Interplanetary Transport System

Not to be confused with Interplanetary Transport Network.
"Interplanetary Spaceship" redirects here. For spacecraft that have made interplanetary trips, see List of interplanetary voyages.
Rendering of an ITS launch vehicle departing Launch pad 39A, with an ITS tanker standing by (at left) for a rapid launch after the ITS booster returns to the launch site
Artist's impression of the Interplanetary Spaceship on the Jovian moon Europa.

The Interplanetary Transport System (ITS),[1] formerly known as the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT), is SpaceX's privately funded development project to design and build a system[2] of spaceflight technology and remote human settlements on Mars— including reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft; Earth infrastructure for rapid launch and relaunch; low Earth orbit, zero-gravity propellant transfer technology; and extraterrestrial technology to enable human colonization of Mars. The technology is also envisioned to eventually support exploration missions to other locations in the Solar System including the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.[3]

Development work began in earnest before 2012 when SpaceX began design work for the large Raptor rocket engine to be used for both the ITS launch vehicle and spacecraft (ITS tanker and Interplanetary Spaceship). New rocket engine designs are typically considered one of the longest of the development subprocesses for new launch vehicles and spacecraft. By June 2016, the company publicly-announced conceptual[4] plans that included the first Mars-bound cargo flight of ITS launching no earlier than 2022, followed by the first ITS Mars flight with passengers one synodic period later in 2024,[5] following two preparatory research launches of Mars probes in 2018 and 2020 on Dragon/Falcon Heavy equipment.[6] SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled details of the system architecture at the 67th International Astronautical Congress on 27 September 2016.[7]

As publicly discussed, SpaceX is concentrating its resources on the transportation part of the project as well as a propellant plant that could be deployed on Mars to make methalox rocket propellant from local resources. However, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is championing a much larger set of long-term interplanetary settlement objectives, ones that go far beyond what SpaceX will build and that will ultimately involve many more economic actors—whether individual, company, or government—to facilitate the settlement to build out over many decades.[8][9][10]

History

As early as 2007, Elon Musk stated a personal goal of eventually enabling human exploration and settlement of Mars,[11][12] although his personal public interest in Mars goes back at least to 2001.[10] Bits of additional information about the mission architecture were released in 2011–2015, including a 2014 statement that initial colonists would arrive at Mars no earlier than the middle of the 2020s.[13] Company plans as of mid-2016 continue to call for the arrival of the first humans on Mars no earlier than 2025.[5][14]

Musk stated in a 2011 interview that he hoped to send humans to Mars' surface within 10–20 years,[12] and in late 2012 he stated that he envisioned a Mars colony of tens of thousands with the first colonists arriving no earlier than the middle of the 2020s.[13][15][16]

In October 2012, Musk articulated a high-level plan to build a second reusable rocket system with capabilities substantially beyond the Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy launch vehicles on which SpaceX had by then spent several billion US dollars.[17] This new vehicle was to be "an evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster ... much bigger [than Falcon 9]." But Musk indicated that SpaceX would not be speaking publicly about it until 2013.[13][18] In June 2013, Musk stated that he intended to hold off any potential IPO of SpaceX shares on the stock market until after the "Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly."[19][20]

In August 2014, media sources speculated that the initial flight test of the Raptor-driven super-heavy launch vehicle could occur as early as 2020, in order to fully test the engines under orbital spaceflight conditions; however, any colonization effort was reported to continue to be "deep into the future".[21][22]

In January 2015, Musk said that he hoped to release details of the "completely new architecture" for the system that would enable the colonization of Mars in late 2015 but those plans changed and, by December 2015, the plan to publicly release additional specifics had moved to 2016.[23] In January 2016, Musk indicated that he hoped to describe the architecture for the Mars missions with the next generation SpaceX rocket and spacecraft later in 2016, at the 67th International Astronautical Congress conference,[7] in September 2016.[24][25] Musk stated in June 2016 that the first unmanned MCT Mars flight was planned for departure in 2022, to be followed by the first manned MCT Mars flight departing in 2024.[5][6] By mid-September 2016, Musk noted that the MCT name would not continue, as the system would be able to "go well beyond Mars", and that a new name would be needed: Interplanetary Transport System (ITS).[1]

