Elon Musk vows to go to the red planet and admits there’s a ‘good chance’ he’ll end up dying there 

Elon Musk has said there’s a 70 per cent chance he’ll personally move to Mars, despite there being a ‘good chance’ of him dying there.

Musk says people will be going up to the red planet within seven years – and tickets will cost around $200,000 (£155,000) a person.

Speaking at the Axios current affairs programme, the Space X CEO said flights to Mars would be possible on the Starship, previously known as the BFR (Big F***ing Rocket).

Elon Musk has said there’s a 70 per cent chance he’ll personally move to Mars, despite a ‘good chance’ of him dying there too (file photo)

‘I know exactly what to do… I’m talking about moving there’, Musk said as part of an interview aired on HBO.

‘We think you can come back but we’re not sure’, he said.

Musk likened the trip to Sir Ernest Shackleton’s trip to the Antarctic in the early 20th century.

‘There’s lots of people who climb mountains. People die on Mount Everest all the time. They like doing it for the challenge’, he said.

‘It’s gonna be hard. There’s a good chance of death, going in a little can through deep space’, he said.

He said anyone who did make it to the surface of the red planet would be working ‘nonstop’ to build the base.

Last week SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter that his largest rocket will now be referred to as ‘Starship.’

Specifically, the spaceship, or upper stage of the rocket will be referred to as Starship, while the rocket booster is called the ‘Super Heavy,’ Musk explained.

Speaking at the Axios current affairs programme, the Space X founder said flights to Mars would be possible on the Starship, previously known as the BFR (file photo)

Speaking at the Axios current affairs programme, the Space X founder said flights to Mars would be possible on the Starship, previously known as the BFR (file photo)

‘Renaming BFR to Starship,’ Musk wrote in a tweet. ‘Technically, two parts: Starship is the spaceship/upper stage & Super Heavy is the rocket booster needed to escape Earth’s deep gravity well (not needed for other planets or moons.’

He added that later versions will be sent on missions to other star systems, giving credence to its ‘Starship’ name.

SpaceX shared new details about the 387ft (118m) rocket in September, saying it hopes to begin unmanned launch tests of the spacecraft in late 2019.

In the future, Starship will be able to carry out lunar missions as well as long-distance flights to Mars and beyond. 

Just earlier this month Nasa announced it would review safety at SpaceX and Boeing as the two companies gear up to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.

The space agency said it would conduct a ‘cultural assessment study’ of the companies, ‘including the adherence to a drug-free environment,’ prior to crew test flights scheduled to take place in the coming months.

WHAT IS ELON MUSK’S ‘BFR’?

The BFR (Big F***ing Rocket), now known as Starship, will complete all missions and is smaller than the ones Musk announced in 2016.

The SpaceX CEO said the rocket would take its first trip to the red planet in 2022, carrying only cargo, followed by a manned mission in 2024 and claimed other SpaceX’s products would be ‘cannibalised’ to pay for it.

The rocket would be partially reusable and capable of flight directly from Earth to Mars.

Once built, Musk believes the rocket could be used for travel on Earth – saying that passengers would be able to get anywhere in under an hour.

It comes just months after SpaceX boss Elon Musk faced backlash for smoking what appeared to be marijuana during a live podcast hosted by Joe Rogan.

According to a new report, the decision to launch the review was directly sparked by the CEO’s behavior.

‘We fully expect our commercial partners to meet all workplace safety requirements in the execution of our missions,’ said Nasa in a statement.

Nasa did not give further details on the reasons behind the move, but the Washington Post, which first reported it, said the review was prompted by the recent behavior of SpaceX’s founder Elon Musk.

The Washington Post says it spoke with three officials who have knowledge of the investigation.

SpaceX and Boeing are the two main contractors selected under Nasa’s commercial crew program to send astronauts to space as soon as 2019, using their Dragon and Starliner spacecraft respectively.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk