SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is too optimistic of the success of his company's Mars colonization programs, saying the first batch of Mars colonizers could leave Earth as soon as 2014.
As the ambitious undertaking caught the attention of space enthusiasts including NASA, Musk revealed some of the important details of SpaceX Mars colonization program.
Here are the briefs of the details of Musk's mission to colonize Mars:
1. SpaceX will send a spacecraft to Mars in 2018 or 2020 to test the company's ability to travel to and land on Mars.
2. The spacecraft will harvest useful elements on the Martian surface, including methane and possible water sources, among others.
3. SpaceX will send its first unmanned spacecraft to Mars, "Heart of Gold", filled with cargo and equipment to build a propellant facility that will harvest materials on Mars. These equipment include glass panes with carbon fiber frames to build geodesic domes on the surface, plus a lot of miner and tunneling droids.
4. By 2024, the first batch of humans will be send to Mars to colonize the red planet. They will arrive at the Red Planet on 2025.
5. SpaceX plans to send a batch of people to Mars every 26 months. A ticket to Mars will be within range of about $200,000 per person.
6. "Are you ready to die?" is the question every willing passenger must answer affirmatively. This as SpaceX offers no guaranty on their life there as death could be at the other end of SpaceX mission to colonize Mars.
"It's not going to be a vacation jaunt. It's going to be saving up all your money and selling all your stuff, like when people moved to the early American colonies," he said.
Founded in 2002, SpaceX has designed, manufactured and launched advanced rockets and spacecraft to revolutionize space technology, with the goal of enabling people to live on other planets.
