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Elon Musk says life on Mars will be 'glorious' but warns first settlers have 'good chance' of dying
Life on Mars will be "glorious" if it works out, but there is a "good chance" the first settlers will die, Elon Musk has warned.
The Tesla boss’s privately funded Mars mission aims to send SpaceX's Starship rocket to the Red Planet by 2022.
During a conference on Monday, the SpaceX chief executive said the fundamental issue is "building a city on Mars that is self-sustaining".
According to CNBC, the 49-year-old said: "Getting to Mars, I think, is not the fundamental issue. The fundamental issue is building a base, building a city on Mars that is self-sustaining.
"We're going to build a propellant plant, an initial Mars base - Mars Base Alpha - and then get it to the point where it's self-sustaining.
"I want to emphasise that this is a very hard and dangerous, difficult thing, not for the faint of heart.
"Good chance you'll die, it's going to be tough going, but it will be pretty glorious if it works out."
Mr Musk said the company is "making progress" with the development of the Starship rocket.
"We're rapidly making more and more ships and we will be starting on the booster soon," the entrepreneur said.
"It's scaling up the production system which is the hard part, and we are making progress on that."
Mr Musk unveiled the Starship prototype in September last year, and although he was initially hopeful he could start flying people to Mars in 2020, he warned that the first launch "might not work".
"Nobody has ever made a fully reusable, orbital rocket," he said.
On September 17, 2018, SpaceX announced art curator Yusaku Maezawa as the company’s first private passenger to fly around the Moon in 2023.
A two-month SpaceX mission earlier this year was the first time a private company launched people into orbit and also the first launch of Nasa astronauts from home turf in nearly a decade.
Mr Musk's net worth stands at $84.8 billion, just $15 billion off the exclusive centibillionaire club.
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