Elon musk mars city by 2050.

 

Elon musk mars city by 2050.

From the mission to Mars, to what it would be like to have it filled with people, join me as we talk about the Elon Musk Mars City By 2050! Elon Musk is a man on a mission, and that mission is to get humanity not just to Mars, but to get them to Mars in this decade.

 

This is why he built his own space organization in SpaceX, to do what NASA (at the time) couldn't do, inspire the need to be in space again. And he has succeeded, and now, SpaceX is not only one of the leading places in all space travel designs and plans, but they are indeed looking to be the group to send a person to Mars.

 But the plans go beyond that, he doesn't just want to land a person on the surface of Mars and say he's done (which is what we did with the moon if you really think about it), but he wants to set up a colony there.

 

Surely you must be thinking,

"well a colony would be nice, but that'll take some time to get up and running, right?"

And you're absolutely right. It will take a lot of time and effort, but some of the work is already being done because of SpaceX via their Star ship. You see, the biggest problem with getting to Mars...is getting to Mars.

 

We for the longest time barely had something that could get us to the moon and back safely, and even then (like Apollo 13) it was very easy to screw up. With SpaceX though, they've been working on faster, stronger, and most importantly of all, reusable craft that can operate in space, come back to Earth, and then be outfitted again for future missions.

 

 And it's this Star ship class of ship that we'd be taking to Mars to go and make a colony. Musk wrote in a message that the eventual goal for his "Mars plan" is to launch each Star ship vehicle three times per day on average. Each Star ship will be able to carry about100 tons of payload to orbit, so, at that flight rate, every vehicle would loft about100,000 tons annually,

 

He explained.

Now, Musk may sound like he's just spouting out a number here (and if we're being honest...he kind of is) but in truth, he is trying to abide by the laws of space and reality. What do we mean by that? Simple, when it comes to the facts of space travel, having the right windows to travel in are essential. Not the least of which is trying to minimize travel time by making sure you are in the correct windows. Confused? I'll explain.

 

Think about the solar system we are in, ok?

 Think about how every planet orbits around the sun. Now, if you were to look at Mercury, and its orbit, and then compare it to Earth's orbit, you would see quite easily that its orbit was shorter than Earths by a very good margins. 88 days compared to 365. So now, compare the Earth's orbit around the sun to Mars. 365 days...to 867 days. Yeah...that's quite a leap.

 

 And because of that, the Earth and Mars aren't in the same alignment most times. Thus, Musk, NASA and others are aiming to try and get people to Mars within certain windows.

"Building 100 Star ships/year gets to 1000in 10 years or 100 megatons/year or maybe around 100k people per Earth-Mars orbital sync,"

 

he said in a tweet.

So for him, he's thinking REALLY long term by not just trying to get to Mars, but also trying to make it so WHEN we get there, and we have enough time and resources to make a true colony, we have the ships necessary to get a full colony made in a decent amount of time.

 

 By "decent amount of time" I mean about 50-100years. Yeah, this is not a quick process, however, the quicker we get started, the quicker we get done, right? And that's one of Musk's biggest goals. Trying to do things now instead of hoping something will develop later to make things more speedy. Because waiting around just isn't good when you're trying to shape the human race towards its future.

 

After hearing some of his numbers, he stated one fan asked if he was seriously stating that we could have a million people on Mars by 2050. His response? "Yes." Obviously that would go against his timeline we just spelled out in part because of how long it would take to MAKE a colony that could house a million people and be both functional and self-sustaining, but hey, goals! Before we talk about whether these goals are feasible or not, be sure to like the video or dislike it so that we can work to make these videos as best we can for you the viewer!

 Also, be sure to subscribe to the channel, that way you don't miss ANY of our weekly videos! So let's break this down, shall we? Could we really have a full-on colony city on Mars by 2050 that has a million or so people on it? Technically...yes.

 

 If EVERYTHING goes right and we're able to shorten the time gap on certain things, as well as catch a couple lucky breaks and all that. Obviously, the first hurdle is coming into focus: getting to Mars. Obviously none of this matters if we don't get to Mars.

The first mission is scheduled for the next few years if you believe Elon Musk. And obviously if the mission goes well it'd be a huge milestone for humankind, but that's just the beginning steps of it.

 

 If not apparently obvious, you can't send a large group of people to a planet we've never been to before to start colonizing it. You have to send a very small group of people, a handful at most. And that is indeed the plan. The goal is to have them on Mars by 2025 or maybe 2026 if there are delays in flight plans and such (which is probable given recent setbacks in the SpaceX program).

 

 Anyway, once the people are on Mars, they'll go to work setting up their base camp (via supplies and drop offs made by an unmanned mission the year before) and then start doing all sorts of tests on the Martian surface.

 

The intent, barring something unforeseen, is for them to remain on Mars for about 9 months, and when that time is up, they return to Earth for study and examination. Why?

Because since we've never been to Mars in the physical sense (not including probes, rovers, etc.) we have no true idea if the people living there will be affected by various forces that people like NASA or Elon Musk couldn't have predicted.

