Elon Musk shares first pic of SpaceX’s BFR Starship that could carry 100 humans to live on Mars in 2024
Rocket to transport Mars colonists is to begin test flights next year, Musk says
ELON Musk has given a sneak preview of the "Big F***ing Rocket" he claims will fly 100 people at a time to live on Mars.
The tech billionaire tweeted a picture of two giant metal sections of the giant craft being worked on at his space flight testing centre in Texas.
It shows a large nose cone and another section with what appear to be landing legs for the reusable spaceship.
Musk captioned it: "Stainless Steel Starship."
Starship is the new official name, announced by Musk last month, of the BFR launch system known as the Big F***ing Rocket or Big Falcon Rocket, depending on the audience.
Musk has claimed low altitude test flights could begin next year ahead of the first trips to the Red Planet as early as 2024.
He is planning a colony of a million people living in glass domes to grow their own food.
Musk's company SpaceX has spent years building the reusable rocket launcher that it hopes will transport colonists 100 at a time.
It will be the largest rocket ever built - taller and heavier than the Saturn rockets that launched the Apollo missions to the Moon.
The Starship is 30 feet wide and will be made from stainless steel as it resists extreme cold and heat better than pricey composite materials, Musk told followers.
Underneath it will be a massive booster rocket called Super Heavy.
Engineers are planning "hopper" flights to test systems using a smaller version of the craft - the same width, but shorter.
Tesla boss Musk said he would reveal more details of the hopper in the spring.
He tweeted: “I will do a full technical presentation of Starship after the test vehicle we’re building in Texas flies, so hopefully March/April.”
Last year SpaceX announced its first trips to fly round the Moon and back, and in September the firm revealed a mystery private passenger is lined up to be on board.
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Musk has previously said he wanted to begin Mars flights in 2022 and earlier this year was still claiming the first trips could be in 2024.
He is in a race with Nasa, which says it will put humans on Mars within 25 years.
He says there is a 70 per cent chance he will go to live on the Red Planet himself, despite the "good chance" of dying on the way.
Today we revealed scientists are a step closer to finding life on Mars thanks to Nasa's new robot explorer.
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