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posted by martyb on Saturday June 17 2017, @04:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the vision-and-a-plan dept.

Elon Musk has published a plan to colonize Mars using as many as 1,000 Interplanetary Transport System spaceships to transport a million settlers at a cost of $200,000 per person:

Elon Musk has put his Mars-colonization vision to paper, and you can read it for free.

SpaceX's billionaire founder and CEO just published the plan, which he unveiled at a conference in Mexico in September 2016, in the journal New Space. Musk's commentary, titled "Making Humanity a Multi-Planetary Species," is available for free [DOI: 10.1089/space.2017.29009.emu] [DX] on New Space's website through July 5.

"In my view, publishing this paper provides not only an opportunity for the spacefaring community to read the SpaceX vision in print with all the charts in context, but also serves as a valuable archival reference for future studies and planning," New Space editor-in-chief (and former NASA "Mars czar") Scott Hubbard wrote in a statement.

[...] ITS rockets will launch the spaceships to Earth orbit, then come back down for a pinpoint landing about 20 minutes later. And "pinpoint" is not hyperbole: "With the addition of maneuvering thrusters, we think we can actually put the booster right back on the launch stand," Musk wrote in his New Space paper, citing SpaceX's increasingly precise Falcon 9 first-stage landings.

Also at The Guardian.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @06:06PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @06:06PM (#527070)

    Before sending all the B-ark crap, I suggest sending NASA's big magnetic field generator to Mars first,
        https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-wants-to-launch-a-giant-magnetic-shield-to-make-mars-habitable [sciencealert.com]

    Then you can send the phone sanitizers (etc) to make sure the planet is ready for the rest of us.

  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday June 17 2017, @06:38PM (5 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Saturday June 17 2017, @06:38PM (#527086) Journal

    They don't mention [usra.edu] how much power it will need, how to get that power and how to stay still in that heliocentric orbit.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday June 17 2017, @10:12PM

      by frojack (1554) on Saturday June 17 2017, @10:12PM (#527164) Journal

      But hey, we can hand waive that into existence simply by mining the asteroids to build it in place.

      --
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    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday June 18 2017, @01:35AM (3 children)

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Sunday June 18 2017, @01:35AM (#527257) Journal

      how to stay still in that heliocentric orbit.

      That part is easy [wikipedia.org], but deflecting the wind from there at the same time will be a neat trick.

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 18 2017, @05:22AM (2 children)

        by kaszz (4211) on Sunday June 18 2017, @05:22AM (#527350) Journal

        Staying still as a dead rock is not the point. So it means there will be some specific force in newtons. And there has to be a way to counteract it. One possibility is solar panels that drives a ion-thruster or similar (EMdrive?). But will it work out resource economy wise?

        • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:05PM (1 child)

          by fustakrakich (6150) on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:05PM (#527478) Journal

          The economics is totally absurd, unless lunar robots build the entire thing. But if you really want a reliable magnetic field on Mars you have to re-melt the core to get it flowing again, which means putting your phasers on overload and burying them really deep :-/

          --
          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
          • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 18 2017, @04:04PM

            by kaszz (4211) on Sunday June 18 2017, @04:04PM (#527500) Journal

            Another method may be to simply fill the core with a on purpose nuclear reactor meltdown products. No need to drill all the way as the products will melt the planet core by themselves. But then it will rely on the mass flow caused by the heat gradients to experience imperfections when hotter material flows outwards, cools and flows back. But where the flow will have different friction depending on position.
            The catch is that it would need a lot of nuclear material. And it may give of radioactive gases. It may be simpler to protect per habitat.

            A simpler approach is a plain string of wire across the planet which is driven by solar power. But the amount of current and thus power needed would be great.