For more than two decades, Elon Musk has focused his rocket company SpaceX on his lifelong goal: reaching Mars.
Over the past year, it has also stepped up initiatives exploring what might happen if it reaches the red planet.
Mr. Musk, 53, has ordered SpaceX employees to work hard on the design and details of a Martian city, according to five people familiar with the work and documents viewed by The New York Times. One team is drawing up plans for small, dome-shaped habitats, including the materials that might be used to build them. Another is working to make spacesuits that are resistant to the harsh environment of Mars, while a medical team is investigating whether humans can have children there. Mr. Musk has offered his sperm as seed for a colony, according to two people familiar with his comments.
These initiatives, which are still in their early stages, are a shift toward more concrete planning for life on Mars, signaling that Musk’s timeline has accelerated. Whereas in 2016 he said it would take 40 to 100 years to have a self-sustaining civilization on the planet, in April Musk told SpaceX employees that he now envisions there being a million people living there in regarding 20 years.
“The urgency for life to be multiplanetary is high,” he said, according to a public video of his remarks. “We have to do it while civilization is this strong.”
Musk has long sought to defy the impossible, often overcoming the odds. But his vision of life on Mars takes his seemingly limitless ambitions to an extreme, and some would say absurd, extreme. No Earthling has ever set foot on Martian soil. NASA doesn’t expect humans to land on Mars until the 2040s. And if people do make it to the planet, they’ll find inhospitable terrain, freezing temperatures, dust storms and unbreathable air.
But Musk is so wedded to the idea of creating a civilization on Mars — he once said he plans to die there — that it has driven nearly every commercial project he has undertaken on Earth. His vision for Mars now governs most of the six companies he leads or owns, each of which might contribute to an alien colony, according to the documents and people familiar with the work.
The Boring Co., a private tunneling company founded by Musk, has begun operations in part to prepare the equipment needed to excavate the surface of Mars, according to two of the people familiar with the matter. Musk told people he bought the social platform X in part to see how a citizen-led, consensus-driven government might work on Mars. He also said he envisions residents of the red planet driving a version of the steel-paneled Cybertrucks made by Tesla, his electric-vehicle company.
Musk, whose current net worth is regarding $270 billion, has publicly stated that he is only accumulating assets — including a roughly $47 billion pay package from Tesla — to fund his Mars plans.
“It’s a way to get humanity to Mars, because establishing a self-sustaining city there will require a lot of resources,” he testified in court in 2022 when questioned regarding his pay deal with Tesla.
While Musk has been talking regarding Mars for years, and SpaceX unveiled two basic sketches of a colony in 2018, there have been few reported details regarding that or the company’s newfound interest in planning a civilization. Musk has kept most of the colonization plans secret because SpaceX, which has a $2.9 billion contract with NASA, must first send a rocket to the moon, according to two people familiar with the company.
The Times interviewed more than 20 people close to Musk and SpaceX regarding plans for a Martian city and reviewed internal documents, emails, social media posts and legal filings. Many of the people spoke anonymously because they signed confidentiality agreements.
Even these people were skeptical that Musk would succeed in building a city on Mars before he died. Some said the entrepreneur just wanted to one-up Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who envisions humans living on giant space stations spread across the solar system. Others said Musk set an aggressive Mars timetable that forces employees to ramp up their work. Two of the people said the colony sketches are sometimes called the “excitement package.”
Musk and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment. In a post on X following this article was published, Musk clarified that he had not offered his sperm and that no one at SpaceX had been ordered to develop a Martian city. “When people ask me to do it, I tell them we need to focus on getting there first,” he wrote.
Save humanity
Musk has been fascinated with Mars ever since he read Isaac Asimov’s 1951 science fiction novel “Foundation” at age 10. In the book, the protagonist builds a galaxy-spanning colony to save humanity from the collapse of an interstellar empire.
In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, a private company in Hawthorne, California. Over time, he created partially reusable rockets and landed government contracts, including one with NASA. In recent years, he started Starlink, a satellite-based internet service that has expanded around the world.
To get to Mars, SpaceX built Starship, a reusable rocket nearly 400 feet long. Starship’s immediate purpose is to transport NASA astronauts to the Moon, though it may later carry residents to Mars and might also operate as a small space station.
Three people familiar with Starship said a future version of the rocket might have living space on top. Plans call for multiple floors of living quarters, with amenities such as a running track and a movie theater, two of the people described. A sketch of Starship’s interior, a rendering of which Musk posted on X, shows a violinist floating in zero gravity while playing for an audience.
Starship might carry 100 passengers to Mars at a time, a trip that would happen every two years or so, Musk told the International Astronautical Congress in a 2016 presentation. NASA said a trip to Mars, which is regarding 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) from Earth, would take up to nine months.
In 2018, SpaceX engineers met privately with university researchers and other specialists in Colorado to discuss the technology needed to survive on Mars, according to meeting notes obtained by The Times. Among the topics discussed were harvesting ice to make water and selecting the right area on Mars to build a colony.
Last year, the latest versions of Starship were already being built at Starbase, a SpaceX base in Boca Chica, Texas. In June, Starship returned successfully from a test space flight for the first time.
Planning a colony
Over the years, Musk has dropped hints regarding how he thinks people would live on Mars.
One of the important issues is whether human life on the planet will continue. Scientists have not yet determined whether people can have children in space. Musk said children will not be allowed on the first flights to Mars because of the dangers involved, although he hopes they will be able to live there at some point.
Musk has a plan, though. In his 2013 interview for a science video, he said he hoped to create his own species on Mars, an idea he has repeated to SpaceX employees and others close to the company over the years.
“I think it’s very likely that we’ll want to create new bioengineered organisms that are better adapted to life on Mars,” he explained in the interview. “Humanity has already done that, in some ways, over time, through a kind of selective breeding.”
The entrepreneur also has a strategy to stave off the cold. In a 2022 podcast interview, he said he would combat the planet’s frigid temperatures with a series of thermonuclear explosions that would warm the planet by creating artificial suns. Hundreds of solar panels, possibly made by Tesla, will help heat homes and create energy, according to three people familiar with his plans.
In recent months, Musk’s statements have turned into more concrete planning by SpaceX employees.
According to two people familiar with the matter, the industrial design team creates and updates renderings of a city. The colony will be centered around a giant communal living dome, with smaller domes around it. Lately, discussions have focused on what materials would be used for the domes. Musk is particularly concerned regarding making the city’s aesthetic stylish, two other people said.
Civilization guaranteed?
Like Musk, many of SpaceX’s more than 12,000 employees believe it’s possible to live on another planet, according to people familiar with the company and documents viewed by The Times. Workers sometimes wear T-shirts that say “Occupy Mars” or “Rocket Dad” around the office and post suggestions for a Mars colony on an internal website. One recent idea was to build the city next to a giant crater.
Some of the employees working on Mars plans are based in Boca Chica, while others in the Southern California office fly in on Mondays and leave on Fridays. Many work more than 100 hours a week.
People familiar with the company’s activities said Musk has been less present at Boca Chica recently. He visits the headquarters regarding once a month, sometimes in the middle of the night for a few hours with his young son, X Æ A-12, two of the people said. He previously came at least once a week.
But his determination to create a Martian civilization shows no signs of weakening.
In May, a NASA official said the agency did not envision humans setting foot on Mars until the 2040s. That same month, Musk posted on X that it would take less than 10 years to send people to the planet and that a Martian city would exist within 20 years.
“In 30 years, for sure, civilization guaranteed,” he wrote.
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