Starship elon musk

Space enthusiasts look at a prototype of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft at the company’s Texas launch facility on 28 September 2019 in Boca Chica near Brownsville, Texas. The Starship spacecraft is a massive vehicle meant to take people to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Photo: AFP/Loren Elliott

Watch: A glimpse into Elon Musk and SpaceX’s Starship prototype [video]

Elon Musk shares a peek inside the famed Starship prototype, days after delivering a presentation in front of the newly-assembled spacecraft.

Starship elon musk

Space enthusiasts look at a prototype of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft at the company’s Texas launch facility on 28 September 2019 in Boca Chica near Brownsville, Texas. The Starship spacecraft is a massive vehicle meant to take people to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Photo: AFP/Loren Elliott

Just days after Elon Musk gave an update on the Starship spacecraft at SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch site in Texas, and get a glimpse of the craft’s interior.

At the time, Musk shared several photos on Twitter, captioning it “Starship halves being joined”, and later: “Starship will allow us to inhabit other worlds. To make life as we know it multiplanetary”.

The Starship that will take humanity to Mars

Musk later shared a 10-second video clip, describing that it’s the inside of the Starship cargo bay. He added that the cargo bay is “a whopping 30 feet (or nine metres) wide”. Musk explained:

“Header tanks mounted in tip of nosecone to offset engine weight at rear. Production version will be a lot more polished than this prototype, but still fun to see”.

The video can be viewed below. One user asked if Musk intends to “keep the centre-of-mass enough so the rocket is stable?” Musk replied: “Bigger flaps/fins at rear also moves center of pressure back”.

Harry Stolz wanted to know: “With all the new technologies and challenges being addressed with Starship, and future missions to Mars, what kinds of trickle-down technologies could you see impacting people here on earth?”

Musk explained that by solving the Mars climate problem, “we will learn a great deal about how to do so on Earth,” saying it is “the inverse problem.”

Starship MK1’s test flight

The MK1 will have three next-gen Raptor engines, designed by SpaceX. The Starship MK1’s predecessor, the Starhopper, only had one and the final Starship will have six Raptor engines.

If you think that’s impressive, the Super Heavy rocket will have space for 37! Musk explained that at least 31 of those engine slots will “probably be filled on each launch of the huge booster”.

If all goes according to the plan, the MK1 will make its first flight soon; probably towards the end of October or during November.

SpaceX will attempt to launch the prototype on an uncrewed, 20-kilometre-high jaunt into the skies above SpaceX’s South Texas facility.

Musk is still determined to send humans to Mars as soon as 2023; the Starship is the vehicle that will make it possible. Here’s to a successful test flight, Starship MK1.

Will Musk get to the Moon (and Mars) first?

The race for Mars is on: Jeff Bezos is working on Blue Origin; while Relativity Space is developing its Stargate Factory. No, Stargate fans, not that type of Stargate.

I’ll admit, being an ardent fan of the show – I have the tattoos to prove it. My heart skipped a bit when I stumbled upon this piece of information. No, Stargate Factory is described as:

“A template for the future of aerospace manufacturing and provides Relativity’s commercial customers, and eventually humanity, a faster, more reliable, and lower cost way to shuttle important resources from earth to outer space.”

Well, that’s about as close to the Stargate as we’re ever going to get, I assume.

Watch: The inside of Starship MK1