No, a Pressurized Cybertruck Is Not Headed to Mars

Image by cosmo @ http://www.raumfahrt-blog.de

Back in November, Tesla and SpaceX mogul Elon Musk tweeted this:

On December 29th, in response to “Will Starship have a Cybertruck on board during the 2022 cargo mission to Mars?” , Musk responded with a smiley-face😎 emoji, further stoking speculation that the Cybertruck might actually be intended to serve as a Martian rover.

This is insane.

First of all, let’s stipulate that magically the vehicle performs on Mars just like it does on Earth without a massive redesign and re-engineering. The astronauts pile into the Cybertruck in the Starship cargo bay, pressurize the cabin, de-pressurize the cargo bay, lower by elevator and roll majestically onto the Martian surface.

Now what?

You’re inside the Cybertruck on the surface of Mars — what useful thing can you possibly do from inside the truck? You’re going to have very physical jobs to do like setting up reactors, drilling for water, performing geological surveys and in general laying the keel for a Martian colony. This is the stuff that isn’t…