On the 7th of this month, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made a bold announcement, stating that SpaceX plans to launch its next-generation heavy-lift rocket, Starship, on an uncrewed mission to Mars in 2026. If successful, the company aims to carry out its first crewed Mars mission within four years. SpaceX’s aggressive plan for Mars exploration has garnered global attention, with supporters praising its “epoch-making significance for space exploration,” while critics argue that the technological risks are too great.
“Technology Needs to Improve by 10,000 Times”
Musk stated on social media platform X that SpaceX plans to launch an uncrewed mission to Mars during the next Mars launch window. This mission will test the reliability of Starship’s landing on Mars. If successful, SpaceX aims to conduct the first crewed Mars mission within four years. He also predicted that once the crewed mission is successful, space travel to Mars would grow “exponentially,” with the goal of building a self-sustaining city on Mars within 20 years.
As SpaceX’s core vehicle for Mars exploration, Starship’s full reusability makes large-scale Mars trips economically feasible, according to Musk. “SpaceX has created the first fully reusable rocket stage, and more importantly, made reusability economically viable. The question of making life multiplanetary essentially comes down to reducing the average cost of delivering goods to Mars. With current technology, it costs around $1 billion per ton to transport payloads to Mars’ surface. To build a self-sustaining city on Mars, that cost needs to come down to $100,000 per ton, which means technology needs to improve by 10,000 times. While this is extremely challenging, it is not impossible.”
Starship, which Musk places great hope in, is a reusable spacecraft system. The rocket is about 120 meters long and 9 meters in diameter, composed of two parts: the first stage is the 70-meter “Super Heavy” booster, and the second stage is the 50-meter reusable Starship spacecraft. It is designed to transport people and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars, capable of carrying over 100 tons into Earth orbit. CNN noted that SpaceX’s fourth Starship test flight in June successfully achieved its key objectives, demonstrating its reusability.
Space.com described Starship as the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, producing 16.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff—nearly twice that of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is used in the Artemis lunar program. Unlike the disposable SLS, Starship is designed to be fully reusable. SpaceX plans to recover both stages after each launch, refurbish them quickly, and relaunch, enabling high-frequency missions. SpaceX claims that Starship’s powerful payload capacity and efficient launch rate will ultimately make Musk’s long-held dream of colonizing Mars a reality.
The Challenges of Going to Mars
SpaceX’s official website explains why Mars was chosen for colonization. “Mars is one of the closest habitable neighbors to Earth, averaging 140 million miles away. Mars is half as far from the Sun as Earth, so it gets plenty of sunlight. While the temperature is cold, we can warm it up. Mars’ atmosphere consists primarily of carbon dioxide, along with nitrogen, argon, and trace elements, meaning we can grow plants on Mars. Its gravity is about 38% of Earth’s, making it easier to lift heavy objects and move around. Additionally, a Martian day is similar to Earth’s, which helps human adaptation.”
However, NASA mentions that the distance between Earth and Mars constantly changes, with the shortest being around 35 million miles and the longest exceeding 250 million miles. This means Mars mission launch windows occur only about every 26 months. Even with the powerful thrust of Starship, a direct flight from Earth to Mars remains challenging.
SpaceX’s solution to this problem is “space refueling.” The company plans to launch a fully fueled Starship into low Earth orbit, where it will wait for a Mars-bound Starship to launch and dock to refuel before departing for Mars. Given Starship’s reusability, the primary cost of space refueling would be the oxygen and methane used as fuel, which is relatively inexpensive. NASA’s Artemis lunar program will also use a similar refueling strategy, ensuring that the crewed lunar lander and Orion spacecraft are refueled in low Earth orbit before heading to lunar orbit. For the return journey from Mars, SpaceX plans to synthesize oxygen and methane using Mars’ water and carbon dioxide, given the planet’s lower gravity, reducing the amount of fuel needed for takeoff.
SpaceX’s website estimates that Starship will enter Mars’ atmosphere at 7.5 kilometers per second, using aerodynamic braking. Its heat shield is designed to withstand multiple entries. However, some analysts have pointed out that while Starship’s deceleration in Earth’s atmosphere has been tested, Mars’ atmosphere is much thinner, and more tests are needed to confirm whether the current design is suitable for Mars.
Musk’s Multipronged Approach
Currently, SpaceX has revealed few details about the technical aspects of colonizing Mars. Recently, Musk commented on social media: “We first need to focus on figuring out how to get there.”
In July, The New York Times reported that insiders revealed Musk had instructed SpaceX researchers to delve into the design and specifics of a Martian city. One team is planning a small, dome-enclosed city, another is working on spacesuits to withstand Mars’ harsh conditions, and a medical team is researching whether humans can reproduce on Mars.
The report also noted that most of Musk’s six companies are related to Mars colonization, with each company potentially contributing to the creation of extraterrestrial settlements. For example, Musk’s tunneling company, The Boring Company, is famous for its “vacuum tunnel” project but is also working on developing equipment to dig tunnels under Mars’ surface. According to Musk, part of the reason he acquired the social media platform X was to “test a citizen-led, consensus-driven government system for use on Mars.” Additionally, Tesla’s stainless steel Cybertruck is being developed with Mars exploration in mind.
Regarding energy supply for Mars colonies, The New York Times reported that Musk plans to deploy hundreds of solar panels to generate electricity and provide heating for Martian settlements. The report also mentioned that in a 2022 interview, Musk discussed the idea of dropping nuclear bombs on Mars’ poles to release carbon dioxide and water stored in the ice caps, rapidly raising the surface temperature and creating Earth-like conditions suitable for human habitation.
A “Dangerous Fantasy”?
Critics argue that SpaceX’s aggressive Mars colonization plans are overly simplistic and contrast sharply with the cautious approach of U.S. government agencies. NASA officials have previously stated that the agency does not expect to send humans to Mars until the 2040s. “If people arrive on Mars, they will be greeted by barren terrain, freezing temperatures, dust storms, and unbreathable air.”
According to Musk’s plan, SpaceX will launch 1,000 Starships every 26 months during Mars’ launch windows, with each mission capable of sending 100,000 people to Mars, aiming to have 1 million people on the planet by 2050. Musk recently stated that utilizing Mars’ resources is crucial to establishing a self-sustaining colony, and SpaceX plans to push efforts in this area within “seven to nine years.”
However, critics argue that SpaceX’s proposals focus more on showcasing the theoretical performance of its rockets without seriously considering the practical feasibility of colonizing Mars. For example, a typical journey to Mars would take 80 to 150 days, and cosmic radiation during such a long trip poses an unavoidable threat to the human body—by contrast, astronauts on the International Space Station benefit from Earth’s magnetic field protection.
Robert Zubrin, author of The Case for Mars and aerospace engineer, outright stated, “It’s impossible to send 1 million people to Mars.” While there may be some human explorers on Mars in the future, much like scientists living in Antarctica, the idea of large-scale Mars migration to escape Earth’s problems is merely a “dangerous fantasy.”
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