Musk: SpaceX plans to conduct 144 launches in 2024 and send humans to Mars within eight years!

SpaceX plans to conduct 144 launches in 2024, a growth rate of over 50%.

On January 13, 2023 local time, the space exploration company SpaceX released a video of the company’s annual meeting on the social platform X. In his speech, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reviewed the progress and achievements in 2023 and revealed 2024 and long-term plans.

According to SpaceX, in 2023, SpaceX successfully completed 96 launch missions, safely sent 12 astronauts into orbit, launched two Starship flight tests, and more than doubled the number of people connected globally through Starlink.

Musk said that the Falcon rocket set a record for the most launches by a rocket in a year, completing 96 launches. Followed by Soyuz, which launched more than 60 times in a year. In 2022, SpaceX completed a total of 61 launch missions.

According to China Science News, Musk revealed that SpaceX plans to conduct 144 launches in 2024, maintaining its annual growth rate of 50%.

In addition, “colonizing Mars” has always been Musk’s goal. “I’m thinking, what will it be like in eight years?” Musk said with emotion, “If we are lucky, maybe we will send humans to Mars within eight years. “

According to CCTV News on January 10, 2024, on the 9th local time, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) held a briefing and stated that the “Artemis 2” manned mission to the moon, originally scheduled for 2024, will The mission was postponed to September 2025, and the “Artemis 3” manned lunar landing plan originally scheduled for 2025 was postponed to September 2026.

“Artemis 4” will still proceed as planned in September 2028. This mission is the second manned lunar landing plan. Four astronauts will station in the “Gateway” lunar orbiting space station and carry out a lunar surface landing in due course.

On April 20, 2023 local time, the U.S. Space Exploration Technology Corporation conducted the second unmanned flight test of the “Starship” heavy-lift launch vehicle in Texas, the United States. Three minutes after launch, the rocket disintegrated unplanned and exploded, forcing the mission to be aborted.

Before the “landing on fire” plan is implemented, the “starship” will first be used to launch satellites and carry out manned lunar landing missions.

Musk has said that “Starship” can “reduce the cost of access to space by orders of magnitude,” allowing people to travel to Mars and ultimately allow humans to become a multi-planetary species.

As the founder of the American space exploration technology company SpaceX, “Iron Man” Elon Musk has an ambitious plan to colonize Mars. He claimed that he founded SpaceX to achieve this goal. However, Musk’s idea has been poured cold water on many times, and even Bill Gates, who also has the label of a genius entrepreneur, does not support Musk’s plan.

In a media interview, the Microsoft co-founder expressed doubts about Musk’s vision of colonizing Mars.

Asked whether going to Mars was worth the money, Gates said: “In my opinion it’s not worth it,” adding that it would be better to fund vaccine development than send people to Mars. Gates explained that going to Mars is actually quite expensive, but if the money was used to purchase a measles vaccine, it would only cost $1,000 per life saved.

Gates has been actively involved in philanthropy. When asked whether Musk qualified as a philanthropist, Gates said that he did not think Musk was currently a philanthropist, but that may change in the future. Gates said: “Things like Tesla are having a positive impact, even if it is not in a philanthropic form. I think one day he will use his intelligence to join the ranks of philanthropists.”