The plans for life on Mars
Dubai is building a simulation city to mimic what it’s like living on Mars, while Elon Musk reveals plans to build reusable rockets to reach the planet
SpaceX and Dubai’s vision for the Red Planet.
Want to try life as a Martian? You’re not alone. Elon Musk has added some welcome detail to his plans to colonise the Red Planet in his bid to make us humans a “multiplanetary species”. Step one: build a super-powered rockdet to hurl spaceships to Mars. His firm SpaceX wants to start shipping cargo to Mars by 2022, with people following two years hence.
We’ll get there via his previously announced Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), which Musk said at the International Astronautical Congress would use a rocket that’s 30ft long and uses 31 engines to fling spaceships into Earth’s orbit. They would then await the right time to travel to Mars, with windows opening up once every two years. And what does he call the groundbreaking technology that will expand humanity’s reach beyond our own planet? The “Big F***ing Rocket”. Musk isn’t the only one considering Mars. Dubai has laid out plans for a $140 million space simulation city built via 3D printing using sand from the local desert. It will include several domes mimicking the harsh conditions of Mars and house labs focusing on producing food, energy and water, with a team of scientists living in the simulation for a year. The whole project is designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, recently famous for the newly launched Lego headquarters. That this is happening in Dubai is no surprise. The wealthy UAE city is already home to robotic police officers (which are more like interactive signs on wheels), trials of jet-packs for firefighters battling flames in the city’s famously tall tower blocks, and sports cars for traffic cops. Why not build a simulation of Mars, too? It’s no more or less bonkers than flying to the planet itself, after all.