SpaceX plans to build offshore platform "floating spaceport"
In the future, it can support the launch of rockets to the moon and Mars and supersonic global travel
Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, June 18 (Reporter Zhang Mengran) According to the latest news from the British Daily Telegraph online version and Elon Musk’s social account, SpaceX plans to begin construction of a “floating space port”. Its super-heavy launch vehicle provides a launch site for launch and recovery. In the future, it will not only support the launch of rockets to the moon and Mars, but also carry out supersonic global "point-to-point" travel.
Musk said that SpaceX has previously demonstrated the concept of the super-heavy rocket booster that will be launched, and it will be used in conjunction with its starship spacecraft. In the future, it can support the launch of starships to the moon and Mars, and it can also conduct supersonic earth travel. This will shorten the human flight time to a few hours.
In view of this 120-meter-high rocket is a "Big Mac", its offshore platform will also be huge. It is estimated that the "floating space port" is at least 300 meters long and 100 meters wide, and weighs tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of tons, and its area is more than 10 times larger than that of the famous offshore unmanned recycling platform "Falcon Nine". At the same time, the starship's offshore recovery platform will also be equipped with a huge launch service tower 150 meters high, almost equivalent to building a skyscraper.
The main development goals of starship spacecraft and super heavy rockets are to help SpaceX and Musk achieve the goal of transporting humans to Mars, and then colonize interstellar destinations including the moon, thereby "making humans into interstellar species." The Daily Telegraph article said that although these goals seem out of reach to most people, SpaceX uses fully reusable spacecraft, which greatly reduces the cost of launches, so this result will be more meaningful .
This maritime launch platform can also support "point-to-point" supersonic travel on the earth, that is, the intercontinental launch within the earth. This is not the idea that Musk just germinated. As early as a 2017 statement, it was stated that the transportation of starships can reach any other city from any city on the planet in less than an hour.
The Daily Telegraph article stated that this concept only includes renderings, and it is still unknown how the plan will be carried out and where it will be launched from.
Editor-in-chief
It's coming, it's coming, SpaceX comes with its whimsy. This time it brings a floating space port. In the future, the space port can support the launch of starships to the moon and Mars, as well as supersonic earth travel. SpaceX is committed to making human beings an "interstellar species" and has come up with various ways to achieve high-speed travel. Of course, the current space port is just a concept. It takes a very long time from the idea to the prototype, to the success of the experiment. However, no one can assert that this is impossible. After all, past experience has taught us that those crazy thoughts sometimes breed another future.