Hyper Hype: Elon Musk Predicts Human City on Mars Within 30 Years

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, has made a bold prediction about the future of human habitation on Mars, predicting a city on the red planet within 30 years.

The Mirror reports that in a recent post on X/Twitter, the social media platform he owns, Musk confidently stated that a human city on Mars could become a reality within the next three decades. Responding to a user who suggested that humanity is just a few years away from landing on the Red Planet, the 52-year-old billionaire outlined a timeline for this ambitious endeavor.

FILE – This Aug. 26, 2003, image made available by NASA shows Mars as it lines up with the Sun and the Earth. Photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, it was about 55.8 million kilometers (34.6 million miles) from Earth. (NASA/J. Bell – Cornell U./M. Wolff – SSI via AP, File)

SpaceX, Twitter and electric car maker Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends an event during the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, on June 16, 2023. (JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)

According to Musk, an uncrewed mission to Mars could be achieved in less than five years, while landing humans on the planet might take less than a decade. He further projected that a city could potentially be established on Mars within 20 years, and with certainty, within 30 years, securing the future of human civilization beyond Earth.

Less than 5 years for uncrewed,
less than 10 to land people,
maybe a city in 20 years,
but for sure in 30,
civilization secured.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2024

One user commented: “Unimaginable for so many…. Hoping I’ll live another 10 years just to see the advancement.” Another said: “Between AI, VR and now Mars? I didn’t expect any of them to happen in my lifetime. It’s pretty incredible.”

Many seem excited about the potential of a Mars city, but it should be noted that Musk has a history of presenting wildly unrealistic timelines. The website ElonMusk.Today provides a comprehensive timeline of days since Elon announced a project that has yet to materialize. A few examples include:

2,065 days since Musk said SpaceX would probably build a base on Mars by 2028,
2,640 days since Musk took deposits for a space tourism flight around the moon scheduled for 2018
1,852 days since Musk said there will be a million fully autonomous Tesla robotaxis in a year
3,159 days since Musk said Teslas would have 1,000 kilometer (621 mile) range within a year or two
2,422 days since Musk said SpaceX rockets could soon take passengers from New York to London in 29 minutes.

SpaceX, the company Musk founded in 2002, has became the first private company to develop a liquid-propellant rocket that successfully reached orbit and the first to send a spacecraft and astronauts to the International Space Station. It should be noted however that SpaceX has yet to take humans out of low-Earth orbit.

Musk’s ambitions for Mars date back to 2001 when he announced the development of Mars Oasis, a project aimed at landing a greenhouse on the planet and growing plants. In a recent post ahead of a Falcon 9 rocket launch, he emphasized that SpaceX’s mission is to “extend consciousness to Mars and then the stars.”

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