Latest Starship Explosion Drastically Decreases SpaceX's Chances of Reaching Mars Without Having to Wait Years
With tech billionaire Elon Musk out of the White House after his disastrous turn as a bureaucrat, he can now focus on more pressing subjects — such as his SpaceX Starship rockets that keep on exploding into fiery columns of fire, with the latest dramatic failure this past Wednesday in Texas, when the massive spacecraft hadn't even left the ground yet.
This recent setback ratchets up the pressure on Musk even further, who faces a hard deadline and steep technical challenges in his vaunted goal to reach Mars.
Much of that deadline is self-imposed, as CNN points out in an excoriating new breakdown of the situation. In May, Musk said he plans to send an unmanned crew to Mars next year, but the latest blast — the latest in a string of similar explosions that have plagued Starship — seem almost certain to set him back enough to force SpaceX to miss a crucial celestial launch opportunity called a transfer window.
Depending on the position of Earth and Mars from one another, the distance between the two planets can vary from 35 million to over 200 million miles. To make the journey shorter and to save cost on fuel, explorers must time their rocket launch during the transfer window, a period when Mars and Earth are in an optimal alignment that minimizes the journey's length.
The next transfer window for Mars is in late 2026 and will only last for a few weeks; miss it, and the journey will be way more expensive and far longer to be practical.
To still make the deadline, Musk faces the extraordinary challenge of fixing any technical challenges with Starship and present an upgraded version of the vehicle and the Super Heavy rocket booster in time before the Mars transfer window next year.
In addition, SpaceX has to figure out how to fuel Starship, which needs to be topped off with propellant in orbit before making its journey to the red planet. This would involve launching numerous Starships into space and using them to fuel up the one headed to the Red Planet — a process that will pose a spectacular logistical challenge of its own.
"We've never done that," Bruce Jakosky, professor emeritus of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, told CNN. "Nobody's done that — transferring fuel from one spacecraft to another in orbit autonomously."
Another technical challenge SpaceX needs to solve is Starship's heat shield, which has to survive entry into Mar's atmosphere and the journey back to Earth. Back in May, Musk himself conceded that it posed "one of the toughest problems to solve."
And all that is without getting into the technical feasibility of human flight to Mars, including how to shield any crew from cosmic radiation.
Before any of that, of course, Starship needs to stop exploding.
More on SpaceX: Elon's Explosion at Trump Appears to Have Cost Him a HUGE Deal
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