 

Hence why you send a small group of people to the surface of Mars and not a full colony right off. They'll be studied, monitored for a while, and then should everything go right, SpaceX and NASA would be given permission to start the colony preparations and the next steps in the mission. But this is where things get a bit tricky in and of themselves. Because let's look at this colonization in the large scale, shall we?

 At this point in time, let's be generous and say 2027 (the time where the astronauts likely will be back on Earth after their Mars mission),the only real things on Mars is a base for the original team, and possibly some other items depending on what Musk sent via the cargo ships. That's a LONG way from having a fully house colony, not to mention that to get to a population size of 1 million people...you'd need to make sure you can house, feed, and keep safe 1 million people. That's not as easy as people like to think it is.

 

 That's not to say it's impossible, we obviously know that it's not based just on Earth and how we've adapted to protect ourselves from various things, but to do it on Mars will be even harder. So what will it take to get to 1 million people on Mars by 2050? A lot of star ships, a lot of people, and a lot of quick building.

 

 Let's start with the basics, shall we? For the second Mars mission (aka the one after the first group comes back and proves that there's nothing overtly harmful about living on Mars outside of basic risks), more than likely a larger group will be sent to the planet to not just live there (possibly for a much longer term depending on the mission parameters ) but to lay the groundwork for the colony at large.

 

The first group that will be sent to Mars will very much be a science team and possibly an engineer or two to work on setting up power generators and maybe even solar panels. But for the most part, it'll be about studying Mars to setup the possibility of true colonization.

 

For round two, there will be a lot more people focused on the actual building of the colony, which is both very good and very problematic. After all...what are you going to build the colony out of? And just as important...where are you going to get the materials to build said colony? Exactly.

 

Now, both of these questions have many answers, but which ones will lend itself to the goal of the 2050 timetable for the colony? A few, very few in fact. Never forget that the reason we can do massive and breath taking buildings here on Earth is because resources are only a few hours or maybe even days away should we need them and plan ahead to get them.

 

For Mars, they don't have that option, or at least, not at first. Unlike Earth, we don't know what's exactly in the Martian soil. We have tests that show there are various minerals and rare-Earth metals we can use, but getting to them, refining them and making them useful for colony growth is a long process. So for the vast majority of time, we'll be relying on shipments from Earth to send us the materials that we need to build the Martin colony.

 

That's a very costly and time-consuming end eavor, and can totally through off the timetable should even a single shipment go wrong. And knowing how space travel and construction works...something will go wrong eventually. However, there is another option.

 One that is a little more creative and uses the resources at hand. There is a plan in place that could have various rovers (which would be shipped in via the Star ship cargo vessels that can carry a great deal of them at once) using 3D printing to help setup various homes for people using the natural soil and ground of Mars. How this will work exactly is a little abstract, but the idea of 3D printing things could work...in theory.

 

And if we're being honest, building the housing is just ONE of the main problems that the Mars colony has to deal with. Another major hurdle is food and water. We know there's water on Mars, that's been proven, and the SpaceX mission is even going to go to a place where water is so that it can be extracted much easier than having to go and search for a good water spot or hoping that there is water around.

 

 However, when it comes to food? We'll have to bring our own, and either get continuous shipments from Earth (which again is costly, time-consuming, and problematic ) or pull a Matt Damon (from his movie The Martian) and find a way to grow our own food. Which would be awesome...but problematic in its own right.

 

And while we could eventually create massive greenhouses to make our own crops on Mars, that process will take time to now just grow, but test to make sure they're safe for consumption, but it'll also take time to make it possible for it to feed 1 million people by 2050. Ask any farmer you know and expansion of crops and growth of plants isn't the easiest thing in the world.

 

But let's be fair here. Let's say, just for sake of argument, that we're able to get to Mars, have many successful missions, start setting up a home there, and get it to where we can have reliable power (more than likely via solar panels), consistent food and water, and more...

there's one final problem for Elon Musk to deal with. Mainly...can he really get 1 million people to go to Mars?

 I ask this honestly because it's a question that isn't really brought up all too often. Yes, many of us "dream" of being a multi-planet ary race...but dreaming that and doing that for real is two very different things. The colonization of Mars has to be a voluntary thing for all sorts of reasons. And while Elon Musk has noted that

“There will be a lot of jobs on Mars!”, that doesn't exactly answer what life will be like on Mars. Not in the "how will we survive?" kind of way, but rather the, "what will do every day?" kind of way. Think about it.

 

 We'll likely have power, sure, but for the first many years it's doubtful we'd have things like TV, internet, access to libraries and more. It'd be a lot like the early colony days of the United States. Lots of work and restrictions on where you can go and pass the time. Sure, by 2050 that could be remedied in part or in whole depending on technology, but to be a fully stocked, fully occupied, and

 fully operational city in all the forms that people want?

That's a bit of a reach, even for Elon Musk. Never forget that humanity loves being comfortable, we like to know what's a waiting for us at work, at home, with our families and more. While some people will happily jump at the chance to be on Mars, not everyone will. And to say that hundreds of thousands of people will happily jump onto Elon's ships to go and populate Mars every year or so? That might not be in the cards...

What did you think of this look at the goal of Elon Musk to populate a colony on Mars with a million people by 2050? Do you think that it'll happen? Would you want to live on Mars in its first colony?