SpaceX Starship's drool-worthy design for Mars hopper revealed by CEO Elon Musk

SpaceX’s rocket to Mars is getting more real with each passing month.

After giving the world a first peek at the prototype of ‘Starship’ in December 2018, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has now shared illustrations of what the test rocket will look like when its all done up and ready for its first flight.

Starship test vehicle under assembly will look similar to this illustration when finished. Operational Starships would obv have windows, etc. pic.twitter.com/D8AJ01mjyR

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 5, 2019

The real prototype – currently being put together in the company’s Boca Chica site in Texas – seems to be catching just as much light as its futuristic mockup!

#BocaChicaTEXAS sunrise this morning. #BFSBuild #FogTweet 📷: Maria Pointer pic.twitter.com/WB5cUCZZtI

— Cowboy Dan (@CowboyDanPaasch) January 5, 2019

Many SpaceX fans picked up on the future Mars-shuttle’s passing resemblance to the red-and-white checkered rocket from the Adventures of Tintin comic from the 1950s called ‘Destination Moon’.

Musk had confirmed in a tweet from September last year that the “very Tintin-esque” design of Starship, then called the Big Falcon Rocket, was “intentionally so”.

Intentionally so

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 14, 2018

A stainless steel mammoth

The Starship prototype was built of stainless steel — a material that is capable of resisting heat well, and reflecting heat with a generous coat of polish on its surface, which the latest illustration of the rocket flaunts.

This makes it a superior to the usual choice of carbon-fiber for SpaceX rockets such as the Falcon 9.

Innovative use of kitchenware alloys and teasers of progress are cool, no doubt. But seeing the Starship fly is entirely another, and a treat that Musk says we can expect in a matter of months.

Musk also tweeted that he would do a detailed “technical presentation of Starship” once the prototype’s test flight was successful, which could be sometime in March or April of 2019.

I will do a full technical presentation of Starship after the test vehicle we’re building in Texas flies, so hopefully March/April

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2018