As I have posted, I am a top 8 predictor on Metaculus out of 34617 people according to Metaculus for baseline accuracy. I was asked by a commenter what my public prediction is for will humans land on Mars by 2030?
Yes, I believe humans will land on Mars by 2030. I am superconfident SpaceX will land something on Mars by 2030.
I have written many articles about SpaceX and Mars.
I will write some more about these predictions and my thinking about it based upon questions in the comments.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
If it’s simply boots in dirt, things would be faster, cheaper if a single person went down from a Martian station in orbit.
Or, is having a base on the Martian surface by 2028 the goal?
Perhaps a “station” in Mars orbit, with a small expedition craft to land one, possibly two, people on the surface for a short visit, then return them to orbit, would be fastest.
Far lower Delta-V, requiring less propellants for both trips between LEO and Deimos.
Far less resource processing means less power/equipment/mass required than for a Mars surface facility.
First window, send two ships that’ll remain in orbit at the moon Deimos.
One ship is primarily a supply ship, with quarters, and carries a small lander.
The other ship carries a fuel processing plant, mining equipment, and additional supplies and quarters.
This ship is “docked” to one of the poles of Deimos.
Match orbit, find a crater, sink ~6 augers as tie-downs.
Dig a hole, “land” straight down, nose first, secure guy wires, berm.
This provides a subsurface storm shelter and the guy wires add stability.
As robots would be first, they prep the site, deploy a mining shack, solar panels, water/ice bladders, etc.
Tunnel straight down to reach volitiles, ice.
Store in bladders.
Next window, send two more ships, each with a minimal crew of 2-4.
Keeping the crews small makes life support an easier puzzle.
Maybe they bring liquid CO2 for making methane, being far easier to transport.
They carry a second lander.
Using the one of the small landers, one or two people go down, kick rocks, lift off a couple of days or weeks later.
They return to Deimos station.
Maybe landers get maintenance, and are prepped for additional landings.
Trips to Phobos.
Crews rotate out to Earth every couple of years.
Water/ice can be shipped back to low Earth orbit to be used with CO2 brought up by tankers.
A permanent station at Deimos, with occasional trips down to the Martian surface.
Building out a refuelling station early would get colonization going faster, than a single glory run.
Sending water ice to Earth reduces launches from the surface.
Full-sized Starships can refuel for cargo down to Mars, but small, dedicated craft could be for passengers.
And what a magnificent view of Mars it would have.
Infrastructure is King.
Mankind has never established a space colony.
Choices for the first colony location are:
Moon (3 days away and 1/6 gravity) or Mars (3 months away and 1/3 gravity)
The Moon seems like a MUCH easier and safer FIRST colony location to establish.
COULD we send men to Mars by 2030? YES (but 2034 seems more likely).
1 human per 100-1000 humanoid robots seems like a reasonable workforce.
Establishing a million person colony on the Moon will probably be done before a million person colony on Mars. Lava tunnels are good locations for colonies.
When will they attempt to land a Starship without the tower?
Considering the concrete tornadoes of the initial launches, it’s very obvious that landing on unprepared surfaces will be hazardous. I haven’t seen much discussion around these practical problems. Showstoppers they are…
The ground destruction was caused by the booster, not the starship. The booster produces 17 million pounds of thrust, compared to 7.6 million pounds for the Saturn V.
The starship produces about 3 million pounds thrust, by contrast, but when landing with near empty tanks relies on just one engine, producing only about 600,000 lbs thrust, and that’s assuming full throttle.
So, you’d expect 28 times the thrust to be just a little bit more destructive.
Additionally, the Lunar landing version of Starship, (And presumably the Mars version, too.) has a ring of smaller engines near the top to provide landing thrust over unimproved surfaces. Just exactly to avoid boring a hole the ship would have to land in.
Extra additionally, Lunar gravity is 1/6th that of earth, and Martian gravity 1/3, so the thrust for landing would be throttled way down from Earth requirements.
I really think the only additional requirement for landing on Mars is that the Starship should have deployable landing legs similar the the Falcon booster; The Earth version has no landing legs at all, is planned to exclusively rely on being caught by the launch tower.
Will the humans on Mars be able to stand up & walk around after months at zero gee, or is the plan to have eg: 2 Starships attached by tethers to give rotational ‘gravity’?
