One million people could live on Mars in the next 40 years

SpaceX plans to send about a million people to live in glass domes on Mars in the next 40–100 years.

Billionaire Elon Musk revealed plans to send people to live in greenhouses on Mars. Photo: Associated Press.

Billionaire Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, revealed that he will send humans to live in glass domes on Mars, in a recent Reddit forum Q&A, according to The Sun.

He said the first inhabitants of Mars would live and grow crops in glass domes with carbon fibre frames, while robots would be used to mine and dig tunnels.

“This way, we can build more pressurized spaces for industrial activity and move away from greenhouses and toward green living spaces,” Musk said.

He also explained the refueling process on Mars. Metal mined from the red planet will be used as propellant for interplanetary transport rockets returning to Earth.

SpaceX will launch an exploration mission to find the most efficient way to obtain metal from the Sabatier reaction, the reaction between Hydrogen and CO₂create metal and water. An unmanned spacecraft will then be launched into space with equipment to build a propellant manufacturing plant.

Astronauts will then embark on the first mission to Mars, carrying equipment to build a basic base and complete a fuel production plant.

Musk said the plan is to double the number of flights at the time when Earth and Mars are closest in orbit, which happens every 26 months, until a city on the Red Planet can develop on its own.

The city would need a population of around one million people to be sustainable, and this ambition could become a reality within the next 40–100 years, the billionaire asserted.

"I want to make it possible to colonize Mars, where anyone can go to Mars if they want to," Musk said at the International Astronautical Congress last month.

According to VNE