Musk announced the landing of humans on Mars in 2028: it's probably not as ridiculous as it seems

The head of the American company SpaceX, billionaire and inventor Elon Musk has been dreaming of colonizing Mars for many years. The ambitious entrepreneur announced the landing of humans on the Red Planet in 2028.

Musk also suggested that people will stay on Mars in a self-sufficient city in 20 years. According to experts, this is not as ridiculous as it seems at first glance, TheGuardian writes.

Following Elon Musk's post on his platform X that humans could land on Mars within the next four years, there were many critical posts and even ridicule online. After all, such statements seemed like a bizarre boast even by the standards of the founder of SpaceX and the richest man in the world.

The US government space agency NASA, which is collaborating with SpaceX on the knowledge and technology to bring astronauts to the Red Planet, believes that the first crew landing by 2040 is a "bold goal."

This is not the first time Elon Musk has made such statements. In 2016, he said that he believed the first manned launches to Mars could take place within six years, although the heavy rocket to carry them is still in the conceptual stage.

While many critics see Musk's latest statement as yet another example of his braggadocio, especially after stories that he wanted to help populate an extraterrestrial civilization with his own sperm and allow it to drive on the surface of Mars on Tesla's cyber-tracks, some analysts see the point.

If settling Mars with a million people in two decades is an unrealistic goal, the prospect of regular shuttle flights from Earth aboard SpaceX's next-generation Starship rockets carrying cargo and the first human explorers is achievable, scientists say.

Experts say that Musk's ambitious statements have accelerated the discussion about SpaceX's immediate ambitions and the long-term prospects of humanity itself.

"If I were to diagnose why they're setting such a very aggressive timeline for Mars right now, it's partly to show that SpaceX is not slowing down, not resting on its laurels," said Matthew Weinzierl, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School who specializes in the economics of space.

The expert emphasizes that the Mars mission has always been central to SpaceX. Weinzierl noted that the revenue from Musk's other commercial space operations, including the Starlink satellite internet system and its militarized subsidiary Starshield, is key to financing his goals.

However, Matthew Weinzierl added that Musk has practical and technical challenges ahead of him on the way to Mars. Given that Starship has made only four test flights, the first two of which failed. The planned fifth test flight this week was suspended at least until November due to environmental concerns.

In addition, according to the scientists, a refueling spacecraft has not yet been developed, which will be needed to refuel the Starship in orbit so that it can carry a 100-ton payload or a crew of 100 people at a time during a six-month journey to Mars.

"2028 is a possible time for a launch. But now you are talking about a one-way trip to Mars. However, you can't send people on a trip until there are greenhouses and a place for them to live. That's one of the disagreements I have with Musk's statement," said Robert Zubrin, president of The Mars Society and author of A New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Planet.

He also expressed doubt that SpaceX is actually developing the necessary ground systems for human operations on Mars.

However, Zubrin shares Weinzierl's confidence that SpaceX will eventually realize much of Musk's vision for Mars, but not in the timeframe he suggests.

"The Starship is going to work because he's gone far enough to say that with confidence. As for the future, Musk often exaggerates both what he's going to do and when he's going to do it," Robert Zubrin added.

At the same time, Weinzierl says that SpaceX has grown so much as a company that if Musk were no longer in charge of operations, it would not change anything.

"They just have an incredible ability to attract talent, and it speaks to the culture that they have very clearly built and maintained, which, at least initially, owes a lot to Elon Musk. He is undoubtedly a unique force in the company and society," he said.

Weinzierl also added that the company does not depend on one person. "By now I feel that this culture has been embedded in so many people in the firm that it is not as dependent on him as we might fear. We wouldn't want it to depend on any one person, and I don't think it does," the expert summarized.

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