Rockets Carrying As Many As 200 People Could Leave For The Neighboring Planet In 'Decades'

No one can deny that Elon Musk thinks big, and in a speech at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico Tuesday, he outlined his largest vision yet.

Musk said that his overarching goal is saving humanity. And the lifeboat, he says, is Mars. The Washington Post reports that Musk said that Mars is not only an enticing place to live, but it could be a good backup location for the human race should something catastrophic happen to the Earth. Otherwise, he said, we are limited to a single point of failure in a doomsday scenario.

How would we get there? Musk envisions enormous rockets, built by SpaceX, that could carry as many as 200 people at a time to Mars. SpaceX refers to them as BFRs, or "Big [Freaking] Rockets. He said that in as little as a few decades, there could be as many as 10,000 BFRs leaving the Earth every two years when the orbits of Earth and Mars align.

In his presentation, Musk said that the plan hinges on full reusability of the spacecraft, the right fuel and the ability to produce it on Mars, and the ability to refuel in flight. He said that under those conditions, the cost of transporting a person to Mars would be about the same as the median price of a house in the United States. 

The rockets Musk envisions would be larger than the Saturn V spacecraft that took three men to the moon at a time, but not necessarily substantially.

Musk said the initial goals include:

• Learn how to transport and land large payloads on Mars
• Identify and characterize potential resources such as water
• Characterize potential landing sites, including identifying surface hazards
• Demonstrate key surface capabilities on Mars

National Geographic reports that Musk said that the initial flights to Mars could come in as little as 10 years. In another 40 years ... or maybe 100 ... there could be as many as 1 million humans living on the Red Planet.

(Images from Musk presentation document provided)

FMI: www.spacex.com