Get ready to leave everything behind on Earth and travel to Mars. In the coming years, SpaceX will launch a crew of 24 people through space and onto Mars, in a new kind of rocket called Starship.
At 80 million miles away, Mars is both desolate, and at the same time full of limitless potential. Mars holds limitless possibilities. Since the ideal alignment for Earth and Mars only happens once every two years, there is only a small window to get everything right. Timing is everything.
The future of space exploration is unlike anything we've ever seen before. Although we've been exploring space since the 1950s, today, for the first time ever, we are going to be using supersized spacecraft to supercharge our journey into the solar system.
As far as we know, Earth is the only planet in the known universe to contain any form of life. However, these 24 bold adventurers will become the first of what will eventually become a Mars colony of tens of thousands of people willing to leave everything behind to forge a new life on a new planet.
But before going to Mars, Starship will first complete several lunar missions to establish the Artemis Base Camp on the moon. Artemis will allow astronauts to stay for longer periods of time and complete important research projects to prepare for people living on Mars.
The Starship vehicle that's being developed by SpaceX will be able to launch more payload, have more power, and fly more often than any rocket ever produced. The last Saturn 5 rocket was launched by NASA in 1973, and since then, there has never been a more powerful rocket, until now. Starship can be refueled to be launched over and over again. It will become the workhorse used to carry thousands of people and millions of tons of cargo throughout the solar system.
These are not small advances in rocketry or spacecraft. These are truly transformational technologies that are giving us completely new capabilities and changing the paradigm for space exploration.
Starship has enabled us to do something that for the first time in the history of our planet has only been the stuff of myth or science fiction. In over four and a half billion years, we are on the cusp of sending humans to build a home away from earth. But first, we need to send uncrewed Starships to Mars to prove that we can both safely land safely and also build the infrastructure, before we send humans.
We will use the awesome payload capacity of Starship to send the building blocks and essential elements needed to sustain a human presence on Mars. Starting with what is called ISRU or In-Situ Resource Utilization systems. ISTU basically means living off the land. If we want to have a self-sustaining presence on Mars, we cannot be reliant on supplies from Earth. If the resupply rockets stop coming for any reason, the people living on Mars need to have everything they need in order to survive and thrive.
Our ancestors, for tens of thousands of years, have been learning how to use local resources to do everything from building tools, growing food and generating energy. We live on a pretty nice planet, and so far we have everything that we need in order to live our lives. But Mars is different. Mars is cold and unforgiving. If you run out of food, or water, or oxygen, you're dead. So we have to be very wise about how to survive on Mars.
It has taken the entire history of our planet to reach the point where we're at now. It's an amazing time to be alive, and what we choose to do next will forever change the course of human history.
