Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip.
In Musk's vision, the ambitious Mars settlement program would start with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who would journey to the Red Planet aboard a huge reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane.
"At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big," Musk told an audience at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Friday (Nov. 16). Musk was there to talk about his business plans, and to receive the Society’s gold medal for his contribution to the commercialization of space.
Mars pioneers
Accompanying the founders of the new Mars colony would be large amounts of equipment, including machines to produce fertilizer, methane and oxygen from Mars’ atmospheric nitrogen and carbon dioxide and the planet's subsurface water ice.
The Red Planet pioneers would also take construction materials to build transparent domes, which when pressurized with Mars’ atmospheric CO2 could grow Earth crops in Martian soil. As the Mars colony became more self sufficient, the big rocket would start to transport more people and fewer supplies and equipment. [Future Visions of Human Spaceflight]
Musk’s architecture for this human Mars exploration effort does not employ cyclers, reusable spacecraft that would travel back and forth constantly between the Red Planet and Earth — at least not at first
"Probably not a Mars cycler; the thing with the cyclers is, you need a lot of them," Musk told SPACE.com. "You have to have propellant to keep things aligned as [Mars and Earth’s] orbits aren’t [always] in the same plane. In the beginning you won’t have cyclers."
Musk also ruled out SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which the company is developing to ferry astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit, as the spacecraft that would land colonists on the Red Planet. When asked by SPACE.com what vehicle would be used, he said, "I think you just land the entire thing."
Asked if the "entire thing" is the huge new reusable rocket — which is rumored to bear the acronymic name MCT, short for Mass Cargo Transport or Mars Colony Transport — Musk said, "Maybe."
Musk has been thinking about what his colonist-carrying spacecraft would need, whatever it ends up being. He reckons the oxygen concentration inside should be 30 to 40 percent, and he envisions using the spacecraft’s liquid water store as a barrier between the Mars pioneers and the sun.
A $500,000 ticket
Musk’s $500,000 ticket price for a Mars trip was derived from what he thinks is affordable.
"The ticket price needs to be low enough that most people in advanced countries, in their mid-forties or something like that, could put together enough money to make the trip," he said, comparing the purchase to buying a house in California. [Photos: The First Space Tourists]
He also estimated that of the eight billion humans that will be living on Earth by the time the colony is possible, perhaps one in 100,000 would be prepared to go. That equates to potentially 80,000 migrants.
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25 Comments
Add CommentI am sure he has a better chance than NASA at getting there first.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo gain the support needed, we will have to eliminate poverty. To eliminate poverty educate everyone for the information age.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswww.facebook.com/pages/The-Chess-America-Projects-supporter-page/148190811939961
Always good to find people willing to look to the future. Now if more of the readers would.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this36 Billion, thats it? Its chump change to the parasite politicians of America and barely a scratch in the personal wealth of a few billionaires. Why bother with government at all, just do it from private investment. Get politicians involved and it will never work or cost about 200 billion but 200 billion to politicians is still chump change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIMO, somebody's dangerously delusional! How about a demonstration project in the desert? Hasn't that failed once already? Maybe it'd be good to produce a successful pilot before sending up even a few people you might not be able to retrieve...
On the other hand, we desperately need to reduce the population of Earth, so maybe would should convince a few billion volunteers to get on a spaceship...
I don't know why people would react negatively to this idea, it is the natural progression for us to spread life to other planets. From what I've read on the topic the technology we have at the moment is good enough to do the job. Exploring the solar system will advance technology in a way that will benefit conditions on Earth i have no doubt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere has to be an economic motive for people to
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgo there. If there was gold, diamonds , or some
other substance that could be produced for a profit
then colonists would go there. No one is going to
pay 500,000 to go there and live just for the
scenery or the beach. You have to make a business case or
all the technology in the world is still not going to
make people want to go there.
Instead of setting up a human settlement straight at Mars, why not to set up a human colony at much nearer Moon or some near asteroid like Vesta as a pilot project?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I said earlier, I'd suggest the successful demonstration of a totally self-sufficient colony somewhere closer to Los Angles, for example, before sending even expert tourists off-planet to risk their lives - where they can't be quickly retrieved in the event of an emergency...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOff-world colonies would make great locations for the Survivor reality show series, although voting contestants out would be a little severe! It'd also be a great way to finance the program - I mean project...
