Elon Musk Announces the Cost of Building a Permanent City on Mars

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, explained the requirements and cost of building a permanent and sustainable city on Mars. According to Musk, building the first city on the Red Planet requires 1,000 Starship spacecraft and 20 years.

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, provided details about the time and vehicle requirements to build a sustainable city on the Red Planet . Building a habitable space on Mars is a long-term vision for Musk and the space technology company and will make people an interplanetary species. The information Musk offers in response to his followers on Twitter seems incredibly impressive and ambitious.

Referring to a question about his comments at the opening day event of the US Air Force runway in California earlier this week, Musk said that each Starship  launch to build a sustainable city on Mars  costs about $ 2 million.

According to Musk's estimates, SpaceX needs to carry cargo, infrastructure and crew to the planet for 20 years and  build 1,000 Starships to make the city ​​to be built on Mars a reality . In other words, the vehicles that will only bring people and materials to Mars will cost only 2 billion dollars. In addition, the interplanetary order is suitable for Mars flight every two years.

Musk also explored the potential of the Starship spacecraft in the near term, including cargo-carrying capacity in orbit around the Earth. Musk said Starship's design was designed to maximize reuse and could ideally fly up to 3 times a day. This means more than 1,000 flights per year per Starship .

At present, SpaceX's Falcon rockets can carry 100 tons into orbit, and upon completion of the Starship, up to 10 million tons of launch can be launched annually. Musk says that the total carrying capacity is only 500 tonnes per year, with about half of the Falcon series rockets , taking into account all the cargo spacecraft currently operating .

In order to establish a permanent and sustainable city on Mars, a flight crew must first be sent there. NASA has set 2024 as a landmark, and SpaceX has announced its intention to download the Starship vehicle at the earliest in 2022 to help with preparation.