SpaceX founder Elon Musk has big plans for the human race. He wants to create a colony on Mars consisting of a population of 80,000 humans. The citizens would be ferried to the planet in a reusable rocket that runs on liquid oxygen and methane. For the initial trip, the rocket would contain less than 10 humans, who would be sharing their space with enough equipment to found a colony ready for the other 79,990.
The colony would be founded in transparent domes, and would be pressurized with CO2 from the Martian atmosphere so colonists could grow Earth crops in Martian soil. In order to develop an atmosphere that would provide the tools for colonists to sustain themselves, the rocket would carry machines that can create fertilizer, oxygen, and methane out of subsurface water, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide found on Mars.
Musk did not disclose the details of the rocket he envisions being able to transport the machinery and colonists to Mars, though left curious folk with a hint. Musk was asked if the rocket would be a SpaceX reusable rocket that is rumored to be in development — the MCT — which is said to either stand for Mars Colony Transport or Mass Cargo Transport. He simply replied, “Maybe.”
Though Musk has yet to reveal details of the craft capable of delivering the payloads of humans and machines, a recent trip SpaceX made to the International Space Station using Dragon cost $91,000 per pound. However, Dragon only carried 1,455 pounds of cargo to the ISS, and the total carrying capacity of the ship is 13,000 pounds, so the more cargo the ship carries, the cheaper the cost per pound. There are currently no disclosed details regarding what kind of carrying capacity the theorized Mars ship would require.
Unfortunately for would-be space explorers, Musk estimated a ticket price of $500,000 per person could conceivably cover the cost of the trip. He feels half a million bucks is an amount of money that people in “advanced countries” could eventually scrounge together. This isn’t actually as crazy as it might initially sound. If you’re giving up life on Earth to help found a colony on Mars, you could probably sell the majority of your possessions — like your house — to help reach that target.
Musk also feels the entire project would end up costing around $36 billion, stating that a colony that costs around 0.25 or 0.5 percent of a nation’s GDP would be seen as acceptable. In 2010, the United States’ GDP was $14.5 trillion, and 0.25 percent of that is the estimated $36 billion. That $36 billion would be reached if all of the projected 80,000 colonists paid Musk’s ticket price of $500,000.
As exciting as Musk’s vision is, there just isn’t enough detail yet to get too hopeful about this endeavor.
via Discovery News
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