a desirable speed. Once it reaches that
point the craft is able to rotate and fire
up the three descent engines and land
vertically on the Martian surface.
Luckily it’s not a one-way trip. On the
surface, the ship will be able to refuel us-
ing Mars’ atmosphere and ice deposits.
It only needs carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and
water (H 2 O) which are then processed
to produce methane (CH 4 ) and oxygen
(O 2 ) for refueling. Since Mars has only
37.6% of the Earth’s gravity, less fuel is
needed for the return trip, eliminating the
need for a booster. SpaceX hopes that
the prospect of being able to return to
Earth will encourage more colonists.
It has long been known that SpaceX’s
goal is to colonize Mars. Talk to one of
their engineers and you’ll understand
the enthusiasm that they put into their
work, even if they’re not working on that
particular project. They plan on bring-
ing down the cost of a trip to Mars to
the median cost of an American house,
thereby hoping to encourage citizens to
risk the trip out to the Red Planet. Each
craft will deliver anywhere between 100
and 200 Martian colonists, with the final
plan being to establish a self-sustaining
colony by the end of the century.
As Musk noted near the end of the
presentation last year, this is more than
just a Mars colonization craft. It is the win-
dow into the rest of the solar system. Be-
cause of the propulsive landing capabili-
ties and ability to refuel, one could theo-
retically visit any body in the solar system.
If there were refueling stations in the
asteroid belt, possibly utilizing the large
ice deposits of the dwarf-planet Ceres,
then the Interplanetary Spacecraft could
‘hop’ to the outer solar system.
With the hard work of the engineers
and technicians at SpaceX, humanity
is one step closer to putting people on
Mars. As noted, however, the system
can do so much more. It could take us
to our Moon. We could travel to Ceres
and Vestas in the asteroid belt. We even
explore the moons of Jupiter and Saturn,
heading into the ice crevasses of Europa
or experimenting in the thick atmosphere
of Titan. SpaceX’s Interplanetary Trans-
portation System opens up a gateway of
possibilities, both on Mars and the rest of
the solar system. This first step shows that
SpaceX is serious about making humans
a multiplanetary species.