Elon Musk says the first colonists of the colony on Mars will live in “glass domes” before terraforming the planet

The first human colony on Mars will be built using “glass domes,” according to Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX.

The billionaire entrepreneur, who became the third richest person in the world this week, has often spoken of his ambition to travel to Mars during his lifetime and transform humanity into a multi-planetary species.

The first settlers will live in temporary habitats before a more radical solution is sought to make the planet more accessible, he tweeted Thursday.

Mr. Musk also said he hopes to populate Mars with one million people by 2050.

In order to make the planet more habitable, Mr. Musk is an advocate of a process known as terraforming. This involves blasting the planet with nuclear weapons at its poles to melt the polar ice caps and induce accelerated warming to make life comfortable for humans there.

“In the beginning, life in glass domes. Eventually terraformed to support life, like Earth, ”he tweeted.

“Terraforming will be too slow to be relevant in our life. However, we can establish a human basis throughout our life. At least one future space-traveling civilization – discovering our ruins – will be impressed by the humans who have come this far. “

Mr. Musk first proposed terraforming as a viable way to accelerate the habitability of Mars in 2014, when he described it as a “planetary superior fixer” in an interview with US TV host Stephen Colbert.

“Eventually you can turn Mars into an Earth-like planet,” he said. “There is a fast way and a slow way. The fastest way is to drop thermonucular weapons on the poles.”

His hope of transforming Mars took a hit last year when a study was published in Nature Astronomy claimed that “terraforming Mars is not possible using today’s technology”.

Yet he seems undaunted, with his Twitter profile currently showing a banner image of the terraforming process. SpaceX also features a t-shirt with the slogan “Nuke Mars” in its online store.

SpaceX has also prioritized the development of its Mars-bound Starship spacecraft, which was built to carry up to 100 people in the Solar System.

Earlier this year, Mr. Musk said Starship was the company’s “top priority”, writing in a company-wide email that progress needed to accelerate “dramatically and immediately” in order to achieve the ambitious goal of sending the first humans to Mars before 2030.