Elon Musk, billionaire entrepreneur, and business mogul, is in the game completely that SpaceX would establish a presence on Mars in the next 20 to 30 years as revealed in a recent Fox News interview.
Musk, who posted a clip of the interview on his X account, said that SpaceX's long-term mission is not just to send astronauts, but to enable interplanetary travel for all.
"Well, I believe we can send people to Mars. But we also need to be able to send everyone else who desires to go to Mars," Musk said. When they questioned Musk about the time frame of the process, he said, "That's going to happen in the next 20 to 30 years."
Musk made his comments after SpaceX marked a success when NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams were safely retrieved from the ISS.
They arrived back in the Crew Dragon capsule, splashing down safely off the coast of Florida on Tuesday. They were due to come back after their nine-month mission in space due to persistent technical problems with Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.
Wilmore and Williams were initially set to join the crew of an eight-day test flight aboard Starliner before malfunctioning propulsion systems pushed their debut back.
After a rescue mission was considered only to have no crew available or scheduled and to have possible delays on said mission, NASA opted to put Wilmore and Williams into the crew rotation schedule and bring them back to Earth aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon, the only American spacecraft in operational status to transport astronauts to and from the ISS.
Following their safe return, Musk openly congratulated NASA and SpaceX team, "Thanks to the outstanding work of the SpaceX team in collaboration with NASA, the astronauts are now back home safely."
This mission and safe landing also proved that SpaceX is dependable, a plus for SpaceX, underlining the significance of SpaceX in the contemporary space exploration.
As SpaceX keeps climbing higher on the rung of its Mars colonization mission, they still have some potential challenges ahead.
Musk is convinced that the challenges will be overcome, bringing humanity closer to becoming a multi-planetary species.
