SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Sunday envisioned a permanently occupied base on the Moon, 55 years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the natural satellite.
What Happened: “We should create a permanently occupied moonbase,” Musk wrote on X in response to users commemorating the 55th anniversary of humans walking on the Moon for the very first time as part of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission.
“And now it is time for America to reach far greater heights by sending astronauts to Mars!,” Musk wrote in another post, reiterating his dream of landing humans on Mars with the help of his company SpaceX. “Ultimately, anyone who wants to be a space traveler and help build a new civilization on Mars should be able to do so.”
55 Years Ago…: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were the three Apollo 11 astronauts. A Saturn V rocket took them to space on July 16, 1969. Four days later, Armstrong became the first human to walk on Earth, followed by Aldrin. Collins didn’t walk on the moon, instead staying aboard the command module Columbia.
More astronauts went to the moon later as part of Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 missions. The last crewed lunar mission occurred in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.
Musk’s Role In Moon Travel: NASA is currently relying on the success of SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle to land humans back on the moon as part of its Artemis program. A lander version of the Starship is expected to land astronauts on the Moon no earlier than September 2026 as part of Artemis 3.
Starship, however, is still under development. During the latest test flight in June, the two stages of the vehicle- the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy booster- separated and the booster subsequently had a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
The spacecraft ignited its engines and went on to space, made a controlled re-entry to Earth, and had a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The entire flight lasted one hour and six minutes from launch.
The key objective of the flight was to re-enter Earth and the mission achieved it. However, it lost many hexagonal heat-shield tiles designed to protect against the extreme heat of reentry to Earth’s atmosphere in the process.
SpaceX is expected to have at least six flights of the Starship this year, as per CEO Elon Musk‘s latest estimate from March.
Earlier this month, Musk pegged the fifth flight of Starship for around Aug. 2. For the upcoming flight, the goal is to catch the booster back at Starbase using the launch tower's mechanical arms, marking a significant demonstration of Starship’s reusability.
Check out more of Benzinga’s Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.
Read More:
Image generated using Midjourney, using official SpaceX photos via Flickr
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Comments
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
