On Friday, SpaceX launched its third crewed flight to the International Space Station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program that aims to conduct frequent crewed missions to space from American soil. SpaceX founder Elon Musk is happy to finally conduct routine astronaut flights to space but he does not want to settle with only launching astronauts to low Earth orbit, he envisions building a permanent base on the Moon and ultimately, building a city on Mars. In his grand vision taking astronauts to the Space Station and returning humankind to the lunar surface are only stepping stones towards becoming a multi-planetary species. Musk and his teams at SpaceX are in the process of developing a massive Starship that will one day be capable of carrying one hundred passengers to the Red Planet. “Starship is the key to making life multi-planetary and protecting the light of consciousness,” he said last year. “I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”

After SpaceX launched Crew-2 to orbit, Musk participated in a press conference with NASA officials in which he talked about the importance of achieving these ambitious goals. “It’s been now almost half a century since humans were last on the moon. That’s too long, we need to get back there and have a permanent base on the moon –again, like a big permanently occupied base on the moon. And then build a city on Mars to become a spacefaring civilization, a multi-planet species,” Musk said on Friday, video below. “We don’t want to be one of those single planet species, we want to be a multi-planet species.”

“We need to have a big permanently occupied base on the moon, and then build a city on Mars and become a spacefaring civilization. We don’t want to be one of those single planet species, we want to be a multi-planetary species.” — @ElonMusk pic.twitter.com/RvMPqb15kO

— Starman (@RealLifeStarman) April 23, 2021

Musk is “highly confident” that SpaceX will land humans on Mars by 2026. Before then, SpaceX aims to land NASA astronauts on the lunar surface in 2024. The Starship spacecraft is under development in South Texas where SpaceX is building the first ‘21st Century Spaceport’ that will operate a fleet of hundreds of Starships. “Production is hard, prototypes are easy. Building ~1000 Starships to create a self-sustaining city on Mars is our mission,” Musk said in December last year. So far, the company has conducted multiple high-altitude flight tests with Starship prototypes. Engineers target to perform the first test flight to orbit this summer. To propel Starship to space it will require the use of a giant Super Heavy rocket booster that has not been tested yet. The first prototype of the booster is under assembly. SpaceX will test launch the next prototype, Starship SN15, soon. The vehicle is undergoing pre-flight preparations at the South Texas launch site. You can watch SpaceX’s Starship at the launch pad Live in the video below, courtesy of LabPadre via YouTube. Author's note: Thanks for supporting TESMANIAN! Twitter: Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo

WATCH IT LIVE!

Featured Image Source: SpaceX

Yup

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2021