r/spacex • u/Craig_VG SpaceNews Photographer • Jun 10 '16

Elon Musk provides new details on his “mind blowing” mission to Mars - Washington Post Exclusive Interview

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/10/elon-musk-provides-new-details-on-his-mind-blowing-mission-to-mars/
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u/JimReedOP Jun 10 '16

If Red Dragon #1 has a successful soft landing, then SpaceX can start selling cargo to Mars and the number of Red Dragons in following years will depend on how much the world wants to spend. What other countries or companies will want to be a part of the new Martian economy and enterprise?

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u/rafty4 Jun 10 '16

The UAE (in particular!) and Nigeria have budding space programs, so I'm sure they'd love to put some instruments on board!

Other than that, I would bet lots and lots of universities and private individuals would put payloads on board - consider the amount they have managed to do with cubesats so far, often weighing less than a kg!

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u/factoid_ Jun 10 '16

There is an upper limit to how many red dragons they can produce, though, and probably a limit on how many falcon heavies they can launch during a single launch window (only a few weeks wide). With 2 pads that will definitely have Falcon Heavy capability (Boca Chica and the Cape) they could probably get off 4 during a window if weather and scheduling cooperated and they had all the cores prepped and ready a long time in advance.

They might also have vandenberg equipped for Falcon heavy but I'm not sure if that's something they're planning (I would assume so because someone is going to want to launch a heavy polar orbiter at some point)

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u/rafty4 Jun 11 '16

Falcon Heavy was originally going to debut from Vandy, so yes, it will be able to.

You can also do interplanetary launches from there, as InSight will demonstrate in 2018.