Space & Astronomy

Elon Musk to give update on SpaceX Mars plans

By T.K. Randall
September 26, 2017

Image: Elon Musk at the SpaceX CRS-8 post-launch press conference
Credit: Kim Shiflett / (PD) NASA Set to take place during this year's International Astronautical Congress in Australia, the talk, which will offer what has been billed as a 'major' update on the topic of colonizing Mars, follows on from Musk's previous talk on the subject at the IAC conference in Mexico last year.

One of the main things expected to be brought up during the talk is the Interplanetary Transport System - a huge vehicle designed to carry large numbers of people all the way to Mars.

SpaceX has teased the reveal of 'major improvements' to the ITS as well as new 'unexpected applications' that will no doubt be aimed at increasing the project's financial viability.The firm has already revealed plans to scale down the size of the ITS to make it more practical to launch so it is likely that this particular aspect will be extensively covered on Friday as well.

"It would be quite fun to be on Mars because you would have gravity that is about 37 percent of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around," Musk said previously.

"Furthermore, the day is remarkably close to that of Earth. We just need to change the populations because currently we have seven billion people on Earth and none on Mars."

Source: Tech Crunch

Tags: Mars, SpaceX