SpaceX owner and tech mogul Elon Musk said he’s expects one of his rockets to take him up to the International Space Station by 2020 and achieving that feat won’t be “that hard,” in a recent appearance at the StartmeupHK Festival in Hong Kong.
SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Falcon rocket are already transporting cargo up to the ISS, but the system has yet to be certified for human transportation.
“I don’t know, maybe four or five years from now, maybe going to the Space Station would be nice,” Musk said. “And in terms of the first flights to Mars, we’re hoping to do that around 2025. Nine years from now or thereabouts.”
Despite the risks of space travel and foreign environment, Musk joked that the trip wouldn’t be too challenging for him.
“I don’t think it’s that hard, honestly,” he said. “You float around. It’s not that hard to float around.”
Musk wouldn’t be the first citizen to visit the ISS as several space tourists have already paid big bucks to check the trip off their respective bucket lists.
More on Mars
The tech icon also has his sights set on Mars.
“Going to Mars is definitely going to be hard and dangerous and difficult in every way you can imagine,” he said. “But if you care about being safe and comfortable, going to Mars would be a terrible choice.”
However, “Mars is the next natural step,” Musk said. “In fact it’s the only planet we have a shot at establishing a self-sustaining city on. Once we do establish such a city there will be a strong forcing function for the improvement of space flight technology that will then enable us to establish colonies elsewhere in the Solar System, and ultimately extend beyond our Solar System.”
While a lot is currently riding on the continued development of the current SpaceX travel system, Musk said “we’ll have a next generation rocket and spacecraft beyond the Falcon-Dragon series, and I’m hoping to describe that architecture later this year at the International Astronautical Congress” – referring to a conference in Mexico this September.
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Feature Image: Thinkstock
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