Elon Musk Explains Why He Wants To Colonise Mars: "Life On Earth Will Be Destroyed By..."

Billionaire Elon Musk's obsession with Mars is nothing new, and the SpaceX chief has been vocal about his views on establishing a human colony on the planet. He has repeatedly said that he wants to make humanity a "multi-planetary species" by establishing a colony on the Red planet. He has also predicted that an uncrewed landing on Mars could happen as soon as 2026, with humans there before 2030. Now, in an interview with Fox News, the billionaire shared that as part of SpaceX's 'Occupy Mars mission', he aims to establish a self-sustaining colony on the Red Planet. 

"It's not about going to Mars to visit once, but it is to make life multi-planetary so that we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness to better understand the nature of the universe and to ensure the long-term survival of civilization in the hopefully unlikely event that something terrible happens to Earth that there is a continuance of consciousness on Mars," Musk told Fox News. 

The billionaire explained that going to Mars served as an insurance plan for humans, predicting that Earth would somehow be incinerated by the Sun in "hundreds of millions of years". 

"That's one of the benefits from Mars, it's life insurance collectively. Eventually, all life on earth will be destroyed by the sun, the sun is gradually expanding, and so we do at some point need to be a multi-planet civilisation because Earth will be incinerated," Musk said.

The billionaire also estimated that we have about 450 million years "before it gets so hot that life is impossible". 

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Notably, Musk has repeatedly said that he wants to make humanity a "multi-planetary species" by establishing a colony on the Red Planet. In 2011, he stated that he would put a man on Mars in the next 10 years. However, in 2022, he revealed that he has pushed back his target date for reaching the Red Planet. In an X post, he said that he now sees 2029 as the earliest date humans might first step on Mars. 

When Pune-based techie Pranay Pathole asked him how confident he was of completing the starship's first crew mission to Mars before 2030, Musk responded, "Still early stages on that. Getting Starship reliably to orbit, then achieving full & immediate reusability of both stages is by far top priority."

Notably, if Musk's target date slips much further into the 2030s, it will be very close to when the US space agency NASA is aiming to send the first astronauts to Mars.