A mission to Mars with a crew may happen sooner than you think.
Astronauts are likely to reach the surface of the Red Planet before the end of 2020. SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwyn Shotwell recently told CNBC’s Shepard Smith.
“I think it will be this decade, yes. People The moonearlier, “Shotwell said in a short interview that you can watch here.
“I think we need to make a big delivery to the surface Marsand then people will start thinking harder about it, “she added.” And then, I think in five or six years, people will see that this is going to be a real place to go. “
Related: How life on Mars can challenge the colonists (infographic)
SpaceX, of course, strives to be the one to turn this ambitious vision into reality. The company is developing a huge combo rocket-spacecraft for multiple use, called Star ship to take people and payloads to the moon, Mars and beyond.
Starship already has several lunar missions. In 2018, for example, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa booked a vehicle for a lunar trip with a target launch date of 2023. And NASA chose Starship to be the first moon landing crew for its Artemis programwhich plans to shoot down astronauts near the moon’s south pole in 2025.
NASA sees Artemis as a program from the moon to Mars and plans to launch a mission to the Red Planet with a crew in 2040 or so – about a decade later than Shotwell sees boots crunch in red dirt for the first time.
SpaceX is at a major stage in the development of Starship, the company’s first orbital test flight that the company wants to launch from its South Texas facility called Starbase in the near future. However, this launch cannot happen until the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has completed an environmental assessment of Starbase activities.
Initially, this review was supposed to be done by the end of 2021, but the FAA has postponed its completion several times, last until May 31.
Shotwell’s interview with Smith was part of Inspirational America: The Inspiration List for 2022, a program that will air this weekend on NBCUniversal News Groups’ television and streaming networks. Learn more about Inspirational America and how to watch it here.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow it on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.
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