Miguel Conde Coutinho
Elon Musk wants to establish a human colonies on Mars and showed how it is that your company wants to achieve this fantastic goal.
The eccentric billionaire Elon Musk, owner of the manufacturer of electric cars Tesla and SpaceX, which builds rockets and launches satellites, and makes transportation of cargo to the space, is not a man to things few and has a dream which is not small: to start a human colonies on Mars during the next decades. And, on Tuesday, explained the incredible plan (or part thereof) designed to achieve this fantastic and it is not known if the possible goal of starting all over again, on a new planet.
Musk sees the future of mankind: either we stay on Earth until the day that a catastrophe will lead us to extinction, such as the fall of the meteorite that caused the disappearance of the dinosaurs; or we become a kind multiplanetária.
The history of our planet, guarantees the billionaire, tells us that an event that will lead us to extinction will inevitable and likely to happen, and that is why we decided to launch the SpaceX in a fantastic endeavor not only to take Man to Mars to establish a colony and a system of transport of people, goods and equipment between the two planets.
With the technology that exists today, a ticket to Mars, esteem for the entrepreneur, it would cost about 10 billion euros. A ticket only. But with the technology that is already being developed, tested and develop in the future, Musk predicts that it is possible to reduce the cost of a trip to Mars to only (and “only” by comparison with the 10 thousand million) 200 thousand euros per person transported. How? The explanation was vague, but will be trying to use lighter materials, the rockets more powerful and reusable.
Fill the tank in orbit
How is that all going to happen, according to the plan presented by Musk? In a ship with a capacity for 100 people, that will be the propulsion of a rocket with the height of 40 floors and two engines, the giant (named “Raptor”). As soon as the ship is in orbit, the thrusters return to the landing – SpaceX has already managed to make a rocket land vertically – and they assemble a sort of tank with fuel, which will serve to supply fuel to the ship that waits while it orbits the Earth. The operation will repeat until the tank is full.
at This point, you’ll already be all set for the departure in the direction of the Red Planet. The trip, at a speed of 30 thousand kilometers per hour, will take about three months.
Landing on Mars
Newcomers to Mars, new issues arise. First, you need land. If all this goes well, it will be necessary to understand how these first 100 people will be able to live. The idea is that, before this first trip with the colonists, others have happened only to transport equipment, materials and other “hardware” that will sustain life first colony on Mars.
The plan also provides that it will not be possible to take fuel also for the return. Musk says that, using the natural resources already existing on Mars, it will be possible to extract fuel from the martian soil, including methane, to fuel the rockets and the spaceship for the return trip. The goal is to make between 20 to 40 travel-transport human, round trip, to within 40 to 100 years there may be, on the red soil of the neighbor planet, a civilization self-sustaining on Mars. Many others will be needed to transport equipment.
there was No information about who may be the pioneers. It is known that, of course, must be prepared to die during the mission. Musk stressed that probably will not be transported children, given that the risk of death is high.
Live on the Red Planet
In the presentation yesterday, also few details were given about where it will establish the first city on mars, and about how it will be possible to maintain a safe and organized human life. One of the risks known and usually spoken of in these occasions is the risk of solar radiation, much stronger on Mars than on Earth, given the greater rarefaction of the martian atmosphere. Can cause, among other complications, cardiovascular diseases. Musk dismissed this problem: “The problem of the radiation is usually referred to, but is not so important,” says the CEO, who explains that there is a “little increased risk of cancer”, although it is expected the creation of some kind of protection against the solar radiation.
it is also Expected that it will be possible to deploy some system of agriculture, because the atmosphere of Mars contains vital nutrients, such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen. More, the gravity on Mars is only 37% of the gravity on Earth. Now this will be fundamental to be able to take flight to Mars more easily than on our planet.
First steps
But all this is still quite far away, although, as pointed out by the magazine “Wired”, all start with a small step. The first goal is to send a small spacecraft to Mars already in the year 2018, a time in which the trajectories of the orbits of the two planets decrease the distance between them. After every 27 months, when Mars and Earth are again very close to, the SpaceX wants to carry forth tons of equipment and materials to the surface of Mars.
it is Not known, nor Elon Musk, how much all this will cost. We know that it is very long, and the experts say that this ad is not just an eccentricity of the billionaire, that you know that your company does not have the capacity to finance it all alone. The idea would have been to raise other interested parties, companies and individuals, in helping to fulfill this old dream of human.
if everything goes “very well”, in three years there will be a testing model of the ship that will transport the colonists, so that is definitely ready from here to 10 years. “But I don’t want to say when all this will occur,” said Musk. Further, the success of the plan depends on so many factors and so many variables, that, at this time, is very far from being able to be given as guaranteed. “This has to imply a huge risk, it will cost a lot of money and there’s a good chance of not being successful. But let’s try and give our best”.
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