Elon Musk wants to go to Mars, and in a field near Boca Chica, Texas, less than a mile from the Mexican border, he is building the first test mule of the ship that will take him there.
It took awhile for people to realize exactly what was taking shape in that small field, out in the weather. Many thought that perhaps SpaceX was building a water tower to supply the facility. User “Johnnyhinbos”, on a discussion forum hosted by the blog nasaspaceflight, posted the following comment last November:
So what is it? Some (including me) say it’s a water tank. Good guess – Caldwell was on site and they are manufacturers of large water tanks. And the first tube to go in had an angled cut end like an overflow pipe. But there are a few issues. Both ends of the pipe were cut. This makes no sense for real plumbing installs, there should be bolt flanges at least on one end for attaching the next section of pipe. And the steel cylinder is only bolted to the concrete base – not what you would expect for a permanent install. Plus, why a water tank at that location? Why right next to the sprung structure? Why the “legs”? It’s not for the deluge system – the pad is several miles away. Sure, it could be a site reservoir since the water service in the area may not be capable of supporting a large facility. But if it’s a water tank – where’s the tank? The legs enter the steel cylinder through cutouts – and must terminate inside the structure. The top of the cylinder is going to be made of relatively flimsy rebar and metal sheeting. So where it the actual tank that holds water?
It didn’t take very long to clear up the confusion, however. Moving at the lightning speed Musk’s company is known for, over the next several months a shiny, but stubby, “spaceship” took shape. A computer graphic image tweeted by Musk was soon replaced by a nearly-identical image of the real thing.
The hopper, as CGI
The Starhopper is a full 9-meter diameter, but shortened, version of the “Super Heavy/Starship” two-stage system that SpaceX is designing as the backbone of what is envisioned to be a general transportation system able to go to the Moon, to Mars, and possibly even the asteroid belt — then land and return to Earth. This is a huge paradigm shift from the systems we have had up until now which throw away most of themselves during a mission, ending with only a tiny fraction of the size of the launched vehicle. In contrast to these massively expensive use-once-only systems, Starship will be a true all-purpose vehicle that can haul cargo to a space station or a planet, launch satellite constellations in any orbit, build refueling centers in deep space, and perhaps even be used for high-speed transportation between any two places on Earth in under an hour.
The hopper, real life
Starhopper is designed primarily to test the dynamic control of the huge vehicle, prove that the massive new Raptor methalox engines work reliably and reuseably, and develop flight control algorithms that can land the vehicle just as smoothly and confidently as SpaceX has done 35 times now with the much, much smaller Falcon 9. Actual flights are planned for early this summer, Elon Time.
And they’re building it out of shiny stainless steel, in a field? Instead of a clean room? Using the good old middle-American expertise of a water tank builder? This is truly the 
next generation of space-fairing hardware.
Wow.
We are finally on the road to Mars, starting out one little hop at a time. I can’t wait to watch.