Elon Musk: Mars civilization is 20-30 years away from landing
The SpaceX founder frequently tweets about reaching Mars
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In a Twitter exchange on Friday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said humanity's estimated timeframe for creating a self-sustaining civilization on Mars is two to three decades away from the first human landing.
"Mars may be a fixer upper of a planet, but it has great potential!" the billionaire wrote.
User @PPathole responded, asking Musk what he believes is the "timeframe for creating a self-sustaining civilization" there.
"20 years? Self-sustaining meaning not relying/[dependent] on Earth for supplies," he said.
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13 August 2021, Brandenburg, Grünheide: Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, stands at a press event on the grounds of the Tesla Gigafactory. (Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images / Getty Images)
"20 to 30 years from first human landing if launch rate growth is exponential," the Tesla co-founder replied. "Assumes transferring ~100k each rendezvous and ~1M total people needed."
"Tesla is to protect life on Earth, SpaceX to extend life beyond," Musk said in a separate post.
This is not the first time the tech leader has discussed colonizing Mars – or the moon.
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NASA's Perseverance Mars rover used one of its navigation cameras to take this image of flat terrain in Jezero Crater. This is one possible site that NASA may consider for a Mars Sample Return lander that would collect Perseverance's samples of Mars … (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
He has previously touted the idea of becoming a "multi-planet species," building a city on Mars and sending one million people to the red planet by 2050.
Earlier this year, he hinted that a crewed mission to Mars could happen as soon as 2029.
"Humanity will reach Mars in your lifetime," he tweeted on July 6.
Just how feasible or lofty Elon Musk's goals are, however, remains up for debate.
Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, attends the opening of the Tesla factory Berlin Brandenburg in Gruenheide, Germany, Tuesday, March 22, 2022. (Patrick Pleul/Pool via AP / AP Newsroom)
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Images of Mars through robotic emissaries like the Perseverance rover shows a desolate, rocky, dusty and frigid landscape.
Notably, efforts for NASA's Artemis program – which will eventually be crewed – have faced delays.