Elon Musk scales up his ambitions, considering going “well beyond” Mars, Ars Technica
“Musk dropped a surprise on Twitter. The workhorse spacecraft that will carry approximately 100 tons of cargo or 100 people to the surface of Mars, which until now has been popularly known as the Mars Colonial Transporter, can’t be called that, Musk said. “Turns out MCT can go well beyond Mars, so will need a new name…” he tweeted on Friday evening. By Saturday evening he had a new name dubbing the spacecraft the “Interplanetary Transport System,” or ITS.”
Mars and beyond: Elon Musk teases his plans for interplanetary travel, Wired
“So far, Musk has only teased details of planned missions to Mars: both manned and unmanned. The first unmanned probe from SpaceX will be sent to the planet “as soon as 2018,” it was said in June. Musk added that probes would be launched by SpaceX every two years, before humans are landed on the planet in 2025.”
We’ve already seen how much can happen in a decade when commercial companies get involved.
And when they are standing on the shoulders of a giant, one should add.
I am not surprised. A spaceship with such a large capability would be able to reach many destinations in the Solar System,especially if it is able to trade off payload for fuel.
It’s good thinking on Musk’s part, although also typical Musk – jumping on to the next thing while you’re still working out issues with the existing thing.
What a proper interplanetary ship looks like 🙂
http://vignette2.wikia.noco…
The orientation of that dish always bothered me because I wondered just how often the line to Earth/Luna would in fact be parallel to the ship’s vector. Not so often.
/buzz kill.
Hal was right, the AE-35 unit was faulty so the satellite dish reset to it’s default setting. See above picture.
You sir are a steely eyed missle man….love it
I am very hopeful about this concept. It is where we should be in the 2020s….we should not still be flying in tin cans from the 60s