Elon Musk is being interviewed by the Space Studies Board.
Talks first about the SpaceX Super Heavy Starship. He expects the first orbital flight will be January 2022. This will be the largest rocket ever made. The first launch may not be fully successful but they have made factories to make many of the rockets. SpaceX will learn a lot as they launch.
The SpaceX Super Heavy Starship will be fully reusable and will reduce the cost to launch by 100 times.
Elon says that we will need at least one thousand SpaceX Super Heavy Starships to make humanity multi-planetary.
Elon wants moon research stations similar to the Antarctica research stations. There are about 1000 people stationed in Antarctica.
The SpaceX Super Heavy Starship has been 90% internally funded.
Elon talks about the drop in price and other benefits of going to steel instead of carbon fiber.
The steel is $4 to $4.50 per kilogram.
Easy to repair.
Elon was asked about radiation protection for crews.
For the moon, check the solar storm weather report for scheduling the short trip. On the moon use regolith to protect crews.
More mass and protection will be need for the Mars trip. Nextbigfuture notes that the larger Starship which has more volume than the International Space Station can use more water and food and gear around small sleeping quarters to use mass to protect against radiation.
Elon thinks it will be about two years before SpaceX Super Heavy Starship will start having launch costs per kilogram at 5-10 times less cost than Falcon 9.
SpaceX is working to reduce the astronomy impact of Starlink. They are working closely with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, previously referred to as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. They believe they have mitigated Starlink impacts for Vera Rubin.
Elon talks about orbital refueling. He is confident that they can make it work.
SOURCES- Space Studies Board
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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