Elon Musk: Rockets Must Improve by a Million Percent to Build on Mars

Elon Musk: We need to improve rockets by a million percent to make a Mars civilization possible.

“The key branching point for human destiny or destiny of consciousness as a whole is that Mars is self-sustaining, even if the resupply ships from Earth stop coming.

You're not multiplanetary until the planet can grow by itself. Because there's always some risk of technology on Earth falling below a certain level or of a nuclear war or a meteor. You haven't secured the future of civilization and consciousness until both planets can survive independently.

So, the goal of SpaceX is try to get to the point where Mars can survive by itself and grow by itself as quickly as possible. Which requires millions of tons or at least a million tons to the surface of Mars of useful load and reducing the cost per ton to the surface of Mars by a factor of 1,000 to maybe 10,000, if not more than 10,000.

Currently, the cost per ton to the surface of Mars is about a billion dollars. Civilization can't afford, we can't afford to build Mars at a billion dollars a ton. That's insane. Even a million dollars a ton is still high.

So, a million dollars a ton is a 1000-fold improvement, but you really rather be at $100,000 a ton, which is still a lot, but I think aspiration should be get cost per ton to Mars under $100,000 a ton, which is a 10,000-fold improvement for where things are today.

That's a pretty high bar. Thought of another way, we need to make things a million percent better. Actually a million percent better. Literally.”

May 28, 2025