With Stephen Hawking having warned that humans have only 100 years left to escape Earth, Mars is once again the promised land. But while it’s all very well to talk about migration, how do we actually get there?
However, if the latest video released by Elon Musk’s SpaceX is anything to go by, humans could be one step closer to Mars. The company has been promising the Falcon Heavy, the next cut of its flagship Falcon 9 rocket, for the past four years now. A test of the massive spacecraft was finally completed Tuesday, and SpaceX tweeted a video.
The Falcon Heavy carries much more power than the previous incarnation, and could potentially take 140,000 pounds to Earth’s orbit and 37,000 pounds to Mars. SpaceX says it could potentially send two tourists to the Moon using the rocket by next year, and land it on the surface of Mars by 2020.
If that works, Hawking’s 100-year-deadline could still be met.
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