SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s ambitious plans to transform humanity into a “multiplanetary” species by reaching Mars face skepticism from experts. As his aspirations grow, so do doubts about whether Musk will live long enough to see his dreams realized. According to aerodynamics expert Christopher Combs from the University of Texas, it could take another 15 to 20 years for human travel to Mars to be safe enough, making Musk potentially too old to witness it.
“SpaceX has a history of designing iteratively, and we kind of expect things to go wrong the first few tries — if you have to wait two years between iterative attempts, that really stretches out your development cycle,” Combs told The Wall Street Journal. “Can they be perfect the first time?”
One significant challenge is the limited launch windows. Mars and Earth align optimally for space travel only once every 26 months. That means in the next 20 years, there will only be nine such opportunities for SpaceX’s Starship to head to the Red Planet. Given Musk’s current age of 53, he needs to launch a crewed mission to Mars within this timeframe to achieve his goal of traveling there himself.
Musk has acknowledged the uncertainty of this timeline. “If we don’t improve our pace of progress, I’m definitely, you know, gonna be dead before we go to Mars,” he admitted during a 2020 conference. Yet, he remains optimistic, hoping to send an uncrewed Starship to Mars by 2026 and human missions within the next eight years.
Not everyone shares Combs’ cautious outlook. Astrophysicist Peter Hague believes a human mission to Mars by 2031 is feasible. “2031 for humans is credible,” Hague tweeted. “If not 2033. This is happening and you’ll get to see it.”