Are the dreams of Mars in Musk imagination?

Elon Musk, a polarization figure. From his seizure of Twitter to his provocative public statements to his huge role in electing President Trump and controlling the tools of power in his administration, there is not much neutral opinion from him.

On the other hand, he converted two large sectors of the transport industry. Tesla has sparked an irreversible conversion of gas -running cars towards electric cars, and Spacex has significantly reduced the cost of entering the Earth orbit.

The colonial musk has long imagined Mars. This looks like a dream of fever, but he recently appeared in Trump’s opening speech. Trump said that the United States will plant stars and lines on Mars and “we will follow our clear fate in the stars.”

The MUSK effect in the new administration can raise the NASA approach similar to the Earth, which uses the ARTEMIS program to send a series of tasks that have been made to the moon and build a space station to support human housing there. NASA’s plans will not put the first astronauts on Mars until the late thirties of the last century as soon as possible.

But this is very slow for musk. He wants to go directly to Mars, and get there by 2029. He wrote on X, “The moon is distraction.”

How feasible Musk plan?

Mars is the goal of an extension. Spacex has achieved an indisputable success with the Falcon 9 WorkHorm missile, and the company was sending astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station for more than a decade. However, the space station at an altitude of 250 miles, only half of the “driving” day up. Mars reaches a million times.

The challenges begin with stubborn physics. The fuel should be reduced, because most of the energy cost to reach Mars and the back involves speeding up and eliminating the mass of fuel, not the smaller mass with many astronauts. To maintain fuel, it includes the best journey that takes nine months. The different distance between the Earth and Mars means the appropriate launch windows only once every 26 months, with the entire journey took about three years.

You will live or die Vision Mask’s Mars based on the success of the StarsHip missile, the largest and strongest missile that has ever created, which has made fixed progress on its seven trips so far. But Starsp has never carried astronauts, landed on another planet, which was raised from another planet without a launch platform or showed that it may return safely from Mars.

The list of technical challenges to send astronauts to Mars is arduous. Starship will need to become sufficiently reliable for a fleet of oral vehicles to go to Mars, and are refueling in the Earth’s orbit. The immediate problem is that Starship does not have a load capacity for all “consumables” – fuel, food, water and air – required to send three astronauts to Mars. As a result, the technical feasibility of the Spacex Plan is in doubt.

More consumptions are needed for 16 months, as astronauts will have to spend on Mars. Mars soil can be extracted for water, oxygen and building materials, but relevant technologies have not been tested. Orals will need fuel with oxygen and methane derived from the atmosphere, which is another non -proven technique.

A fleet of non -transmitted vehicles can be sent early to create infrastructure with robots, 3D printing and prepare for the arrival of the astronaut. But this adds another layer of speculation and uncertainty to the institution.

There are also tremendous challenges in maintaining the health of astronauts and safe on a trip to Mars. Facing these challenges requires progress in supporting life, nutrition, hygiene, medical care and psychological care within three years of isolation without contact in the actual time with the Earth. Astronomers will also suffer from 10 times the dose of radiation on Earth.

Musk is not annoyed. He is already thinking before a million Mars colonies by 2050, a goal that requires building and launching 100 championships annually for a decade. It is the unpaid left that will pay for all this.

In the next few years, we will discover the dream of reality.

Chris Imbe is a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, who wrote books on cosmology, astronomy and the future of travel to space.