On 27 September 2016, at the 67th annual meeting of the International Astronautical Congress, Musk unveiled substantial details of the design for the transport vehicles—including size, construction material, number and type of engines, thrust, cargo and passenger payload capabilities, on-orbit propellant-tanker refills, representative transit times, etc.—as well as a few details of portions of the Mars-side and Earth-side infrastructure that SpaceX intends to build to support the flight vehicles. In addition, Musk championed a larger systemic vision, a vision for a bottom-up emergent order of other interested parties—whether companies, individuals, or governments—to utilize the new and radically lower-cost transport infrastructure to build up a sustainable human civilization on Mars, potentially, on numerous other locations around the Solar System, by innovating and meeting the demand that such a growing venture would occasion.[8][9]

Description

Interplanetary Spaceship departing Earth, passing the Moon.

The Interplanetary Transport System consists of a combination of several elements that are key—according to Musk—to making long-duration beyond Earth orbit (BEO) spaceflights possible by reducing the cost per ton delivered to Mars by approximately 4 1/2 orders of magnitude over what NASA has achieved:[26][27][28]

Scale comparison of, from left to right: the full stack ITS launch vehicle; NASA's upcoming Space Launch System; the Big Ben clocktower; SpaceX Falcon Heavy; and a 1.8 metres (5 ft 11 in) human.

Super-heavy lift launch vehicle

Main article: ITS launch vehicle

The super-heavy lift launch vehicle[30] for the Interplanetary Transport System will place up to 300 tonnes (660,000 lb) (reusable-mode) or 550 tonnes (1,210,000 lb) (expendable-mode)—or carry 380 tonnes (840,000 lb) of propellant on an ITS tanker—to low Earth orbit.[29]

The ITS launch vehicle will be powered by the Raptor bipropellant liquid rocket engines on both stages, using exclusively densified liquid methane fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer on both stages.[29][30] The tanks will be autogenously pressurized, eliminating the need for the problematic helium gas pressurization.[29]

The ITS launch vehicle is reusable, making use of the SpaceX reusable technology that was developed during 2011–2016 for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.[29][2]

On all Earth-away launches, the long-duration spacecraft (tanker or spaceship) will also play a role briefly as the second stage of the launch vehicle to provide acceleration to orbital velocity, a design approach unusual in other launch vehicles.

Interplanetary Spaceship

A rendering of the Interplanetary Spaceship from engineering drawings, showing the engine configuration and with the solar panels extended.

The Interplanetary Spaceship is an interplanetary ship with a carbon-fiber primary structure propelled by nine Raptor engines operating on densified methane/oxygen propellants. It is 49.5 m (162 ft)-long, has a maximum hull diameter of 12 m, and is 17 m (56 ft)-diameter at its widest point, and is capable of transporting up to 450 tonnes (990,000 lb) of cargo and passengers per trip to Mars, with on-orbit propellant refill before the interplanetary part of the journey.[27][29] Early flights are expected to carry mostly equipment and few people.[13]

As of September 2016, there is no name for the class of spacecraft beyond the descriptor Interplanetary Spaceship. Musk did indicate however that the first of those ships to make the Mars journey might be named "Heart of Gold"[1] in reference to the ship carrying the Infinite Improbability Drive, from the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[31]

The transport capacity of the spaceship from low Earth orbit to a Mars trajectory—with a trans-Mars trajectory insertion energy gain of 6 km/s (3.7 mi/s) and full propellant tanks—is 450 tonnes (500 tons) to Mars orbit, or 300 tonnes (330 tons) landed on the surface with retropropulsive landing. Estimated Earth-Mars transit times vary between 80–150 days, depending on particular planetary alignments during the nine discrete 2020–2037 mission opportunities, assuming 6 km/s delta-v added at trans-Mars injection.[27]

An artist's conception of an Interplanetary Spaceship arrival at Mars.

