Elon Musk is thinking big. As in, out-of-this-planet big. As in, maybe-a-different-planet big.
Mr. Musk has worked for the past ten years to revolutionize the auto industry by bringing electric cars into the mainstream as head of Tesla Motors. But he isn't just disrupting the way we travel on land. The entrepreneur has had his sights set all along on changing the way we navigate space.
In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, Calif. The company's Dragon spacecraft became the first commercial craft to visit the International Space Station, when it docked a cargo ship there in 2012. Currently, SpaceX transports cargo to and from the ISS as part of a $1.6 billion contract awarded to the company by NASA.
But Musk aims a bit higher than just playing space delivery boy. What sounds like the plot of a Ray Bradbury novel is in fact his stated goal: colonizing Mars. “The reason SpaceX was created was to accelerate development of rocket technology, all for the goal of establishing a self-sustaining, permanent base on Mars,” Musk told an audience at the 33rd annual International Space Development Conference in May, according to Space.com.
To that end, SpaceX is developing the Mars Colonial Transporter, which will take humans to Mars and then back to Earth. Musk says it could transport 100 individuals at a time and be “fully reusable.” The Transporter is expected to use the Raptor rocket engine, which runs on methane and liquid oxygen.