World's richest man and the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, has been vocal about his mission to colonise Mars. For nearly a decade now, Musk has been speaking about establishing a self-sustaining colony of humans on Mars.
On Friday, Musk said that his space exploration company, SpaceX, plans to prioritise Mars and skip missions to the Moon, which he called a distraction.
"No, weĄ¯re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction. Mass to orbit is the key metric, thereafter mass to Mars surface. The former needs to be in the megaton to orbit per year range to build a self-sustaining colony on Mars," Musk said on X.
He was responding to astrophysicist Peter Hague, who argued that different camps having conflicting approaches to settling humans outside our planet are helping to accelerate the development of the markets of both Mars people and the space habitat people.
It was back in September 2016 that Musk first announced his plans to colonise Mars, which he said was essential to ensure that humans don't go extinct and become a multi-planetary species.
He had initially expressed confidence in putting humans on Mars by 2022.
Also read:?Watch: Elon Musk says he was clueless when he started SpaceX in old interview
In September 2024, Musk announced his plans to put humans on Mars by 2030, starting with SpaceX's first uncrewed mission in 2026.
According to Musk, SpaceX's uncrewed missions to Mars can be launched only when the Red Planet and Earth are lined up in such a way that flights between them take the least amount of energy and time. The next such Earth-Mars launch window is in 2026, and if SpaceX fails to launch its mission during this timeframe, it will have to wait another couple more yearsĄĒlate 2028 into early 2029ĄĒto land a rocket on our neighbouring planet.
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