On Saturday, Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk revealed new details about his plans to land humans on the Red Planet on the forum of Reddit "Ask Me Anything", according to a report by the Verge. SpaceX has been working to build a rocket which could take astronauts to Mars. Musk named it BFR (Big F*****g Rocket).
Musk disclosed the information about his SpaceX mission Interplanetary Transport system (ITS) to Colonize Mars in September at the International Astronautical Congress in Australia.
He gave a presentation about the updates and design of BFR, saying he would put all the resources of SpaceX into the rocket to travel to Mars.
Q&A with Elon Musk
The first question asked to Musk was about the thrust of Raptor which was reduced from 300 tons-force to 170 tons-force. He explained that "The engine thrust dropped roughly in proportion to the vehicle mass reduction from the first IAC talk." Answering the following question, he said that SpaceX could land on Moon using 3 MN engine, according to Futurism.
Musk hopes that the settlers on the Red Planet will be able to use the Internet. He said that data transmission from Earth to Mars would take up to 22 Minutes, so people would be able to use Snapchat there, Fortune reported.
But, the main focus of the meeting with the online audience was to discuss ITS vehicles.
In the following series of questions, one user asked about the landing propellant of BFS (Big Falcon Spaceship). Musk said that to save the header tanks from the Sun's heat, the nose of the spaceship would be in front of it, and they might add cryocooler to cool down the propellant while landing, the Verge reported.
Mars' colonization
Musk said,"Our goal is to get you there and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place." One of the users on Reddit asked him that whether he would set up the satellites for communication in the orbit of Mars. He answered positively, but with slight uncertainty.
Musk said that the rocket would land on the site near the ice for the production of propellant and away from the big rocks. He added that a place near the equator of Mars would be good for landing to use solar panels. He also mentioned that SpaceX would build the ISRU (in-situ-resource utilization) system to collect the materials for producing energy on the Red Planet.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket surprised everyone with its capability to be reused for continuous space programs. This month, Falcon 9 has carried two satellites into space with a successful landing on drone ship.