On Sunday (Feb 11), US entrepreneur Elon Musk announced intentions to relocate one million people to Mars but did not provide a date. Musk responded to a message on his social media site X by writing, “We are mapping out a game plan to get a million people to Mars.”
He also hinted at developing a local, self-sustaining ecological system on Mars that might live without assistance from Earth. “Civilisation only passes the single-planet Great Filter when Mars can survive even if Earth supply ships stop coming,” the millionaire from the U.S. stated.
He said this in response to a post that read “Starship is the largest rocket ever built and it’ll take us to Mars”.
Elon Musk also stated that in the future, a trip to Mars will be as common as a travel to another nation.
Elon Musk vows SpaceX moon mission in under 5, eyes lunar travel revival
This comes after Musk, also the founder of SpaceX, stated last week that Starship would be able to reach the moon in less than five years. Elon Musk promised that the SpaceX Dragon spaceship would transport humans to the farthest they have traveled from Earth in more than half a century. He stated in January that SpaceX could send humans to the Moon within the next eight years.
“What will things be like eight years from now…I think we will have landed on Mars and I think we will have sent people to the Moon,” Musk said.
Among SpaceX’s long-term plans for the Moon include making a base there. “Humanity should have a moon base, cities on Mars, and be out there among the stars,” the X owner says.
“We should have a base on the moon, like a permanently occupied human base on the moon, and then send people to Mars. Maybe there’s something beyond the space station, but we’ll see,” he is believed to have said in the past.