Elon Musk’s plans to colonise Mars are no secret.

He brings it up all the time – sometimes in weird ways.

Take this 45-minute debate with Jack Ma at the World AI Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, for example, where reasonable ideas about a Mars colony quickly morphed into strange musings about human consciousness and aliens.

While Musk tried to figure out if consciousness could continue to exist in space, it came to light that SpaceX was scouting for prime real estate to populate Mars.

It’s identified nine locations that it thinks could work.

To make all of this a reality, they’ve been working on a rocket dubbed ‘Starship’ which they plan to make fully reusable – the first such rocket of its kind – to lower launch costs by a factor of 100, or even more than 1 000.

Starship is well underway and, according to CNET, could be ready to launch into orbit within the next six months.

Elon Musk believes humans can and should become an interplanetary species. His new spaceship, he thinks, can help achieve that lofty goal. At the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas, on Saturday, Musk detailed what’s next for the mighty would-be Mars rocket that could one day ferry humans to the Red Planet.

“This is the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen,” Musk said, standing in front of the Starship Mk1 prototype space vehicle.

So what’s next for Starship? Elon has plans…

During Saturday evening’s hour-long, particularly windy press conference, Musk announced that the next test would take place in “about one to two months” before detailing how Starship would control its landing.

“This is quite a new approach to controlling a rocket,” Musk said. “Much more akin to a skydiver than a plane.”

Musk laughed as he showed the crowd in Boca Chica how the craft would control the fall, with his hands acting as the ship. Getting into the specifics a little more, Musk explained the importance of a steel heat shield that would only cost a fraction of a carbon fiber heat shield. “I’m in love with steel,” Musk said.

The rocket that will boost Starship into orbit will have about twice as much thrust as the most powerful rocket ever built, NASA’s Saturn V, and will feature up to 37 Raptor engines.

Musk also detailed plans for Starship “orbital refilling,” which would allow fuel to be transferred between spacecraft in orbit. Musk said this process is easier than docking with the International Space Station — something SpaceX has become quite good at. “This is one of the other critical pieces of the puzzle to establish a base on the moon or Mars,” Musk noted.

Elon also has distant plans for sending Starship to Saturn:

“I think we should do our very best to become a multi-planet species and we should do it now.”

Let’s just get to Mars first, okay?

I’ll leave you with an eight-minute summary of the press conference. Enjoy:

[source:cnet]