When will Starship go to Mars?

"I think we will see people on Mars in less than 20 years. 12 to 15 years most likely."

"I'd like to be able to go to Mars while I'm still able to manage the journey"

"if Humanity doesn't land on Mars in my lifetime I'd be really disappointed"

"I think probably about 12 years"

"going to be doing our first mission to Mars"

"Yeah, I think we should be able to hopefully send the first people to Mars in about 12 years."

"we're going to send one to mars in 2018"

"I think we could start to see some test flights in the five or six year time frame"

"hopefully a small base on Mars or small city on Mars in 20 years"

"send a person to Mars in about 11 or 12 years"

"we hope to do that in around 2025"

"establishing a city on Mars"

"We're going to we're going to send one to Mars in 2018"

"success is one of the possible outcomes"

"meaningful number of people going to Mars I think this is potentially something that can be accomplished in about 10 years"

"if things go super well, it might be kind of in the ten-year time frame. But I don't want to say that's when it will occur."

"So Dragon 2, which is a propulsive lander, we plan to send to Mars in a couple years, and then do probably another Dragon mission in 2020."

"I think all of that is possible in 50 years"

"being able to get to Mars uh in under 3 months"

"Plan is to do powered landings on Mars for sure, but with a vastly bigger ship"

"that's our goal is to try to make the 2020 to Mars rendezvous the Earth Mars synchronization happens roughly every two years so every two years there's an opportunity for just to fly to Mars so then in 2024 we want to try to fly for ships two of which would be crude"

"short hop our flights with the spaceship part of VFR maybe next year"

"we do our first test flight in 3 or 4 years"

"VFR is able to is designed to be able to take 100 tons all the way to the surface of Mars"

"we'll do a bunch of test launches without any people on board before having people on board"

"If we're lucky, we've probably got about a 50% chance of sending ships from Earth to Mars at the end of next year."

"Loading the Mars fleet into Earth orbit, then 1000 ships depart over ~30 days every 26 months. Battlestar Galactica …"

"I hope I'm not dead by the time I people go to Mars"

"an uncrewed mission there in maybe 4 years"

"fairly confident about six years from now"

"I think we have a decent shot of doing that in about, I say, like, call it five years, something like that."

"I think we can over time get that potentially as low as one month"

"possibly as soon as five years from now"

"Mars is a lot harder, because Earth & Mars only align every 26 months"

"it's not like we're launching to Mars really soon"

"best case is about 5 years worst case 10"

"So you can only go to Mars every two years. So and I think maybe roughly you need about a million tons on Mars to have a self sustaining city."

"the cost of per useful landed ton to the surface of Mars is in excess of a billion dollars."

"2029 feels like a pivotal year. I’d be surprised if we don’t have AGI by then. Hopefully, people on Mars too."

"Hopefully, humanity will reach Mars in 20 years"

"With booster ultimately flying up to ~20 times per day & ship flying up to ~5 times per day. Useful load to Mars is ~150 metric tons, but requires ~5 orbital refilling tanker flights. Target: >1 megaton of cargo & people delivered to Mars, so that it becomes self-sustaining."

"I think we've got a better than 30% chance of reaching orbit on the next flight."

"I think we've got a decent shot of getting to orbit with the next flight."

"we do have a production line that if it, if it takes us 10 flights, we'll, we'll, we'll do it."

"Great question. We need to get a move on with Starship!"

"Hopefully, there will be a thriving base on Mars in 15 years!"

"We need to be on Mars by 2033"

"I wonder what what will things be like 8 years from now um and hopefully we have I think we will have landed on MOS um and I think we will have sent people to the moon and uh and maybe if we get lucky we will have sent people to Mars uh within eight years"

"first Starship that will land on Mars"

"roughly every 2 years thousands of ships would depart from Earth to Mars"

"you can get to a million tons in about eight years"

"the first people on Mars I think within seven years or so seven to nine"

"Starship has the potential to return serious tonnage from Mars within ~5 years"

"land the first Starship um un crewed on on Mars within 5 years"

"expect Starship to carry it maybe a hundred people at a time to Mars."

"I'm confident it will succeed it's simply a matter of time"

"The first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years. Flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years. Being multiplanetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness, as we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on one planet."

"Attempting to land giant spaceships on Mars will happen in that timeframe, but humans are only going after the landings are proven to be reliable. 4 years is best case for humans, might be 6, hopefully not 8."

"SpaceX plans to launch about five uncrewed Starships to Mars in two years. If those all land safely, then crewed missions are possible in four years. If we encounter challenges, then the crewed missions will be postponed another two years. It is only possible to travel from Earth to Mars every two years, when the planets are aligned. This increases the difficulty of the task, but also serves to immunize Mars from many catastrophic events on Earth. No matter what happens with landing success, SpaceX will increase the number of spaceships traveling to Mars exponentially with every transit opportunity. We want to enable anyone who wants to be a space traveler to go to Mars! That means you or your family or friends – anyone who dreams of great adventure. Eventually, there will be thousands of Starships going to Mars and it will a glorious sight to see! Can you imagine? Wow. The fundamental existential question is whether humanity becomes sustainably multiplanetary before something happens on Earth to prevent that, for example nuclear war, a supervirus or population collapse that weakens civilization to the point where it loses the ability to send supply ships to Mars. One of my biggest concerns right now is that the Starship program is being smothered by a mountain of government bureaucracy that grows every year. This stifling red tape is affecting all large projects in America, which is why, for example, California has spent ~$7 billion dollars and several years on high-speed rail, but only has a 1600 ft section of concrete to show for it! While I have many concerns about a potential Kamala regime, my absolute showstopper is that the bureaucracy currently choking America to death is guaranteed to grow under a Democratic Party administration. This would destroy the Mars program and doom humanity. It cannot happen. Your help would be much appreciated. This is a fork, maybe the fork, in the road of human destiny."

