Hopeless dreamer , or a true visionary ? SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk can rive opinions at times , and perhaps no more so than with his ultimate destination – tocolonize Mars .
Musk has long hinted at something ring the Mars Colonial Transporter ( MCT ) . This is supposedly a plan to take 100 people to Mars , and set up the first dependency there . On September 27 at the International Aeronautical Congress in Guadalajara , Mexico , Musk is going toreveal more detailsabout this plan . SpaceX will be host a live stream of the talk at 2.30pm EDT ( 7.30pm BST ) righthere .
But there ’s a twist in the story . Musk order the MCT is not limit to just go to Mars . “ Turns out MCT can go well beyond Mars , so will need a new name … ” he tweet on Friday .
There were a telephone number of proposed suggestions that Musk seemed to care , include Ultimate Mars Ship II , Heart of Gold ( from theHitchhiker ’s Guide To The Galaxy ) , and Millennium , perhaps in seam with the Falcon naming system used on SpaceX ’s current rockets . Musk said the latter name might be an option for the rocket booster itself to launch the whole thing .
In the ending , he appeared to pluck for something a bit simpler : The Interplanetary Transport System ( ITS ) . Now , of course , we still do n’t know any concrete details about the MCT , much less so the ITS . But one could speculate that Musk may have his on optic on other likely public for settlement .
Jupiter ’s moon Europa , for example , might be a candidate . While its control surface is bathe in deadly actinotherapy , under its icy crust we think there is avast oceanthat could be fed heat by hydrothermal vents at the sea trading floor . Saturn ’s moon Titan , meanwhile , has a thick atmosphere and a climate systemnot totally dissimilarto our own . It ’s also the only position other than Earth with bodies of liquid on its surface – albeit lake of liquid hydrocarbons rather than water .
And Venus , too , a little close to home , is worthtaking a expression at . While its surface temperature is hot enough to melt jumper lead , there ’s a region of the atmosphere 50 kilometers ( 30 mile ) above the earth where the temperature and strain pressure sensation mimic that on Earth – which has often been gas as a destination for a float colony .
Whatever Musk has got up his arm , we ’ll be waiting eagerly to hear what he ’s got to say next week .
