SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk announced on the X social network when the first flights of the Starship transport system to Mars will take place. The first Starship ships will go to Mars in unmanned mode in two years, when the next window for launches to the Red Planet will open. The goal will be to check the reliability of the landing and all systems of the ship.

If the mission is successful and Starship proves reliable, the first manned missions to Mars would follow four to eight years after unmanned missions, with the frequency of launches increasing exponentially, and a self-sufficient city on the Red Planet would be built in about 20 years.

Musk also emphasized that the creation of a city on Mars and its continued existence depends on the cost of one ton of cargo delivered there. Today, this figure is about a billion US dollars. If you reduce it to $100,000, then the creation of a Mars colony can become a reality.