SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has frequently expressed his desire to build a colony on Mars, but how this gargantuan feat would be accomplished remains unclear. Beyond the massive technical lift, populating such an outpost once humans arrived on the red planet is another challenge. One option Musk has proposed, according to a Thursday report by The New York Times, is to use his sperm to birth new Mars residents.
The Times report, based on anonymous sources, said “Musk has volunteered his sperm to help seed a colony,” and that a research team has been tasked with determining “whether humans can have children there.” Other groups are looking into designs for habitats and space suits, as Musk ramps up efforts to turn his vision into reality.
The world’s richest man is already a father of 12, including six from a previous marriage, three with Canadian electronic pop artist Claire Boucher (aka Grimes), and three with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis. As a sperm donor enlisted to populate a planet, Musk’s number of offspring could grow significantly.
Contributing his DNA to a Mars mission was the most eye-opening revelation in the Times report, which delved into Musk’s sprawling plans for space. The tech mogul’s most recent public comments regarding his Mars ambitions came during a presentation at SpaceX’s Starbase in Brownsville, Texas, in April.
“The key thing is that we need enough people and enough tonnage on Mars such that Mars can survive and continue consciousness even if something would have happened to Earth,” Musk told the audience, emphasizing the desire to see Earth continue to thrive as long as possible. “But there are certain things that may be outside of our control so we want just to get to Mars to be a self-sustaining civilization as quickly as possible.
“I think this can be done in around 20 years,” he asserted.
While Musk’s attention has been spread across multiple business interests, including Twitter, Tesla, xAI, and Neuralink—as well as public fights with former business partner OpenAI CEO Sam Altman—Musk continues to push for humanity to reach Mars with his SpaceX reusable rockets and technology.
Founded in 2002 by Musk, SpaceX pioneered the private space exploration industry, which includes competitors Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galatic and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. In 2006, SpaceX was selected by NASA and awarded a contract worth $396 million to provide flights and services to the International Space Station, and last month the company was chosen to remove it from orbit at the end of its mission.
Musk has, on many occasions, emphasized the need for humans to become a multiplanet species.
“Ultimately, we’ll need to build a lot more ships than boosters, especially for Mars,” Musk said. “Because you’ll actually want to use the ship, take apart the ship, and use it for raw materials on Mars,” he said.
SpaceX’s Starlink internet service would also play a part in the quest to get humanity to the stars.
“We obviously want Earth to be as good as possible and Mars to be great,” Musk said. “So Starlink is doing a tremendous amount of that, and we’re learning a lot by having this big fleet. Starlink will also be very important for high bandwidth communication to and on Mars.”
But before SpaceX can land people on the red planet, Musk said establishing a permanent presence on the Moon is necessary.
“Ultimately, I think we want to build a moon base, moon base alpha, and have a permanently occupied base on the Moon,” Musk said. “And so you’d have a bunch of ships that are specialized for going to and from the moon, but they never land back on Earth, they just would would dock with pellet propellant tankers to get overloaded refilling.”
Launching from the Moon, Musk told the audience that travelers would head toward Mars on massive Starships designed by SpaceX. The trips, Musk said, would take 26 months.
The Times report outlined how Musk’s other companies could play a part in the Mars mission, including The Boring Company’s expertise in underground tunneling, Tesla Cybertruck vehicles for traversing the service, and even Twitter (aka X) as a model of “a citizen-led government that rules by consensus.”
SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment from Decrypt.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
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