The colonization of Mars is one of the first essential steps in making humanity interplanetary; Like the Moon, it is one of the first stops for suppliesnecessary for expansion in the Solar System.
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s aerospace company, is one of the private actors that has most ardently set its sights on the red planet.
Garrett Reisman, former NASA astronaut, former director of Space Operations at SpaceX and senior advisor to the company, has explained to Computer Today which, precisely, Musk’s startup is very clear about.
“SpaceX’s goal is quite clear: make humanity an interplanetary species and, more specifically, colonize Mars“, he specifies. “If we look at some of SpaceX’s projections, the work on Mars would not be far from what we see in Happy Valley of For all humanity“.
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Happy Valley is the fictional location of the Apple TV+ series For all humanityin which Reisman works as a technical advisor, curiously a place similar to what other companies have already proposed to live on Mars.
“Science fiction and science have always been symbiotic, especially with respect to space travel,” he says. “There are certain commonalities.”
Now, in this long-distance race of SpaceX still has to achieve something essential to be successful in the colonization of humanity.
It all depends on Starship
Elon Musk promised that the SpaceX Starship rocket would be the tallest and most powerful in the world, at least in the field of reusable space vehicles, a condition sine qua non to reduce the costs of expeditions.
This rocket is based on a stainless steel propellant called Super Heavy and, so far, it has not managed to ensure that all the tests end without a hitch.
Although in most cases it has taken off, on several occasions it has exploded during its attempt to launch into orbit, a challenge to which SpaceX has to pay special attention.
“Everything depends on the success of Starship, on whether this new space vehicle works”, adds Reisman. “They didn’t do very well the first time they tried, but they are close to achieving it: they adapt quickly, they are not afraid of falling or failing…”
In this sense, he believes that SpaceX has a lot of talent among its members and will achieve this featthe last step to advance the conquest of Mars.
“It depends on how quickly SpaceX gets this vehicle up and running,” he says. “I would never bet against them because they are a company full of very talented people who do really interesting things.”