Founder of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk named the date of sending a person to Mars, according to CNBC.
“With a high degree of probability, I think within six years. If we are lucky, then maybe four years,” – said the entrepreneur at the Axel-Springer awards ceremony in Berlin.
Musk added that it is planned to send a spacecraft to Mars without a crew within two years.
In August 2019, Musk said that the creation of a permanent colony on Mars is an impossible task in the near future. Building a self-sufficient city will take at least several decades and will require thousands of flights to the planet.
In September of the same year, Elon Musk presented a prototype of a reusable spacecraft, capable of transporting cargo and astronauts to Mars and the Moon. The spacecraft was named Starship. Its length is 50 meters, and its mass excluding fuel and cargo is about 120 tons. During the presentation, Musk stated that the Starship, capable of carrying up to 100 people, could become the basis for the colonization of Mars and the Moon.