Elon Musk says he'll probably go to Mars

Despite a high probability of dying even before arriving and daily conditions hostile to human life, Elon Musk said in an interview Sunday that he would probably settle on Mars.

The directors of SpaceX and Tesla said he had "70% chance" of arriving on Mars during his lifetime, with permanent resettlement projects on the red planet. Musk said his desire to colonize Mars is motivated by the same passion that pushes people to climb the mountains – to meet the challenge.

"We have recently made a number of breakthroughs that I have just talked about," Musk said in an interview with "Axios on HBO".

Musk's remarks are the latest in a series of daring announcements that have defined his career in recent years. His goal was to transform the auto industry with the electric vehicles made by his company Tesla in order to colonize the planet next to Earth.

SpaceX aspires to send its first cargo mission to Mars in 2022, according to its website, with a manned mission to 2024. Musk announced last week that the company had renamed its imposing starship, the Starship (previously nicknamed the Big Falcon Rocket). The rocket boosters that will allow the vehicle to escape the gravity of the Earth call the Super Heavy.

NASA also has the ambition to send humans to Mars, but in the 2030s. China is also expanding its space program with the aim of launching a probe on Mars by 2020. Scientists wish to go to Mars for a crowd reasons, from discovering the origins of life to understanding the rise and fall of potential life. support environments.

The planet has not always been the desert world it seems to be today. Its now empty lakes and canals suggest that liquid water has once sunk to the surface, which may indicate that a thicker atmosphere has already enveloped the planet, perhaps supporting life. But scientists regard Mars as a "failing planet", in conditions hostile to humans.

During the interview, Musk compared the March colonization proposal to the expeditions of explorer Ernest Shackleton in Antarctica.

He added that the price of a ticket for Mars would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, with no guarantee of return or even survival during the trip or landing. However, despite this difficult course, Musk sees an interesting compromise.

"You know that there are a lot of people climbing mountains, you know why they're climbing mountains, people are dying all the time on Mount Everest," he said. "They like to do it for the challenge."

Earlier this year, SpaceX pledged to advance its space exploration efforts by revealing the identity of its first paid tourist to travel around the moon. By 2023, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and six to eight artists are expected to visit the moon on a weeklong trip. Their vehicle, the Starship, which is nearly 400 feet tall, is still in development and is expected to make its first flight into orbit in two or three years.

But the interplanetary plans of SpaceX and Musk have had setbacks. The company recently announced a delay in its initial mission of sending NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. SpaceX has also delayed its intention to fly tourists around the moon.

Musk also drew attention to his personal behavior. Last week, NASA had commissioned a SpaceX safety study after Musk had participated in a popular podcast in which he smoked grass and drank whiskey during an episode aired online. Musk's actions have shocked some of NASA's top officials and, after several months of evaluation, the agency is closely examining SpaceX's culture.

NASA will also conduct a safety review of Boeing, another NASA contract company that transports astronauts to the International Space Station.