Where Will People Live On Mars? Know What Elon Musk Has To Say About It

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk recently answered questions at Reddit's Ask Me Anything (AMA) session that was meant to supplement the talk he gave last month about his Mars colonization plans at the International Astronautical Conference in Guadalaraja (IAC) in Mexico. In the course of the session, the honcho also cleared doubts about where people would live on the Red Planet after reaching there, a topic that he did not really touch when he spoke at the last conference.

One of the most anticipated details about Musk's plan for the colonization of Mars was where people would live once they eventually reached the Martian surface. As per the SpaceX boss, initially geodesic domes would be built on the surface using glass panes with carbon fiber frames. In addition, a lot of tunneling/miner droids would be used especially because this would help in building out a large amount of pressurized space for industrial operations, apart from leaving the glass domes for green living space.

Apart from this, Musk also gave further insight into other aspects of the project by answering certain other questions at the session. The chief added that the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), which would act as the vehicle to Mars, wouldn't have the need to hover over the Martian surface while crew would carry out a search for landing. He also revealed that the name of the ITS would eventually be changed.

Furthermore, in relation to SpaceX's role in developing the ITS, Musk revealed that the company's original goal was to design a new metal alloy which would be extremely "resistant to oxidation for the hot oxygen-rich turbopump, which is operating at insane pressure to feed a 300 bar main chamber." Musk further added, "Anything that can burn, will burn. We seem to have that under control, as the Raptor turbopump did not show erosion in the test firings, but there is still room for optimization." The company's next goal is to seal the vehicle's tank from oxidizing, and Musk added that SpaceX is just a year or two away from unveiling the configuration of the ITS.