SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has finalized the new name for the spaceship that would take humans to Mars. He has settled on "Interplanetary Transport System" as the name for the Mars Colonial Transporter.
The billionaire entrepreneur tweeted last week that the transporter can go beyond Mars and thus, he would need a new name, reports Space.com. He got many suggestions on Twitter and the next day he announced that he had put the seal on Interplanetary Transport System.
He also informed his followers that more details about the spaceship would be unveiled next week at the Interplanetary Astronautical Congress, scheduled to be held in Guadalajara, Mexico. He will also speak on the topic "Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species."
Notably, Musk's company is preparing for a mission to send humans to Mars and plans to establish a human colony on the red planet. He had revealed last week that his spaceship would take up to 100 colonists to Mars to build a settlement. Later, SpaceX discovered that the spaceship could go further and this is why they changed its name from Mars Colonial Transporter to Interplanetary Transport System.
Also, at the Code Conference last June, the entrepreneur had revealed that SpaceX wants to establish human footprints on the surface of the red planet in a decade, reports Observer. He also said that if things go according to their plan, they would be able to launch people by 2024 and ensure arrival by 2025.
However, questions have been raised about the mission after the recent explosion that destroyed SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. The incident took place on Sep.1 and it caused a lot of hullabaloo among space enthusiasts. People became skeptical and wondered how SpaceX would proceed. Musk described the incident as "difficult" and "complex" while some said that it could be the handiwork of aliens.
Well, from the recent announcement it looks like the failure has not dampened Musk's spirits and he is raring to go ahead and colonize Mars, a planet that has been the subject of human fascination for a long time.
