Elon Musk Will Soon Reveal His Extraordinary Plans for Mars Colonization

Elon Musk has some big dreams — and some of them even stretch beyond Earth.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has always been vocal about his plan to colonize Mars within a few decades — but he’s never gone into detail about the logistics or technology that such a feat would require. That will all change on Sept. 27, when Musk is slated to explain what would be required to send people to the Red Planet and build long-term colonies there, according to The Verge.

Musk will give his talk “Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species” during the International Aeronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, according to The Observer. And his talk is aptly named: Musk seems to thoroughly believe that colonizing Mars — and other planetary bodies beyond Earth — is necessary for human survival.

“I think there is a strong humanitarian argument for making life multi-planetary in order to safeguard the existence of humanity in the event that something catastrophic were to happen,” Musk told Aeon Magazine two years ago.

But, so far, Musk has only teased small details about SpaceX’s endeavors. He said his company is reportedly planning on sending an unmanned probe to Mars “ as soon as 2018,” with additional probes launched every two years after that. Musk said he believes humans could land on the planet as soon as 2025, according to Wired.

But despite the lack of details about SpaceX’s plans the last few years, Musk is certain that colonizing Mars — and beyond — is an achievable goal. In fact, just a few days ago, Musk tweeted that the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT) has the capability to “go well beyond (the Red Planet),” prompting the need to change the spacecraft’s name to the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) — a move that bucks the trend of the Mars-based focus that SpaceX has exemplified thus far.

But these plans are being revealed at an unfortunate time for SpaceX. Just recently, the reliability of their launchers has come into question after one of the firm’s rockets went up in flames earlier this month. Although nobody was hurt in the explosion, the rocket and the Facebook satellite it was carrying were both lost. The cause of the launch failure is currently unknown, but the company, along with several federal agencies, are investigating the disaster, according to CNN.

But that seemingly hasn’t deterred Musk, or dashed his hopes that man will set foot on Mars within the next few decades. Really, only time will tell if Musk — and humanity as a whole — will see his dreams fully realized.