Professor says a joint mission to Mars would be a ‘unifying force’. He believes commercial space flight by entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson can help colonise other planets and ensure human race survives.

“We should have a base on the moon, like a permanently occupied human base on the moon, and then send people to Mars,” Musk said when asked what SpaceX will do after getting Crew Dragon operational. “That’s what we should do.”
He added: “Maybe there’s something beyond the space station, but we’ll see. We’ve got to focus on getting this right, for sure. That’s the priority. But then, after that, maybe something beyond low-Earth orbit.”
SpaceX rocketed its first spaceship for NASA astronauts into orbit on Saturday. Elon Musk, the company’s founder, said he’s willing to climb aboard.
The Air Force had said there was about a 20% chance that the launch would be delayed because of bad weather. But the 23-story Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on time on Thursday.
After the booster’s landing, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted: “Highest reentry heating to date. Burning metal sparks from base heat shield visible in landing video.”
You can watch the mission and landing, narrated by SpaceX staff, here, though this clip shows the booster’s heat shield burning off.
RD: Is that because the focus right now is so much on getting there? EM: Yeah yeah, you need to get there. That’s a big deal. I think Starship will also be good for creating a base on the moon. We’ll probably have a base on the moon before going to Mars.
The SpaceX CEO on food, fuel, and the risk of vaporization.
In an interview newly published by Popular Mechanics, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared his thoughts on colonizing Mars — from how the first settlers will grow food to the friendly vibe he envisions at the first base on the Red Planet.
“For having an outdoorsy, fun atmosphere, you’d probably want to have some faceted glass dome, with a park, so you can walk around without a suit,” Musk told the magazine. “Eventually if you terraform the planet, then you can walk around without a suit. But for say, the next 100-plus years, you’ll have to have a giant pressurized glass dome.”
NASA has given the green light for Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch the first unmanned test of its seven-seat Crew Dragon capsule on March 2 after passing a full day of reviews, bringing the space agency one step closer to replacing the retired Space Shuttle program after years of delays and ending its dependency on contracted Russian Soyuz rockets.
The test flight was originally scheduled for January, but was later delayed to complete hardware testing and other reviews. Per Space.com, NASA and SpaceX officials have now completed an in-depth review of the Crew Dragon’s capabilities called a flight readiness review, with NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Kathy Leuders telling reporters they needed to verify the craft “can safely go rendezvous and dock with the space station, and undock safely, and not pose a hazard to the International Space Station.”
Bezos: “I don’t think we’ll live on planets…I think we’ll live in giant O’Neal-style space colonies.”
Jeff Bezos may be the richest human on Earth, as the founder of Amazon, but his ultimate dreams reside within a relatively obscure company called Blue Origin.
In fact, as Bezos told the CEO of Business Insider’s parent company in April 2018, he liquidates $1 billion of stock a year to fund his private aerospace outfit.
The CEO once said a self-sustaining Mars colony won’t work if it’s wildly expensive for each person to make the voyage.