But while many have lauded Starship, key questions still remain considering SpaceX’s ambitious project to send humans to Mars.
In a small town in Texas over the weekend, Musk unveiled SpaceX’s latest mammoth project, Starship, which the company hopes will one day transport up to 100 people per flight to Mars – and even beyond. But while many have lauded the breathtaking visuals and ambition, key questions still remain considering SpaceX’s aggressive upcoming schedule.
The plan at the moment is for this prototype version of the final vehicle, known as Mark 1, to launch to an altitude of 20 kilometers in the next month or two. Within six months, if the company sticks to its “exponential” development schedule, Musk says the Mark 3 version could reach orbit in six months in early 2020. And human launches could even followIf that sounds ambitious, it is.
There is an uncomfortable question about launch abort too, something the Space Shuttle lacked to the detriment of seven astronauts on the Challenger disaster in 1986. In its current iteration Starship appears to have no launch abort system in the event of an accident on the pad or during launch to orbit. Only last year, such a systemof two astronauts aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. One presumes SpaceX might never recover from a disaster with humans on board.
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