WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk unveiled plans for his space transport company SpaceX to build a rocket and spacecraft designed to start a self-sustaining city on Mars.
The planned rocket system would be capable of taking people to Mars and supporting a permanent city on the red planet that could be achieved within 40 to 100 years.
Earlier, Musk had predicted that people would be on Mars in 2025.
In a speech at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, Musk said, 'It's something we can do in our lifetimes. You could go.'
He described plans to send at least a million people to Mars and establish a self-sustaining city. He also explained four requirements for a new rocket fleet that would travel to Mars once in every two years when Mars and Earth come closest to each other.
These requirements include full re-usability, the ability to refuel in orbit, the ability to produce fuel on Mars, and identifying the ideal propellant. Musk expects to produce a methane fuel in Mars. The atmosphere of Mars is largely made of carbon dioxide, and previous missions have found ice on the planet.
Musk said the program would be a huge public private partnership, but is yet to detail the costs of the project. At present, Musk estimates a trip to Mars would cost $10 billion per person, but expects to bring that down to about $200,000.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2016 AFX News
