Humans could land on Mars in 5 to 10 years, if Elon Musk has his way

SpaceX and Tesla Founder Inc. Elon Musk announced that he plans to send humans to Mars within 5 to 10 years.

Musk’s comments came when appearing on an episode of Lex Friedman Podcast third release.

“When do you think SpaceX Host Lex Friedman asked Musk, the richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $278 billion.

The South African-born tech mogul paused for more than 10 seconds before finally replying, “best case about 5 years, worst case 10 years.”

Friedman followed up by asking about the “constraints … from a technical perspective” regarding the human landing on the Red Planet.

“It’s basically the engineering of the car,” Musk replied. “I mean, Starship is the most sophisticated and advanced rocket ever built…it’s a lot. It’s really the next level.”

He added: “The fundamental optimization of Starship is to minimize the cost per ton in orbit and ultimately the cost per ton on the Martian surface.

According to SpaceX’s website, the vehicle Musk was referring to, the SpaceX Starship, is “designed to carry both crew and cargo to orbit the Earth, Moon, Mars and beyond.” When completed, the spacecraft will be “the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, with the capacity to carry more than 100 tons into Earth orbit.”

This past May, Starship completed its fifth high-altitude test flight, and its 2023 moon landing mission is scheduled to be the first private mission to the moon.

However, despite the recent progress seen with Starship, Musk insists that the biggest hurdle continues to be the sheer cost of the six-month journey to Mars, as well as setting up a budget. permanent rumors on this planet.

“There’s a definite cost per ton to the Martian surface where we can afford to establish a self-sustaining city and beyond that we can’t afford to,” Musk told Friedman. to do that.

“Right now you can’t fly to Mars for a trillion dollars; there’s no amount of money that can get you a ticket to Mars. So we need to get there above, you know. there, to get that [to] something is really possible. “

However, Musk also reiterated his belief that the door to sending humans to Mars is finally open.

“Earth could become too hot for life in about 500 million years. That’s a long time, but it’s only 10% longer than Earth has ever existed,” Musk continued. “Earth has existed for about 4 and a half billion years, and this is the first time in 4 and a half billion years that people have been able to extend life outside of Earth.”

“That window of opportunity can be open for a long time, and I hope it is, but it can also be open for a short time. I think we should act quickly while the window is open, just in case”. “

However, Musk and SpaceX are not the only ones trying to get to Mars in the near future, as the US government continues to make a play for the Red Planet. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) landed an exploratory mission on the planet this past February, with another scheduled for 2022.

NASA continues to move around its schedule for a manned Mars mission, but the administration has previously stated that it hopes to send humans to the Martian surface in the 2030s.

China’s space program has also announced its intention to go to Mars in 2033.

Newsweek Have reached out to SpaceX for comment.