In case you haven't heard, we're going to Mars.
Elon Musk, CEO and founder of SpaceX—the tech company "enabling people to live on other planets"—has told us that they're going to do just that.
SpaceX aims to help establish a permanent, self-sustaining city on Mars. Using their Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), they aim to transport 1 million people to the Red Planet over the next five to ten decades. ITS will be the most powerful rocket to ever fly, looming at 78 meters tall (254 feet), with a thundering 42 engines giving 11.8 million kilogram-force (13,000 tons) of liftoff thrust.
It's a lot of numbers describing a future of fantastic possibility, and everyone's buzzing. SpaceX details their remarkable vision in a video that's gotten already 3 million hits.
SpaceX tells us that Mars will become a solar-powered factory of the essentials for human civilization. Musk also makes it clear that the trip isn't one-way: the carbon dioxide and water ice in the planet's air and soil can generate methane and oxygen to fuel the ITS.
Musk believes that we will soon become "a multi-planetary species.” SpaceX aims to launch the missions to Mars by 2024. Could this inter-planetary revolution really happen in our lifetimes? It's an exciting wait to find out.
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