SpaceX Teases Mars
Musk shoots for unmanned landing on Mars in two years, and humans in four…
1. SpaceX’s real mission…
With all the news about SpaceX’s crewed missions to the International Space Station, their Starlink satellite internet blanketing the globe with broadband access, and their highly Youtube-friendly self-landing rockets… we sometimes forget why SpaceX was formed in the first place.
SpaceX’s original mission was to have a backup planet, a planet B, in case humans make Earth uninhabitable. The ever-optimistic Musk has a dark, pessimistic streak, and talks about the inevitable “extinction event.” In 2012 Musk talked about building an 80,000-person colony on Mars.
So, we have to keep in mind that the technology SpaceX develops serves two purposes: getting humans safely to Mars at scale, and funding that development and production. For example, we must not think that SpaceX’s mission is to provide broadband internet to the world. Instead, Starlink’s mission is fund SpaceX’s Mars mission (by being a successful satellite internet provider).
In recent interviews Musk re-emphasized the Mars missions and the target of sending humans there in 4–6 years. SpaceX established and publicized plans in November 2016, setting 2024 as the first crewed flight to Mars.
