Space X announces plans to make Humans a multiplanetary species

[Becky]

Yesterday, Elon Musk of Space X announced his plans to launch manned missions to Mars using their reusable 'Interplanetary Transport System' (ITS), which will be the most powerful rocket ever built. According to Musk, the capsule would be able to get to Mars from Earth in as little as 80 days. A brief video was released ahead of the announcement, which really fueled excitement all over the world - check it out below, together with the full presentation.

If everything goes well, the first Humans will arrive on Mars via the ITS early in 2025 - however, Musk stressed that this was an aspirational target. The people who undertake the journey will face a number of challenges - there is obviously the inherent risk associated with riding rockets, but also other factors to consider such as radiation exposure, the effect of microgravity during the journey, and the living conditions on arrival.

Musk went on to explain that over time, the ITS could be used to take more and more people to Mars whenever the two planets are favourably aligned (roughly every 26 months), with the eventual aim of colonising Mars and even terraforming the planet (should its people wish to do so).

What an exciting time to be alive!

http://www.spacex.com/mars

 

[muckshifter]

why don't they practice with the Moon first ... err, on second thoughts, they would probably crash it into the Earth.

Oh, and Musk, you want to add about 50 years to your aspirations. ;-)

 

[Becky]

To be fair, when Kennedy announced plans to get to the moon the only significant achievement of NASA at that point was a brief suborbital flight. The fact that they went from that to putting a man on the moon just over 8 years later was astonishing

I'm cautiously optimistic. Can't wait to watch it all unfold