The gathering, which included Apollo-era astronaut Buzz Aldrin, drew men and women who have spent lifetimes studying our solar system, the galaxies beyond, and how to get there one day. Those missions will inform the design of the SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System, a larger craft to ferry people to Mars and beyond. SpaceX released an four-minute animated video shortly before Musk’s speech that revealed how the Interplanetary Transport System would work. Once in space, the spacecraft sits in a parking orbit while the booster returns to Earth to get a propellant tank. With the additional fuel, the spacecraft then blasts off toward Mars thanks, in part, to solar arrays that deploy.

Source: National Post September 27, 2016 20:37 UTC