Elon Musk: The Man Who Set Out To Establish A New World On Mars

Elon Musk. One of the richest man in the world. But this man wants to settle the world somewhere else. Elon Musk lives with the motive that he has to establish a human settlement on Mars. For this work, Musk started a company named SpaceX in 2002. SpaceX aims to make space travel affordable. and making humans multi-planetary. Multiplanetary means a species living on more than one planet.

Why Does Musk Want To set Up A world On Mars?

When Elon Musk is asked why do you want to leave Earth and settle on another planet? So the answer,

We have two routes. The first way is to stay on earth forever. And wait for some disastrous event to happen in the future. There may be a third world war with nuclear weapons. Or just as the dinosaurs ended when they hit an asteroid, so should we. The existence of our species will remain in danger due to any such incident. Another way is that we come out of this planet and settle on other planets also. In this way, man will be able to avoid his destruction.

An asteroid colliding with Earth can release more energy than a nuclear explosion.

The second question is why go to Mars only? Why not another planet? On this Musk says,

What options do we have in our solar system? Venus means Venus. There is a lot of pressure here and it rains acid. Mercury means the planet Mercury. It is also very close to the sun. It is very hot there. One can visit the moons of Jupiter (Jupiter) and Saturn (Saturn). But they are far away. We could also target our Earth's moon. But it will be too small for a large settlement. And there is no atmosphere here. Resources on the Moon are also very few compared to Mars. Therefore, at present, Mars is the best option.

What Is The Atmosphere Like On Mars?

Mars is farther from the Sun than Earth. That's why it's very cold. The average temperature on Mars is -60 °C. Elon Musk says that it is a bit cold but it can be heated.

How is the air of Mars? Very bad The atmosphere of Mars is mostly carbon dioxide (96 percent). About 2.5 percent is nitrogen. and about 2 percent argon. Our working gas oxygen is only 0.174 percent.

Mars is also called Red Planet.

The diameter of Mars is about half that of Earth. But it is the closest size to Earth. The rest of the planets are either very small or much larger than Earth. Gravity on Mars is about one-third that of Earth. Meaning you will be able to easily make a long jump on Mars. Mars and Earth rotate on their axis at almost the same speed. That's why a day on Mars is only 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth.

What Is Elon Musk's Plan To Set Up A Settlement On Mars?

In September 2016, Elon Musk explained his plan and its many technical aspects in detail.

Mask with former US President Obama.

A city of millions of people is to be established on Mars. What's the problem? The problem is money. Elon Musk showed a Venn diagram. There are two balls. There are people in a circle who want to go to Mars. In the second circle are those who can afford it. These two spheres are far away, they want to bring them closer. According to Musk, it should cost a man as much money to go to Mars as the average cost of buying a house in America. 2 million dollars. Around 1.5 crores. How will this cost be so low? Elon Musk gave four sources for this.

1. Full Reusability.

Big things like rockets and spaceships that will be used in this mission can be reused. Usually, the rocket used in a space mission is only for one time. In the last decade, SpaceX has made great strides in reusable rockets. In 2015, SpaceX landed the Falcon 9 rocket again safely after its orbital launch. A few months later, he landed his rocket in a drone ship stationed at sea. This greatly reduces the cost of the mission. Musk wants all the big stuff in the mission to be reusable.

SpaceX Rocket Booster Landing.

2. Refill In Orbit.

Fueling the Earth's orbit. The first rocket will take the spaceship and deploy it in Earth's orbit. After that, the spaceship will orbit the earth and the rocket will come down to land. Then a fuel tank will be installed on top of this rocket. The rocket will immediately take this fuel tank to the spaceship orbiting the Earth. The rocket will come down again. This tanker will also return to Earth after filling fuel in the spaceship.

By doing this, more goods and people can be filled by making a small rocket. According to Musk, by doing this the cost of the mission will be reduced by about five times.

3. Making Propellants On Mars.

The propellant is the same fuel with which the rocket takes off. To build a city of the kind on Mars, the spaceship will have to be sent back to Earth. If this is not done then Mars will become the graveyard of spaceships. And the people who have gone there must have the option of returning. For this, it is necessary that propellant should be made on Mars itself. According to Musk, doing this will reduce the cost of the mission by 5 times.

