The human race has been obsessed with Mars for over a century. There has been a lot of talk lately about manned expeditions to Mars. From a private group in Europe to NASA, plans are being made to visit and, perhaps, even colonize Mars. Elon Musk, the entrepreneur who founded SpaceX to provide launch services, has been talking about colonizing Mars for years. Recently, he provided more detail about his plans for colonizing Mars. He said that just publicizing his plans will make missions to the red planet more likely.
Musk points out that using an old style “Apollo” approach would cost about ten billion dollars per person for a Mars mission. He says that if the price per person can be brought under two hundred thousand dollars per person, it would be feasible to establish a self-sustanining colony on Mars. He says that a two orders of magnitude reduction in cost could result from reusing launch vehicles. Another two orders of magnitude drop in cost could come from using methane for fuel. refueling in orbit, and producing fuel on Mars.
Musk envisions reusing launch vehicles to send tankers full of fuel to Earth orbit to fuel the Martian Colony fleet. He foresees the need for a huge fleet to colonize Mars. As many as a thousand ships would be fueled and filled with cargo and colonists. They would all launch together when the window for a Mars mission opened. The mission window opens about every two years.
Musk estimates that a million people would be needed to establish a self-sustaining Mars colony. He thinks that about a hundred people per ship would be a reasonable number. That would mean that it would take about ten thousand trips to ferry a million people to Mars. So having a thousand ships would mean that it would still take decades to move a million people. He estimates that it would take from forty to a hundred years to establish a Martian colony.
Musk’s is working on a design for his Martian fleet that would include using carbon fiber to build the vessels for strength and reduced weight. The new ships will have a simplified fuel system in which some of the methane and the oxygen in the tanks are used to pressurize the tanks. The spacecraft would be the biggest ever built. Each ship would be able to carry four hundred and fifty tons of cargo.
The top of each ship would be the pressurized compartment for the crew and passengers. Under that would be an unpressurized area for densely packed cargo. Under that cargo compartment would be the oxygen tank with the methane tank beneath the oxygen tank. There will be six high-efficiency vacuum engines mounted around the perimeter of the thrust cone. Three additional engines would be mounted on gimbals and used for steering.
Current estimates of travel time to Mars vary between one hundred and fifty and three hundred days depending on the distance between the Earth and Mars and the velocity of the spacecraft. Musk hopes that his ships will be able to make the trip in eighty days.
Musk plans on setting up large fields of solar panels to provide energy for the colony and for fuel production. The Martian atmosphere is primarily carbon dioxide. There is plenty of water-ice on and just under the surface. With the energy provided by the solar panels, it will be possible to make methane and oxygen.
Musk hopes to have a prototype spacecraft built in the next four years. While I am impressed with what Musk has managed to accomplish in the area of launch vehicles, I fear that his vision of a Mars colony may be just a fantasy in the end.
Artist’s concept of Musk Mars spacecraft:
