SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed further details about his Mars mission and his ambition to send 1 million humans to Mars, in a special "Ask me Anything" question and answer session with Reddit on Sunday.
Elaborating on the plans he enunciated earlier last month, Elon Musk answered more than a dozen questions posted by users about the Interplanetary Transport System. Elon Musk had announced about this system on Sept. 27 at the International Astronautical Congress in Mexico. Musk explained that the first spaceship, which he calls the "Heart of Gold" would fly to Mars without a crew. Instead, the spaceship would carry equipment to build a propellant tank that would be required to fuel the later spaceships.
According to reports by Space news, Elon Musk described the "Red Dragon" missions that he plans to send initially would demonstrate landing technologies and would help SpaceX learn the technique of landing a spaceship without a crater. In addition, this mission would also test the ability to access water, which would be an essential need for the manned missions that will be sent later. The water would not only be required for life support but also to produce methane and liquid oxygen propellants. These propellants would be required to fuel the spaceship for return trips.
Following the success of this unmanned mission, the manned trip to Mars will be tested and will begin by sending about 12 people. Elon Musk hopes to double the number of flights with each Earth-Mars engagement that is planned to happen every 26 months. This will be continued till the city can grow by itself, Elon Musk explained.
Elon Musk has a vision of sending 1 million people to Mars over the next 100 years. Carrying a dream of building 1,000 passenger ships that fly to the Red Planet, Musk has vowed that his company SpaceX will make this trip economical. Elon Musk has estimated that he would bring down the cost of one trip to Mars from the current $10 billion per ticket (as estimated by Apollo Moon Mission Architecture) to $200,000 per ticket.
