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<\/p>\nStarship, which SpaceX has launched on nine flight tests from Starbase in South Texas, is the centerpiece of Elon Musk’s plan to establish a city on Mars in a matter of years.<\/p>\n
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Texas residents share concerns at SpaceX city meeting<\/p>\n
Longtime Texas residents voiced concerns about the leadership and proposed changes to Elon Musk’s new SpaceX city.<\/p>\n
The idea that humans could one day populate and even colonize Mars<\/a> is one no longer confined to the realm of science fiction.<\/p>\n Astronauts <\/a>are on the cusp in the years ahead of journeying\u00a0all the way to the Red Planet, where so far only\u00a0rovers <\/a>and orbiters <\/a>have dared to venture. And when they do, it’s likely they’ll make landfall aboard a SpaceX Starship.<\/p>\n Billionaire Elon Musk<\/a> founded SpaceX in 2002 with the vision of paving the way to create a self-sustaining colony on the Red Planet. By April 2023, the company rolled out its massive Starship \u2013 the rocket\/spacecraft combo designed to reach Mars \u2013 to its South Texas launch pad for what would be its first of nine flight tests to date<\/a>.<\/p>\n While Starship has endured a few explosive setbacks in 2025<\/a>, SpaceX is preparing for a mission it refers to as flight 10<\/a> as early as Sunday, Aug. 24 to get the vehicle’s development back on track. But Starship has a long way to go before it can carry the first spacefarers to Mars and fulfill Musk’s oft-stated dream of “making life multiplanetary<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Here’s everything to know about Elon Musk<\/a>‘s goal of setting up the first human city on Mars, and how Starship, which could soon fly again for the first time since May 27<\/a>, fits in to those plans.<\/p>\n Why is Elon Musk interested in sending Starship to Mars?<\/p>\n Musk, who has often spoken publicly about his Mars vision<\/a>, delivered his latest public updates in late May in front of employees from Starbase, SpaceX’s headquarters near the U.S.-Mexico border that recently\u00a0became its own Texas city<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a video SpaceX shared May 29 on social media site X<\/a>, which Musk owns, the world’s richest man described to his employees the goal of sending humans to Mars as essential<\/a> \u201cfor the long term survival of civilization.” Under Musk’s vision, humans would not just step on the planet before departing, but would remain to establish a settlement that could function independently if any cataclysmic event were to ever happen on Earth.<\/p>\n So, why Mars, as opposed to, say, Jupiter <\/a>or Venus<\/a>?<\/p>\n Well, while other planets in our solar system are anything but habitable for humans, Mars gets a decent amount of sunlight, has water sources and is already a planet where humanity has sent robotic rovers to scout the terrain<\/a>. At an average distance of 140 million miles from Earth, it’s also one of our closest cosmic neighbors.<\/p>\n While Mars has a thin atmosphere and is relatively cold<\/a>, SpaceX claims on its website<\/a>, “we can warm it up.”<\/p>\n Gravity on Mars is about 38% of that of Earth’s, meaning humans would be able to lift heavier objects and bound around.<\/p>\n What is Starship? World’ largest rocket developed for travel to Mars<\/p>\n SpaceX is developing\u00a0Starship<\/a> specifically with a Martian destination in mind. The spacecraft is designed\u00a0to be a fully reusable transportation system, meaning the rocket and vehicle can return to the ground for additional missions.<\/p>\n The Starship, standing 403 feet tall when fully stacked<\/a>, is regarded as the world\u2019s largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever developed. When fully integrated, the launch system is\u00a0composed of both a 232-foot Super Heavy rocket and the 171-foot upper stage Starship itself, the spacecraft where crew and cargo would ride.<\/p>\n Super Heavy alone is powered by 33 of SpaceX\u2019s Raptor engines that give the initial burst of thrust at liftoff. The upper stage Starship section is powered by six Raptor engines that will ultimately travel in orbit.<\/p>\n When could SpaceX launch Starship to Mars?<\/p>\n Musk wants to send the first uncrewed Starship to Mars by the end of 2026 for a very critical reason: The timeline coincides with an\u00a0orbital alignment<\/a>\u00a0around the sun that would shorten the journey between Earth and Mars.