Elon Musk’s Multi-Planet Ambitions: ‘1M Tons of Cargo to Mars To Achieve Self-Sustainability’

• Elon Musk predicted that humans would need one million tons of cargo to make a self-sufficient life on Mars.
• The Tesla boss said that future civilization on Mars would be critical to rescuing Earth during an emergency.
• Musk’s vision goes far beyond the reach of the Red Planet.

Elon Musk has predicted a future where humans reach Mars and beyond—and even toyed with the idea of finding “the remains of long-dead alien civilizations.”

The Tesla boss said that in order to establish a self-sustaining life on Mars, humans will need to transport around one million tons of cargo to the Red Planet.

One Million Tons

Musk discussed his grand vision for a multi-planetary future in a conversation with Alice Weidel, co-chairwoman of Germany’s AfD party.

“We need to transport about a million tons of cargo to Mars to make it self-sustaining,” Musk said. “I suspect probably 100,000 tons is not enough, and I hope we don’t need ten million tons.”

Musk said that along with the cargo, at least one million people would need to be on Mars before life could be self-sustaining there.

Future civilizations will branch when resupply ships from Earth are no longer needed for life to grow on the Red Planet.

“At that point, the future of civilization branches to a good branch. The probable lifespan of civilization is then significantly greater,” the SpaceX boss said.

Mars Will ‘Rescue Earth’

Once civilization is established on Mars, Musk predicts that those who have settled there will be critical to rescuing Earth in an emergency.

“I think there’s a good chance that Mars will help save Earth in the future, perhaps many times,” Musk said.

The billionaire compared the help to when America “helped to rescue the rest of the world in World War One and Two and the Cold War.”

“Where would the world be if America had not helped out in those three circumstances,” Musk said.

Beyond Mars

However, Musk’s vision goes far beyond the reach of the Red Planet.

“Once we have a civilization on Mars we can expand to the rest of the solar system,” Musk said. “The larger asteroids like Ceres or perhaps the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and beyond.”

This would make the human race bigger than just multi-planet and push us into a multi-stellar civilization.

“Perhaps when we go and discover these faraway planets, we will discover the remains of long-dead alien civilizations,” Musk said.

Musk to Mars

Musk has been actively pursuing the goal of enabling human exploration and colonization of Mars for over a decade.

SpaceX, led by Musk, previously outlined a timeline  that includes launching uncrewed Starship missions to Mars within the next two years, coinciding with optimal Earth-Mars alignment windows that occur approximately every 26 months.

Despite these ambitious plans, the world faces significant technical and regulatory challenges before making Musk’s dreams a reality.