SpaceX is holding a Starship career day to ramp up its Mars colonization effort

News
By Mike Wall
published

And the company wants to launch a Starship 12 miles up by September.

Artist's illustration of SpaceX Starship vehicles on the surface of Mars.
Artist's illustration of SpaceX Starship vehicles on the surface of Mars. (Image credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX wants to put the pedal to the metal on its Starship Mars colonization system.

The company is hosting a Starship career day today (Feb. 6) at its facility near the South Texas village of Boca Chica, where the big spaceship is coming together.

"This is mainly for staffing up 4 production shifts for 24/7 operations, but engineers, supervisors & support personnel are certainly needed too. A super hardcore work ethic, talent for building things, common sense & trustworthiness are required, the rest we can train," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter Tuesday (Feb. 4).

Related: Elon Musk's thinking big for SpaceX's Starship Mars rocket. Really big.

That explanation came a day after another tweet, in which Musk stressed that Starship production is already humming along. "Going max hardcore on design/production Starship here in Boca. It's awesome! Feels a bit like a Mars simulator," the billionaire entrepreneur wrote. ("Hardcore" appears to be the term of the moment.) 

Starship is a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) spacecraft that SpaceX is building to take people to and from Mars, the moon and other distant destinations. The ship will launch off Earth atop a huge rocket called Super Heavy; both of these vehicles will be reusable. (Starship is powerful enough to get itself off the moon and Mars, both of whose gravitational clutches are much weaker than Earth's.)

The only version of Starship to get off the ground to date is a single-engine prototype called Starhopper, which made a few brief test flights last year before being retired. But that could change soon; SpaceX has filed paperwork with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to launch a 12-mile-high (20 kilometers) test flight with Starship between March and September of this year, The Verge reported.

Things will move quickly after that, if all goes according to SpaceX's plan. Company representatives have said that the first operational Starship missions, which will likely loft commercial communications satellites, could launch as early as 2021.

And SpaceX has one crewed Starship mission on the docket already: Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa booked the vehicle on an around-the-moon flight, with a targeted launch date of 2023.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

2 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Admiral Lagrange
    Admin said:
    SpaceX is hosting a Starship career day today (Feb. 6) at the company's facility near the South Texas village of Boca Chica, where the big spaceship is coming together.

    SpaceX is holding a Starship career day to ramp up its Mars colonization effort : Read more
    This license application I previously posted is intended for SN1. Elon is also ramping up to build SN2 plus parts for SN3. If they run into a problem with SN1 they make changes to SN2 and fly it. It is his goal to totally build a Starship with a 3 month build time. He's gearing up for SN1 thru SN20.

    https://forums.space.com/threads/next-starship-to-launch-operation-start-date-03-16-2020-operation-end-date-09-16-2020.29406/
    Elon also stated that he will be hosting a dinner at his house for anyone interested in AI. A degree is not required. He has his own test. If interested you may contact him via SpaceX or Tesla.
    Reply
  • rarchimedes
    As I have commented elsewhere, the building techniques for the Starship are primitive and will not achieve the goal of a unit that can readily do continuous service for years. Elon is a genius on materials and design, but as in the original factory for the Tesla, he is just learning about manufacturing. A Starship factory will be a whole new level.

    The current Starships are not going to meet his weight, strength and durability goals. And, most important, the current techniques are slow and error prone, which makes them uneconomic. I want the Mars colony as much as he does, even if I will not be able o survive the trip. Our species needs a restart, a safety valve, and a respite if one of the many possible disasters strikes Earth.
    Reply