The spaceship is designed to enter the Martian atmosphere at entry velocities in excess of 8.5 km/s and allow aerodynamic forces to provide the major part of the deceleration before the three center Raptor engines perform the final landing burn. The heat shield material protecting the ship on descent is PICA 3.0, and is reusable. Entry g-forces at Mars are expected to be 4–6 g's during the descent.[27] The spaceship design g-load would be 5 G's nominal, but able to withstand peak loads 2 to 3 times higher without breaking up.[32]

Energy for the journey is produced by two large solar panel arrays, generating approximately 200 kW of power while at the distance of Earth from the Sun, and less as the journey progresses and the Sun is farther away as the ship nears Mars.[26]:19:38

The spaceship may use a large internal water layer to help shield occupants from space radiation, and may have a cabin oxygen content that is up to two times that which is found in Earth's atmosphere.[13] The initial tests of the spaceship are not expected prior to 2020, with the ITS booster to follow only later.[14]

According to Musk, the spaceship would effectively become the first human habitat on Mars.[33]

ITS Tanker

Rendering of ITS Tanker (top) transferring propellant to an Interplanetary Spaceship (bottom) in Earth orbit.

A key feature of the system is a propellant-cargo-only tanker: the ITS tanker. Just as the spaceship, the tanker would serve as the upper stage of the ITS launch vehicle during the launch from Earth. The vehicle is designed exclusively for the launch and short-term holding of propellants to be transported to low Earth orbit for re-filling propellants in the interplanetary ships. Once on orbit, a rendezvous operation is effected with one of the Interplanetary Spaceships, plumbing connections are made, and a maximum of 380 tonnes (840,000 lb) of liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellants are transferred in one load to the spaceship. To fully fuel an Interplanetary Spaceship for a long-duration interplanetary flight, it is expected that up to five tankers would be required to launch from Earth, carrying and transferring a total of nearly 1,900 tonnes (4,200,000 lb) of propellant to fully load the spaceship for the journey.[27]

The ITS tanker is the same physical dimensions as the Interplanetary Spacecraft: 49.5 m (162 ft)-long, maximum hull diameter of 12 m, and is 17 m (56 ft) at its widest point. It will also be powered by six vacuum-optimized Raptor engines, each producing 3.5 MN (790,000 lbf) thrust, and will have three lower-expansion-ratio Raptor engines for flight maneuvering and Earth-return landings.[34][29] Following completion of the on-orbit propellant offloading, the reusable tanker will reenter the Earth's atmosphere, land, and be prepared for another tanker flight.[27] The tanker could also be used for cargo missions.

Propellant plant on Mars

A key part of the system Musk is conceptualizing to radically decrease the cost of spaceflight to interplanetary destinations is the placement and operation of a physical plant on Mars to handle production and storage of the propellant components necessary to launch and fly the Interplanetary Spaceships back to Earth, or perhaps to increase the mass that can be transported onward to destinations in the outer Solar System. Coupled with the Earth-orbit tank filling prior to the journey to Mars, and the fully reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft, all three elements are needed to reduce the transport cost by the multiple orders of magnitude that Musk sees as necessary to support sustainable colonization of Mars.[27]

The first Interplanetary Spaceship to Mars will carry a small propellant plant as a part of its cargo load. The plant will be expanded over multiple synods as more equipment arrives, is installed, and placed into mostly-autonomous production.[27]

The propellant plant will take advantage of the large supplies of carbon dioxide and water resources on Mars, mining the water (H2O) from subsurface ice and collecting CO2 from the atmosphere. A chemical plant will process the raw materials by means of electrolysis and the Sabatier process to produce molecular oxygen (O2) and methane (CH4), and then liquefy it to facilitate long-term storage and ultimate use.[27]

Launch facility

Initial launch site

The initial launch site for the launch and rapid reuse of the ITS launch vehicle will be the SpaceX leased facility at Launch Pad 39A along the Florida space coast. While originally thought to be too small to handle the ITS launch vehicle, the final optimized size of the Raptor engine is fairly close to the physical size of the Merlin 1D, although each engine will have approximately three times the thrust. Falcon Heavy will launch from 39A with 27 Merlin engines; ITS LV will launch with 42 Raptor engines.[29]

Multiple launch sites

Musk indicated on 27 September 2016 that the ITS launch vehicle would launch from more than one site. A prime candidate for the second launch site is somewhere along the south Texas coast.

