Elon Musk was guest on Lex Friedman’s podcast on December 28 and they discussed the conquest of Mars, according to BusinessInsider : “best case is around five years, worst case 10 years“. So much in terms of the niche to go on the red planet on which we have already discovered water.
The billionaire, who loves to have children to ensure that the human race does not fall into disuse, then explained his project of Starship : “Starship is the most complex and advanced rocket ever to be made. It’s enormous. […] The fundamental optimization of Starship is to minimize the cost per ton per orbit and ultimately the cost per ton on the surface of Mars.“
It also explains why today a trip to March is impossible: the cost. According to him : “There is a certain level of cost per tonne on the surface of Mars that allows us to establish a self-sufficient city, but above that amount we cannot. Right now, you can’t fly to Mars for a trillion dollars. No amount of money could get you a ticket to Mars.“
So even the richest on the planet could not go to Mars if they wanted to, we have not yet developed a technology that allows to have “reasonable” costs to go to the red planet of little men. green.