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I’ve always dreamed of touring around the world with a show. Maybe I should have set my sights a bit higher. How about touring around the known universe instead?
One man knows how to dream big: Elon Musk. So, in an elaborate April Fool’s Day joke a German Entertainment website claimed the visionary entrepreneur was now planning to build a theatre in Space. Apart from it being an entertaining read, I thought it was quite a brilliant idea.
Elon Musk truly doesn’t dream small. So, he might well be the man who will make space colonization, and entertainment, possible in the years to come.
On the website of his company SpaceX is a beautiful sentiment by the big man himself:
“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great – and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.”
Thus, you see, Musk’s dreams of space travel are quite real and not a new thing. As a matter of fact, he published a paper on his vision to colonize Mars in September 2016.
(The link to download said paper can be found at the bottom of this article).
And, in September 2017, the Wall Street Journal wrote that Elon Musk had unveiled plans to build the most powerful rocket ever.
According to the online magazine Space, Musk’s Mars vision centers on a reusable rocket-and-spaceship combo that he’s dubbed the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS).
Both the booster and the spaceship will be powered by SpaceX’s Raptor engine, still in development, which Musk said will be about three times stronger than the Merlin engines that power the company’s Falcon 9 rocket.
The booster, with its 42 Raptors, will be the most powerful rocket in history, by far. It will be capable of launching 300 metric tons (330 tons) to low Earth orbit (LEO), or 550 metric tons (600 tons) in an expendable variant, Musk said.
For comparison, NASA’s famous Saturn V moon rocket, the current record holder, could loft “just” 135 metric tons (150 tons).
Current projections are that the first unmanned flight should take place in four years at the earliest.
Musk wrote in his paper, that he envisions 1,000 or more ITS spaceships, each carrying 100 or more people, leaving Earth orbit bound for Mars eventually. This architecture could conceivably get 1 million people to Mars within the next 50 to 100 years, he said.
So then, in my humble opinion, here is where entertainment and theatres come in. Whenever human beings risk their lives and operate under an enormous amount of stress… especially when trying to build a colony under gravely inhospitable conditions… it might not be a bad idea to look at how to bring a ray of light into their daily lives.
Thus, SpaceX should be addressing the more philosophical aspects of a future space faring society as well.
Like, for example, the question as to how future settlers can maintain a meaningful social life and relax enough in their free time to be psychologically healthy in the long term.
Let’s say settlers really make it to the red planet, or any other planet for that matter, then entertainment should play a major role in strengthening their future cosmic community, wherever it may be. Cultural and social needs will need to be taken into account.
So, why not have a Cirque de l’Étoile touring the solar system? Or a Milky Way Entertainment production company? Surprising us with countless musicals for a Broadway which will be more of a Milky Way.
ITS spaceships could begin flying to Mars about 10 years from now, if everything goes well, Musk added in his paper. But he acknowledged that success is far from guaranteed.
“There is a huge amount of risk. It is going to cost a lot,” Musk wrote. “There is a good chance we will not succeed, but we are going to do our best and try to make as much progress as possible.”
And SpaceX has a history of overcoming long odds. When Musk founded the company in 2002, he wrote, “I thought we had maybe a 10 percent chance of doing anything — of even getting a rocket to orbit, let alone getting beyond that and taking Mars seriously.”
You can download a copy of Musk’s Mars paper here.
Further Links:
SpaceX Official Website
CNN article “Colonizing Mars could be dangerous and ridiculously expensive. Elon Musk wants to do it anyway”
Article in Space Magazine “SpaceX’s Mars Colony Plan: How Elon Musk Plans to Build a Million-Person Martian City”
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Liam Klenk was born in Central Europe and has since lived on four continents. Liam has always been engaged in creative pursuits, ranging from photography and graphic design, to writing short stories and poetry, to working in theatre and shows. In 2016, Liam published his first book and memoir, 'Paralian'.
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