ITS launch facility history

As of March 2014, no launch site had yet been selected for the super-heavy lift rocket and the then-named "Mars Colonial Transporter." SpaceX indicated at the time that their leased facility in Florida at Launch Pad 39A would not be large enough to accommodate the vehicle as it was understood conceptually in 2014, and that therefore a new site would need to be built in order to launch the >10-meter diameter rocket.[35]

In September 2014, Elon Musk indicated that the first person to go to another planet could possibly launch from the SpaceX South Texas Launch Site,[36] but did not indicate at the time what launch vehicle might be used to carry humans to orbit.

Mission concepts

Mars early missions

Musk has indicated that the earliest SpaceX-sponsored missions would have a smaller crew and use much of the pressurized space for cargo. The first cargo mission of the Interplanetary Spaceship would be named "Heart of Gold" and would be loaded with equipment to build the propellant plant.[32]

The first crewed Mars mission would be expected to have approximately 12 people, with the primary goal to "build out and troubleshoot the propellant plant and Mars Base Alpha power system" as well as a" rudimentary base." In the event of an emergency, the spaceship would be able to return to Earth without having to wait a full 26 months for the next synodic period.[32]

Before any people are transported to Mars, some number of cargo missions would be undertaken first in order to transport the requisite equipment, habitats and supplies.[37] Equipment that would accompany the early groups would include "machines to produce fertilizer, methane and oxygen from Mars' atmospheric nitrogen and carbon dioxide and the planet's subsurface water ice" as well as construction materials to build transparent domes for crop growth.[13]

The early concepts for "green living space" habitats include glass panes with a carbon-fiber-frame geodesic domes, and "a lot of miner/tunneling droids [for building] out a huge amount of pressurized space for industrial operations." But these are merely conceptual and not a detailed design plan.[32]

Mars settlement concept

SpaceX the company is concentrating its resources on the transportation part of the overall ITS project as well as an autonomous propellant plant that could be deployed on Mars to produce methane and oxygen rocket propellants from local resources. If built, and if planned objectives are achieved, then the transport cost of getting material and people to space, and across interplanetary space, will be reduced by several orders of magnitude. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is championing a much larger set of long-term interplanetary settlement objectives, ones that take advantage of these lower costs to go far beyond what the company SpaceX will build and that will ultimately involve many more economic actors—whether individual, company, or government—to build out the settlement over many decades.[8][9]

In addition to explicit SpaceX plans and concepts for a transportation system and early missions, Musk has personally been a very public exponent of a large systemic vision for building a sustainable human presence on Mars over the very long term, a vision well beyond what his company or he personally can effect. The growth of such a system over decades cannot be planned in every detail, but is rather a complex adaptive system that will come about only as others make their own independent choices as to how they might, or might not, connect with the broader "system" of an incipient (and later, growing) Mars settlement. Musk sees the new and radically lower-cost transport infrastructure facilitating the build up of a bottom-up economic order of other interested parties—whether companies, individuals, or governments—who will innovate and supply the demand that such a growing venture would occasion.[8][9]

While the initial SpaceX Mars settlement would start very small, with an initial group of about a dozen people,[32] with time, Musk hopes that such an outpost would grow into something much larger and become self-sustaining, at least 1 million people. According to Musk,

Even at a million people you’re assuming an incredible amount of productivity per person, because you would need to recreate the entire industrial base on Mars. You would need to mine and refine all of these different materials, in a much more difficult environment than Earth. There would be no trees growing. There would be no oxygen or nitrogen that are just there. No oil.
Excluding organic growth, if you could take 100 people at a time, you would need 10,000 trips to get to a million people. But you would also need a lot of cargo to support those people. In fact, your cargo to person ratio is going to be quite high. It would probably be 10 cargo trips for every human trip, so more like 100,000 trips. And we’re talking 100,000 trips of a giant spaceship.[38]

Musk expects that the journeys would require 80 to 150 days of transit time,[39] with an average trip time to Mars of approximately 115 days (for the nine synodic periods occurring between 2020 and 2037).[27] In 2012, Musk stated an aspirational price goal for such a trip might be on the order of US$500,000 per person,[13] but in 2016 he mentioned that long-term costs might become as low as US$200,000.[39]

As of September 2016, the complex project has financial commitments only from SpaceX and Musk's personal capital. The Washington Post pointed out that "The [US] government doesn't have the budget for Mars colonization. Thus, the private sector would have to see Mars as an attractive business environment. Musk is willing to pour his wealth into the project" but it will not be enough to build the colony he envisions.[40]

Outer planet concepts

Artist's impression of the Interplanetary Spaceship over Saturn.

