Elon Musk recently confirmed on twitter that he plans on launching the first ships to Mars by 2022.

Yes

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2020

The cargo ships will hold supplies that will aid in creating the first city on Mars. In 2024, there will be a crewed mission. This is important because Mars will be the closest to the earth during that year.

This is a race against time in more ways than one. A twitter user who started the thread posted about how the sun will expand in a half of a billion years which will evaporate all of the oceans making life on earth almost impossible. Humans will cease to exist unless humans establish societies on different planets. The same twitter user also posted a video of Musk explaining why it is important for humans to be multiplanetary.

“It would be very convenient of course if there was another planet just like Earth nearby, but that’s unlikely and as it turns out not the case. If one could make a reasonable argument that something is important enough to fit the scale of evolution then it is important and maybe worth a little bit of our resources. If it is something like a quarter of a percent of the GDP that would be ok.”

Following up that post, Elon Musk also posted that life will be boiled off, what matters is how long it will take civilization to make the jump to Mars, and that it took us 4.5 billion years to get where we are now and that civilization is not looking stable.

That’s when all life on Earth will be boiled off. What matters is how long civilization is capable of making the jump to Mars. This could be a very short period of time measured in decades. It took 4.5 billion years to get to this point & civilization isn’t looking super stable.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 4, 2020

A twitter user then asked how long will it take for Mars to be independent and not reliable on Earth’s materials. Elon Musk then responds that there will be a dozen transfer windows through a 25 year span.

A cargo launch date that is already set and how close it is is extremely exciting and hopeful. The plan for a multi-planet species is fundamental for humans to continue to exist. My only question is where and when can I sign up to live on Mars? I would be fulfilling my childhood dream of being an astronaut-chef but instead of being a chef I would be a graphic artist. My family would need convincing of course, but until then I am excited to see where Elon Musk’s plan will go.

The imagined colony is in the Gale Crater, so it’s a bit south of Mars’ equator on the Eastern hemisphere and that is also the same place NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover landed on August 6, 2012. Interestingly, the simulation actually has a monument set outside the colony commemorating Curiosity. Its topography and geography are based on the actual map data collected by Mars satellites and rovers which are then given to BBI. So, with that data, users can experience sunsets, sunrises, virtual days and nights. This area is also close to the Elysium Planitia which is where NASA’s InSight lander arrived recently.

Several unique features can be experienced in the simulation. The primary region is the “Dome Complex” which is where a very large biodome made possible because of Mars’ low gravity, called the Eagle Dome, is located. It gives Earth-like ecosystem for the colonists. The dome is protected from radiation but a little bit of light is allowed to come through just so the colonists don’t experience claustrophobia. The environment also allows to walk free without a spacesuit on. In order to support the dome and other areas where colonists are living and working, several ponds of algae are created that are supposed to generate oxygen and be a source of food supplements.

Outside of the dome are condo-blocks which are primary residences for human occupants. Material from Mars have been used to created the condo-blocks and are connected to a system of underground tunnels. They are also protected from radiation so the occupants can live freely without spacesuits. In order for the progress to be realistically shown in the colonization effort, legacy “hab” pods and an old launch pad are present, together with little blurbs about the colony’s development history.

Power is provided through nuclear fission reactors, Earth providing the environment with the Uranium every few years on resupply missions. Water treatment facilities connected to the wells on Mars are there alongside a few satellite dishes creating a communications array where Martian internet has been established.

Project Eagle was first introduced in 2017 at the annual D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit hosted by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. In the presentation hosted by Dr. Jeff Norris, Mission Operations Innovation Lead of NASA’s JPL, the game studio was encouraged to create the game be more than just entertainment for the audience. He said art was an inspiration for an appealing vision for the future of space exploration. “Great art doesn’t just move us as individuals – it can move entire societies,” he stated on stage. He then made a connection with the originator of ‘’space art’’, artist Chelsey Bonestell, and the public’s directly inspired support of the later Moon missions. The simulation is now available to use and can be found on Steam.

