At a startup festival in Hong Kong, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says later this year he will reveal plans for a spacecraft intended to travel to Mars, with the goal of sending humans to the red planet by 2025.
Musk commented that going to Mars is crucial for the human race’s survival and to help us become a multi-planet species.
“It’s really a fundamental decision we need to make as a civilization. What kind of future do we want? Do we want one where we are forever confined to one planet until some eventual extinction event however far into the future that might occur, or do we want to be a multi-planet species and ultimately be out there among the stars, among many planets and many star systems?”, he said.
“Mars is the next natural step. In fact, it’s the only planet we have a shot at establishing a self-sustaining city on”.
Meanwhile, Musk said he plans to go into space in the next five years, despite having very little astronautical training.
“I don’t think it’s that hard, honestly”, he said, adding that “It’s not that hard to float around”.
Last week SpaceX released testing videos of Dragon 2, a special pod that would attach to rockets such as the Falcon 9, in order to host a human crew. More details about SpaceX’s Mars spacecraft will be revealed in September this year at the International Astronautical Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico.
SOURCE: NBC News.
Larry Banks is a keen follower of technology and finance. He has worked for a variety of online publications, writing about a diverse range of topics including mobile networks, patents, and Internet video delivery technologies.