Today, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said he hopes to finance his plans to colonize Mars by making SpaceX’s entire fleet of vehicles — the Falcon 9, the Falcon Heavy, and the Dragon spacecraft — obsolete.
Speaking at the International Astronautical Congress, Musk said that SpaceX will eventually start stockpiling these vehicles and then focus all of its resources into developing the company’s next monster vehicle: the Interplanetary Transport System, codenamed the BFR (for Big Fucking Rocket).
“All our resources will turn toward building BFR,” Musk said. “And we believe we can do this with the revenue we receive from launching satellites and servicing the space station.”
Musk also announced he’s planning to scale down the ITS, proposing 31 main engines this year. Last year at the same conference, Musk unveiled the combo rocket-and-spaceship’s design, which included 42 main Raptor engines that could send up to 450 metric tons to Mars. Most of the rest of the major design elements, such as in-orbit fueling and propulsive landing, remained the same.
Musk also proposed a variety of new uses for the scaled-down rocket beyond just going to Mars. Supposedly, the ITS can be used to launch satellites, take cargo to the International Space Station, and even do lunar missions to set up a Moon base. SpaceX’s current Falcon 9 fleet is used to do a few of those things already, but Musk says eventually the company will turn to the ITS to do all of its space missions.
“We can build a system that cannibalizes our own products, makes our own products redundant, then all the resources we use for Falcon Heavy and Dragon can be applied to one system,” he said at the conference. Musk says the cost of launching cargo on the ITS will be fairly cheap, too, since the rocket and spaceship will be a fully reusable system (unlike the Falcon 9, which is only 70–80 percent reusable). However, SpaceX will still keep the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy on hand in case customers want to launch on flight-proven vehicles once the ITS starts flying.
Advertising how the ITS can be used for Moon missions is a savvy business move for Musk. It’s also a political one. While launching satellites and servicing the space station is lucrative, it probably isn’t enough to fund the rocket’s development, despite what Musk says. SpaceX will need other funds — and the US government is a good source of cash.
That may explain the newfound interest in the Moon. Vice President Mike Pence, who is in charge of the new National Space Council, has hinted at directing NASA to return to the Moon. And a few key space advisors — including Scott Pace, the executive director of the council — have been vocal about their desire to do human lunar missions.
And a lunar mission won’t require going solo, like Mars does: many national space agencies, such as Russia, China, and the European Space Agency, all have their sights set on the Moon. Recently, Russia and NASA signed an agreement to study concepts for stations that could be built near the Moon.
Of course, Musk’s ultimate goal is still Mars, and he’s still making incredibly optimistic predictions about when the company is going to get there. Last year, Musk claimed the first crews would start flying to the Red Planet as early as 2024. This year, he said the first two cargo ITS ships will launch to Mars in 2022. That’s just five years to create an entirely new rocket, send it to another planet, and land it on the surface intact. If it does land successfully, it’ll be the heaviest vehicle to ever make it to the Martian surface in one piece. (The most we’ve ever landed on Mars weighed about 2,000 pounds, but the ITS can supposedly land between 20 to 50 tons.)
It’s an unrealistic timeline. (Musk’s word for it was “aspirational.”) SpaceX has yet to launch any people into space, and the company has blown plenty of deadlines before. It was supposed to start sending astronauts to the International Space Station as early as this year. Now the absolute earliest is 2018 or 2019. Meanwhile, SpaceX initially promised to launch its new heavy-lift rocket, the Falcon Heavy, in 2013. The rocket hasn’t yet flown, though Musk said today it should launch before the end of the year. Its development was much more difficult than he’d originally expected, Musk said.
Again this year, Musk didn’t address what kind of habitats people will live in on Mars, or how a Martian colony would sustain itself. Last year, he did mention that SpaceX considers itself a transportation company first, akin to the Union Pacific Railroad, and that other companies would answer the call of how to keep people alive on the Red Planet. Instead of showing his audience more details on his Mars plans, he proposed using rockets to fly people around on Earth.
