Genetic engineering and other advanced technologies may need to come into play if people want to live in Mars.
Last month’s NASA and SpaceX successful launch of astronauts from US soil for the first time in almost a decade, has reignited discussion about space travel to Mars and beyond. SpaceX is fronted by the billionaire Elon Musk.
Sky News reports:
SpaceX is developing a massive stainless-steel Starship that will one day take one hundred passengers to Mars. The company aims to launch the fist Starship with cargo by 2022 and targets 2024 for the first crewed voyage to Mars. The first mission to Mars will consist of taking over 100 tons of cargo humans will need to survive on the rough Martian environment. Vital things like Oxygen and food will be transported to Mars first, so, when the first astronauts arrive, they will have more survival resources. Then, the second mission will transport the first humans to the Red Planet.
Yes— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2020
But he, himself, is clearly not gone. Earlier this week, Rogozin authored an op-ed in Forbes about Crew Dragon and Russia’s plans in space. Roscosmos has since published an English version, and in it Rogozin is far less complimentary of SpaceX and NASA.
“Elon Musk did not bring us down—he brought down his compatriots.”
More time was allotted for the United Launch Alliance team to make repairs to ground system equipment. Liftoff atop an Atlas V rocket is set for 6:15 a.m. PT (9:15 a.m. ET, 1315 UTC). https://go.nasa.gov/2JvRbLq
Our newest water-seeking rover just booked a ride to the Moon’s South Pole.
Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic has been selected to deliver VIPER to the Moon in 2023 in preparation for future #Artemis missions to bring humanity to the lunar surface: https://go.nasa.gov/2YsxZFw
After sending NASA astronauts to the ISS, SpaceX is focusing back on the Mars-colonizing Starship project.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tells me that despite the pandemic, the agency will do its utmost to meet the 2024 Artemis lunar return deadline.
“We continue to assess the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our missions, but we strongly believe that we can still meet the goal of landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told me via a headquarters’ spokesperson.
Yet NASA has also experienced shakeups in its human spaceflight directorate that could hinder meeting Artemis’ goals. Case in point, Doug Laverro, Associate Administrator of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, departed less than a month ago.
Good idea. I wonder how much of his attention will shift from Mars to the Moon.
Elon has tweeted out that early Starships will stay on the moon as part of moon base alpha.
The SpaceX plan is what Nextbigfuture described in last months article “A Sky Full of Starships”.
The SpaceX Starship will have six Raptor engines but will still be larger and cheaper than the external fuel tanks of the Space Shuttle. Elon Musk has a goal of building Starships for $5 million.
In the March 1988 issue of Popular Mechanics, the legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote an article describing his vision for humanity’s return to the moon.
WASHINGTON — SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft is performing well enough on orbit to give NASA confidence that the mission can last until August, an agency official said June 9.
Ken Bowersox, the acting associate administrator for human exploration and operations at NASA, told an online meeting of two National Academies committees that NASA had been monitoring the health of the Crew Dragon spacecraft since its launch May 30 on the Demo-2 mission, carrying NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station.
NASA, he noted, had not set a length for the mission, saying they wanted to see how the Dragon performed in space. “The Dragon is doing very well, so we think it’s reasonable for the crew to stay up there a month or two,” he told members of the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board and Space Studies Board.
