A million people in 40 to 100 years: SpaceX unveils plan to colonize Mars | The Planetary Society
I hope to live long enough to see it start.
Musk's plans are so ambitious, they nearly defy analysis. Of all the modern private space firms claiming they will ferry tourists to orbit, mine asteroids and set up commercial space stations, SpaceX may stand alone in its ability to present such a staggeringly audacious plan and still be taken seriously. Even NASA might raise more objections if it were to drop an equally zealous version of its current Journey to Mars plans.
Put simply, Musk wants to colonize Mars. Humanity, he believes, must become an interplanetary species before some future calamity wipes our presence from the Earth.
Whereas NASA's humans-to-Mars plans envision an Antarctica-like research station with a rotating crew of astronauts, Musk wants to have a million people there in 40 to 100 years. He stopped short of saying he wanted to terraform the planet, but frequently alludes to the possibility; SpaceX's new video on its Mars transportation system ends by showing the Red Planet spinning into an Earth-like orb.
I hope to live long enough to see it start.