Elon Musk is serious, and promises to bring people to Mars by 2018. Very little, if we think that less than two years are left. Elon Musk, after creating the space travel company SpaceX, he once said he wanted to die on Mars: is his dream coming true?
Details of the program are expected to be revealed by Musk himself at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico in September. The announcement is part of a larger project of space travel to Mars by 2030. NASA would even collaborate in the undertaking, but only providing technical support.
Aside from Musk, also the CNSA, the Chinese space agency, has announced that it plans to send a spacecraft to Mars in 2020, when (as in 2018) the planet will be aligned with Earth. “The probe is expected to enter orbit around Mars, land and deploy a rover on the surface, all in one mission,” said Xu Dazhe, director of the agency.
As for Musk, however, to land on the red planet will be Red Dragon, an updated version of the spacecraft Dragon, already used for trips to the International Space Station. “Dragon 2 it is designed to land anywhere in the solar system. The Red Dragon mission to Mars will be the first test,” Musk wrote on Twitter.
