 "Elon Musk. Reuters")
Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX will launch uncrewed missions to Mars within two years.
If these uncrewed missions are successful, then crewed missions could be launched within four years, said SpaceX owner Musk in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Musk is a champion of humans being a multiplanetary race and considers the colonisation of Mars essential for this. He has long envisioned having a bustling human town on Mars by the end of the century. Lately, he has been reportedly to have envisioned up to 20 million humans on Mars in 20 years.
Now, Musk has said that five uncrewed Starships, the most powerful rockets of all times built by SpaceX, will be launched for Mars within two years.
“If those all land safely, then crewed missions are possible in four years. If we encounter challenges, then the crewed missions will be postponed another two years,” said Musk.
There is, however, one caveat: Kamala Harris. The multiplanetary future of humanity, which Musk has long championed, rests on Harris not winning the 2024 US presidential election. If Harris were to win, the American bureaucracy “would destroy the Mars program and doom humanity”.
Musk has endorsed Harris’ rival, Donald Trump of the Republican Party, in the 2024 US presidential election . Following the endorsement, Musk has claimed that Harris is a communist and she would turn the United States into a country even worse than communist states like North Korea.
Irrespective of result, SpaceX will increase Mars missions
While announcing the mission to Mars, Musk said that irrespective of success of failure, SpaceX will keep increasing the number of Starship flights.
Noting that spaceships can only be launched to Mars once in two years when the Earth and Mars are aligned, Musk said the goal is to eventually launch thousands of Starships to Mars.
“No matter what happens with landing success, SpaceX will increase the number of spaceships traveling to Mars exponentially with every transit opportunity…Eventually, there will be thousands of Starships going to Mars and it will a glorious sight to see!” said Musk.
While Musk dubs such a project as a “glorious sight”, he implied the humanity is in a race against time to do so. Over the years, Musk and several scientists have repeatedly said that being multiplanetary is the only solution for humans to ensure the continuity of the race. In case a catastrophic event takes place on the Earth, such as an asteroid shower or a nuclear apocalypse, then the race would continue if humans would have become multiplanetary by then.
“The fundamental existential question is whether humanity becomes sustainably multiplanetary before something happens on Earth to prevent that, for example nuclear war, a supervirus, or population collapse that weakens civilisation to the point where it loses the ability to send supply ships to Mars,” said Musk on X.
‘Kamala Harris’ bureaucracy would destroy Mars programme’
Musk said that while he has several reasons to oppose Harris, the biggest reason is that the American bureaucracy in her presidency would destroy the Mars programme.
Musk said that the bureaucracy “currently choking America to death” is set to grow in Harris’ presidency.
“This would destroy the Mars program and doom humanity,” said Musk.
Musk’s post was in response to another post by astrophysicist Peter Hague, who also raised similar fears that the US bureaucracy is harming SpaceX.
Hague said that only Musk’s SpaceX can take humans to Mars in the next 10 years and that’s unacceptable to many people. He said that such people are giving US government aerospace agency NASA and other public sector organisation the time at the cost of SpaceX to catch up.
“By predicting absurdly long timetables, they hope to make it true. They want to give NASA and the broader public sector time to take control of the process and lead the mission, so that Mars is run by a bureaucracy that is broadly on their side - rather than some anarchic frontier where tech bros can build stuff without someone around to tie them up with regulations,” said Hague.