美太空公司宣布20年內送8萬人上火星

Billionaire space pioneer announces plan to colonise Mars with 80,000 people in two decades

中國日報網 2012-11-29 08:53

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Our future: A futuristic design of a protective dome on Mars shows a similar idea to Musk's that would be transparent and pressurized with CO2 allowing Mars' soil to grow life-sustaining crops.

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An ambitious billionaire has revealed his plans to colonise Mars - and charge 80,000 brave souls $500,000 to be flown there.

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, has announced his vision for life on the Red Planet.

He says the settlement plan would start small, with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who he would take there on a reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane.

Musk, already the first private space entrepreneur to launch a successful mission to the International Space Station this spring, says what would begin by first sending fewer than 10 people could blossom 'into something really big.'

'At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big,' he told the Royal Aeronautical Society in London last week while awarded the society’s gold medal for his contribution to the commercialization of space.

Laying out precise details and figures to his 'difficult' but 'possible' plans, the space pioneer says the first ferry of explorers would be no more than 10 people at a price tag of $500,000 (￡312,110) per ticket.

'The ticket price needs to be low enough that most people in advanced countries, in their mid-forties or something like that, could put together enough money to make the trip,' he said.

Rather than lounging around on an interplanetary vacation, the passengers would be sent to work, carrying with them equipment to build sustainable housing on the dusty and currently barren soil for future generations.

Immediate ground work would focus on building transparent domes pressurized with CO2 while possibly covered in a layer of water to serve as protection from the sun.

With the CO2, Mars' soil would be capable of growing crops for food, he said.

Additional equipment carried over could also produce fertilizer, methane and oxygen using the atmosphere’s natural elements of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and its surface of ice water.

Musk believes one person out of every 100,000 people would be interested in making the journey with 8 billion expected on Earth by time his plans become reality.

(Read by Brian Salter. Brian Salter is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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一個野心勃勃的億萬富翁透露了他在火星上殖民的計劃——這需要8萬個勇敢的人支付50萬美金飛往火星才能實現。

私營太空公司SpaceX的創始人、首席執行官億萬富翁艾龍?馬斯克已經宣布了他對火星生命的宏圖。

他說，殖民計劃會從小起步，先送10人以下的先鋒隊去火星，他將用一艘以液態氧氣和甲烷驅動的可重復使用的火箭運送這些人前往火星。

就在今年春天，馬斯克已經成為第一個成功完成國際空間站飛行任務的私營太空企業家。馬斯克說這個10人以下的先驅項目會發展成“宏偉大業”。

上周英國皇家航空協會在倫敦給馬斯克頒發了協會的金質獎章，表彰他為太空商業化所做的貢獻。馬斯克在表彰大會上說：“在火星上，你可以先建設起自給自足的文明，然后逐漸發展成偉大的火星文明。”

這位太空先驅列舉了他“艱巨”但“可行”的計劃的精確細節和數字，他說運送的第一批探險者將不超過10個人，票價為每人50萬美元（合312110英鎊）。

他說：“票價需要低到讓發達國家的大多數四十多歲的中年人都能籌到的地步。”

這些乘客可不是去火星度假旅游的，他們是去干活的。他們將用攜帶的設備在火星當前灰塵覆蓋的貧瘠土地上為未來數代人建設耐久性住房。

他們到火星后將即刻開展的地面工作主要是建造密封透明的穹頂形二氧化碳增壓建筑，外表層可能會覆蓋一層“水墻”，以防止穹頂內居民受到太陽輻射傷害。