We know from the ISS that spending months at zero g is *bad* for human health. We have *no data* on the health effects of Martian or lunar gravity. A moonbase can give data on the latter with the option of returning to earth gravity as soon as significant health problems show up.
For data on the health effects of Martian gravity with a similar return option we should have two starships attached by tethers rotating for Martian ‘gravity’ in earth orbit.
Lets do the moonbase first to get human health data & experience in In-Situ Resource Utilization where problems are less likely to be disasters.
I will bet my moon against your mars. I love this site/your work. But I would go all in on this one.
I’m still waiting for SpaceX to start talking about infrastructure of LOX & LNG supplies for all these flights. Fueling initial launches & Refueling returning super heavies and starships plus the ones in orbit will take more propellant than can be delivered by semi’s. Production plants will have to be located at the Cape and Boca Chica. These things will take years to build.
I still don’t see rapid progress of Starships at Star Factory. V3 won’t fly for awhile and that will be more a final product design, maybe summer of “26” will start mass production of V3 rocket.
Still… You can’t fly unless lots and lots of LOX and LNG. (methane) are available.
As the prediction is “landing” on Mars by 2030, you’d need to launch by the late 2028-early 2029 launch window, as the next window after that is in 2031.
We’ve already missed the 2024 launch window, the next launch window is Q4 of 2026.
Nobody is going to send humans to actually land on Mars without proving out landing capacity, so that would have to be done at that 2026 launch window.
So, the scenario here, I assume, is that Musk launches a number of Starships to Mars in late 2026, and the landings prove successful. In order to launch people in 2028/9 these ships would have to bring enough supplies for the 28/29 crew to live on for at least 2 years, and habitat space so that they’d be comfortable, not packed tight. And you’d pack everything so that the supplies at least would be useable even if one of the ships fell over after landing.
If we followed the Zubrin plan, the 2026 ships would also carry a fuel factory so that when the 2028/9 crew arrived, they would have fully fueled escape vessels in the event of an emergency. But the supplies are the minimum requirement.
I’m assuming the crew will launch expecting to be on Mars for at least a couple years, not planning on returning at the same launch window, as would normally be NASA’s choice, by the way. You won’t lack for volunteers, at least.
So, this requires that Musk have PROVEN 2+ year life support systems already available by late 2028, and ideally a fuel factory capable of refueling at least one Starship in 2 years by 2026. He’d better get cracking on that, if he’s going to manage to make your prediction come true! He already lacks time to give systems a 2 year endurance test before the 2026 launch window.
I think it’s tight, but probably doable. I would be more inclined to expect 2032, myself.
Has Musk been doing Mars fuel factory work, and long duration life support work, all along? And we just haven’t heard about it?
I think that sending a human there, before we have a self-contained base with multi-year self-reliance for a team of 3 to 12, is lunacy and empty spectacle. Ideally, the first team shouldn’t arrive until 3 to 5 years before the first round-trip infrastructure is in place. The key is whether the infrastructure, autonomous-robot set-up team, and some early health testing can be assembled, flown in, -and- installed and vetted within the next 2 to 4 flight windows. I think the world would be most impressed, and likely on-board for actual tours-of-duty or emigration, if a mini development suitable for 50 persons, self-reliant for a decade, and of exciting live-, research-, and adventure- potential was erected and ready-to-go. It would be interesting, with our near-term technology and likely spacecraft inventory, what quantity and flow of people could be moved – a couple dozen per flight window?
Live humans?
How long do they have to stay alive for it to be an accurate prediction?
lol
“I believe humans will land on Mars by 2030. I am superconfident SpaceX will land something on Mars by 2030.”
These are two very distinct statements. For prediction accuracy, please clarify:
Is your prediction that SpaceX will land humans on Mars by 2030?
Or do you believe that spaceX will finally manage to bring something (equipment) to Mars by 2030, but someone else will bring humans in the same timeframe?
I included a screenshot to the specific public predictions made at Metaculus. Each of the Mars questions has specific terms. I will copy those and explain the specifics. Basically I expect the unmanned missions to go in five Starships in 2026. There will be manned missions in 2028 if any of those first unmanned land in 2026.
As usual, thank you for your reply.
