Billionaire SpaceX Owner Has Ambitious Plan to Put Humans on the Red Planet
Elon Musk is known for his ambitious goals with his companies, and SpaceX is no exception. The company is actively testing the world’s largest rocket, Starship, with the long-term goal of reaching Mars. But if you think the plans for the Red Planet are vague, think again, because the billionaire already has a date set for when colonization will begin.
Musk’s confidence in the future of his space exploration company led him to reveal the year he intends to establish the first colony and send humans to Mars: 2054. The announcement was made on X (formerly Twitter), the social media platform (literally) owned by the SpaceX founder.
The timeline might seem long, but considering the slow progress in space exploration over recent years, it’s quite bold. Musk believes that, within the next 30 years, SpaceX will have developed a self-sustaining colony on the Red Planet capable of supporting over a million people.
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However, this is the date for having humans living there. The timeline for reaching Mars, according to Musk, is much sooner. The billionaire plans to use SpaceX to launch astronauts to our neighboring planet by 2030.
From there, the construction of a fully self-sustaining base would begin, complete with crops, greenhouses, and all the necessary equipment for human survival. This is expected to take around 20 years to complete.
Starship: Our Transportation to Mars
As we mentioned, at the heart of SpaceX’s plan to reach Mars is the Starship. That’s why the current tests being conducted are extremely crucial for the company’s future in space exploration.
The next step is to perform the first orbital flight with the spacecraft by 2026. This is fundamental since the Starship is scheduled to go to the Moon for Artemis 3 (expected by the end of 2026, though the deadline is considered unrealistic).
To colonize Mars, Musk plans to mass-produce Starship, creating a fleet of up to a thousand ships that will be launched during transfer windows every 26 months when Mars and Earth are closest to each other.
In other words, SpaceX has a lot of work ahead in the coming decades.
