Small Step for Starship, Giant Leap To Mars

By Madeline A’Hearn

Two months ago, SpaceX reached a major milestone towards the future of sustainable and cost-efficient space travel; they were able to control and safely “catch” a rocket booster. SpaceX launched the Starship rocket on October 13, for a test flight only lasting about an hour. After launch the rocket separated into two stages. The second, the booster stage, began a controlled fall back towards the earth, rotating to an upright position as it fell. As the booster fell towards its launch point, the engines ignited to push the booster into a precise position, so that two metal arms could accurately catch and hold it into place (known as the “chopsticks” catch). The first stage of the rocket landed in a specified location of the Indian Ocean and was later retrieved, according to the New York Times. This successful catch of a rocket booster on the first attempt marks the very first time that a booster could be landed on the launch site, rather than having to retrieve it from a distant location, a major achievement.

SpaceX, which was founded in 2001, has named their focus to be “making humanity multiplanetary” by establishing colonies on the moon and eventually Mars, all the while making space travel affordable for individuals, according to the SpaceX website. After the successful launch of their first rocket, Falcon 1, SpaceX was contracted by NASA into their Commercial Crew Program. In this program NASA partners with private industries, who build spacecrafts to send astronauts and cargo to orbit and the International Space Station, marking the first time that any private industry has had ownership and involvement with a NASA project. In order to send humans to the ISS, SpaceX developed a new rocket in 2010; the Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is the first spacecraft with the potential for full reuse — some boosters can be used upwards of ten times — and the booster stage can be landed on a boat in the ocean (not at the launch site, like Starship), according to MIT News.

When combined with the Dragon capsule, the only spacecraft capable of carrying 7 astronauts through orbit and bringing significant cargo weights to and from earth, all of the Falcon 9 crafts have been launched 393 times collectively. Beyond transporting astronauts to the ISS for NASA, SpaceX also launches satellites from Starlink (a subsidiary company of SpaceX, providing internet) as well as test crafts into orbit. However, the creation of the Starship craft will further minimize cost and production time, allowing even more launches.

It may feel like Mars colonization, moon walks, and civilian space travel are in the distant future, but Starship was created for these goals and beyond. As reported by NASA, Starship rockets will be used in the upcoming Artemis missions, most importantly Artemis III, which will fly the first woman and person of color to the moon. Starship rockets may still be in their testing stage, but we can only imagine the possibilities when it is used in official launches. In reality, spending your vacation relaxing on Mars may not be as impossible as we used to think.