Elon Musk may build training centers in Mongolia for Mars missions

Training centers can be built in the Mongolian part of the Gobi desert, where specialists will be trained for Mars missions. Mongolian Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene and famous American businessman Elon Musk discussed this opportunity and its prospects.

As the Wall Street Journal writes, due to the similarity of the terrain of the Gobi desert on the surface of the Red Planet, such a center can be really effective.

Mission: Conquer Mars

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has been dreaming of conquering Mars for a long time. Mars is one of the main destinations of many SpaceX projects. Thus, the company recently conducted a static fire test of the Starship 25 spacecraft prototype engines, after which Musk tweeted that the spacecraft tests are "the prelude to Mars" and "an important milestone for the second flight." It is likely that Starship spacecraft will be used in future missions to the Moon and Mars.

It is still difficult to say when flights to Mars will become a reality, but it is a fact that today many specialists are actively working in that direction.

Musk's dreams and interest in space travel seem to be shared by Luvsannamsrayn Oyun-Erdene. The possible cooperation of Musk's company with Mongolia to establish training centers could be an important step towards achieving this goal.

Mongolia and Mars

The terrain of the Gobi Desert in southern Mongolia is a unique environment similar to conditions on the planet Mars. A training center in such an area will give astronauts the opportunity to gain experience that is close to the real conditions of a future mission to the Red Planet. That is why this desert seems to be an ideal choice for creating a training center for future Mars explorers.

If plans to create training centers in Mongolia are implemented, the country may get a unique opportunity to participate in the training of astronauts for missions to Mars. It can also help attract the attention of the international community and develop the space industry in the region.

By the way, Armenia can also play an important role in training specialists for flights to Mars. The Austrian Space Forum (Österreichisches Weltraum Forum, OeWF) plans to conduct a simulation called AMADEE-24 in Armenia in March 2024. In the simulation, a crew of two women and four men will do the same thing for a month as they would on a real flight to the Red Planet. Specialists will also test the materials used in the equipment, conduct analysis and look for defects in the systems.

Prospects of Musk's cooperation with Mongolia

In addition to the discussion on training centers for Mars missions, Musk and Oyun-Erdene also spoke about the prospects of cooperation in other fields during that meeting. The Prime Minister of Mongolia expressed his willingness to facilitate the opening of a Tesla branch in the country, promising to provide favorable tax and legal conditions. Also, a request was made to start research on the joint use of copper and rare earth elements, which are the main components of the production of Tesla products.