Elon Musk, the founder of private spaceflight company SpaceX has announced his grand plans to build a giant rocket and spaceship that can take people to Mars. In what can be called ambitious vision, he said that this could be possible by the year 2022.
Speaking at a conference in Mexico on Tuesday (Sep 27), Musk said: “What I really want to try to achieve here is to make Mars seem possible – like it’s something we can achieve in our lifetimes.”
Musk explained that this could be done using multi-stage launch and transport system, including a reusable booster, similar to the Falcon 9, which has already been successfully been tested by the company, only much bigger.
Called as the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), the transport vehicle is pegged to be the size of two Boeing 747 aircraft and can carry up to 100 passengers.
Musk said that the first ship going to Mars would be named Heart of Gold as a tribute to the ship powered by an “infinite improbability drive” from Douglas Adams’ science fiction novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
“The architecture allows for a cost per ticket of less than $200,000,” Musk said. “We think that the cost of moving to Mars ultimately could drop below $100,000.”
