In the next five years, SpaceX plans to develop a full-fledged autonomous life support system, designed with Martian conditions in mind. We are talking about equipment that extracts resources and energy, filtration technologies, devices for the production of breathable air. The entrepreneur plans to deliver all this to Mars with the first cargo shuttles already in 2022 using a BFR (Big Fucking Rocket) rocket of his own production. According to the entrepreneur, all the forces and future funds of the company will go to the development of this rocket. Musk plans to build it with money raised from satellite launches and cargo deliveries to the ISS.
Colonization of Mars will take place in "waves". The first colonists will have to go to the Red Planet as early as 2024. Their goal is to deploy a base on the surface of Mars and prepare a bridgehead for future settlers. Those, in turn, will continue to expand the colony and wait for the next arrivals, and so on. Of course, these terms can be called conditional - the goal is too ambitious.
In addition, Musk suggested using a similar system for the colonization of the moon - this proposal has already become interested in the leaders of NASA, who in recent years have often talked about the possibility of mankind's return to the Earth satellite. At the same time, lunar missions have even more chances to come true - the prospects for colonizing the moon are of interest not only to SpaceX and NASA, but also to the space agency of Europe, China and the domestic Roscosmos. So if the Musk company manages to interest potential investors, a person's foot will set foot on an Earth satellite even earlier than on the surface of Mars.
The entrepreneur has already posted a render of a hypothetical lunar colony on his Instagram.
Musk did not forget about the Earth, having put forward another proposal to create a new type of public transport. We are talking about rocket flights, thanks to which you can get to anywhere in the world in no more than an hour. Moreover, the cost of the flight will be comparable to the cost of an economy class ticket on the plane.
SpaceX has released a video illustrating the technology of the entire process. It is proposed to build floating platforms in the reservoirs of large cities, which are launch sites. Passengers (from 80 to 200 people) will reach them by boat and board the same BFR rockets that will be used on missions to Mars. The spacecraft will then enter Earth's orbit and split into two parts: one will fly back, the other - to its destination. Thus, you can get from New York to Shanghai in just 39 minutes, from Hong Kong to Singapore in 22, and from London to Dubai in 29.
If this method of movement is realized, it will become the fastest in the history of mankind - the maximum rocket speed is 29,000 km / h. True, this is unlikely to happen soon. Firstly, passengers will surely experience crazy overload, which means that not everyone will decide to fly in this way. In addition, there is a safety issue: an airplane is statistically considered the safest form of transport, while SpaceX has learned to land a rocket that has left in space back to Earth relatively recently.>