Elon Musk gets honest regarding the risks of attempting to colonize Mars, emphasizing the difficulty and dangers that come with it, in the virtual Humans to Mars Summit.
The 49-year-old technopreneur provided an update about his aerospace manufacturing company, SpaceX, and its Starship rocket. Musk said that the two-stage reusable rocket "is making good progress," but still has many milestones to pass before lifting passengers to space.
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 09: Elon Musk, founder and chief engineer of SpaceX speaks at the 2020 Satellite Conference and Exhibition March 9, 2020 in Washington, DC. Musk answered a range of questions relating to SpaceX projects during his appearance at the conference.
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Establishing a Mars Colony
At the start of the four-day virtual conference on Monday, August 31, Musk went on to explain his goal of establishing a self-sustaining city on the Red Planet by 2050 - noting the challenges on the way.
"I want to emphasize, this is a very hard and dangerous and difficult thing," the SpaceX CEO clarified. He added that the future missions to colonize Mars is "not for the faint of heart" and that there is a "good chance you'll die."
While Musk's plans are definitely tough, he notes that it will be "pretty glorious" if it succeeds.
To turn his vision of a Martian self-sustaining system into reality, an important component will be the SpaceX Starship crafts, tested and developed in its South Texas site in Boca Chica, Texas.
"We've got to first make the thing work; automatically deliver satellites and do hundreds of missions with satellites before we put people on board," Musk said at the virtual Humans to Mars conference.
Its recent achievement with the Starship project involves completing a 150 meter high, or almost 500 feet, jump for the Starship SN5. On August 4, its full-size prototype launched from the South Texas facility and reached a 150-meter height, with the entire SN5 hop lasting for 40 seconds. At around 7:57 PM EDT, the stainless-steel prototype launched vertically, and glided down, sticking its landing after deploying its landing legs.
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However, the progress of the Starship project was not without its shortcomings, and Musk acknowledged them in the conference. "I hope we do a lot of flights," Elon Musk said, aware of the possibility that some might not work since this is an "uncharted territory."
"Nobody has ever made a fully reusable orbital rocket. So just having that at all is pretty significant," Musk said.
The 2020 Virtual Humans to Mars Summit Registration
The Humans to Mars (H2M) Summit, which took place from August 31 to September 3, claims to be the largest annual conference focused on discussing achievable and sustainable human exploration and colonization of Mars.
H2M features conferences and talks headed by representatives from the industrial, academic, and policy-making sectors. Among the resource personnel invited in the event are NASA Deputy Administrator Jim Morhard, former astronaut Pam Melroy, and more.
Also, the space exploration advocacy group Explore Mars, organizers of the H2M event, released a report that NASA's Artemis program—its latest space mission that aims to return humans to the Moon by 2024—will also play a key role in advancing human Mars mission.
Check out more news and information on SpaceX and Elon Musk on Science Times.