Plans to reach Mars are accelerating and moving forward at full speed. Although no human has yet set foot on the red planet, this will change in a few years. The latest forecasts indicate that astronauts will arrive in four years and will then prepare to live there. The Martian revolution begins!
NASA had said that astronauts would have to wait until 2040 to reach Mars. But recently, Elon Musk shared his predictions. And these are, by all accounts, much more optimistic than those of the space agency. According to the founder of SpaceX, humans will set foot on Mars for the first time within the next four years. And they will not come as tourists, since they want to colonize the planet.
Humanity needs to move
One of the main conclusions that can be drawn from Musk’s statements about the predictions for life on Mars is that he is using them to activate this program. He mentions that, after this first arrival on Mars, humanity will begin to settle on Mars and build the necessary structures and facilities. His second prediction is that, in 20 years, they will have already built a self-sustaining city that will be the first piece of humanity’s history on Mars.
Some specialists view these two decades with a certain degree of suspicion. They are not entirely confident that people could be living in a Martian city in just two decades. But there is agreement that aiming so high could be a way of tightening the screws on the various professionals and organisations that have to collaborate so that something like this can become a reality. Therefore, it is possible that in 2040 we will not be living on Mars, but that trips to the red planet will be common.
A very ambitious plan
Various experts, such as Matthew Weinzierl, talk about how the plans Musk is preparing are ambitious, but, in a way, feasible. He is surprised by the way Musk makes the multi-million dollar investments that some of his projects require easy. But, as he points out, the secret lies in the ability of Musk’s different businesses to supply each other through the income they earn. That would mean that the enormous amounts needed to finance the colonization of Mars could come directly from the income of Starlink and SpaceX.
Given that SpaceX has already proven that it can take millionaires to space for the holidays of a lifetime, it’s safe to imagine that they won’t have much trouble getting all the funds they need. However, they are setting their sights on a Martian city that will eventually be home to a million people. That’s certainly an ambitious plan.
What some scientists are concerned about is that Musk wants to send humans to Mars within four years and that, for the moment, they do not yet have the necessary facilities to guarantee their comfortable life. Technology will be needed to help create settlements and generate oxygen or methane on a huge scale. But, at the moment, it seems that SpaceX is only focused on how to get people to Mars and not so much on how to ensure that they can stay there. Therefore, the four-year deadline is seen as feasible to set foot on the planet, but not enough to begin colonization.
Furthermore, the process of finding these first colonists will certainly not be easy. The one-way trip will take between six and nine months. To this we must add the peculiarity of being on a distant planet and everything that will mean for the brave ones who decide to go for it. The return trip will not be exactly easy, although if everything is built properly and living there is viable, it is possible that the first “Martians” are not thinking of returning.
Right now, Musk is stoking interest in Mars to get attention, money and support. He wants the world of astronomy and science to set its sights on the red planet as the next target. Now that he has proven that space tourism is viable, he has a new target. And we already know that SpaceX is doing things right and achieving its goals, so who knows, we might soon be talking about possible moves to Mars.
