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Here it is, the grand plan for the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) as presented yesterday at the the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Guadalajara, Mexico:
On Tuesday (Sept. 27), Musk unveiled SpaceX's planned Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), a rocket-spaceship combo that the billionaire entrepreneur hopes will allow humanity to establish a permanent, self-sustaining, million-person settlement on the Red Planet. Mars is the first planned stop for ITS, but it may not be the last. "This system really gives you freedom to go anywhere you want in the greater solar system," Musk said Tuesday at the International Astronautical Congress meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico. With the aid of strategically placed refueling depots, "you could actually travel out to the Kuiper Belt [and] the Oort Cloud," Musk added. The Kuiper Belt is Pluto's neck of the woods, while the Oort Cloud, the realm of comets, is even more distant; it begins about 2,000 astronomical units (AU) from the sun.
[...] The ITS booster will be the most powerful rocket ever built, capable of lofting 300 tons to low-Earth orbit (LEO) in its reusable version and 550 tons in its expendable variant, Musk said. This rocket will blast the spaceship, which will carry at least 100 people, to LEO, where further launches will fuel the smaller vehicle. When the time is right — Earth and Mars align favorably for interplanetary missions just once every 26 months — a fleet of these spaceships will depart from LEO, arriving at the Red Planet in as little as 80 days, Musk said. The ITS — both the rocket and spaceship — will be powered by SpaceX's Raptor engines, which run on a combination of methane and oxygen. Both of these ingredients can be manufactured on Mars and other places in the solar system, Musk said, meaning that the spaceship can and will be refueled far from Earth.
[...] The ITS spaceship could therefore go very far afield, provided it could access refueling stations along the way. "By establishing a propellant depot in the asteroid belt or one of the moons of Jupiter, you can make flights from Mars to Jupiter no problem," Musk said. "It'd be really great to do a mission to Europa, particularly," he added, referring to the ocean-harboring Jovian moon, which many astrobiologists regard as one of the solar system's best bets to host alien life. Building additional depots farther from the sun — perhaps on Saturn's moon Titan and Pluto, for example — could theoretically extend the ITS spaceship's reach all the way out to the Oort Cloud, Musk said. "This basic system, provided we have filling stations along the way, means full access to the entire greater solar system," he said.
The first Mars ferry will be named "Heart of Gold". Unfortunately, these bold settlers will have to be kept away from potential microbial life.
Additional Coverage:
Making Humans an Interplanetary Species - Video of Musk Presentation at IAC [1h4m46s]
Same, but with Q&A session [1h58m22s]
Making Humans an Interplanetary Species - Slides of Presentation at IAC (pdf)
SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System - Video mockup presented at IAC [4m21s]
SpaceX - Mars
Musk’s Mars moment: Audacity, madness, brilliance—or maybe all three story at Ars Technica
Elon Musk envisions 'fun' but dangerous trips to Mars (Update 4) at phys.org
Previous coverage:
SpaceX's Mars Colonial Transporter Becomes the "Interplanetary Transport System"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by martyb on Wednesday September 28 2016, @09:49PM
I can't wait to see how this pans out! I grew up watching the Apollo launches and the first steps upon the Moon back in the 60's. What a tremendous time to be alive!!! It seemed like anything was possible. It was just a matter of ingenuity, hard work, and persistence and the sky was no longer the limit. Science was big. people dreamed of being an astronaut 'when they grew up'.
Maybe that was unsustainable. The recession in the early 1980s caused a major pull-back on space funding.
Like Elon Musk, I grew up reading science fiction, watching Star Trek (and Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, and others). It was in large part what motivated me to get into computers back when they only existed as hugely expensive, refrigerator-sized systems. In the mid 1980's I was involved in testing an OS for IBM's biggest, fastest mainframe at the time -- a $multi-million dollar, water-cooled beast of a machine. And now people carry much more computing power than that in their cellphone!
I've witnessed huge advances in computer technology. We've made huge advances in chemistry and biology and so many of the sciences, but we are still stuck on this rock.
I admire Elon Musk's awareness of humanity's vulnerability so long as we stay stuck on planet Earth. It is only a matter of time before something happens that puts humanity at risk, be it global thermonuclear war, asteroid impact, or a super-caldera eruption. As long as we keep all of our eggs (heh!) in ONE basket, there is a risk, however small, that humanity would end.
Besides all that, this rocket is absolutely amazing!! it boggles my mind to imagine a rocket, 15m wide and 120m tall, carrying 100 people at once on a journey to Mars. I mean, this thing is HUGE! It has the capacity to launch the current ISS into orbit from Earth, in a single launch!
