Elon Musk Wants To Bring The Internet To Mars
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently revealed new details about the company’s plans to establish human settlement on Mars. In an “Ask Me Anything” forum on Reddit, Musk discussed the insights into SpaceX’s strategy. Specifically, how the giant rocket will transport passengers to Mars, as well as the road map for getting the rocket to its first launch. The rocket is code-named BFR and will be as safe and reliable as commercial aircrafts. The BFR is scheduled for its first flight in 2022.
“[We] will be starting with a full-scale Ship doing short hops of a few hundred kilometers in altitude and lateral distance,” Musk wrote. “Those are fairly easy on the vehicle, as no heat shield is needed, we can have a large amount of reserve propellant and don’t need the high area ratio, deep space Raptor engines.” He added that “[The] next step will be doing orbital velocity Ship flights, which will need all of the above.”
Musk also detailed the scope of SpaceX’s ambitions. He clarified that SpaceX isn’t focused on building cities itself. He said that the company would be designing and building systems for creating fuel, but that they wouldn’t be focussed on how Mars’s occupants would grow food or build cities. Musk also announced his his plans to bring an internet connection to the Red Planet. He intends to set up a huge network of orbiting communication satellites that would not only speed up internet connections across Earth but would also provide people in remote areas with fast, cheap internet. According to Musk, settlers on Mars would be able to use a compressed version of the internet. He suggests that data will take between 3 and 22 minutes to travel between Earth and Mars. “So you could Snapchat, I suppose. If that’s a thing in the future,” he wrote.
“Our goal is get you there and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. A rough analogy is that we are trying to build the equivalent of the transcontinental railway. A vast amount of industry will need to be built on Mars by many other companies and millions of people.”
This highly ambitious project is expected to cost around a staggering $10 billion. But if SpaceX are able to implement a space internet connection, we may witness the colonisation of Mars in the years to come.
Read more: Elon Musk: “Super Intelligent Aliens” Are “Probably Already Observing Us”
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Written by: Fattima Mahdi
Fattima Mahdi is a author, mentor, lyricist and professional roller-skater. She uses both her love for writing and music to address socio-political issues prevalent in society today. She is also the proud author of Love Don’t Come Easy. Read More stories by Fattima Mahdi
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