Elon Musk's plans for life on Mars will likely end in mass death – the scientific explanation

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has long promised to make humanity interplanetary by sending it to Mars.

With the help of his space company's giant Starship rocket, Musk wants to transport one million people to the Red Planet by 2050.

But his plans may not go as planned.

As biologist and author Kelly Weinersmith and her husband Zach Weinersmith detail in their meticulously researched 2023 book A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? , the planet is a terrible choice for residence.

In fact, they predict, the effort could quickly turn into a hugely expensive humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.

In a new interview with CNN, the pair elaborated on their skepticism.

"There's no way you could send up to a million people to Mars without something catastrophic happening," Weinersmith said.

In the short term, however, the Red Planet could be a great place for "a lot of research," according to Kelly.

"Maybe in our lifetime, we'll see people land on Mars, do some exploration and come home, that could happen, but I don't think we'll have children on Mars," she said.

Reproduction in particular could be a major problem due to the planet's large amount of space radiation exposure. yahoonews, the Telegraph reports.

"We were just surprised by how many problems we thought we had a solution to," Kelly said.

"But it turns out that we have very little relevant data about how adults would function, let alone how the birth of babies would function," she continued.

The authors' concerns closely echo those of other experts who have criticized Musk's plans for colonizing Mars.

Beyond the political, technological and ethical issues, it could end up being prohibitively expensive, even for the richest man in the world.

Then there are the existential threats we're facing back on Earth, like an actively worsening environmental crisis.

Otherwise, during an event in March, former US President Barack Obama criticized the plans of "Silicon Valley tycoons, many of whom are building spacecraft" to send people to Mars.

"But when I hear some of the people talking about the plan to colonize Mars, because the Earth's environment could degrade to the point of being unlivable, I look at them like, what are you talking about?" Obama said.

"Even after a nuclear war, Earth would be more habitable than Mars, even if we did nothing about climate change it would still have oxygen - as far as we can tell, Mars doesn't," he added.

In short, is Mars really the best place to build our next home away from Earth? /Telegraph/