The first flight of Starship, the most powerful rocket in history, has ended with the vehicle on fire just seconds after takeoff. Even so, this gigantic space vehicle continues to aspire to inaugurate a new chapter in the history of space exploration in which we can see increasingly ambitious missions to the Moon, Mars and who knows if beyond. From SpaceX, the company responsible for this project, they affirm that they remain committed to «making life multiplanetary.» The founder of the company, Elon Musk, has stated that in just a few months we had to see a new takeoff attempt for Starship.
These are some of the future missions that one day he might star in the rocket.
One of the first expected adventures of the Starship will be, in itself, something historical. SpaceX plans to launch the first private mission around the Moon: the ‘Dearmoon’ project. He Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has personally selected 10 artists, content creators and athletes from all over the world to accompany him on a trip around the Moon. The mission could take off towards the end of 2023 and, although does not aspire to land on the lunar surfaceIt will go down in the history books as the first mission of its kind to feature private actors.
Starship also aspires to become one of the new vehicles that will star in the ‘reconquest’ of the Moon. The landing module for this rocket, also designed by SpaceX, has been selected by the us space agency nasa as the one in charge of taking «the first woman and the next man to the Moon» as part of the Artemis space program. If all goes according to plan, the takeoff of this mission is scheduled around 2025.
One of the great promises of this next-generation technological gadget has to do with its large storage capacity and all that this implies for long-range missions. This spaceship has been designed to transport crews of up to 100 people on long-duration interplanetary flights to destinations such as Mars. So that you understand the magnitude of this figure, let us recall some data. So far, the great most space missions manned have hosted between three and six crew members maximum.
He russian soyuz rocket, one of the most used in the history of the space race, can accommodate up to three astronauts. The Space Launch System, one of the most powerful, could carry four. The International Space Station, the largest orbital platform, in its heyday it has come to house about seven humans. The orion shipthe most developed to date, aspires to one day be able to carry up to eight people.
Satellites, telescopes and space projects
Starship also promises to be a revolution for the launch of next-generation space missions since, due to its large storage capacity, it would allow larger missions to be launched at a lower cost. As Alexandra Witze argues in an article published in the journal ‘Nature’, this rocket could also lead to the takeoff of increasingly prominent and voluminous missions. «Starship could open the door to new types of planetary science and astrophysics missionssince it would allow us to launch telescopes and spacecraft much heavier than what other vehicles have been able to support up to now”, he argues.
Another of the sectors that Starship hopes to revolutionize is, of course, the launch of communication satellites. As Musk himself announced a few years ago, this new rocket could be key to deploying the new constellation of Starlink network satellites. Your goal is to throw more than 12,000 devices from 2026 (a figure that multiplies by six the number of active satellites in 2018). This project, not exempt from controversy, could create a new network that would make it possible to connect to the Internet from anywhere on the globe.
Around Earth in 30 minutes
SpaceX also proposes to use the Starship to land travel. The reason is simple. According to his calculations, this powerful space rocket could be made practically any journey around the globe in 30 minutes or less. A trip from London to Hong Kong, which would take almost 12 hours on a conventional flight, could be reduced to just 34 minutes. A trip from New York to Paris, which by plane adds up to seven and a half hours, with this rocket it would only take 30 minutes. Traveling from Bangkok to Dubai would go from six and a half hours to just 27 minutes.
This flight program «ground to ground» It is, for now, only theoretical. As Musk himself has repeatedly explained, the use of this rocket on ground missions would allow to use by the globe more of 25,000 kilometers per hour and load with up to 150 tons of materials. All of this could «improve the cost, complexity and ease of operations» of transportation around the world.