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SpaceX is building floating 'ports' where people will climb into rockets and go to Mars, Elon Musk reveals

'SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars,' a job posting states

Anthony Cuthbertson

Wednesday 17 June 2020 11:16 BST

The Starship space craft built by SpaceX could land on the moon by 2021, Elon Musk claims (SpaceX)

Elon Musk has revealed that SpaceX is building "spaceports" for rockets travelling between Earth, the moon and Mars.

The SpaceX CEO said that the spacecraft facilities would also be used to launch rockets travelling around the Earth.

"SpaceX is building floating, superheavy-class spaceports for Mars, moon and hypersonic travel around Earth," he tweeted on Tuesday.

He also shared a job posting for an "offshore operations engineer" in Brownsville, Texas, whose duties would include developing rocket launch systems for future missions.

"SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not," the post states.

"Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars."

Mr Musk has spoken frequently about his ambition to make humanity a multi-planetary species, claiming that it is integral for our long-term survival.

He has also expressed his desire to travel to Mars within his lifetime, however he recently said that current progress means it may not be possible within such a timeframe.

The 48-year-old tech billionaire announced last week that building the Starship spacecraft, which will one day ferry humans around the solar system, is now the company's "top priority".

In a company-wide email to SpaceX employees, he wrote: "Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart from anything that could reduce Dragon return risk) to be the Starship."

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

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1/10Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas from fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010

Nasa/ESA/STScI

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012

Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy

Nasa

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth

Getty

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth

Getty

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015

Nasa/APL/SwRI

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun

Nasa

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand

Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures

Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015

Nasa/Scott Kelly

The stainless steel spacecraft is one of three major SpaceX projects, along with Starlink internet satellites and the Crew Dragon space program, which successfully launched Nasa astronauts up to the International Space Station (ISS) last month.

There have already been several iterations of Starship prototypes, with one recent test ending in a dramatic explosion.

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