Glory to the American empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_Colonization_Program
Generally all great empires are a continuation of previous empires.
The Greek empire continued in the form of the Roman empire, the roman empire broke apart with one part taken over by various European tribes and the other continuing as the Byzantine empire.
The European tribes managed to grow enough as to go to the US and mix their genetics together there and form the next greatest empire in the world.
Now, the US being the greatest current empire in the world, the next great empire will be an obvious continuation of the US empire.
The US does not intend to take over any further land on Earth, so where does it go? To the moon of course.
It's free real estate, and only the US has the technology to access it and keep it.
The total area of the moon is 38 million square kilometers. Which is surprisingly a little smaller than the total land area of Asia.
The US is expected to set up a moon base before 2030.
China is the only country with plans to set up a moon base by 2035.
The new age of exploration is the race to colonize the moon.
If the US successfully colonizes the moon, and China fails to do so, and the US successfully manages to mine the moon, that would secure prosperity for their empire for generations to come.
The US is obviously going to successfully do it.
China is less likely to pull it off, as they are trying to set up a moon base in collaboration with Russia, which clearly does not have the competency to be able to pull off a project this big in scope and ambition.
In conclusion:
The US is going to take over the moon within this century.
Glory to the US.
The next stage of white flight is upon us.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Starship will have no escape system and Elon himself said it would take 100-200 continuous successful flights before putting people on it, that could take years, the HLS is not an issue because it's not going to launch with humans. NASA is risk adverse and then there's the SLS, Congress will not cancel it and NASA is require to use it. SLS/Orion is pretty much a jobs program, a way to keep people who worked in the Shuttle Program employed, it is no wonder the SLS is made of heritage Shuttle components.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I understand NASA being so risk averse but I guess I figured Elon would have SpaceX launch its own crewed missions, without NASA.
How long did it take for 100-200 successful Falcon 9 launches? I think your "years" estimate is definitely correct.
Is the whole Mars colonization thing then built around having Orion (or something similar, ie much smaller) ferry crew to a single larger "transporter" StarShip that's unmanned and parked in LEO before having it leave Earth's SoI? Or maybe they use Dragon for that since it would only need to dock with StarShip in LEO and then return back to Earth (empty).
Offloading returning astronauts that way would be kinda wild though. Imagine being off Earth for months/years and you finally get back to LEO and have to wait a couple weeks while the crew is ferried 2-at-a-time or some shit back to the surface lol.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
No, the SpaceX colonization program is to fly it directly with starship, no Orion, no SLS, and it is an entirely private endeavor. NASA has no plans for Mars colonization, just a vague “Moon to Mars” program that's mostly using Artemis as a demonstrator for Human Missions to Mars (said missions would be small expeditions of 4-6 astronauts).
NASA has experience on long term space flight plus radiation research so it will be hard for SpaceX to work without NASA. I think they'll again hire SpaceX to use starship as a lander and continue to use SLS/Orion and a nuclear space tug for the mars-earth transit (they're researching nuclear propulsion again with a demonstrator set to be launched in 2027).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context