Elon Musk shares surreal picture of Starship on red planet; 'This will be Mars one day'

Elon Musk tried to titillate his fans about Mars yet again by sharing a futuristic picture on Twitter. This time, the SpaceX CEO posted a photo of the Starship booster attached to its launch tower on a red surface, representing Earth’s neighbour Mars. "This will be Mars one day", Musk captioned the picture which showed the sun shining brightly behind the booster. 

The Starship is currently in news for the static fire tests that SpaceX is carrying out ahead of the mega rocket's first orbital test flight. This week has been dedicated to a series of tests which would confirm the rocket's ability to complete one trip around the Earth.

Meanwhile, Mars has emerged as a prospect and a planet B owing to its history, which scientists believe was similar to Earth billions of years ago. Although the red planet does not have an atmosphere, it is believed that Mars was once protected by an atmosphere that later got stripped away.

In the past, Musk had suggested ideas such as nuking the poles of Mars to make the planet warmer and gradually develop an atmosphere, however, it is an idea that would be highly pondered upon before application. Besides these crazy ideas, Musk has even made some scary revelations that the first few humans launching to Mars might not make it back.

The race to Mars 

Apart from the US, countries such as China, Russia and those in Europe have plans to launch more missions to Mars and fetch rock samples for further exploration. Currently, the American space agency NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are working together to bring rock samples to Earth in 2033 whereas China is aiming to do the same two years before the said timeline. 

While the biggest and most ambitious unmanned missions are likely to be accomplished no earlier than 2030, Musk believes that humans will land on Mars this decade itself. He even once tweeted that the year 2029 would be pivotal and that he would be surprised if there are no astronauts on Mars by then. Even SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell predicted that humans will land on the red planet this decade and even sooner on Moon. As per the current plans, the next Moon landing will occur in 2025 under NASA's Artemis programme, if everything goes according to plan.