
Over the next five years, SpaceX plans to develop a fully fledged autonomous life support system, designed with Martian conditions in mind. We are talking about equipment that extracts resources and energy, filtration technologies, devices for the production of breathable air. The entrepreneur plans to deliver all this to Mars with the first cargo shuttles already in 2022 using a BFR ("Big Fucking Rocket") rocket of its own production. According to the entrepreneur, all the forces and future funds of the company will go to the development of this rocket. Musk plans to build it on the money earned from satellite launches and cargo deliveries to the ISS, RBC reports.
Colonization of Mars will take place "waves." The first colonists will have to go to the Red Planet already in 2024. Their goal is to deploy a base on the surface of Mars and prepare a springboard for future settlers. Those, in turn, will continue to expand the colony and wait for the next arrivals, and so on. Of course, these terms can be called conditional - the goal is too ambitious.
In addition, Musk proposed using a similar system to colonize the Moon - NASA leaders have already become interested in this proposal, who in recent years have often talked about the possibility of humanity returning to Earth’s satellite. At the same time, lunar missions have even more chances to come true - not only SpaceX and NASA are interested in the colonization of the moon, but also the space agency of Europe, China and the domestic Roscosmos. So if the Mask company manages to interest potential investors, the human foot will set foot on the Earth’s satellite even earlier than on the surface of Mars.
The entrepreneur has already posted on his Instagram a render of a hypothetical lunar colony.
Musk did not forget about the Earth, putting forward another proposal to create a new type of public transport. We are talking about missile flights, thanks to which you can get anywhere in the world in no more than an hour. Moreover, the cost of the flight will be comparable to the cost of an economy class ticket on an airplane.
SpaceX released a video illustrating the technology of the entire process. In the reservoirs of large cities, it is proposed to build floating platforms, which are launching pads. Passengers (from 80 to 200 people) will get to them in boats and board the same BFR rockets that will be used for missions to Mars. The spacecraft will then enter the Earth’s orbit and will be divided into two parts: one will fly back, the second - to the destination. Thus, you can get from New York to Shanghai in just 39 minutes, from Hong Kong to Singapore in 22, from London to Dubai in 29.
If this method of transportation is implemented, then it will become the fastest in the history of mankind - the maximum speed of a rocket is 29,000 km / h. True, this is unlikely to happen soon. First of all, passengers will probably experience crazy overloads, which means that not everyone will decide to fly in this way. In addition, there remains a safety issue: the plane is statistically considered the safest mode of transport, while SpaceX has learned to put rockets back into Earth back to Earth relatively recently.