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5 times Elon Musk blew our minds with his Mars plan

Trevor Hughes
USA TODAY
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk speaks about the Interplanetary Transport System which aims to reach Mars with the first human crew in history, in the conference he gave during the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico on September 27, 2016

SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk on Tuesday laid out his plans for colonizing Mars and then sending humans out among the stars. But buried in his announcement were a host of fascinatingly specific details stripped straight from sci-fi novels.

Here’s a roundup of what caught our attention:

Warm Mars up

He casually mentioned TRANSFORMING AN ENTIRE PLANET. We’re not just talking about a little “HAB,” like the one from The Martian movie and book. No, he’s talking about transporting a million people to the Red Planet. All those people would need places to live and work, and as part of that process, Musk suggested we could make oceans and an atmosphere if we could just “warm Mars up.”

Warming the entire planet would cause its ice to melt, releasing water vapor and helping create more of an atmosphere. Temperatures from Mars today range from 70 degrees in the day near the equator to -100 degrees at night. It gets significantly colder than that at the poles. And to protect humans from the radiation, the new Martians would simply build their own magnetic field, which would block charged particles like our Earth atmosphere.

We're going multiplanetary

Musk pointed out that most species on Earth end up dead. If we don’t want to go the way of the dinosaurs and dodos, we need to spread ourselves among the stars, he said. The title of his presentation was officially “Making humans a multiplanetary species.” Said Musk: “Eventually history suggests there will be some extinction event.” Well that’s a cheerful thought.

Slush methane powered

The spaceship that would take those humans to Mars, along with virtually everything they’d need to survive? It would be powered by methane slush, which could be manufactured on Earth and on Mars. Slushy methane would be easier to deal with than kerosene or other fuels that normally power rockets, and SpaceX has already built a massive carbon fiber tank to test out the technology needed to hold in the fuel. The price would be around $200,000 for a person and their belongings, he suggested. Without a lower cost, you’d have to be a billionaire with a space obsession in order to get yourself to the Red Planet…oh right. That’s actually exactly what he’s talking about.

Bonus fact: the first ship would be called "Heart of Gold," which is the name of the spaceship from the famous novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Enjoy a 30 day trip

Getting yourself to Mars could take just 30 days, once the system is optimized for frequent use. Musk said it’s possible today to get anywhere on Earth in 24 hours, and he envisions a spacecraft in which people will play 0-g games, watch movies and attend lectures as they whip through space at around 62,000 mph. We’re guessing he doesn’t fly commercial much, though. We’ve seen how people behave when they’re stuck on a plane for just a couple of hours. Toenail clippers? Loud talkers? Yeah, 30 days with those people?

You can come home, but may not make it

If you wanted to come home, that would be an option, even if you never used it. Because the spaceships will be resusable, they’ll effectively be on a constant loop between Earth and Mars, Musk said: Return flights would likely be free, he said with a laugh. The risk of death would be high, too, and kids probably would be barred.

He also said he wouldn't take the first flight because he wants to see his kids grow up, and also worries that if he dies, someone would screw up his SpaceX plans. (As a reminder, today we have a method of transportation that kills about 30,000 people every year, so maybe let’s weigh the odds. And yes, that IS also why Musk's Tesla is developing self-driving cars.)

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk speaks about the Interplanetary Transport System which aims to reach Mars with the first human crew in history.

Bonus: Mars pizza

Need we say more? Ok, for context, he repeatedly mentioned how moving people to Mars would require everything from steel foundries to pizza restaurants. After all there’s no lumber, running water or vegetation on which to forage. We’d have to start nearly from scratch.

Trevor Hughes is a Denver-based correspondent for USA TODAY. Follow him at @trevorhughes

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