The overview presentation on the Interplanetary Transport System given by Musk on 27 September 2016 included concept slides outlining missions to the Saturnian moon Enceladus, the Jovian moon Europa, Kuiper belt objects, a fuel depot on Pluto and even the uses to take payloads to the Oort Cloud.[29] "Musk said ... the system can open up the entire Solar System to people. If fuel depots based on this design were put on asteroids or other areas around the Solar System, people could go anywhere they wanted just by planet or moon hopping. 'The goal of SpaceX is to build the transport system ... Once that transport system is built, then there is a tremendous opportunity for anyone that wants to go to Mars to create something new or build a new planet.'"[10] Outer planet trips would likely require propellant refills at Mars, and perhaps other locations in the outer Solar System.[39]

Funding

The extensive development and manufacture of much of the space transport technology has been to date (through 2016), and is being, privately funded by SpaceX. The entire project is even possible only as a result of SpaceX multi-faceted approach focusing on the reduction of launch costs.[29]

As of 2016, SpaceX is expending "a few tens of millions of dollars annually on development of the Mars transport concept, which amounts to well under 5 percent of the company’s total expenses",[39] but expects that figure to rise to some US$300 million per year by around 2018. The cost of all work leading up to the first Mars launch is expected to be "on the order of US$10 billion"[39] and SpaceX expects to expend that much before it generates any transport revenue.[9]

Musk indicated in September 2016 that the full build-out of the Mars colonialization plans will likely be funded by both private and public funds. The speed of commercially available Mars transport for both cargo and humans will be driven, in large part, by market demand as well as constrained by the technology development and development funding.[9][39]

Elon Musk has said that there is no expectation of receiving NASA contracts for any of the ITS system work. He also indicated that such contracts, if received, would be good.[41]

Fabrication cost projections

In September 2016, Musk presented the following high-level, forward-looking, fabrication cost projections, given a set of assumptions. Those assumptions include: Cost of propellant: US$168/tonne; Launch site costs: US$200,000/launch; Discount rate: 5%; Cargo delivered: 450 tonne per single Interplanetary Spaceship; and full reuse. All assumptions are about a single mission once thousands of launches and hundreds of flights to Mars are a realistic prospect. They do not apply to costs for the much smaller number of early missions envisioned for the 2020s. Given these assumptions, Musk presented the following long-term mission cost projections:[31][27]

ITS BoosterITS Tanker Interplanetary
Spaceship
Fabrication cost $230M $130M $200M
Lifetime launches 1,000 100 12
Launches per Mars trip 6 5 1
Average maintenance cost per use $0.2M $0.5M $10M
Total cost per one Mars trip
(Amortization, propellant, maintenance)		 $11M $8M $43M

Calculated result: Total cost of one Interplanetary Spaceship transported to Mars (sum of fabrication costs): US$62 million; or less than US$140,000 vehicle fabrication cost per tonne of mass transported to Mars.

SpaceX tentative calendar for Mars missions

SpaceX plans to fly its earliest missions to Mars using its Falcon Heavy launch vehicle prior to the completion, and first launch, of any ITS vehicle. Later missions utilizing ITS technology—the ITS launch vehicle and Interplanetary Spaceship with on-orbit propellant refill via ITS tanker—would begin no earlier than 2022. The company is planning for launches of research spacecraft to Mars using Falcon Heavy launch vehicles and specialized modified Dragon spacecraft. Due to planetary alignment in the inner Solar System, the launches are typically limited to a window of approximately every 26 months. As of June 2016, the first launch is planned for 2018, with an announced intent to launch again in every Mars launch window thereafter. The early missions will collect essential data to refine the design of the ITS, and better select landing locations based on data regarding the availability of a variety of extraterrestrial resources such as water and building materials.[6]

