Featured Image Source: Everyday Astronaut via YouTube

SpaceX founder Elon Musk is racing against time to develop the Starship spacecraft that could enable humans to become a multiplanet species. For over a decade, Musk has invested his time and assets to develop technologically advanced rockets that are partially reusable and capable of safely launching astronauts to space. The aerospace company is already in the history books for returning human spaceflight capabilities to the United States in 2020, when a Falcon 9 launched NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft. Though, Musk does not want to settle in low Earth orbit, his end goal is to create an exciting future where humans can have the option of living on Mars if they choose to. Building a permanent city on the Red Planet can give our species a chance of survival if a mass extinction level event were to threaten all life on Earth. Musk has said on multiple occasions that “Starship is key to preserve the light of consciousness.”

SpaceX works around-the-clock to develop its next-generation launch system. Starship will be fully reusable and capable of launching tons of cargo to the Martian surface. SpaceX is significantly speeding up the spacecraft’s development progress this year at its Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. Teams are already preparing the first full-stack Super Heavy-Starship duo that will perform an orbital flight test. This past week, they stacked Starship SN20 atop Super Heavy Booster 4 for the first time during a fit test.

Starship on the orbital launch pad pic.twitter.com/7p02cgNnUA

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 6, 2021

Musk gave an exclusive tour of the Starbase facility to Tim Dodd, who is a space communicator best known as Everyday Astronaut on YouTube. Dodd created a three part video series of the Starbase tour. On August 11, he released Part 3 of the video series in which he interviews Elon Musk at SpaceX’s Starship launchpad. During the interview, Musk talked about the importance of innovating rapidly. “[…] If we operate with extreme urgency we have a chance of making life multi-planetary,” Musk said, “It’s still just a chance, not for sure. If we don’t act with extreme urgency, that chance is probably zero.” The Director of Starship Operations, Shyamal Patel, shares Musk’s sentiment –“I tell the crane operators ‘what would you do if there was an asteroid heading to this planet in eight days?'” Patel said.

“The rate of innovation is not going to be constant, its either going to increase … or its going to slow down. […] We were able to go to the moon in [19]69, then with the Space Shuttle … to low Earth orbit, then the Space Shuttle retired,” Musk said, noting that America had no access to launch astronauts in roughly a decade until SpaceX launched NASA crews in 2020. He said the rate of innovation must increase “in order to have any chance to make life multiplanetary, so that’s the reason for the extreme sense of urgency,” he stated. “…I mean, I’ll be long-dead before, you know, Mars is self-sustaining. Hopefully, the momentum is strong in that direction by the time I die,” he added. Everyday Astronaut asked if he would like to send a message to all the people excited about SpaceX’s Starship program: “I think it’s cool that people are getting excited about rockets and kinda’ finding out… how the rockets work and thinking maybe about life becoming multiplanetary and being a spacefaring civilization… it makes the future inspiring,” Musk said. “[…] Hope this gives people confidence about the future and that humanity will have an exciting future in space. We can make science fiction, not always fiction but a reality one day.”  Learn about Everyday Astronaut and his video series in our previous Tesmanian articles. You can watch Part 3 Starbase tour with Elon Musk in the 20-minute video, linked below. Read more: Everyday Astronaut Releases Second Video Of SpaceX Starbase Facility Tour With Elon Musk

VIDEO: Everyday Astronaut Starbase Launchpad Tour With Elon Musk

PART 3 IS LIVE!!! Walk around the Starbase launchpad with @elonmusk and I as we discuss the future of Starbase, the ocean launch platforms, and humanity as a whole! This one is fascinating!!! Thanks for showing me around Elon, can't wait to do it again! - https://t.co/OjvlCUll0B

— Everyday Astronaut (@Erdayastronaut) August 11, 2021

Everyday Astronaut Releases Second Video Of SpaceX Starbase Facility Tour With Elon Musk

by @JaneidyEve via @Tesmanian_comhttps://t.co/Qy5FMqAlCs

— Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo (@JaneidyEve) August 8, 2021

Yup

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 11, 2021

Featured Image Source: Everyday Astronaut via YouTube