"first uncrewed starships to Mars"

"in roughly two years there will be another planetary alignment and that's when we intend to send the first starship rockets to Mars"

"if those land successfully and we do not increment the crater count in Mars"

"then we'll send humans two years after that"

"Best case 2028, but probably 2030. If SpaceX is not smothered by regulations, then the Starship launch rate will far exceed the Falcon launch rate, as Starship fully reusable, while Falcon is only mostly reusable. Starship should be doing >1000 Earth orbit flights per year by 2028. That is still low compared to what’s needed to build a self-sustaining city on Mars and secure the future of consciousness."

"If civilization is reasonably stable for the next ~30 years, a self-sustaining city of a million+ people will be built on Mars"

"Many Starships will go to Mars in 2 years, when the transit window opens again. The first wave will be without people and the second wave, 26 months later, with people, provided the first wave does not increment the crater count on Mars."

"The Martians will decide how they are ruled. I recommend direct, rather than representative, democracy. Uncrewed Starships landing on Mars in ~2 years, perhaps with crewed versions passing near Mars, and crewed Starships heading there in ~4 years are all possible."

"I mean, can you imagine how awesome it will be to have American astronauts plant the flag on another planet for the first time?"

"Seems like I should explain what the gameplan is for getting to Mars in more detail. Any individual launch is not very important. What matters is the expected date when Mars becomes a self-sustaining civilization."

"the default plan is to launch hopefully several Starships to Mars at the end of next year"

"10 Earth-Mars transfer windows are needed to make Mars self-sustaining, ideally at least 20. 1/4 to 1/2 century."

"I think the soonest would be 29"

"Starship departs for Mars at the end of next year, carrying Optimus. If those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely."

"Yes. That will happen on either the 2nd or 3rd Earth-Mars launch window, so roughly 5 to 7 years from now. The key question is whether Earth’s current civilizational technology level will last long enough to ensure that Mars can grow by itself, even if supply ships from Earth stop coming. Otherwise, Mars will die out. We must do whatever it takes to strengthen civilization to keep that window of opportunity open as long as possible."

"Starship will hopefully depart for Mars at the end of next year with Optimus explorer robots!"

"the next Mars opportunity is at the end of next year in about 18 months. So November, December is the next Mars opportunity."

"I think we'll probably have a 50/50 chance right now because we've got to uh we've got to figure out orbital refilling uh in order to um have enough capability to go to Mars. But if we achieve orbital refilling in time, then we will launch the first uh uncrrewed uh Starship to Mars at the end of next year."

"the first the first flights there we'll we'll send with the Optimus robot um so we can go out there and explore and kind of prepare the way for humans"

"we're able to achieve it um by launching end of next year. would actually technically arrive in 2027."

"And then with the launching two years later, uh we would be sending humans assuming the first missions are successful and they land successfully, we'd send humans on on the next mission."

"Starship can reach Mars in 6 months every 26 months when the planets align"

"A lot more than 10 tons can be carried on the first flights, but those missions are mostly about proving landing works reliably"

"Of course moving to Mars is not yet an option, but it will be if civilization can last another 25 years or so"

"Slight chance of Starship flight to Mars crewed by Optimus in Nov/Dec next year. A lot needs to go right for that. More likely, first flight without humans in ~3.5 years, next flight ~5.5 years with humans. Mars city self-sustaining in 20 to 30 years."

"More likely, first flight without humans in ~3.5 years, next flight ~5.5 years with humans."

"V3 is already going through production. Only one more V2 left to launch. V3 can get to Mars and might, but V4 is more likely."

"make Mars self-sustaining um in in about call it roughly 25 years"

"Earth’s gravity is strong enough to make reaching Mars extremely hard, but not impossible"

"I am confident that Starship will land humans on Mars. That path is clear. But what really matters is securing the future of consciousness, not just getting a small number of people to Mars. That probably requires getting over 100,000 people and 1M tons of cargo to Mars. The critical threshold to pass is making it such that Mars can grow even if supply ships from Earth stop coming for any reason."

"We could, but uh it would be a low probability shot um and somewhat of a distraction. So um 29 then it's not out of the question."

"Don’t want to get complacent, but if civilization keeps advancing, humans will reach Mars in 5 to 10 years. What really matters is building a self-sustaining civilization on Mars, which will take another 20 to 30 years."

"have people on Mars"

"It's it's many orders of magnitude greater than what is the case today"

"we can probably send the first people to Mars in a in about 5 years"

"People on Mars in roughly 5 to 7 years. Mars lander a few years sooner."

"it's what will take us from roughly 2,500 tons to orbit per year to over a million tons to orbit per year."

"our aspirations and I think we will achieve these aspirations are to deliver uh well over a million tons to orbit per year and probably ultimately uh 10 million tons per year."

"we wanted to be extremely confident of being able to de-orbit safely"