As of September 2016, the tentative mission manifest includes two Falcon Heavy missions to Mars prior to the first possible flight of an ITS to Mars in 2022:[6]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Berger, Eric (2016-09-18). "Elon Musk scales up his ambitions, considering going "well beyond" Mars". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  2. 1 2 Belluscio, Alejandro G. (2014-03-07). "SpaceX advances drive for Mars rocket via Raptor power". NASAspaceflight.com. Retrieved 2014-03-07.
  3. ↑ Chang, Kenneth (27 September 2016). "Elon Musk's Plan: Get Humans to Mars, and Beyond". New York Times. Retrieved 27 September 2016.
  4. ↑ "Elon Musk Expected to Detail SpaceX's Mars Ambitions". ABC News. 2016-09-27. Retrieved 2016-09-27. [Musk is] hoping for the first mission to Mars to take place around 2025.
  5. 1 2 3 Davenport, Christian (2016-06-13). "Elon Musk provides new details on his 'mind blowing' mission to Mars". Washington Post. Retrieved 2016-06-14.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Boyle, Alan (2016-06-10). "SpaceX's Elon Musk teases 'dangerous' plan to colonize Mars starting in 2024". GeekWire. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
  7. 1 2 2016 StartmeupHK Venture Forum - Elon Musk on Entrepreneurship and Innovation. StartmeupHK Venture Forum--2016. via InvestHK YouTube channel: Invest Hong Kong. 26 January 2016. Retrieved 28 January 2016. (SpaceX discussion at 30:15-31:40) We'll have the next generation rocket and spacecraft, beyond the Falcon and Dragon series ... I'm hoping to describe that architecture later this year at the International Astronautical Congress. which is the big international space event every year. ... first flights to Mars? we're hoping to do that in around 2025 ... nine years from now or thereabouts.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Berger, Eric (2016-09-28). "Musk's Mars moment: Audacity, madness, brilliance—or maybe all three". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Foust, Jeff (2016-10-10). "Can Elon Musk get to Mars?". SpaceNews. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Richardson, Derek (2016-09-27). "Elon Musk Shows Off Interplanetary Transport System". Spaceflight Insider. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  11. ↑ Hoffman, Carl (2007-05-22). "Elon Musk Is Betting His Fortune on a Mission Beyond Earth's Orbit". Wired Magazine. Retrieved 2014-03-14.
  12. 1 2 "Elon Musk: I'll Put a Man on Mars in 10 Years". Market Watch. New York: The Wall Street Journal. 2011-04-22. Archived from the original on 2011-12-01. Retrieved 2011-12-01.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Huge Mars Colony Eyed by SpaceX Founder". Discovery News. 2012-12-13. Retrieved 2014-03-14.
  14. 1 2 Foust, Jeff (2016-09-27). "SpaceX's Mars plans call for massive 42-engine reusable rocket". SpaceNews. Retrieved 2016-10-14. Musk stated it’s possible that the first spaceship would be ready for tests in four years, with the booster ready a few years after that, but he shied away from exact schedules in his presentation. 'We’re kind of being intentionally fuzzy about the timeline,' he said. 'We’re going to try and make as much progress as we can with a very constrained budget.'
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  17. ↑ Zach Rosenberg (15 Oct 2012). "SpaceX aims big with massive new rocket". Flight Global. Retrieved 2015-10-28.
  18. ↑ Coppinger, Rod (2012-11-23). "Huge Mars Colony Eyed by SpaceX Founder Elon Musk". Space.com. Retrieved 2013-06-10. an evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster ... much bigger [than Falcon 9], but I don’t think we’re quite ready to state the payload. We’ll speak about that next year. ... Vertical landing is an extremely important breakthrough — extreme, rapid reusability.
  19. ↑ Schaefer, Steve (2013-06-06). "SpaceX IPO Cleared For Launch? Elon Musk Says Hold Your Horses". Forbes. Retrieved 2013-06-10.
  20. ↑ Ciaccia, Chris (2013-06-06). "SpaceX IPO: 'Possible in the Very Long Term'". The Street. Retrieved 2013-06-10.
