SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has stated on several occasions that he hopes to retire on Mars. Later this year, we may finally find out how he plans to get there. Eric Berger from Ars Technica reports that Musk is aiming to reveal a roadmap to Mars at a meeting of the International Astronautical Conference in September.
Musk mentioned the plan at the StartmeupHK Festival in Hong Kong this week. Berger writes:
This may include discussion of both a super-heavy rocket as well as starships that could ferry large numbers of people from Earth to Mars, known as the Mars Colonial Transporter.
Musk said human missions could begin by about 2025.
With NASA's plans to take us to Mars coming under fire lately, Musk could end up being our best chance to actually get there. At the same time, SpaceX is still trying to improve the reliability of its Falcon 9 rockets after an explosion last year and several near-misses of vertical landings at sea, and the company has only just begun showing test results for its passenger vessel, the Dragon 2 or "Crew Dragon."
Let's just hope his talk in September goes a little more smoothly than his last conference presentation.
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