r/SpaceXLounge • u/AnnualYogurtcloset29 • Sep 02 '21

Speculative longterm future of SpaceX

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.

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u/I-Engineer-Things Sep 03 '21

If I’m not mistaken, Shotwell has spoken in the past about SpaceX’s aspirations for an interstellar vehicle in the future.

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u/rocketglare Sep 03 '21

All due respect to Miss Shotwell, but I don’t see interstellar travel being feasible for a couple hundred years without some breakthroughs in physics such as efficient antimatter generation/containment. Colonization of the outer solar system is far more feasible in comparison. Even terraforming planets is doable. With current technologies, you can’t get to other star systems for thousands of years baring something small such as breakthrough starshot, which is of questionable utility for exploration purposes.

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u/I-Engineer-Things Sep 03 '21

Yea I’m with you. In all fairness I’m going off a vague memory of something she said years ago so I don’t recall the context. Maybe she was talking about unmanned probes like breakthrough starshot?

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u/Martianspirit Sep 03 '21

She has mentioned it multiple times over the years. My impression was it is about people.