<\/p>\n It’s a slim window that occurs once about every two years, and if SpaceX misses it, Musk has said the company would target another mission during the next alignment. If Starship were to blast off for the Red Planet by the end of 2026, the journey itself would take between seven to nine months.<\/p>\n While no humans would have a seat on the first flight to Mars, Starship won’t be empty. Instead, the vehicle would carry one or more Optimus robots designed and built by Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company.<\/p>\n Where, how would Starship land on Mars?<\/p>\n Starship would enter Mars’ atmosphere while zooming at 4.6 miles per second before it begins decelerating. The vehicle’s heatshield is designed to withstand multiple atmospheric entries, but the Martian environment is expected to be harsher on the spacecraft, given its higher levels of atomic oxygen in the atmosphere, according to SpaceX.<\/p>\n SpaceX is still considering multiple potential landing sites on Mars for Starship, but the leading contender appears to be a region known as\u00a0Arcadia<\/a>. The volcanic plain is on Mars’ northern hemisphere far from the planet’s frigid poles,\u00a0with access to water<\/a>\u00a0sources in the form of shallow ice.<\/p>\n Arcadia is also flat enough to make landings and takeoffs relatively safer, Musk has said.<\/p>\n What happens when the first humans arrive on Mars?<\/p>\n Crewed trips with humans would then follow\u00a0most likely in the early 2030s, Musk has claimed.<\/p>\n Musk said he envisions eventually launching 1,000 to 2,000 Starships to Mars every two years so enough people and supplies can make it to the surface to quickly establish a livable, self-sufficient city.<\/p>\n Achieving that goal would require more than 1 million Martian residents and millions of tons of cargo, according to SpaceX. For that reason, the company has an ambitious target of one day in the years ahead launching Starship more than 10 times per day from Earth to Mars during those crucial transfer windows every 26 months.<\/p>\n The first humans on Mars would be tasked with taking account of local resources, setting up landing operations, establishing a power source and building homes.<\/p>\n How does Musk’s vision fit in Trump’s, align with NASA’s Artemis campaign?<\/p>\n NASA also has designs on astronauts reaching Mars \u2013 even if the agency’s plan of attack differs from Musk’s.<\/p>\n Starship is crucial to the U.S. space agency’s goal of returning astronauts to the moon’s surface<\/a>\u00a0for the first time in five decades. NASA’s lunar exploration plans<\/a>\u00a0call for Artemis III astronauts aboard the Orion capsule to board the Starship while in orbit for a ride to the moon’s surface as early as 2027.<\/p>\n Once NASA has established a basecamp on the lunar south pole in the years ahead, the agency envisions sending humans from the moon on to Mars.<\/p>\n Musk, though, has long favored a more aggressive Earth-to-Mars approach.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump<\/a> also outlined in his January inauguration speech his intent<\/a> for humans to “plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars” during his second term \u2013 a vision from which he hasn’t appeared to waver<\/a> even after a public spat with Musk in June<\/a>.<\/p>\n While Trump has proposed a significant 25% slash to NASA’s overall budget, the cuts mostly target the space agency’s science programs <\/a>while increasing funding for space exploration \u2013 including missions to Mars. The White House’s 2026 budget proposal<\/a> calls for allocating more than $1 billion for Mars exploration, while an\u00a0additional $10 billion in funding\u00a0for NASA<\/a> was included in Republican spending legislation known as the One Big Beautiful Bill.<\/p>\n Trump also signed earlier in August an executive order aimed at rolling back<\/a> federal regulations on commercial spaceflight companies, including SpaceX. The move came a few months after the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, gave approval in May for SpaceX to conduc<\/a>t as many as 25 Starship test flights a year as Musk seeks to ramp up development of the Mars-bound spacecraft.<\/p>\n When is the next Starship launch from Starbase, Texas?<\/p>\n SpaceX plans to conduct<\/a> the 10th flight test of its Starship spacecraft Sunday, Aug. 24, with a target liftoff time of 7:30 p.m. ET the company’s Starbase headquarters<\/a> in Cameron County, about 23 miles from Brownsville.<\/p>\n Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. 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