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Elon Musk’s Stainless Steel Starship Is a Sign of Things to Come

2019 will be for space exploration a defining year. Depending on how well all the planned projects go, humanity will either go full throttle and expand to other worlds, or it will crumble under its own weightto the dark pits of oblivion, just as after the Apollo program.
Stainless Steel Starship 1 photo
Photo: Elon Musk/Twitter
Next year, we’ll have the first commercial spaceships take to the skies carrying humans on board. It will be the first step towards more broader goals, like a return to the Moon and eventually humanity’s first real visit to a full grown planet, Mars.

The landing on Mars, which appears to be the ultimate mid-term prize of the renewed space race, has been promised for years by Earth’s most representative nerd with money, Elon Musk. Of all the companies racing to the Red Planet, be it private or government-owned, SpaceX seems to be the farthest along in making this dream a reality.

On Christmas Eve, Elon Musk took to his favorite communications channel, Twitter, and posted a photo of a bullet-shaped construction he calls Stainless Steel Starship.

Shot in Texas, at SpaceX’s facility, the photo shows the crew portion of what is known as the Big Falcon Rocket. Once made public, the photo stirred a lot of chatter on Musk’s channel, prompting him to come back on the original tweet and provide additional details.

The billionaire says the steel used for the construction of the Starship is different than the one used in early Atlas rockets, treated at cryogenic temperatures to create a material that is better than carbon fiber, judging by a strength to weight ratio.

Also, Musk says that because of the temperatures the ship will have to endure, it will not be painted in any way, but sent to the sky in a stainless mirror finish.

As per the plans revealed last year by SpaceX, the company is planning to send the first mission to Mars by 2022. Human crews are expected to be launched by 2024.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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