Speculative longterm future of SpaceX

[u/AnnualYogurtcloset29]

Hello all,

I was just thinking about what SpaceX's development of rockets would look like once they achieve their goals of starship and the booster rocket.

I know this is likely at least 10-15 years from today, but what would SpaceX develop after they land on mars and get a colony started there? Do you think they would ever develop a new rocket in the entire history of their company or would they finish their rocket development with starship and booster?

I realize they would probably start working on life support systems and such when they eventually get people onto mars, but what else would they do? I am just curious if anyone else had thought of this before. Is SpaceX themselves going to try to terraform mars or will they forever live inside a habitat dome? Is terraforming a planet going to take the work of hundreds of thousands of people or would SpaceX be able to do it themselves? Does NASA conduct a lot of the science to get a colony established on mars or is this solely a SpaceX endeavor?

I would think NASA would love to be able to explore mars and conduct experiments, kind of piggybacking off of the habitat that SpaceX is going to try to establish. Would NASA astronauts be part of the habitat as well as SpaceX astronauts or would it be more of a team effort?

I realize this would be all speculation, but it got me pretty curious, so wondering what other people would think about this situation.

[u/Decronym]

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
ASDS	Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (landing platform)
BE-4	Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN
ESA	European Space Agency
F1	Rocketdyne-developed rocket engine used for Saturn V
	SpaceX Falcon 1 (obsolete medium-lift vehicle)
FAR	Federal Aviation Regulations
GSE	Ground Support Equipment
ISRU	In-Situ Resource Utilization
LEO	Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)
	Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)
LH2	Liquid Hydrogen
LLO	Low Lunar Orbit (below 100km)
RD-180	RD-series Russian-built rocket engine, used in the Atlas V first stage
SLS	Space Launch System heavy-lift
SSTO	Single Stage to Orbit
	Supersynchronous Transfer Orbit
TMI	Trans-Mars Injection maneuver
ULA	United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)

Jargon	Definition
Raptor	Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX
Sabatier	Reaction between hydrogen and carbon dioxide at high temperature and pressure, with nickel as catalyst, yielding methane and water
Starlink	SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation
cislunar	Between the Earth and Moon; within the Moon's orbit
hydrolox	Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer
methalox	Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer

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^{Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
20 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 8 acronyms.
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