Elon Musk has made it clear that he wants humans to colonize Mars. After a couple of decades of hard work, the internet billionaire’s aerospace company SpaceX seems to be getting closer to making it happen. How long will it be before we can answer this question? In the next five to ten years, according to Musk.
“When do you believe SpaceX will land a human on Mars?” was asked of Musk yet again in a recent interview. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded by saying that SpaceX might deploy a man on Mars in the next five years under ideal circumstances. The worst-case scenario might extend this to the next ten years at the earliest.
As a result, the discussion is still respectable given the fact that we’re talking about sending a human being to another planet, a prospect that would have been laughed at a generation ago. There are now massive rockets like SpaceX’s Starship that may make Musk’s and many others’ dreams of space travel a reality in the near future.
Musk wasn’t being overly pessimistic, however. Musk paused for a good ten seconds when podcaster Lex Fridman asked him the question during the conversation. After that, he continued, “best case is roughly five years, worst case 10 years,” which was enough to get the hearts racing of any space nut.
As Musk has previously stated, a human landing on Mars might happen within the next decade or so. It would be a surprise to me if we didn’t land on Mars within the next five years, Musk said in an interview with Time magazine earlier this month. Since then, it appears that the timeline has been made a little more realistic.
Even so, it is worth noting that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a history of missing deadlines. It’s fair to say that his aspirations are considered mad until they’ve been realized. One such goal is to put a man on Mars. Making a large enough rocket is another matter entirely.
Musk appears to be in charge of the last quarter. “Rocket engineering” was mentioned in a recent interview as a factor in the huge task. When the opportunity arose, he used the phrase “the most intricate and advanced rocket that has ever been created” to describe Starship. “This is definitely on another level,” he exclaimed in awe.
According to Musk, the mission’s success hinges on how well Starship is optimized. Per-ton-per-orbit costs may be reduced by using the rocket “to Mars’ surface, as well as their eventual cost per ton,” Musk explained. This is critical to the mission’s success. A manned mission to Mars will be shaped by many other factors as well. Even yet, it appears that Musk and those involved with the project have plenty of time to work it out.
