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Musk "lands on Mars within 5 years" Former NASA astronaut questioned

2025-03-20 21:56:21|Myriagame |source：minecraft skins

IT Home Today (March 20) News, Musk firmly believes that his space company will eventually make humans an interstellar species by establishing a permanent base on Mars.

马斯克“5 年内登陆火星” 前NASA宇航员质疑

This is an ambitious plan, and the company's huge "Starship" rocket is closely related to this plan.Inferred by his usual unrealistic time plan, he declared in a tweet on March 15 that the first manned Mars journey “may be done as early as 2029, but 2031 is more likely.”

But not everyone agrees with this prediction.

"We're still 15 years away from taking manned to Mars, not just five years, as Elon Musk suggests," former NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez told Capitol Hill.

For Hernandez, who had entered space on NASA's shuttle in 2009, there is still a lot of work to be done before we are ready to send the first astronauts to Mars, about 140 million miles from Earth.

"Like I've always said... Space travel is not easy. So what we need to do next is to retire the ISS and put the money that was originally used for its operation into the development of the lunar base. The technologies needed to travel to Mars need to be developed, tested and verified on the lunar base because there are so many technical obstacles."

Hernandez's view may make sense in the issue of the numerous technical obstacles facing SpaceX.The company's starship development has recently encountered serious obstacles, with two consecutive prototypes exploding during flights.

In short, the Musk-led company is still a long way from sending astronauts into space.SpaceX has not disclosed its progress in life support systems, on-orbit fuel refueling, and alien landing procedures, which are just a few aspects of future Mars missions.

Meanwhile, NASA still hopes to use the starship in the Artemis III mission, which will be the first manned moon landing in more than half a century.

Last year, SpaceX tested a lunar lander docking system to safely transfer astronauts to the Starship Manned Landing System (HLS) as NASA's Orion capsule flies around the moon.In 2023, NASA astronauts also tested a concept of SpaceX elevator that can deliver astronauts from towering rockets to the surface of the moon.

Beyond that, we have heard little else from the company about its landing system’s preparation for the NASA mission, which is still tentatively scheduled to take place in 2027.

To jump from a lunar mission to a Mars mission—which is contrary to Musk’s desire to completely skip the moon—and Mars is about 500 times the moon’s distance from Earth, which will greatly increase the complexity and difficulty of the mission.This journey will likely take several months and requires an unprecedentedly highly complex life support system.

Experts also warn that future space travelers will be exposed to large amounts of space radiation.Previous research has also shown that microgravity environments may also have adverse effects on human health.

Before letting astronauts risk their lives, Musk plans to send the unmanned starship to the surface of Mars.But as the billionaire has promised in the past, it is still very uncertain whether this will "be successful by 2030".

Some people also question whether Musk's reason for colonizing Mars first is sufficient.

"Even after nuclear war, Earth will be more habitable than Mars. Even if we don't take any measures to deal with climate change, Earth will still have oxygen -- as far as we know, Mars doesn't," former U.S. President Obama said at an event last year.

And if humans do land on Mars one day, the journey could be very difficult, Musk himself admitted that.

"This is not something cowards can try. There's a good chance you'll die. It'll be a tough journey, but if it succeeds, it's incredibly glorious."

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