Elon Musk has unveiled the latest iteration of his space company’s newly assembled Starship, outlining a speedy development timeline for the centerpiece vehicle of SpaceX’s quest to launch humans to the moon and Mars.
He spoke from a stage clad in a shiny metal fuselage. The craft is intended for reusable space missions where it will launch, take people to Mars, the Moon, or anywhere else in the solar system they need to go, and then land back on Earth.
The new version of Starship (and its Super Heavy booster) will be able to carry up to 100 people at a time, stand 387 feet (118 meters) tall, and be completely reusable, with quick turnarounds. This is the rocket that will launch billionaire Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa and a handful of artists on a trip around the moon in the 2020s.
“This is, I think, the most inspiring thing I have ever seen,” Musk told a crowd of about 200 SpaceX employees, guests, and reporters at the company’s site near Boca Chica Village, which is located just outside of Brownsville, Texas.
“What an incredible job by such a great team to build this incredible vehicle. I’m so proud to work with such a great team.”
Musk says this reusability is essential in order to increase humanity’s presence outside of Earth. The ship, he explains, is scheduled to take its maiden flight in about one or two months and reach 65,000 feet (19,800 meters) before landing back on Earth. Musk also adds that it’s important for humanity to work and extend consciousness beyond our planet — a nice way of saying ‘colonize space’.
“Starship will allow us to inhabit other worlds,” Musk wrote on Twitter Friday, Sept. 27.
“To make life as we know it interplanetary.”
