Space & Astronomy

SpaceX set to reveal interplanetary spaceship

By T.K. Randall
September 20, 2016

Image: SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Launch (2025)
Credit: Aubrey Gemignani / (PD) NASA Following the catastrophic ( and still unexplained ) loss of one of its Falcon 9 rockets earlier this month, Elon Musk's SpaceX has vowed to continue striving towards its vision of a future in which humans travel, live and work, not only in space, but in colonies on other worlds.

At next week's International Aeronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, Musk is expected to give a talk entitled 'Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species' in which, among other things, he will provide new details about the company's plans to found a human settlement on the planet Mars.

In particular there are hints that he will be discussing a new spacecraft called the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) which is capable of carrying as many as 100 people to Mars.The vehicle had previously been called the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT) however in a recent Tweet, Musk suggested that it was actually capable of going much further than the Red Planet.

"I thought [the conference] would be a good venue to describe what we think would be a good approach, something that would be effective for establishing a city on Mars," he said in April.

"I think it's going to sound pretty crazy, so it should at least be entertaining."

It will certainly be interesting to find out next week exactly what the entrepreneur has up his sleeve.

Source: Observer

Tags: SpaceX, Mars