Elon Musk Reveals Timeline for Uncrewed and Crewed Starship Missions to Mars

Elon Musk announced that SpaceX will launch its first uncrewed Starship missions to Mars in two years, with the goal of sending crewed flights in four years if initial landings are successful. Over the next two decades, Musk aims to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars, significantly increasing the lifespan of human consciousness by expanding beyond Earth.

Elon Musk took to X (formerly Twitter) to reveal SpaceX’s ambitious timeline for sending Starships to Mars. According to Musk, the first uncrewed Starship missions will launch in two years during the next Earth-Mars transfer window. These missions will test the reliability of landing on Mars, and if successful, the first crewed flights could follow in just four years.

Musk envisions that over the next 20 years, flight rates will grow exponentially, eventually leading to the establishment of a self-sustaining city on Mars. Musk emphasized that making life multiplanetary would dramatically increase the probable lifespan of consciousness by ensuring that humanity's future isn't tied to a single planet.

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Currently, the cost of sending payloads to Mars stands at $1 billion per ton. Musk aims to reduce that to $100,000 per ton to make a Martian city possible. SpaceX’s Starship, a fully reusable transportation system designed for missions to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars, is at the center of this goal. According to SpaceX, Mars can be made habitable by warming it up, and its CO2-heavy atmosphere could support plant growth through compression. The gravity on Mars is only 38% of Earth’s, allowing for easier lifting of heavy objects and more freedom of movement.