Determined to populate the red planet, Elon Musk calculates what is needed to build a sustainable city on Mars. And they are not just human. Musk believes that humanity needs to abandon the earth to guarantee the survival of our species in case of catastrophe or disaster.
Spacex plans to build a self-sustainable city on Mars. Elon Musk founded the Spacex company in 2002 with money from the sale of PayPal and the determination to colonize the red planet. Spacex has achieved incredible feats since then, but its most optimistic plan will require much more than thought.
According to Musk, the first colonies will be established on Mars in 20 years and his company is already building superfabricas and establishing launch bases to support them. In his vision, it will not be a small advanced position like those that NASA plans for the moon, which will only occasionally be visited, but a city of one million people who will be there for life.
Musk is ambitious, and the idea of cultivating plants on Mars has evolved towards something much more complex: transforming humanity into a multiparanetary species capable of surviving a catastrophe on earth. Or, more pragmatically, create the necessary infrastructure for a self-sustainable human settlement on Mars.
Now, we know that in addition to humans, will need about 1,000 starship rockets and 20 years of continuous missions to bring humans to the red planet. With this reusable rocket, Spacex plans to change the history of humanity.
Mars launch windows open every 26 months, taking advantage of their proximity to the land. Elon Musk believes if launches begin in 2028, the Martian city of one million inhabitants could materialize just 22 years later, in 2050. The key to this is the rapid development of the pitcher and the Starship vehicle, which has already made three orbital test flights.
With a fourth flight scheduled for May, Musk already predicts a probability of up to 90% that the first stage of the Super Heavy is safely recovered by the new Mechazilla capture tower of the company, which use giant arms to secure rocket during its motorized landing. The motorized landing of the second Starship stage will occur later, after new modifications.
But why conquer Mars? Musk believes that it is due to a lack of a better option. Venus has temperatures that melt lead, overwhelming atmospheric pressure, acid rain, and warm winds. The Earth’s moon does not have many resources, not to mention that it has no atmosphere. With a day equivalent to 29 terrestrial days, the lack of atmosphere would make life incredibly cold or hot. Mercury is equally hot during the day and incredibly cold at night.
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are simply condensed gas balls that can never be habitable, with incredible amounts of pressure on their surface. The moons of Jupiter and Saturn are possible candidates, but they are further and are colder than Mars. Pluto is even further and is colder. That makes Mars an ideal candidate. It’s cold, but not too cold. It is dark, but not much darker than the earth. It is not too far and has a day of almost the same duration as that of the Earth, which is important for food cultivation.
Its gravity is a third of the Earth, it has a lot of frozen water and a significant amount of carbon dioxide, that the plants of our planet easily transform into oxygen, and that are essential for the “terraft” of Mars. It is an extremely optimistic vision of what a company like Spacex can achieve in such a short time, but there is something that cannot be denied about Elon Musk: his goal has been the same since Spacex was founded.