Comments
Only Elon Musk could ever have a plan like that.. and make it work. Can’t wait.
By Jonathan5632 on 09.29.17 1:42am
Elon Musk is that crazy guy in the movies that the President turns too when the world is about to explode and says, "What do we do now?"
By chad.preslar on 09.29.17 5:06pm
Yes. He’s good at hiring CGI artists to make cool renderings of his science fiction.
By redbeardedsf on 09.29.17 9:41pm
I really hope this works. Although I worry that the human body might go a bit crazy growing up in low gravity environments like Mars.
By Ollieollieollie on 09.29.17 1:47am
If you can’t grow up there, you could still live there for 10/20 years at a time.
By Alistair.B on 09.29.17 1:56am
That is just pure speculation at this point. Nobody has really stayed in less than 1g beyond 438 days. Let alone face the radiation doses one would be exposed to there.
By Buggy3D on 09.29.17 10:11am
But why would you want to?
By redbeardedsf on 09.29.17 9:46pm
I watched the cool video of the travel to Mars and had an obvious realization, they haven’t successfully landed a rocket on Mars yet. I wonder if they’ll send unmanned rockets over there until they understand the conditions well and the rocket can land as well as it’s beginning to on Earth.
I would really hate to have some people die on a re-entry and it didn’t go well
That would also put a damper on things quite a bit….
By mbrandonlee on 09.29.17 2:16am
The plan is to land a couple of uncrewed ships first, to prove the landing and do some pre-meatbag prep work (finding water, setting up the fuel plant, that sort of thing) robotically.
By Andy Gates on 09.29.17 6:48am
TL;DW the entire presentation:
- Yes, it’ll be quite expensive as a form of travel.. but fast too. Supposedly, there’s demand for that.
- This is many years down the line, probably after years of succesfull BFR-flights
- The rocket has engine-out capabiity, which means redundancy, as with normal airplanes
- This is the very same ship that will originally be used for Mars and Moon transportation/colonisation, and satellite deployment
- 150 tons to orbit, fully re-usable (Saturn V expendable, 135 tons to orbit).
- Manufacturing capability at Hawthorne is being set-up already, with first (unmanned) launches to Mars by 2022 (aspirational date, Musk mentioned).
- Engines and tanks, arguably the hardest part of the endeavour, have already been built in prototype form, and succesfully tested multiple times.
- Methane & Oxygen to power the rocket. Very clean propellant combustion, environmental impact is minimal. They eventually plan on using the same infrastructure to produce the propellant that they’ll use on Mars: pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere for propellant production.
Consider the fact that it’ll be some form of space tourism too, and/or that some of these might stay in orbit for a while longer, so people can enjoy the view.
How to pay for it:
- SpaceX will be discontinuing production of their current launch vehicle(s), the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. Moving most of their current 6000+ employees over to BFR Production and design. F9 production costs a lot of money. Moving all that to BFR will be significant. They’ll first finish delivering on the majority of their current launch manifest though, so this could only happen by about 2020 probably.
- They’ll build enough F9’s to anticipate demand, and stockpile them in a storage facility till they get the BFR operating.
- Only possible because they anticipate F9 first stages being highly re-usable, along with the fairings.
- Will experiment on BFR Spaceship landings by landing the 2nd stage of the F9 at sea (without intention of re-using them)
- With a 9m diameter (+-27ft), it could deliver a space telescope to orbit about 10 times larger than the Hubble.
Summary for Elons Mars plans:
- Two unmanned supply landers on mars in 2022. 4 more landers (2 manned, 2 unmanned) in 2024. Build base then town then city. Seems to be a surface settlement.
- Construction of first Mars spacecraft to begin in 6 months.
- Each reusable spacecraft can carry ~100 people comfortably with 2 per cabin. Not that amount of ppl on first flights though.
