Elon Musk shows off ‘Starship’ rocket for taking humans to Mars

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has long been talking about his ‘Starship’ craft that is aimed to take people to Mars. Musk has finally showed off the first prototype of his ‘Stainless Steel’ craft.

Billionaire Elon Musk had earlier announced about SpaceX’s BFR (now named Starship) rocket that will take people to moon and to Mars in coming years. After much wait, Musk finally raised the curtains off his prototype by posting a picture on Twitter of the stainless steel rocket.

Stainless Steel Starship pic.twitter.com/rRoiEKKrYc

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 24, 2018

Elon Musk renames popular Mars spacecraft Big Falcon Rocket to Starship

Musk tweeted an image of the top section of the spacecraft, captioning it simply as ‘Stainless Steel Starship’. Musk also informed that the steel was chosen because it will perform better at higher temperature like those felt during reentry to Earth atmosphere, than lighter weight carbon fiber material. Also, the steel material is supposed to be more durable for long-duration spaceflights.

Usable strength/weight of full hard stainless at cryo is slightly better than carbon fiber, room temp is worse, high temp is vastly better

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 24, 2018

As per CNET, Musk also added that the steel skin will get ‘too hot for paint’ and will instead feature a ‘stainless mirror finish’ for ‘maximum reflectivity’.

Fans were soon to comment on Musk's efforts and praised him for his work.

It looks like it would be massive, can’t wait to see it flying!!

— George Chishios (@georgech89) December 24, 2018

How you gonna get it to break the Speed of Light? We gonna get some Time Travel goin' on here. ♥

— Oshikorosu (@Oshikorosu) December 24, 2018

You are living all of my sci-fi fantasies.

— Kiesza (@Kiesza) December 26, 2018

Noice Rocket there Boi.

— Lapizzss (@lapizzss) December 24, 2018

Moreover, SpaceX has claimed that Starship will be bigger and more powerful than the Saturn V rocket that took Apollo astronauts to the moon. The firm hopes to start testing the rocket design in 2019 with ‘hopper’ flights that will launch the rocket straight up and then bring it back for landing.