Vision

Musk called Mars "a serious fixer upper" when talking about putting man on the Red Planet, and like any fixer-upper, making it a real home would take a lot of work and money.

"But it's possible," any Mars-related goal for SpaceX is an exceptionally long-term one.

SpaceX will be putting a man on Mars, albeit temporarily, within the next decade - especially if NASA can't get its act together.

This is a necessity for humanity to avoid encroaching doom.

Getting to Mars "will define a fundamental bifurcation of the future of human civilization," he explained. "[We] will either be a multi-planet species out there among the stars or a single planet species until some eventual extinction event, natural or man made."

"The thing that matters long-term, is to have a self-sustaining city on Mars." and "To make it into an earthlike planet"

At the end of Elon Musk speaking at the Hyperloop Pod Award Ceremony on the 30th January 2016 he said "If we have a self sustaining city on Mars will create a huge forcing function for the improvement of space transport technology and will ultimately lead us to go beyond the solar system"