SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wants to build a city on Mars, but there’s one crucial test that will determine whether his plan is a success.
On this day in 1899, Robert Goddard first considered the concept of space flight, which his work would later help make a reality.
On this particular fall afternoon at age 17, he was sent to prune a cherry tree in his backyard. While he worked, he found himself imagining, as he later wrote in his diary, “how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars, and how it would look on a small scale, if sent up from the meadow at my feet.”
It was at that moment that Robert Goddard dedicated himself to making space flight a reality. As he was to recall later, “I was a different boy when I descended the tree from when I ascended for existence at last seemed very purposive.”
SpaceX founder Elon Musk is “80%-90% confident” that the company’s massive new Starship rocket will reach orbit next year and said there’s a chance it will be ready for an uncrewed cargo mission to Mars in 2024.
The initial test flights will be difficult and carry a high risk of failure, Musk said Friday at a virtual session of the Mars Society’s 2020 conference. “We’ll probably lose a few ships before we get the atmospheric return and landing right,” he said.
This is a continuation of a previous 3 million for a coupling device. In orbit refueling will allow trips to the Moon, and trips to Mars will take half the time it does now.
NASA tipping point awards.
Refueling in orbit is a crucial step for SpaceX to allow its Starship spacecraft to make the journey to faraway places, including the Moon and Mars. The idea is to launch multiple Starships, some destined to top up others while in orbit.
“Combining Starship’s rapid reusability with orbital refilling is critical to economically transporting large numbers of crew and cargo to the Moon and Mars,” SpaceX wrote in a tweet celebrating the news.
NASA is contracting SpaceX to demonstrate the transfer of ten metric tons of liquid oxygen propellant between one Starship and another, a collaboration with NASA’s Glenn Research Center and the Marshall Space Flight Center.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a photo that shows just how far the company has come in terms of preparation for its upcoming tests.
Circa 2019
Scientists worked out how to create breathable oxygen and fuel for electronics from water in zero-gravity without electricity for long distance space travel.
China’s Chang’e 4 moon mission received a prestigious international award just as the two spacecraft that make up the project awoke for their 23rd lunar day.
UK firm Reaction Engines hopes to revolutionize space access with a new class of propulsion system for reusable vehicles, as Oliver Nailard explains.
Reusable vehicles are vital to make access to space more affordable, but conventional rocket engines have their limits. Oliver Nailard describes how UK firm Reaction Engines hopes to revolutionize space access with a new class of propulsion system, the Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE)
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Commercial rocket ventures including Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin should get a clearer path to space under new regulations that oversee non-government launches.
