This Is How Elon Musk Plans To Establish Human Civilization On Mars
Recently, Elon Musk revealed how we will get to Mars and establish a civilization there. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX chose his favorite social media platform, Twitter to reveal the plan in detail about how humanity will reach Mars, the costs involved, etc.
The colonization of the planet Mars will be one of the biggest achievements of mankind after landing on the moon. The amount of preparations, resources, and courage it will take to go to Mars is ungodly. However, Elon Musk is determined to reach the stars.
Elon Musk has been testing his Falcon Heavy rocket for months now. The rocket is a two-stage rocket with additional boosters and it is usable. It is currently being used to transfer the payload from Earth into space to the International Space Station.
The eccentric CEO, who is also a meme lover, occasionally shares plans about his future endeavors on Twitter. Those who have recently become familiar with Elon Musk might think it’s weird but many of his fans are used to getting all the juicy information whenever Musk tweets.
Elon Musk Reveals Mars Mission Plans On Twitter
When @marstronauts asked Elon Musk about the estimated amount of money that will be required to build a self-sustaining civilization on Mars.
Between $100B and $10T
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 9, 2019
Musk answered by saying that anywhere between “$100 billion to $10 trillion.” Although this figure is pretty vague, I am willing to bet that colonization of Mars will at least require 80% of what a small or medium-sized country earns in one year.
Another Twitter user asked Elon Musk, how much money would be required to send one million tons of cargo from Earth to Mars.
To this question, Elon Musk replied that the cost of sending cargo to Mars has a price rate of around $1,00,000/ton of cargo. So to send one million tons of cargo, $100 billion dollars will be needed.
Approx min payload to Mars to nearest order of magnitude, so at $100k/ton, cost would be $100B
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 9, 2019
After hearing this price, one can estimate that the above mentioned $10 trillion price figure could be true. To put things into perspective, according to a report, the US exported around 267 metric tons of cheese in 2016. So if you’re thinking of living on Mars you better be satisfied with whatever you get to eat.
Elon Musk has also explained this in an interview. He made it clear that conditions of life on Mars will be no joke and that people living on Mars will need to deal with a lot of hardships.
They’ll drink recycled water, they’ll breathe recycled air. People who plan to live on Mars won’t have the luxury to waste any food, water or air.
The Trip To Mars In Big Falcon
Elon Musk plans to colonize Mars by 2050 and he will take 100 passengers and cargo with him. He also stated that the price of the ticket won’t be super high. My guess is that an average movie star would be able to afford one ticket to Mars.
However, as far as we know, the price of rocket travel will go down significantly as players like Amazon plans to enter the market.
SpaceX has also been working on a newer, better rocket called ‘Big Falcon Rocket‘. It will have all the capabilities of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy and then some.
The Big Falcon will have the following features:
- Reusability of the Rocket
- Vertical landing ability
- Self Docking Procedure, helpful in docking to Space Stations
- Ability to take several people into space
- High capacity payload capability
Furthermore, the Big Falcon will be more precise in terms of landing as compared to the older generations of SpaceX rockets. The Big Falcon, when launched, will replace the existing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to make space travel cheaper.
So if you don’t have billions of dollars in your pockets right now, there might still be a chance that you can go to Mars.
Also Read: Elon Musk’s SpaceX Becomes Richer Than Elon Musk’s Tesla
