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The smile that Elon Musk carried during Donald Trump’s inaugural speech was extended even more when the president promised that the Americans “would plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars.” Colonizing the red planet on the road to the creation of “a spatial civilization” has long been one of Musk’s management ambitions, and a main motivation for its Spacex building in the world’s most successful space company.
Triumph He is not the first president to proclaim an ambition to land astronauts on Mars, but, with the dedicated support of the world champion Rocketeer and the richest person, he has more chances of success than his predecessors. Some might consider spending $ 1TN establishing a Martian base as arrogant waste when so much fixation is needed on our own planet. However, the proposal is more popular than many of Trump’s other enthusiasm. TO Yougov survey in 2023 He found 57 percent of Americans supporting astronauts to Mars, with only 19 percent opposite.
Musk He has become such a polarizing character that his Mars defense program can also appear to his detractors in a gigantic vanity project. However, its history with Tesla and Spacex has demonstrated an exceptional ability to achieve ambitious Technological feats. Putting humans on another planet would be very inspiring for people not only in the United States but throughout the world. Remember the wave of enthusiasm for science and technology, particularly among young people, after Apollo Moon landings.
The US space agency. NASA is focusing the future of human space flight in astronauts that return To the moon Through the Artemis program initiated by the previous administration of Trump in 2017. The first manned landing is expected in 2027. In contrast, Musk philosophy expressed in X is recently: “We go directly to Mars. The Moon is a distraction.”
Musk engineering The reputation is based in part on its determination to eliminate unnecessary steps and take the teams without rest towards a final goal. Here, however, a less radical approach could be wiser. In order for the new administration to cancel the key elements of Artemis, such as the Orion crew capsule, it would be a waste of approximately $ 100 billion assigned to the NASA program and partners such as the European Space Agency. The valuable learning that could make Mars’s missions more attainable would be lost.
Even if Musk’s associate, Jared Isaacman, nominated by Trump to lead NASA, tries to redirect the resources of the moon to Mars, the congress can stop it. Many members of both parties are committed to the focus of the first moon, especially since abandoning it would leave open -linan real estate assets for China to explode. Ideally, Musk would lend his experience and the immense power of the Spacex rockets to make the moon a successful springboard to its goal.
Pioneer travelers to Mars will have to undergo an extremely rigorous selection process, since the nine -month trip to the Red Planet in the Musk spacecraft will exercise great tension in the minds and bodies. Even with a good armor, cosmic radiation and exposure extended to low gravity will accelerate the aging of the kidneys to the brain. Mental health could suffer prolonged confinement with other astronauts.
Musk said a few years ago: “I would like to die on Mars. It simply not on the impact. “Some of their critics could be happy to see the controversial multimillionaire license on the first flight, although it is not clear that it would meet the demanding mental and physical requirements for the trip. But it can have power, wealth And the determination to make it happen to others, and, as he sees, to give humanity a future beyond the earth while inspiring innovation and motivation in terra signature on the road.