It may look like it’s a bowl of fresh snow released by European Space Agency (ESA) on Dec. 20th, but it’s actually an ice deposit chilling the air that is moving above it, as stated by the agency.

The crater is called “Korolev Crater” and the ice can be found in the deepest parts of its foundation and while the air is moving over the ice, it cools it down and sinks it, creating cold air right above the chilly deposit.

ESA officially named this phenomenon a “cold trap” because it looks like the air is keeping the crater from becoming permanently icy.

Korolev Crater is 82 km across, which is about 51 miles, found just south of terrain that wraps around Olympia Undae, Mars’ northern polar cap. The crater floor is even deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon – it can reach depths of even 1.2 miles below its rim.

The High Resolution Stereo Camera on the space agency’s Mars Express satellite managed to take shots of the crater’s five different ‘’strips’’ and each of those shots came from a different orbit of the spacecraft. They were combined and made into a single image.

Mars Express is actually linked with Christmas as well. After about 6 months travelling from Earth, the mission first fired its engine to enter Martian orbit on Dec. 25, 2003. Mars Express is the first spacecraft of the agency to explore another planet, however its high-resolution stereoscopic camera and mineralogical mapping spectrometer failed shortly after being launched on Nov.16 of 1996.

These are accomplishments which should not be taken lightly. These rapid developments have shown that SpaceX has the ability to take on incredible technical challenges and accomplish them. The next immediate goals for the company are now to have more frequent launches with the Falcon Heavy, which launched successfully earlier in 2018, and to have a manned flight in the dragon space capsule. However, these are just minor goals along the way to accomplishing Elon’s master plan.

From the beginning, the plan has been to get to Mars, period. Elon has stated numerous reasons why he wants this, the most important being the survival of our species. As we now know, our planet is fragile and humanity has not had a good impact on it. If we continue on the same pace as we are now, our planet may one day be inhospitable. Or who knows, maybe a giant asteroid will hit our planet and cause massive devastation. Regardless of what happens, Mars can be seen as a life boat for humanity itself. On its surface are all the materials needed for humans to survive and, perhaps one day, to thrive. We have discovered water, oxygen can be extracted from the CO2 currently making up the Martian atmosphere, and building materials are readily available. A self-sustaining colony would take decades of development, cost billions of dollars, and provide little economic incentive, however, those are problems for another day. The first step is to get there.

So far SpaceX has only ventured outside our planet’s gravity once. Essentially an intergalactic shot in the dark to show they are serious about Mars. The secondary goal of the inaugurating test flight of the Falcon Heavy, currently the world’s most powerful rocket, was to put a Tesla Model S into orbit around Mars. However, this did not go according to plan and the Tesla missed the mark and is now in orbit around the Sun instead. Regardless of the minor directional control issues on the later stage, this launch showed that SpaceX could successfully launch a huge multistage rocket and delivery a payload deep into interstellar space. Even though the Falcon Heavy has been active for less than a year, SpaceX is already beginning to develop its next rocket, the one that will send mankind for Mars.

This rocket has been named Starship and its specs are impressive. It will be almost 400 feet tall, supply about 14 million pounds of thrust, and be able to send over 100,000 kilograms of equipment to the surface of Mars. The plan right now is to send the rocket into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) around the Earth and then refuel it for the journey to Mars. This allows the rocket to carry more supplies more efficiently. This rocket will also be completely reusable and be capable of making multiple trips to and from Mars, drastically reducing the cost of each flight. Even though it is still in the development phase, this rocket has the power to send mankind to its next evolutionary step. Similar to the Saturn V which carried Neil Armstrong to the moon, or even the Santa Maria which sent Columbus to the New World, this ship, carrying Elon Musk’s vision, has the power to carry the torch of humanity to a new planet. Expect big news from SpaceX in the next decade.