SpaceX's new spaceship could “go well beyond Mars”, says CEO Elon Musk!

Space enthusiasts on Twitter were only too happy to give their suggestions for a new name for MCT and Musk graciously acknowledged them too!

New Delhi: SpaceX's mission to send people to Mars by the year 2024 has every one in deep anticipation. For that, SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk proudly announced the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT), a spacecraft designed to carry both cargo and astronauts to the Red Planet.

However, it seems that Elon Musk is a man tough to satisfy. According to him, the spacecraft is actually designed to go "well beyond" Mars, so he feels it needs a new name and he definitely has ideas if the posts on his Twitter account are anything to go by.

Turns out MCT can go well beyond Mars, so will need a new name… — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 17, 2016

The first name he came up with was "Ultimate Spaceship, Version 2" and he also gave a reason for it!

Maybe Ultimate Spaceship, Version 2? Mostly because it is not the ultimate and there isn't a version 1. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 17, 2016

Space enthusiasts on Twitter were only too happy to give their suggestions and Musk graciously acknowledged them too!

I love the suggestions! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 17, 2016

Eventually, however, it appears he seemed to have settled for "Interplanetary Transport System (ITS)."

Preview of the @SpaceX interplanetary transport system at @IAC2016https://t.co/Rz4XmeAoRw — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 18, 2016

The more we get to know about the MCT/ITS, the more intriguing it gets, mainly because Musk has been keeping most information about the spacecraft under wraps and plans to disclose more about the Mars mission on Sept. 27, during the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.

We wonder what Elon Musk has in store for the ITS, but as per Mashable, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and the planet Venus (which is, on average, closer to Earth than Mars, but a worse candidate for terraforming, which is something Musk is interested in), are the most likely candidates for a visit.

In a recent interview, Musk also revealed his ambition to start a Mars colony by 2026 and also stated that the odds of his company succeeding at building and maintaining a permanent Martian colony for human beings are “pretty good.” This didn't come as a surprise since Musk has said repeatedly that he founded SpaceX in 2002 primarily to colonize Mars and thereby make humanity a multiplanet species.