Elon Musk Describes What Life On Mars Would Be Like

SpaceX’s Elon Musk gave a detailed view of what life on Mars would be like once it has been colonized by humans. The company’s founder and CEO also shared his thoughts on what type of government would most likely emerge on Mars.

For the past couple of months, SpaceX has been unveiling details of its Starship, a fully reusable spacecraft that the company intends to use for commercial flights to the Red Planet. According to the company’s CEO, this spacecraft could play a huge role in the colonization of Mars.

During a previous appearance at Stanford University, Musk shared his views on what would most likely happen once humans begin to live on Mars. He noted that similar to historical moments on Earth, living on Mars would provide opportunities for new advancements that would benefit the colonists.

“I’m excited about how it’s coming together, once we get the transfer solved, I then think we’ll open up a number of opportunities for people on Mars, like the Union Pacific railroad to California,” he said during his talk at the university. “Once we are there a lot of exciting things can be done.”

Musk then noted that during the initial stages of the colonization process, humans will most likely live in special facilities that will protect them from the harsh conditions of the Red Planet. Eventually though, by terraforming Mars, the colonists will be able to live in a manner similar to people on Earth.

“In the beginning, people would live in glass domes, but over time we would terraform Mars and make it like Earth,” Musk said. “I think there will be a lot of super-exciting things that are hard to predict, just like when they were building the Pacific.”

Once a proper human civilization has been established on Mars, Musk believes that a government will eventually be established by people on the Red Planet. He noted that the Martian government will most likely be a direct democracy, wherein people vote on policies directly.

This is very different from most countries’ representative democracy, which involves voting for politicians who will then vote on policy initiatives.

“From a government standpoint, the government of Mars will be up to the Martians,” Musk explained. “But I think we would probably have a direct democracy, rather than a representative democracy.”