Mars has the right environment to make propellants. There is a lot of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mars. And water can be taken out from under the ground. That is, there was a way of CO2 and H2O. With the help of these two O2 (oxygen) and CH4 (methane) can be made.

The use of resources where they have gone is called INSITU Resource Utilization.

4. Choosing The Right Propellant.

There are three main choices for rocket fuel. The first is kerosene. Very refined kerosene products are used in many rockets. Another option is hydrogen fuel. And the third is methane. According to Musk, out of these three, methane-based propellants will prove to be the best. And it can also be made easily on Mars.

So according to Elon Musk, keeping these four things in mind, the cost of reaching and returning to Mars can be reduced significantly.

When Will All This Work Be Possible?

Now you understand chronology. First, the rocket will drop the spaceship into Earth's orbit. Then that rocket will land again on Earth. The fuel tank will be placed on top of the same rocket. The rocket will take this fuel tank to the spaceship. The rocket will land back on the ground. Fuel will be transferred from the fuel tank to the spaceship. And then that fuel tank will also come back to earth. This can be done three to five times in Earth's orbit. Then this spaceship will go to Mars. Propellant will be made on Mars. This propellant will be refilled in the spaceship. And this spaceship will return to Earth.

According to Musk, in the future, there will be thousands of spaceships in Earth's orbit simultaneously. All these spaceships will go towards Mars together. When Mars will be in its correct position. What is this correct position?

Musk had talked about building a city for self-reliant Mars by 2050.

Earth and Mars both revolve around the Sun at different speeds. Once every 26 months, there comes a time when a space mission can be sent from Earth to Mars. This time period is called the launch window. When the time for this launch window approaches, then only SpaceX's fleet will head towards Mars together.

Elon Musk wants to establish a city of about one million people on Mars. Initially, a spaceship will carry 100 people and a lot of stuff. Accordingly, one will have to fly about 10,000 times. How long will it take to deliver so many people? Musk estimates that it may take 40 to 100 years after the first launch. SpaceX will build bigger spaceships in the future. With these, more than 100 people and goods can be sent to Mars at a time.

What's The Preparation Now?

Elon Musk's Mars rocket will be able to lift a payload of about 550 tons at a time. NASA's Saturn V rocket is about the same size. This is the largest rocket system ever built. Using this, NASA had landed people on the moon. The Saturn V can lift a payload of 135 tonnes at a time. Musk is claiming to lift 550 tons from his similar rocket.

SpaceX has designed a special type of engine for its rocket. Its name is Raptor Engine. The rocket that will take the spaceship to Earth's orbit will have 42 Raptor engines. And the spaceship that will go to Mars will have nine Raptor engines.

Such a starship will land on Mars.

This is a very forward plan for big rockets and spaceships. At present, the spacecraft that SpaceX can send for missions to the Moon and Mars is named Starship. In the year 2020, there were many test flights of Starship. After this, changes were made to the design of the starship. There are many more test flights to be done and there are others. This starship will later come in handy in SpaceX's first Mars mission.

What Will You Do After Reaching Mars?

What will be the nature of settlement on Mars? How will you live there? Elon Musk has not talked about this in much detail. From the beginning, he is talking about 'terraforming' Mars. Terraforming means changing the atmosphere of a planet to make it habitable for humans. In Elon Musk's Twitter cover photo, you can see Mars slowly turning into an Earth-like planet. But how will this happen?

Musk says Mars just needs to warm up a bit. To do this, Elon Musk has talked about running a nuclear weapon on the poles of Mars. The idea is that a nuclear attack on the poles of Mars will release the carbon dioxide trapped in the ice there in the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect will be seen. And Mars will get hot. Musk has also faced criticism for his stand.

SpaceX's vision of a city on Mars.

When Musk was asked about this, he said something else. He wrote on his Twitter that life on Mars would first be inside glass domes. After that Mars will be terraformed so that it can support life like Earth.

Elon Musk has always been very ambitious about timelines. He had said that in 2022 the first SpaceX rocket can go to Mars. There will be no humans in this rocket, only stuff. This material will prove to be helpful for human missions going forward. Musk said that by the year 2050, we will be able to see a self-sustaining city on Mars. When and how this will happen, we will know in the future only.

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Elon Musk: The Man Who Set Out To Establish A New World On Mars

Why Does Musk Want To set Up A world On Mars?