Elon Musk Scales Up His Ambitions, Considering Going 'Well Beyond' Mars (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: For most of its 14-year existence, SpaceX has focused on designing and developing the hardware that will lead to its ultimate goal: colonizing Mars. These plans have remained largely secret from the general public, as company founder Elon Musk has dropped only the barest of hints. But that is expected to change on Sept. 27, during a session at the International Astronautical Congress, when Musk details some of these plans for the first time in a public forum. However, on the eve of the meeting, Musk dropped a surprise on Twitter. The workhorse spacecraft that will carry approximately 100 tons of cargo or 100 people to the surface of Mars, which until now has been popularly known as the Mars Colonial Transporter, can't be called that, Musk said. "Turns out MCT can go well beyond Mars, so will need a new name..." he tweeted on Friday evening. By Saturday evening he had a new name dubbing the spacecraft the "Interplanetary Transport System," or ITS. Mars, it turns out, isn't the solar system's only marginally habitable world for would-be new world colonists. The Moon, Venus, the asteroid Ceres, and outer Solar System moons Titan and Callisto all have some advantages that could allow for colonies to subsist. However, Mars has generally been the preferred destination -- due to its relative proximity to Earth, a thin atmosphere, and sources of water ice. Musk now seems to be suggesting that some of these more distant destinations, especially moons around Jupiter and Saturn, might be reachable with the Interplanetary Transport System.

Comments

Tweets = "scaling up his ambitions"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The entire basis of this article is a few tweets, I wouldn't equate a few random comments, even from the head of a number of related companies as a full fledged ambition. Though even if the MCT/ITS is primarily intended for Mars transit (assuming its ever built) its nice to think that they're considering other destinations as well in the planning stages. One of the larger problems historically in the space industry is that too many craft/satellites/rockets are designed for a very narrow, often single use, purpose. That failing is on its way out in the launch industry, is possibly being changed in the satellite industry but still exists pretty heavily in the science probe area.

Re:Too much ambition, too fast?

[Rei]

You act like this discussion comes out of the blue, like it's something Musk just came up with after AMOS-6. Discussion of MCT (now ITS) was something Musk was scheduled to unveil already, long in advance of the AMOS-6 accident.

I agree that AMOS-6 has taken a lot of the focus away from such "lofty" goals, but let's not act like this wasn't something that was already planned.

(I of course am a lot more interested in hearing the results of their AMOS-6 investigation right now than about their ITS plans... as are I think most people)