I would agree on the Moon colony first, but why Vesta? It is much further and Much more difficult than even Mars. Perhaps Phobos or Deimos, to avoid the Martian landing, but then, the Martian surface would be better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe significantly lower gravity and lower abundance of natural resources make the moon and Vespa poor choices for a self-sustaining colony. For example, the lack of atmosphere on either body would make demonstrating the feasibility of pressurized domes impossible. While the shorter time-of-flight would be preferable for humanity's first attempt at an extraterrestrial colony, we still have to balance the availability of resources with safety factors
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suppose they might find something with economic value after they get there; but same applies to Antarctica, or the Chang Thang, which have better climates.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this> I'd suggest the successful demonstration of a totally self-sufficient colony somewhere closer to Los Angeles
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about Atlanta? That is near where I plan to build an 85% self sufficient community. 100% is hard to do, so 85% is a starting goal, with future improvement over time. Also over time moving to more difficult environments, like deserts, oceans, and ice caps.
There does not always have to be a financial motive. there are always other motives. Being part of the first space colony that survives would be a big incentive for SOME people. Talk about making history.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suspect all the first European colonists in the Americas and Australia were considered to be delusional by their stay at home relatives.
One caution about greenhouses on Mars. Mars does not have a magnetosphere that acts as a shield against hard radiation. Plants are also susceptible to radiation affects that may accelerate mutations that may ultimately change or destroy a crop.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe greenhouses might have to be underground with filtered sunlight light-piped in.
Why are these people automatically assuming that they can make "space law"? The children and grandchildren of the world own this property. Not the millionaires (also known as the 1%er's) who want to spread the disease of misguided and selfish capitalism to other planetary bodies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually nobody owns this property. If millionaires want to spread the "disease of misguided and selfish capitalism" to other planetary bodies, I wish them the best of luck :-) They're the ones who initiate and promote innovation and exploration, not the people who live off their efforts and condemn them for their contributions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven Mr. Musk's track record of success, why do you call this something out of 5th grade? It isn't heavy on details but most of that is probably protected by patent or copyright.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI read a short story about that once, it was pretty funny.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that perhaps as the climate continues to change of the Earth we may get a great deal of experience with surviving hostile environments. Some of that experience will translate to extraterrestrial survival.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI really think that a long term strategy for colonizing Mars has to involve adding mass to Mars. As we eventually mine the asteroids we can shoot the waste material in small chunks in a gentle trajectory to Mars. After a couple millenia Mars would have the mass to hold a denser atmosphere, which would be shipped in from the rings of the gas giants.
For the short term I think Mr. Musk needs to consider a huge array of survival requirements that range from physical all the way through to mental equilibrium. Living in cramped modules with little sunlight and death just the other side of the wall is likely to be stressful.
I doubt that Mars has coal or oil so solar or nuclear energy would likely be required. Solar would be subject to serious challenges and I doubt anyone wants nuclear power plants launched overhead.
It is a simple enough business model. The reasons to go are complex - ask the Pilgrim Fathers of 1630, or Chevalier De LaSalle, or Samuel Champlain all of whom were 6 months to a year away from relief - assuming they could get the message to relief that they needed it... Which the Martian colony will be able to do in about 30 minutes, not 6 months or a year.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is a simple enough business model. The reasons to go are complex - ask the Pilgrim Fathers of 1630, or Chevalier De LaSalle, or Samuel Champlain all of whom were 6 months to a year away from relief - assuming they could get the message to relief that they needed it... Which the Martian colony will be able to do in about 30 minutes, not 6 months or a year.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou send the power plant in pieces, and the reactor mass in little pieces (or as nuclear waste sent for disposal then you bring up a heavy water reactor that is designed to run on 7 mil fuel and you've got 9 mil 'waste' - works for me).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisElon Musk = Cha-ching!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGive him $500k and he'll throw you into space! If he fails, who's going to sue? In what court.
Comment to Bill Lasley:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour thinking is backwards. We need to develop the resources of Space and the Moon to generate the GNP to eliminate such things as poverty and homelessness. Economic properity is not created out of thin air, but it can be created out of the vacuum of Space.