(ORDO NEWS) — The plan is to “build more than 1,000 starships to take humans to Mars. Essentially a (very) modern Noah’s Ark,” Musk wrote, echoing a statement he made during a recent interview with Chris Anderson. Then Elon Musk said that SpaceX will achieve this goal by 2050.
True, so far SpaceX has not yet launched its mega-rocket with the Starship spacecraft, even in a test orbital flight, which should take place this summer, it’s all about the environmental review that Starship is undergoing and the publication of the results of which is constantly postponed by the US Federal Aviation Administration.
The main reason Musk’s plans can be divisive is that, even given SpaceX’s high standards, they aren’t very realistic. Perhaps the main indicator of this moment is how Musk’s statement falls short of NASA‘s plans for the red planet.
While Musk says SpaceX will send a million people to Mars by 2050, NASA aims to get the first humans to Mars probably with SpaceX by the 2030s or 2040s, kicking off a multi-year campaign of scientific exploration.
The colonization of Mars will be an incredibly slow process, full of trial and error. Thus, the first people NASA plans to send to the red planet will be scientists and trained professionals. In contrast, Musk recently announced that “almost anyone” could save up to $100,000 to buy a Starship ticket and go live on Mars.
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