Elon Musk: Colonizing Mars Is a Race Against War, Collapse, or Extinction

Elon Musk: Colonizing Mars is a race against time.

“The default plan is to launch hopefully several Starships to Mars at the end of next year. At first, we're just going to try to land on Mars and see if we succeed in landing. Let's say we were able to send five ships, do all five land intact, or do we add some craters to Mars?

If we add some craters, we've got to be a bit more cautious about sending people. We're going to make sure the thing lands safely.

We're going to try to go as fast as possible. You can think of this as really a race against time.

Can we make Mars self-sufficient before civilization has some sort of future fork in the road where there's either like a war, nuclear war or something, or we get hit by a meteor, or simply civilization might just die with a whimper, in adult diapers instead of with a bang?

I think we can do this within 15 Earth-Mars synchronization events, basically about 30 years if every two years, we have a major increase in the number of people and tonnage to Mars.

As a rough approximation, I think we need about a million tons to the surface of Mars and maybe a million people.”

The Joe Rogan Experience, February 28, 2025