Going to Mars is still extremely expensive. The people who can afford to go to Mars, and the people who actually desire to go, are not the same people at this point. Musk predicts the cost of getting 12 people to Mars to start a colony is about $10 billion per individual at this point.
“If we can get the cost of moving to Mars to be approximately equivalent to a median house price in the United States, which is around $200,000, then I think the possibility of establishing a self-sustaining civilization is very high,” he writes. “I think it would almost certainly happen.”
He thinks they might be able to get the price down to less than $100,000. That’s cheaper than a degree from a private university.
Musk has numerous ideas for bringing down the cost of getting there. If people are going to get to Mars at a price that they are actually willing to pay, the program is going to need various facilities.
- The ship doesn’t have to be as reusable as a bike or a car since it will be flying only every two years, but it needs to be able to fly to Mars and back more than once. And it should be able of refilling fuel in orbit.
- The colony built on Mars should be able of producing propellant for ships so they can return to Earth. There are a few options for what that fuel could be. Methane would be best, Musk explains, since it’s cheaper and takes less energy to work with than another alternative, hydrogen.
You need a really powerful spacecraft to do this. The spacecraft will be very big and will need a lot of thrust.
“We are talking about a lift-off thrust of 13,000 tons, so it will be quite tectonic when it takes off,” writes Musk, adding, “This is really meant to carry huge numbers of people, ultimately millions of tons of cargo to Mars. Therefore, you really need something entirely large in order to do that.”
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