KEY POINTS

  • Elon Musk talked about SpaceX's Starship spacecraft on Twitter
  • Musk believes Starship will help humans relocate to Mars
  • Humans can only escape Earth's destruction by moving to another planet

Following the successful launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station (ISS), the company’s founder Elon Musk talked about expanding the reach of human civilization to Mars. According to the tech mogul, relocating to Mars will be the only way humans can escape Earth’s inevitable destruction.

SpaceX and Musk recently caught the attention of the world once again after launching the company’s first human flight to the ISS. It was regarded as a historic mission since it marked the first time that NASA’s astronauts were launched into space from U.S. soil in about a decade.

After successfully launching the mission, it seems Musk has shifted his attention to another major project. Through his recent tweets, Musk discussed SpaceX’s Starship project, which is focused on developing a fully reusable launch vehicle. In the past, Musk noted that the Starship would be capable of carrying out commercial passenger and cargo flights to other planets.

Over at Twitter, Musk talked about how Starship would eventually be used to establish a colony on another planet such as Mars. According to Musk, the vessel would provide humans with the opportunity to extend the reach of civilization.

“Starship is the key to making life multi-planetary & protecting the light of consciousness,” he stated.

In response to his statement, one of his followers talked about the importance of establishing a multi-planetary society due to the status of the Sun. As noted by Musk’s follower, once the Sun reaches the end of its life cycle billions of years from now, it will expand and kill off all life on Earth.

In order to ensure that civilization will survive the impending catastrophic event, Musk noted that humans should start working on crewed flights to Mars. From there, scientists can start studying ways on how a sustainable outpost and colony can be established on the Red Planet.

“That’s when all life on Earth will be boiled off,” he stated. “What matters is how long civilization is capable of making the jump to Mars. This could be a very short period of time measured in decades. It took 4.5 billion years to get to this point & civilization isn’t looking super stable.”

SpaceX founder Elon Musk (pictured with the Dragon capsule in May 2014) said the company started with "just a few people, who didn't really know how to make rockets"
SpaceX founder Elon Musk (pictured with the Dragon capsule in May 2014) said the company started with "just a few people, who didn't really know how to make rockets" AFP / Robyn BECK