These amazing videos shows SpaceX’s dreams of Mars colonisation

Alan Martin September 26, 2017

Most people fill their Instagram accounts with pictures of nights out, drinks silhouetted against sunny beaches and cats being adorable. Notso Elon Musk, who has used his account to repost five videos showing a computer simulation of the SpaceX Interplanetary Spaceship and Rocket – and a vision of how it could eventually move humans off Earth to gradually ruin a brand new one.

These amazing videos shows SpaceX's dreams of Mars colonisation

Although Musk first posted the videos some time ago, the repost is for more than just boosting his Instagram numbers: the new versions of his rocket and spaceship will be unveiled on Friday at IAC Adelaide, he explains. “Certain aspects of the new design and its applications will be unexpected,” he added cryptically.

The videos are embedded below. Use the right arrow to move between all five.

The first video gives us a view of the new rocket design. Astronauts board and the rocket leaves Cape Canaveral, heading out into the inky blackness of space.

Video two picks up from this cliffhanger with a quite predictable follow up: the rocket is seen leaving our atmosphere at a speed of over 2,000mph. At this point, the booster then gracefully disconnects from the passenger section and returns to Earth.

Video number three shows the booster landing on a launch mount on Earth, where it is loaded with propellant and blasted back into orbit. It reconnects with the spaceship, refueling it before disconnecting and heading back to Earth. The spaceship part, meanwhile, sets off for Mars.

The fourth video shows a series of solar arrays leaving the ship, providing around 200kW to power the ship on its multiple-month long trip to the red planet.

The fifth video shows the spaceship finally arriving at Mars and neatly landing on the planet’s surface. Mars, once described by Musk as “a real fixer-upper of a planet”, is suitably inhospitable – but that doesn’t stop the astronauts who saunter out and begin their new lives 33.9 million miles from the nearest Starbucks.