Elon Musk sounds like a man grappling with the reality that there are only so many trips left for him around the sun.
At age 53, Musk is not yet an old man. But the clock is ticking on his stated goal of reaching Mars and building a city there in his lifetime or, at least, his working lifetime. Such pressure is evident in his recent rash of tweets emphasizing the narrow window for interplanetary travel and complaints about pesky Earth rules that, he says, are slowing him down.
“The first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens,” Musk announced this month. “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.”
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Christopher Combs, a professor in aerodynamics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said it could be another 15 to 20 years before the technical pieces come together for a human trip to Mars.
