SpaceX founder Elon Musk addressed the world Friday about his plans for reaching and settling on Mars at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia. He wasted no time in revealing what he saw as the major takeaway from his presentation.
The key, according to Musk, is redesigning SpaceX’s rocket system to make it more effective for work in Earth’s orbit. Meet the BFR, the new rocket of the future.
“We now think we have a way to do it,” Musk explained. “Which is to have a smaller vehicle, still pretty big, but one that can do everything that’s needed in the greater Earth orbit activity. Essentially, we want to make our current vehicles redundant. We want to have one booster and ship that replaces Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon.”
The unofficial nickname for this rocket is the BFR — the first and third letters stand for “Big” and “Rocket,” if that helps. Its planned payload capacity is 150 tons, greater even than that of the Saturn V that launched the Apollo astronauts toward the moon.
The presentation didn’t offer any specific facts and figures on how this would all work out, but the basic idea is straightforward enough. It offers the clearest indication yet of how SpaceX looks to take the small steps necessary to make its giant leap to Mars a real possibility.
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