dangerous delusion', says British chief astronomer". Sky News. Retrieved January 11, 2024.
    7. ↑ Elon Musk (May 30, 2009). "Risky Business". IEEE Spectrum. Archived from the original on February 23, 2017. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
    8. ↑ Keith Cowing (August 30, 2001). "Millionaires and billionaires: the secret to sending humans to Mars?". SPACEREF. Archived from the original on June 19, 2022. Retrieved March 1, 2022.
    9. ↑ Ball, Molly; Kluger, Jeffrey; de la Garza, Alejandro (December 13, 2021). "Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021". Time. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
    10. ↑ Bierend, Doug (July 17, 2014). "SpaceX Was Born Because Elon Musk Wanted to Grow Plants on Mars". Vice. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
    11. 1 2 3 4 Zubrin, Robert (May 14, 2019). The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-63388-534-9. OCLC 1053572666.
    12. ↑ Simberg, Rand (February 8, 2012). "Elon Musk on SpaceX's Reusable Rocket Plans". Popular Mechanics. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved February 7, 2012.
    13. 1 2 "SpaceX Not Planning to Upgrade Falcon 9 Second Stage". November 17, 2018. Archived from the original on August 23, 2019. Retrieved August 23, 2019.
    14. 1 2 Henry, Caleb (March 30, 2017). "SpaceX demonstrates reusability". SpaceNews. Archived from the original on May 19, 2019. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
    15. ↑ de Selding, Peter B. (June 26, 2017). "SpaceX cuts flight-to-reflight time for Falcon 9 first stage". Space Intel Report. Archived from the original on November 9, 2019. Retrieved June 27, 2017.
    16. ↑ Sesnic, Trevor; Fletcher, Colin; Kanayama, Lee (May 8, 2021). "SpaceX flies historic 10th mission of a Falcon 9 as Starlink constellation expands". NASASpaceFlight.com. Archived from the original on May 16, 2021. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
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    20. ↑ Musk, Elon (March 1, 2018). "Making Life Multi-Planetary". New Space. 6 (1): 2–11. Bibcode:2018NewSp...6....2M. doi:10.1089/space.2018.29013.emu.
    21. ↑ Hoffman, Carl (May 22, 2007). "Elon Musk Is Betting His Fortune on a Mission Beyond Earth's Orbit". Wired Magazine. Archived from the original on November 14, 2012. Retrieved March 14, 2014.
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    28. 1 2 Chang, Kenneth (September 28, 2019). "Elon Musk Sets Out SpaceX Starship's Ambitious Launch Timeline". The New York Times. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
    29. 1 2 3 O'Callaghan, Jonathan (July 31, 2019). "The wild physics of Elon Musk's methane-guzzling super-rocket". Wired UK. Archived from the original on February 22, 2021. Retrieved December 9, 2021.
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    31. 1 2 Sesnic, Trevor (August 11, 2021). "Starbase Tour and Interview with Elon Musk". The Everyday Astronaut (Interview). Archived from the original on August 12, 2021. Retrieved October 12, 2021.
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    41. 1 2 Boyle, Alan (September 27, 2016). "SpaceX's Elon Musk makes the big pitch for his decades-long plan to colonize Mars". GeekWire. Archived from the original on October 3, 2016. Retrieved October 3, 2016.
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    51. 1 2 3 Rosenberg, Zach (October 15, 2012). "SpaceX aims big with massive new rocket". Flight Global. Archived from the original on July 3, 2015. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
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    53. 1 2 "Huge Mars Colony Eyed by SpaceX Founder". Discovery News. December 13, 2012. Archived from the original on November 15, 2014. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
    54. 1 2 Belluscio, Alejandro G. (March 7, 2014). "SpaceX advances drive for Mars rocket via Raptor power". NASASpaceFlight.com. Archived from the original on September 11, 2015. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
    55. ↑ Coppinger, Rod (November 23, 2012). "Huge Mars Colony Eyed by SpaceX Founder Elon Musk". Space.com. Archived from the original on June 28, 2013. Retrieved September 25, 2016. an evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster ... much bigger [than Falcon 9], but I don't think we're quite ready to state the payload. We'll speak about that next year. ... Vertical landing is an extremely important breakthrough — extreme, rapid reusability.
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