In 2030, robots can do almost everything a typical human can. Why should we risk human lives to explore Mars if robots can? So I think we can land on Mars in 2030 but we won’t.
Babies, ultimately.
One of the greatest benefits of jump starting Mars earlier is triggering the inevitable Mars Ultra-Baby-boom, earlier.
Ethics aside, Population will always be a prime “resource.”
Assuming AGI does not become truly sentient, consciousness will always have a unique and invaluable nature. Even if a concious AGI “Takes Over” (human) conciousness will still have (diminished) value.
If MMI, or any of a dozen other techs, fully matures in the 2100’s then raw conciousness, not energy or rare elements, could concievably become the Limiting Factor of Human industry and evolution. And if that scenario, the baby boom is the equivalent of us discovering steam 25 years earlier.
Perhaps delaying colonization 50 years and completing fusion/AI first will allow us get more people to Mars sooner, in the long run. But even then, the primordial hope Mars Colonization represents is something our species desperately needs right now in history. Only boots can do that.
Thank you Brian. Its good to know. I hope your 77% plays out.
You are in the high spot because you made a lot predictions, not so much because their accuracy. I mean you are not bad, but still if you look at top 400 places you see that the people on top are the one who made a lot (the most) of predictions, answered the most questions then the curve drops, that is the main factor.
The more down you go, the less predictions are made. So majority of 34617 people in that site are just the ones who just joined and made one of few predictions. Perhaps they even used bots or inflated the number – they wont show more than first 400. So even if someone made 20 correct predictions and is 100 % correct you rank above him in baseline accuracy, because you made more predictions, even when you made false ones.
I would tend to agree on getting something there in the next two launch windows. Knowing Musk the cybertruck will be a certainty and a cluster of optimus units. 98% certain an optimus sat in a cybertruck roaming around Mars will be a key video. Wonder if they will do a flyby of the roadster.
Starlink backhaul array will be another item that will get deployed. They will not be able to land as much as they can get into orbit so it will make sense to have some of the payload offload into orbit, hence a backhaul laser link with a stupid amount of bandwidth to get the video data back from the cybertruck jaunts.
It will interesting what type of power setup will be deployed and how they cope with dust. Maybe a few of the optimus units task will be to clean the solar arrays. The larger payloads will probably be in the second window due to the space refueling unit.
Interesting times ahead.
The mid 30’s is more credible to me.
By then, NASA or maybe a private company will have thermal nuclear rockets that can get to Mars in half the time or less, without all the refueling nonsense that will delay any Mars human trip over logistics and safety issues. China might even be working on this.
I wouldn’t say that’s *technically* impossible. But it probably is politically impossible.
Investment in these sorts of technologies requires that, in the present and the near term, regulators permit the research to happen on more than a computer simulation level, actual hardware. You might see that for the next few years, but who’d be confident of it continuing after the 2028 elections?
But even if the research and development is permitted, who is going to invest the money with the ever looming threat of being shut down before your investment pays off, if the wrong person gets elected?
The US is no longer the sort of high trust society where long term investments are possible in remotely controversial areas of technology. Where by “controversial” I mostly mean that the left doesn’t like them. There are whole areas of technology that are languishing for political reasons, but nuclear power is probably the biggest example of that.
You’re right that China might do it, and China doing it might scare enough people to make it politically possible for the US to do it. But barring something like that, or a major change in US politics, I don’t see it happening here.
Russia has already worked on and physical test firing of a thermo nuclear propulsion system, although it may have been a higher air breathing dynamic. They work in an atmospheric environment far better than space. Within space e-thrusters are far more efficient in relation to propulsion fuel mass efficiency because of the much higher nozzle escape velocity. The whole trade off in economics for space is speed. You have to seriously ask the question as to how much 6 months is actually worth in transit time, when you could deliver the same volume just by doubling up the cheap production line rockets…
That’s pretty much my view of things: It’s just not worth it to shorten the trip, the low energy trajectory to Mars or the inner planets does not take unreasonably long. You’d be better off just spending the money on sending more payload. The situation is somewhat different if you’re going to the gas giants, there minimum energy trajectories can take a significant fraction of somebody’s life.
Where the higher delta V nuclear would enable would really come in handy, though, is the ability to ignore launch windows, and just leave any time you want.