According to Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, if significant advancements are made in heavy rocket launchers, humanity could establish an independent and self-sustaining city on the Red Planet by 2055. This was reported by Zamin.uz.
He emphasized that achieving this would require approximately 30 years. During this process, it is necessary to efficiently utilize flights to Mars conducted every two years to significantly increase the volume of cargo delivered there.
Elon Musk stated that increasing cargo capacity is very important because living on Mars will require habitat modules, robotic assistants, food production systems, technologies for extracting fuel from the atmosphere, as well as materials needed for manufacturing microchips, computers, and rockets. In his opinion, all the essential components of civilization must be delivered to Mars to achieve true independence.
The fully reusable Starship V3 transportation system is being developed specifically to fulfill these tasks in the future. This rocket will be capable of carrying over 100 tons of cargo into orbit.
This figure is approximately 2.5 times greater than the capabilities of the currently partially reusable Falcon Heavy rocket. Currently, the upper stages of Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 rockets are designed for single use only, while Super Heavy and Starship are created for full reusability.
Elon Musk has announced that the Starship V3 rocket will be approximately 124.4 meters tall. For comparison, the Starship V2 version was 121 meters tall.
This new generation rocket system is being developed as the first fully modified version capable of flying to Mars. SpaceX plans to launch the first unmanned missions to Mars using Starship V3 early next year.
These missions will be an important step toward establishing a strong colony on Mars.