  21. ↑ Boyle, Alan (5 January 2015). "Coming Soon From SpaceX's Elon Musk: How to Move to Mars". NBC News. Retrieved 8 January 2015. The Mars transport system will be a completely new architecture. Am hoping to present that towards the end of this year. Good thing we didn't do it sooner, as we have learned a huge amount from Falcon and Dragon.
  22. ↑ Bergin, Chris (2014-08-29). "Battle of the Heavyweight Rockets -- SLS could face Exploration Class rival". NASAspaceflight.com. Retrieved 2014-08-30.
  23. 1 2 Heath, Chris (December 12, 2015). "How Elon Musk Plans on Reinventing the World (and Mars)". GQ. Retrieved December 12, 2015.
  24. ↑ http://www.iac2016.org/, accessed 28 January 2016.
  25. ↑ Boyle, Alan (2016-01-27). "SpaceX's Elon Musk wants to go into space by 2021 and start Mars missions by 2025". GeekWire. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  26. 1 2 3 Elon Musk (27 September 2016). Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species (video). IAC67, Guadalajara, Mexico: SpaceX. Event occurs at 9:20–10:10. Retrieved 10 October 2016. So it is a bit tricky. Because we have to figure out how to improve the cost of the trips to Mars by five million percent ... translates to an improvement of approximately 4 1/2 orders of magnitude. These are the key elements that are needed in order to achieve a 4 1/2 order of magnitude improvement. Most of the improvement would come from full reusability—somewhere between 2 and 2 1/2 orders of magnitude—and then the other 2 orders of magnitude would come from refilling in orbit, propellant production on Mars, and choosing the right propellant.
  27. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species" (PDF). SpaceX. 2016-09-27. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-09-28. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
  28. ↑ This Is How SpaceX Will Explore Mars and Beyond, Seeker, 27 Sep 2016.
  29. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Bergin, Chris (2016-09-27). "SpaceX reveals ITS Mars game changer via colonization plan". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  30. 1 2 Bergin, Chris (2015-05-11). "Falcon Heavy enabler for Dragon Solar System explorer". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 12 May 2015.
  31. 1 2 3 "Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species, (full webcast)". SpaceX. 27 September 2016 – via YouTube.
  32. 1 2 3 4 5 Boyle, Alan (2016-10-23). "SpaceX's Elon Musk geeks out over Mars interplanetary transport plan on Reddit". GeekWire. Retrieved 2016-10-24.
  33. ↑ YouTube. youtube.com. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  34. ↑ Belluscio, Alejandro G. (2016-10-03). "ITS Propulsion – The evolution of the SpaceX Raptor engine". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  35. ↑ Gwynne Shotwell (2014-03-21). Broadcast 2212: Special Edition, interview with Gwynne Shotwell (audio file). The Space Show. Event occurs at 20:00–21:10 and 22:15–22:35. 2212. Archived from the original (mp3) on 2014-03-22. Retrieved 2014-03-22.
  36. ↑ Solomon, Dan (2014-09-23). "SpaceX Plans To Send People From Brownsville To Mars In Order To Save Mankind". TexasMonthly. Retrieved 2014-09-24.
  37. ↑ Gwynne Shotwell (2014-03-21). Broadcast 2212: Special Edition, interview with Gwynne Shotwell (audio file). The Space Show. Event occurs at 29:45–30:40. 2212. Archived from the original (mp3) on 2014-03-22. Retrieved 2014-03-22. would have to throw a bunch of stuff before you start putting people there. ... It is a transportation system between Earth and Mars.
  38. ↑ Ross Andersen (30 September 2014). "Elon Musk puts his case for a multi-planet civilisat...". Aeon. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  39. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Boyle, Alan (2016-09-27). "SpaceX's Elon Musk makes the big pitch for his decades-long plan to colonize Mars". GeekWire. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
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  41. ↑ "Marcia Smith on Twitter".
  42. ↑ "I am Elon Musk, ask me anything about becoming a spacefaring civilization". Reddit. 23 October 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2016. First crewed mission would have about a dozen people ...
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