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SpaceX could send human beings to the moon's surface in just five years, said founder Elon Musk on Tuesday. The company's future spacecraft, being developed at the company's testing site in Boca Chica, Texas, is designed to send the first humans to the surface of Mars. Musk thinks it is possible for the same ship to welcome the return of the nearest neighbor to Earth.
"I think so," musk wrote on Twitter in response to a question from an account called "Everyday Astronaut". "Definitely, it's worth giving our best shot! It would be great to have a competitive trading program to build a results-based (not cost-based) lunar base, so you're only paid for safe freight delivery. "
The question was asked in a thread about Mike Pence's statement that the United States send humans to the moon in five years. At the fifth meeting of the National Space Council at the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., Tuesday, Pence said that "America will again amaze the world with the heights we reach. , the wonders we achieve and we will lead the world of human space exploration once again. "
"It would be so inspiring for humanity to see humanity return to the moon!" Wrote Musk.
The last time a man stepped on the moon, it was in 1972. A return trip was an important goal for President Trump, who signed a directive in December 2017 calling for a back to the moon and eventually to Mars. NASA's space launch system, launched in 2010 as a project for both the return to the moon and more ambitious missions such as Mars, has been delayed, but its first launch is currently scheduled for June 2020 The initial configuration of "Block 1" 322 feet in height and weighs 5.75 million pounds, delivering 26 metric tons to places beyond the moon. The planned configuration of "Block 2" will send 45 tons in deep space with 11.9 million pounds of weight.
Like the SLS, the SpaceX spacecraft is designed to cover a multitude of missions. Its initial design, the BFR unveiled in September 2017, was 34 meters high and weighed 9.7 million pounds. It also produces 11.9 million pounds, sending 100 tons of payload in low Earth orbit. Musk has since refined the design in one Tintin– Inspired stainless steel version.
The company has built in Texas a miniature version of the "hopper", which should soon take off, in front of an orbital prototype planned for 2020. From there, it is planned to send the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and a team from six to eight artists. a tour of the moon in 2023. The first flights on Mars could take place as early as 2024.
The cost-plus contracts, which Musk dismissed in his tweet, have been criticized by proponents of the private spaceflight industry. Rick Tumlinson, founder of the venture capital firm SpaceFund, is mocked at this practice during an interview with reverse because it allows government entrepreneurs to get more profits
"If you, the government, want the contractor to build me a flashlight, I can charge you 10% of what it cost me to develop. Why should I sell you 10 dollars and keep 1 dollar when I can charge you 1 million and keep $ 100,000? Tumlinson said.
NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine assured Pence of returning to the moon, saying the team would do everything in its power to achieve this goal. Experts are a little more skeptical about the SLS's ability to take up the challenge.
"I'll be amazed if that happens," said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Time. McDowell cited internal political budget conflicts at NASA as a stumbling block, but even without these disputes, it would be a tight deadline.
Of course, the next team to visit the Moon may not be NASA or SpaceX. At a Morgan Stanley event in New York in December 2018, 10 of the 12 representatives of the space industry predicted that China would be the next country to visit the moon.
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