Last night, Elon Musk unveiled a spectacular plan to send humans to Mars. I mean that in the most basic sense of the word 鈥� his presentation, titled , was a spectacle. The SpaceX founder鈥檚 vision is stunning, and my space-loving heart swelled three sizes while watching him explain how it might all work. But I am still not convinced that he can really pull it off.
Musk鈥檚 public speech at the 67th in Guadalajara, Mexico, laid out his to use the largest rocket ever built to launch a spaceship that can carry 100 people into Earth orbit. The rocket booster will return to Earth and land, much like SpaceX鈥檚 Falcon 9 rocket.
The rocket will be loaded up with a fuel tanker then take off again to meet the spaceship in orbit and refuel it, preparing it for the trip to Mars. The ship will deploy wing-like solar arrays to coast to the Red Planet, which Musk estimates will take as little as 80 days.
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Once at Mars, the spaceship will land on its feet using retro-propulsion rockets, and the astronauts will emerge onto a cold, dusty world. Meanwhile, the spaceship will make its own methane fuel for the return journey, to pick up more settlers from Earth.
Much of this plan struck me as innovative and clever. Musk laid out his key elements: reusability, refuelling in orbit, making fuel on Mars, and choosing the right fuel. These are all great ideas.
鈥淲hatever system is designed either by SpaceX or anyone, these are the four features that need to be addressed,鈥� he said.
Musk also said that he plans to send something to Mars in support of this system every two years, when Mars and Earth line up to make a short trip, beginning with the first Red Dragon mission in 2018.
鈥淲e want to establish a steady cadence, like a train leaving the station,鈥� Musk said. 鈥淓very launch opportunity, we鈥檒l have two to three payloads going to the surface of Mars.鈥�
Even that might not be enough. Musk wants to send the first humans in roughly 2024, although he was careful to say that they鈥檙e 鈥渋ntentionally a bit fuzzy about this timeline鈥�. That only gives SpaceX three chances to launch enough kit.
And this is where the plan began to break down. Musk seems to think that his job is just getting people there, while keeping them alive is someone else鈥檚 problem.
His only mention of growing food on Mars assumed that we had already terraformed the planet. He was vague on how the settlers would generate energy, suggesting solar panels, geothermal or nuclear reactors. He said nothing about the problem of Martian dust, which is like little shards of glass that get everywhere, cover solar panels, and could pose a risk to astronaut health if they ever breathed any in.
When asked about health risks in transit, Musk suggested they were minor. That runs counter to measurements made by the radiation instrument on the Curiosity rover, which found that a round trip to Mars would expose astronauts to seven times the radiation dose they would get during six months on the International Space Station 鈥� well over NASA鈥檚 limits.
It may be that none of these issues are showstoppers for SpaceX. But from Musk鈥檚 talk, it doesn鈥檛 seem like they鈥檙e the first problems on the list. And that鈥檚 odd, considering Musk鈥檚 Mars colony is meant to be humanity鈥檚 back-up plan.
鈥淭he thing that Mars really represents is life insurance, ensuring that the light of consciousness is not extinguished, backing up the biosphere,鈥� he said at the IAC meeting. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not about everybody moving to Mars, it鈥檚 about becoming multiplanetary.鈥�
It also raises the question of who will go, and how they will live. Musk hopes to get the cost of a ticket to Mars down to around $200,000. He described the crew compartment of the spaceship as a sort of luxury cruise, with restaurants, movies, and zero-G games.
But his vision for life on the Red Planet is much less cushy: 鈥淢ars will have a labour shortage for a long time so jobs will not be in short supply,鈥� he said.
So the plan is to spend your life鈥檚 savings on a one-way Musk cruise, followed by a lifetime of physical labour on a cold airless desert? Sign me up.
That鈥檚 not Musk鈥檚 vision, of course. SpaceX鈥檚 video of the plan ends with Mars spinning quickly and growing more blue and lush, as if by magic. But if we are going to assume future magical terraforming powers, I would rather we apply them to the one planet we can already live on, and focus on keeping Earth habitable.
And just who will pay for all of this is a major unanswered question 鈥� Musk said the initial mission would cost around $10 billion, and while he plans to fund some of that through SpaceX profits, he is seeking backers for a public-private partnership. That idea didn鈥檛 go so well for the last billionaire plan to get us to Mars.
Still, even just to be talking about sending humans to Mars in a slightly realistic way is thrilling. Musk tends to do what he sets out to do, and while some of the details of his plan are troublingly vague, none of them seem immediately impossible.
I doubt he will keep to that 2024 timeline, though. Musk himself admits that keeping to a schedule is not his strength. Even his talk started half an hour late.
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