There will be difficulties, unforseen problems, and yes, probably some deaths, too. That didn't stop the early explorers and settlers. IIRC, one of the earliest Arctic/Antarctic expeditions was manned by an advertisement that basically promised horrible conditions and likely death. I applaud those who rose to the challenge, who were willing to push the boundaries, to explore this planet. And I equally applaud those who may make the ultimate sacrifice to establish a beachhead of civilization on another planet. I doubt they'd trake me, but if there were a posting for volunteers for that first trip? You can bet I'd put my name in.
I'll close with quote [twainquotes.com] from Mark Twain who put it far more eloquently than I ever could, and which inspired me to study Computer Science:
May we never lose that sense of awe and wonder, of seeking, trying, and exploring. So long as that burns in the heart of mankind, I still have hope for the future.
Wit is intellect, dancing. I'm too old to act my age. Life is too important to take myself seriously.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @10:28PM
Honestly, how can you look at live on !Earth and maintain this attitude of a glorious infinite Universe full of possibility? What the fuck do you want to go there for? Let's just give you the "how" for free - since that is basically all you are going ga-ga about. Congrats - Mr. Enron Mush Jr III in the year 2056 has made it possible for free and you get a blow job on the journey. Why the FUCK would you want to go there and live in a plastic bag? You earthlings are so weird.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @10:47PM
That sounds familiar, I believe the tea sipping english POMs said a similar thing to those waiting for the next sail to the new continent, why for the love of her majesty's tits would you want to go to a place where you get your scalp handed to you by red savages?
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday September 28 2016, @11:57PM
Because when they got there, there was sun, chocolate, spices, and girls!
Oh, and they could get out of the tin can and breathe.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by martyb on Thursday September 29 2016, @01:30AM
I may be feeding a troll, but I'll bite.
Answer me this: Why do people still climb Mount Everest [wikipedia.org] — it was first summited way back on May 29, 1953! Yet, several hundred people make the attempt annually. In 2012, alone, there were 12 fatalities. People die each year making the attempt to get to the very place that many other people have already been!
Now, to go to Mars? To be the very first person, ever who has seen what you are seeing? To tread on land that nobody ever has before? To explore and seek and search and learn! (Now, would be a good time to reread that Mark Twain quote above.) To face a challenge. To advance the technology so that humanity may not only survive, but eventually thrive on another planet... that is the dream, the motivation, the aspiration. To be more than just the sum total of my life's experiences.
There are far better qualified people than I who would volunteer to go. But if, by some stroke of luck it were possible for me to go to Mars on the first ITS, you can bet I'd agree to go in a heartbeat. And if disaster should come and I die along the way, or upon Mars... what of it? At least I LIVED! I'd rather risk my life living — I'm going to die anyway!
Wit is intellect, dancing. I'm too old to act my age. Life is too important to take myself seriously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @12:11PM
And yet people are committing suicide on this rock.
(Score: 1) by jelizondo on Wednesday September 28 2016, @11:05PM
Very well put.
I watched the presentation and while technical details were sketchy, it did not sound to me utterly impossible. Yes, there willl be problems and even deaths, but the dream seems in reach.
Unfortunately, I'm too old to even think about going but perhaps not too old to see the first manned trip to mars!
Cheers!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @03:42AM
The recession in the early 1980s caused a major pull-back on space funding.
It was long before that. Even before we put feet on the moon NASA's budget started getting shredded. Their reward for winning the space race was to lose the vast majority of their funding. Their peak was in 1966 where for every dollar of tax 4.4 cents went to NASA. By 1970 that was 1.92 cents. By 1975 it was less than a cent. Today it's one half of one cent having had their tax share cut by more than 16% under Obama.
The only thing that concerns me here is that Musk is based on the US. Rockets are considered advanced weapons technology here which puts them under a tremendous bureaucratic and "everything is national security" layer that may interfere with international support for his program. One solution would be to start electing politicians who aren't still living in the cold war and red scare era, but I think that's easier said than done. Another part of Obama's foreign policy was to completely ban NASA from working with China or Chinese companies, which is why there's no Chinese astronauts on the ISS.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @11:09AM
I grew up watching the Apollo launches and the first steps upon the Moon
You watched a sham, all smoke and mirrors. You were probably a sweet kid, and they fooled you, the same way they tried to fool everybody and mostly succeeded.
You are observant, and you will soon discover that there is no escaping the following facts: you can demonstrate that there is no curvature on the Earth, at least none consistent with that of a convex sphere 6397 km in radius;
You can demonstrate that there is no spinning of the Earth, something easily proven with a gyroscope.
To quote Mark Twain (a known "flat-Earther"), "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."