Why Elon Musk's SpaceX Starship Really Matters (VIDEO)
"We need to make it more pointy." 🚀
This article is part of Narcity Media's Technality series. Subscribe to Technality on YouTube for all things related to the future, tech and humanity.
It's Starship, just Starship. And it's going to change our world in more ways than one.
Elon Musk's passion project is finally going to space. The SpaceX rocket Starship is eventually going to be acting as a transfer point to and from the moon, making the rocket a crucial piece of NASA's much-anticipated Artemis III moon mission.
On April 17, 2023, the massive spacecraft was supposed to blast off from the SpaceX ground pad, better known as Starbase. But a frozen valve delayed takeoff for three days.
Blasting off on April 20 instead, Starship's goal was to make almost a full lap around the planet before re-entering the Earth's atmosphere near Hawaii.
Unfortunately, the rocket blew up.
But valuable data was still gathered, data that should still help the SpaceX rocket assist NASA's astronauts.
Before that can happen, here's the breakdown of everything you need to know about SpaceX's greatest achievement and why it's going to revolutionize space travel.
What is Starship?
Elon Musk dropped close to $200 million when he co-founded SpaceX in 2002. Today, the space flight company is valued at 500 times that. Before Musk bought Twitter and became a polarizing figure, his goal was to get humans to Mars as a backup home-world humans can escape to — if we mess up the Earth too much.
Musk's brainchild, Starship, is monstrous. At almost 400 feet tall by 30 feet wide, it towers over every rocket that came before it.
It also may be the first spacecraft whose shape is influenced by Sacha Baron Cohen's 2012 comedy, The Dictator, to which Musk specifically credits his desire to make the craft "more pointy."
How is Starship going to change space travel?
The answer is simple: money. The rocket's reusability reduces the cost of a launch while also making the ships reusable — something rockets have never been able to do. And according to Musk, an orbital launch will eventually cost $1 million. This is a deal compared to the $152 million price tag seen at NASA.
On top of supposed cheaper launch costs is the expansion of "space tourism," which looks to create a future where your kid will be called poor because you didn't spend spring break on a space cruise in outer orbit. (Seriously — it's not that far from the potential reality.)
A potential partnership with SAGA Space Architects is looking to transform Starship into the world's first Space Cruise. The Swiss designers have created a vertical space habitat that would fit perfectly within the shell of a SpaceX Starship.Subscribe to Technality on YouTube for all things future, tech and humanity.
