Source: fortune.com --- Thursday, September 28, 2017
Elon Musk is bullish about colonizing Mars, maybe even sooner than anyone thought. Speaking at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Adelaide, South Australia, Musk unveiled plans to launch SpaceX’s spacex BFR rocket and begin its Mars rendezvous by the year 2022, first sending two cargo missions to scout water sources and build a fuel plant. Then the city-building begins. Musk said he’s “confident” the plan will be under way within five years. “I can't think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars,” Musk said, adding that he thinks SpaceX has figured out a way to make it affordable by using revenues from the company’s satellite launches, service missions to the International Space Station and by making smaller, more efficient rockets that are mostly reusable. Nine years after SpaceX’s first successful launch -- its fourth ever -- Musk said his engineers are now perfecting propulsive landing. He believes the BFR rocket can carry out missions to the moon and back without producing propellant, enabling the establishment of a lunar space station. "It's 2017, we should have a lunar base by now,” Musk said to applause. “What the hell is going on?" For more on space travel, watch Fortune’s video: brightcove.createExperiences(); Travel to and from Mars will, however, require a propellant production plant. Current rocket prototypes provide cabin space suitable for about 100 people per mission ...
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