Elon Musk, the billionaire, announced on Monday that his space venture SpaceX plans to build over 1,000 Starships to transport life to Mars.
According to Tesla’s CEO, making life multiplanetary will help backup Earth’s ecosystems. He went on to say that, aside from humans, no other species is capable of transporting life to Mars.
Musk described his Starship models as “modern Noah’s Arks,” capable of saving “life from a calamity on Earth,” in reference to Biblical patriarch Noah, who built an Ark that survived the great flood on Earth.
“Making life multiplanetary expands the scope & scale of consciousness. It also enables us to backup the biosphere, protecting all life as we know it from a calamity on Earth,” he tweeted.
“Humanity is life’s steward, as no other species can transport life to Mars. We can’t let them down,” he added.
When a user inquired, Musk “”Build 1000+ Starships to transport life to Mars,” he responded. Essentially, these are (very) modern Noah’s Arks.”
SpaceX is developing the Starship, which will transport people and cargo to the moon, Mars, and beyond. The vehicle is made up of two parts: a Super Heavy first-stage booster and a Starship upper-stage spacecraft.
Both the Starship and the Super Heavy are designed to be completely and quickly reusable, and both will be powered by SpaceX’s new Raptor engine – 33 for the Super Heavy and six for the Starship.
Musk previously stated that because of its reusability, Mars settlement and deep space exploration will be less expensive.
Starship holds a lot of promise for NASA as well. The vehicle was chosen as the first crewed lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the moon within the next few years.
However, the US Federal Aviation Administration has not yet approved the Starship program (FAA).
The FAA delayed the completion of its environmental review of the Starship by two weeks last week, to June 13.
While SpaceX has conducted a number of high-altitude test flights of Starship prototypes at its South Texas Starbase, its plan to launch the system’s first-ever orbital test mission requires approval from the FAA and a number of other regulatory bodies. AA