By Jonathan5632 on 09.29.17 2:23am
Musk is a pro at 2 things. Hype(rbole) and extracting tax payers money from smitten governments.
Mars’s low gravity means it’s a bit of a non-starter for human habitation.
By wudboro on 09.29.17 4:16am
we know what hype means!
By peejaybee on 09.29.17 5:48am
Right. It’s not like he achieved any technological innovations in any areas…
By BigDaddy0790 on 09.29.17 8:42am
Still not the same thing as making a planet not suited for human life habitable
By redbeardedsf on 09.29.17 9:44pm
No one is talking about making the entire thing habitable in the near future, but making a base humans could live on? Possible today.
And considering Musk’s resources, ambitions, and the fact that this was his plan for decades, I’m inclined to be optimistic.
By BigDaddy0790 on 10.01.17 2:02pm
He’s also a pro at capturing the imagination of certain people who are waaaaaay into Star Trek
By redbeardedsf on 09.29.17 9:48pm
"Mars’s low gravity means it’s a bit of a non-starter for human habitation."
Almost like living in the Ocean. However, a gravity mass simulator facility (yet to be built), will solve that problem. But, until then, Adults can live there for 10 or 20 years ( as was posted by another blogger).
By Arthur Hamilton on 09.30.17 3:01pm
Changing the BFR from a monstrous manifest-destiny battlestar to a big utility DC-3 space truck is really very canny. They’re going to be everywhere.
By Andy Gates on 09.29.17 4:50am
Got the impression that first they were going to perfect the Mars plan on the Moon with Falcon Heavy and so on.
By StealthBlue on 09.29.17 8:10am
I think you are confusing with NASA’s plans to build a deep-space gateway in orbit around the moon; but that’s planned on an SLS rocket, with "maybe" a few extra flights from the Delta Heavy.
Musk rightly suggested that there is no need for a base around the moon if you can directly hop from earth to other planets. The whole point of the deep space gateway is to provide a docking port for refuel and/or building bigger ships that are currently hard to build on Earth, but if Musk is able to make a re-usable rocket capable of carrying 150 tons into Lower Earth Orbit, there is no reason why we couldn’t simply do so directly from here.
By Buggy3D on 09.29.17 10:17am
He knows what we don’t, that a huge ‘asteroid’…
…just stopped in orbit, after smashing into the moon, and that we’re soon to be toast-ed by tentacled telepathic terribles…
…and so it’s best we escape from the blue to the red planet asap!
#idmovie
By ttGuy on 09.29.17 1:13pm
It sounds cool and all. I love science and space and sci fi. I am all for it.
But if I am honest if I would be an investor I would have a hard time answering what exactely for. Everything on Mars is about a hundred times less habitable than any place on earth… and after all it is mostly a red, dusty rock.
To be clear: at this point is is objectively a less crazy and more useful idea to found a colony on antarctica or to build an underwater city floating in the deep sea. That’s how insane this plan is.
But ok, it isn’t my money they are pumping into this operation so I will happily sit on the side and watch them try and would be glad to be proven wrong
By Mrogi on 09.29.17 11:47am
That underwater colony would be awesome. Atlantis 2.0 and all that.
By Edensuko on 09.29.17 2:01pm
Is it time for a reboot of The Abyss yet?
By lusional on 09.29.17 5:29pm
The logic behind colonizing Mars is pretty straightforward: 2 is better than 1
Should a cataclysmic event happen on Earth; nuclear war, catastrophic climate change, etc a colony on Mars becomes humanity’s only chance for the continuation of our species.
If you’d like to argue that Homo sapiens have done enough harm to this planet and should think twice about consuming the resources of another one, that’s a valid argument but I don’t believe you would find many people willing to let our civilization come to an end for the sake of keeping Earth habitable for the millions of other species at our mercy.
By mlcassie14 on 09.29.17 2:27pm