Elon Musk says SpaceX Starship will have a common area for entertainment

Featured Image Source: Sam Taylor

SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Elon Musk, is working hard towards enabling humans to become a spacefaring civilization. Currently, SpaceX engineers are in the initial phase of developing Starship, a massive spaceship-rocket duo that will one day be capable of transporting 100 passengers to the moon and Mars. A Japanese entrepreneur, Yusaku Maezawa, is funding SpaceX's Starship development. He will be the first Starship passenger that will go on a voyage around the moon, and envisions transforming his first space tour into an art project, known as "Dear Moon." Maezawa has not announced what artists will receive an invite but he would like them to represent a variety of art fields, such as painters, film directors, musicians, designers and more. He was inspired to create the Dear Moon project when he found himself imagining what his favorite artists would have created if they had traveled to space, he said:

"What if Picasso had gone to the Moon? Or Andy Warhol or Michael Jackson or John Lennon? What about Coco Chanel? These are all artists that I adore."

The space tour is planned for the year 2023, it would last approximately one week. Starship will not land on the lunar surface, instead the craft will fly on a circumlunar trajectory (around the moon) travelling 238,900 miles away from Earth.

Musk shared a beautiful photograph of a musician playing violin floating in zero gravity with a view of Earth out a large window, via Twitter "Starship Concerto in Zero G," he wrote.

Starship Concerto in Zero G pic.twitter.com/gkn05I1bvZ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2020

A voyage towards the moon would only take a couple of days, but Mars arrival would take about 6 to 8 months, so, space travelers would have to find ways to keep themselves entertained during long-duration voyages. Starship passengers will have different rooms aboard, Musk said that the craft will also have a "common area" and that the area where all passengers can hangout would feature a large window with amazing view of space. That area can be used for entertainment, passengers could hangout there to hangout to do different activities, one could be enjoying a concert in zero gravity, like the photograph Musk shared suggests. Performing in a concert inside a spaceship with planet Earth as a backdrop would be a beautiful experience, that idea truly inspires the dreamer within all of us.

A Twitter user asked Musk, "Will starship really have these large windows?" (referring to the windows shown in the photograph above) "Wouldn’t it be a structural hazard and let in solar radiation?" He responded:

"There will be a common area in the forward section with a big window like this. It will be a lot heavier than steel, but not dangerous. Consider astronauts on the moon with a very thin windowed helmet. They were fine."

There will be a common area in the forward section with a big window like this. It will be a lot heavier than steel, but not dangerous. Consider astronauts on the moon with a very thin windowed helmet. They were fine.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2020

Musk described Starship's large pressurized cabin space as measuring more than 1,000 cubic meters. For perspective, that is larger than an Airbus A380 airplane which can seat between 400 and 600 passengers aboard. He also shared that Starship's passenger rooms, the sleeping quarters, will have the capability to host 2 or 3 people comfortably.

SpaceX is in the process of building the first flight prototype of Starship referred to as SN1. Starship SN1 is under construction at SpaceX's South Texas facility in Boca Chica beach. The flight vehicle is made of stainless-steel, it will be the first craft to perform high-altitude test flights. The first launch of 20 kilometers will take place sometime after March 16. The company is rapidly making progress in the construction of the craft, they are also building a Starship production facility that includes a massive Vehicle Assembly Building and setting up many tents to build multiple spacecrafts simultaneously. Read more: SpaceX is rapidly building Starship SN1 and a Vehicle Assembly Building at Boca Chica.