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

Wacky? Maybe, but at least he's got vision.

[Bearhouse]

And he delivers real stuff that (mostly) works.
This is the kind of person we need as POTUS, not a choice between a couple of cynical, under-performing outrageous liars.

Re:Wacky? Maybe, but at least he's got vision.

[arth1]

No, what he's doing here is deflection and damage control.
He's realizing that he won't be going to Mars, so he wants a new name that opens up for other uses. And he's successfully selling it, as the unwashed masses gobbles up the spin without a critical thought.

Where is the funding for the trip?

[sjbe]

While I'm totally on board with trying to visit other parts of our solar system, here's the bit I don't quite get. Who exactly is going to pay for these trips to Mars or wherever else? Despite their general success I don't see SpaceX being able to fund it themselves any time soon and there is no obvious economic return from such a trip given that at this point it is purely exploratory in nature. The only institution with enough money and no need for a profit is the government so how does he propose to get the government to pay for it OR where is the ROI on the trip for any would be private investors?

I don't ask this question to be snarky but it's a pretty important question and I think it's being glossed over at this point. I don't have any problem with tax dollars being used for this kind of exploration but some parts of our congress are pretty against raising the taxes that would be necessary to pay for a trip like this. NASA doesn't have the budget at this point nor do they have a congressional mandate to support what Mr. Musk is proposing. And I just don't see private sponsors with deep enough pockets to fund the trip stepping up to the plate.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[JoshuaZ]

NASA went to the moon on a massive budget. A major part of SpaceX's goals is to *reduce* the cost of space travel. And they aren't aiming at the moon primarily because there aren't enough resources on the moon to easily have a self-sustaining colony.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[Dutch Gun]

He may be overly ambitious here (and I suspect he is), but whatever his failings, he isn't an idiot.

I think he's more of an idiot savant - gifted in some ways, a little wacky in others. Like that whole "pretty sure the universe is a computer simulation" thing. He has lots of money, some good ideas, and a knack for hiring smart people. Keep in mind that *they're* really the ones who build the rockets and cars.

Ceres

[Hadlock]

Ceres is large enough to have marginal gravity, but more importantly, it's a giant ball of ice. Since it only has marginal gravity, less than that of the Moon even, makes it very easy to get on and off of it with hardly any fuel. In fact, even though it's past the orbit of Mars, the fuel budget to do a manned trip (and safe return) is only 20% more than that of a moon mission. Mainly due to the tiny tiny gravity well.

Re:Tweets = "scaling up his ambitions"?

[Rei]

Indeed. As a Venus fan, I would think it a travesty if one designed such a craft to only suit Mars, when delta-V for a Venus transfer orbit is almost identical to that of Mars, transit times are shorter, power more abundant, and aerocapture easier. By any standard any craft good for transport to Mars should also be good for transport to Venus. However, if not planned for that upfront (for example, taking into account thermal management due to the higher solar constant) it might inadvertently be rendered Mars-only.

It's good that they're thinking beyond just Mars.

Re:Tweets = "scaling up his ambitions"?

[Rei]

Do note that you're responding to a troll; he's a regular in these threads, just ignore him ;)

As for Venus: you want to check out Landis's work for the basics (although the concept has been developed since then). No, not on the surface - in the middle cloud layer, ideally somewhere around 53-56km, ideally in the higher latitudes. It's the most earthlike environment in the solar system outside of Earth - gravity, temperature, pressure, sunlight, etc, plus the overhead radiation shielding equivalent of about 5 meters of water. And normal earth air is a lifting gas.

There's also been work on the HAVOC proposal, but IMHO it's not as interesting as Landis's work.