THE FINAL FRONTIER — Billionaire inventor Elon Musk this week unveiled perhaps his biggest, most ambitious plan yet — colonizing the Red Planet with one million people.
According to a presentation posted on the SpaceX website, the planned “Interplanetary Transport System”, or I.T.S., would use a spacecraft composed of a 250-foot reuseable rocket and 100-passenger spaceship to transport humans back and forth to Mars.
Musk envisions a thousand-strong Mars colonial fleet of these ships departing en-masse, reported Space.com. He unveiled the plans while speaking to a crowd at the 2016 International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Both parts of the ITS would be made up of carbon fiber, while the rocket would be powered by 42 SpaceX Raptor Engines.
The rocket booster segment of the ITS will transport the spaceship to low Earth orbit.
That same rocket would then return to Earth and launch again with a propellant tank. This tank then connects with the spaceship and refuel the vessel.
The spaceship would use nine Space-X Raptor engines, as well as solar sails, which gather energy from the sun, on the 54.6-million kilometer journey to Mars. After transporting the cargo and passengers, the spaceship would refuel at the planned Martian colony and fly back to Earth.
The current price-person for the journey is priced at US$10 billion, but Musk hopes to get that to below $200,000.
