SpaceX CEO Elon Musk moves one more step closer to his dream of sending humans to Mars. The successful hop of SN6 comes after the launch of Falcon 9 that took 60 new satellites into orbit. SN6 did not go as high as the earlier version SN5 but it is another positive step in man’s desire to set foot on Mars. The liftoff of SN6 was a sensation and people from all over the world watched the memorable event. It was a massive nine-story metallic cylinder and while its predecessor had difficulties to get airborne, the takeoff for SN6 was smooth. It looks like a giant metal thermos minus nose cone, flaps or other structural features that help to guide it in flight.

The roar of the takeoff made people sit up and take notice. As one spectator remarked – “it sounded like a roll of thunder in the distance.”

Daily Mail UK says SpaceX is now busy in adding the nose cone and base of the rocket. Once complete, its height would be around 164 feet. The next step is to take up construction of the first Super Heavy booster prototype. This is the lower portion of Starship rocket, which will house the engines. Elon Musk is happy with the progress so far. “We’re making good progress,” is how he put it.

Elon Musk pegs the lifetime of each Starship

The SpaceX boss Elon Musk has assigned the lifetime of each Starship to be around two to three decades. It will be similar to an aircraft and form the backbone of future space travel. He believes this fully reusable launch vehicle would make human space travel affordable. In fact, Elon Musk is the pioneer of reusable rockets meant to undertake space flights.

It was a revolutionary concept because it brought in the angle of economy. This has helped SpaceX to cement a place into the operations of NASA. The focus of the company is now on its Starship project. Daily Mail UK quotes Musk saying during virtual Humans to Mars summit – “A year ago there was nothing there and now we've got quite a lot of production capability.

So we're rapidly making more and more ships.”

Prediction of Elon Musk for humans on Mars

Daily Mail UK elaborates on his vision. Elon Musk is a visionary and he foresees launch of three Starship flights to Mars on a daily basis. That is an estimate and it would work out to approximately 1,000 flights a year. The distance from Earth to Mars is 180 million miles and he predicts 1,000 humans would be on the red planet by 2030. The figure could go up to around one million by 2050. He had unveiled the first Starship prototype in 2019 and he was optimistic about the Starship program.

However, his team faced hiccups that led to delays. These are usually associated with out-of-the-world projects of this nature. His revised plan is to have the rocket's first orbital test flight in 2021.

Elon Musk warns the first settlers on Mars will die

According to Standard UK, Elon Musk warns that the possibilities of survival of the initial batch of humans who land on Mars would be remote. He is the boss of Tesla also and he hopes to send Starship rocket of SpaceX to the Red Planet by 2022. While speaking to a media outlet he said - "Getting to Mars, I think, is not the fundamental issue. The fundamental issue is building a base, building a city on Mars that is self-sustaining.” He went on to explain that some basic infrastructure has to be set up on the alien planet before humans can stay there.

These activities would mean reliance on robotics and artificial intelligence. NASA already has its robots on Mars exploring the terrain. Incidentally, Elon Musk unveiled the Starship prototype in September last year, and in spite of the best efforts of his team, there have been delays. He attributes them to teething problems associated with trying to launch something new.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED